To Hell or Monto

The Story of Dublin's Most Notorious Districts

Maurice Curtis

• Publisher: THP Ireland
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781845888633
• eBook ISBN: 9780750964760
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Irish History
• Index: History

There was a time when the two most notorious red-light districts not only in Ireland but in all of Europe could be found on the streets of Dublin. Though the name of Monto has endured long in folk memory, the area known as Hell was equally notorious, feared and renowned in its day. In this new work Maurice Curtis explores the histories of these dark remnants of Dublin's past, complete with their gambling, duelling and vice, their rowdy taverns and houses of ill repute.

1

PENAL TIMES

In the eighteenth century, Dublin was very similar to other cities in Europe. In the middle of that century it had a population of between 100,000 and 120,000 people, and rapidly expanding with immigration from Britain and rural Ireland. It was regarded in importance as the second city of the British Empire. The city presented vivid contrasts however, and visitors noted the crowds of beggars, the poor quality of the inns and taverns, the squalid wretchedness of the oldest part, around Christ Church Cathedral, whilst also noting the fine new areas of the city, and the brilliant and hospitable society that lived there. New, fashionable squares and roads were built at the Rutland (now Parnell) Square, Mountjoy and Gardiner Street areas north of the River Liffey, and Stephen’s Green, Merrion and Fitzwilliam Squares south of the river. Stephen’s Green was boasted of as the largest square in Europe. The Liffey Quays were admired, and the new Irish Parliament House, opposite Trinity College (now Bank of Ireland), built between 1729 and 1739, was regarded with envy. All this prosperity and grandeur was built by the Protestant ascendancy and nobility who ruled Ireland at this time and who were getting ever-more confident, as evidenced by the grandeur of certain parts of Dublin and crowned with the establishment of a separate Irish Parliament (Grattan’s Parliament) in the closing decades of the eighteenth century.1

Winetavern Street, c. 1900. (Courtesy of GCI)

THE PENAL LAWS, POVERTY AND
MORAL MAYHEM

However, this confidence was based on shaky foundations. There was a price to pay for the improvements in certain parts of Dublin city. According to historian Maurice Craig, ‘the dirt, the gaiety, the cruelty, the smells, the pomp, the colour and the sound so remote from anything we know, were all to be found in much the same proportion from Lisbon to St Petersburg.’ However, he noted, Dublin was unique because ‘it was an extreme example of tendencies generally diffused’. Craig even suggested that Dublin had more in common with Calcutta than European cities. Dublin was, along side its splendour, renowned for its squalor. ‘Ireland itself is a poor country, and Dublin a magnificent city; but the appearances of extreme poverty among the lower people are amazing’, wrote Benjamin Franklin after a visit to the capital in the early 1770s. The historian W.E.H. Lecky noted that Dublin possessed many elements of disorder, including savage feuds, rioting and bull baiting. The Cornmarket open area near St Audoen’s church was the location for bull-baiting, which saw a bull being partially tied to a pole with a rope of a certain length to give it enough space to move and then attacked (or baited) by the fiercest dog possible. The poor of Dublin found this to be of great amusement.2

Christ Church Cathedral in the early nineteenth century. It appeared in the Dublin Saturday Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 10, 1832.

In 1798, Revd James Whitelaw, rector of St Catherine’s church on Thomas Street, described his experience of working in the area of the Liberties, near Christ Church Cathedral: ‘the streets are generally narrow; the houses crowded together; numerous lanes and alleys are occupied by working manufacturers, by petty shopkeepers, the labouring poor, and beggars, crowded together to a degree distressing to humanity …’ The tenements which he described as ‘truly wretched habitations’, often had thirty or forty individuals to a house. Varying degrees of filth and stench, infectious diseases and darkness inconceivable was the life and lot of the wretched inhabitants in the vicinity of the two Dublin cathedrals. He noted the teeming population living in overcrowded conditions and asked, ‘… why are brothels, soap manufactories, slaughter-houses, glass-houses, lime kiln, distilleries, etc., suffered to exist in such over-crowded conditions?’ His Dublin was a place of overwhelming smells, with no decent sewage system, where each house had its own cesspit and where nightsoil-men might empty them every so often. And if they did not, the nearby River Liffey served as a useful cesspit for the inhabitants. His observations were echoed by Curwen, an English visitor, who noted that poverty, disease and wretchedness existed in every great town, but in Dublin he found the misery indescribable.3

There are many factors responsible for this chaos. The deplorable state of the poorer classes in the eighteenth century was partially due to the rapid rise in the city’s population. In the space of little more than a century the population of Ireland had increased from 1.2 million in 1695 to 6.2 million in 1820, with many rural dwellers fleeing the frequent countryside famines and adding to the chaos and problems of the city. Also, to some extent the curtailment of the Catholic religion may be a significant explanation for the extreme poverty. Because of the Penal Laws (brought into force in 1695 and not repealed until Catholic Emancipation in 1829), the only religion was the established Church. The Penal Laws were, according to Edmund Burke, ‘a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.’ Among other things the laws banned Catholics from owning land, excluded them public office and certain professions and denied them the right to vote.

The result of the laws was that the Protestant planters, in a minority, suddenly became massively wealthy, powerful and privileged, holding the reins of power in the military and government and having the lands, titles and lifestyle to do whatever they wished. They were the new rulers of Ireland, based in Dublin. They were, however, constantly under the scrutiny of London, and all laws pertaining to Ireland first had to be ratified in Britain. Furthermore, with rising prosperity in Ireland as a result of the expansion of the cloth, woollen and linen trades, the UK Government imposed sanctions to ensure that England’s economic interests did not suffer.

Street names such as Dirty Lane (now Bridgefoot Street), Mullinahack (from Irish, meaning ‘dung hill’), Murdering Lane (off James’s Street) and Cow’s Lane give an indication of the living conditions in the area around the cathedrals of Dublin. Cutt Throat Lane, also off James’s Street, was another name that was somewhat self-explanatory. The lane, which was in existence as far back as 1488, was changed to Roundhead Row in 1876 and Murdering Lane was changed to Cromwell’s Quarter, which is still there to this day. It was in this context that the great satirist and wit Jonathan Swift lived. From his vantage point at St Patrick’s Cathedral, in the heart of old Dublin, he could plainly see that poor children were living in squalor and wrote about the cruel and inhuman treatment meted out to Ireland by London. Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal and other writings, tackled the major issues of the day in his unique, satirical style. In A Modest Proposal, Swift suggested fattening these undernourished children and then feeding them to the rich people. Children of the poor, he proposed, could be sold into the meat market at the age of one, thus combating Dublin’s rapidly rising population and unemployment. This would spare families the expense of child-rearing while providing them with a little extra income and contributing to the overall economic well-being of the country. Despite such concerns, Swift had little regard for the many beggars of Dublin, whom he regarded as ‘thieves, drunkards and whore-mongers’.4

Winetavern Street in the early 1960s. (Courtesy of GCI)

Excessive wealth concentrated in the hands of the minority ascendancy created the conditions for excessive poverty for the majority and the consequent adverse social and living conditions. And this is the context for the growth of Hell.

Lanes and alleyways near Winetavern Street, 1960s. (Courtesy of Dublin Forums/dan1919/breen)

Some charities did exist during this time to try to help the poor of the city. Dublin’s oldest charity, the Sick and Indigent Roomkeeper’s Society, was founded in 1790 in response to the appalling poverty – the vicinity of the cathedrals. Likewise, the first Dublin Magdalen Asylum was opened in 1765 in an attempt to save prostitutes (‘fallen’ or ‘seduced’ women) from a life of vice, debauchery, disease and an untimely death.5

THE ORMOND AND LIBERTY BOYS

The ‘debasement of human nature’, as it was described by Edmund Burke, saw the rise of much violence in the old city, particularly from the 1730s onwards. This was greatly facilitated by having a very poor, almost non-existent, policing (or ‘watch’) system. A watchman, the forerunner to the policeman, usually carried a bill, which was a long pole with a hook for catching fleeing lawbreakers and a lantern, as public lighting was extremely scarce in old Dublin. However, these watchmen were quite useless when they came up against organised gangs that roamed the city. Gangs such as the Ormond Boys (Catholic butchers from Ormond Quay) and the Liberty Boys (Huguenot Protestant weavers from the Liberties) were constantly at each other’s throats – literally, using swords, knives, bludgeons and hangers to slash leg tendons and meat hooks to hang up their victims. This factional fighting, with its bloody battles, reprisals and ferocity, and involving some horrific injuries, lasted throughout the eighteenth century. It often intensified during the many local fair and maypole events.

Duels, kidnappings and murder were also common. One of those murdered was Paul ‘Gallows’ Farrel, a city constable much hated by the Liberty and Ormond Boys. He was a known informer and the factions joined forces to kidnap, torture and then hang him.6

One of the leaders of the Liberty Boys, Thady Foy, murdered a watchman. He was tried and subsequently hanged and quartered outside the Tholsel, at Skinners Row, across from Christ Church Cathedral.

Riots were also frequent and the public whipping of those prosecuted for rioting had little effect. Arguably, all these events were symptoms of a society uncomfortable with the numerous divisions and expressing their discomfort through chaos and violence.7

THE PINKING DINDIES

Throughout the eighteenth century, peaking in the 1770s and 1780s, robbery and violence, particularly against women and prostitutes, were increasingly common for those moving around the city. Chaises and sedans were often pulled over and their occupants held up. Some of the most commonly stolen objects were pocket watches and purses, and silver belt and shoe buckles. It was not uncommon for those walking along the street to be deliberately jostled by a passer-by looking for a duel. Dublin also had swarms of ‘sharpers’, adept at disguise, shoplifting, pick-pocketing, ring-dropping, coining and availing themselves of any opportunity for procuring money that may arise. Visitors to Dublin were frequently warned to ‘look to their pockets’ or suffer the consequences.

Map of Dublin in late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries showing the area around Hell and the Liberties. (Courtesy of GCI)

Another class of thugs (deriving from the ascendancy and essentially Trinity College Dublin students) known as the Pinking Dindies were skilled in the art of ‘pinking’ – slashing their victims with the point of their protruding swords. A favourite weapon of the students out on a rampage was a heavy metal key attached to an innocuous handkerchief. One would not take too much notice of the handkerchief until one felt the brunt of the key on one’s person. Rampant violence in everyday life was an intrinsic part of the character of both the well-off and the dispossessed. The Pinking Dindies were also known as ‘rent collectors’ – essentially racketeers, extorting money from the many prostitutes around the cathedral area.

A late eighteenth-century map of Cutt Throat Lane, near the Workhouse for Dublin’s poor and destitute. The Workhouse was on the site of present-day James...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Penal Times
• 2 A Place Called Hell: Tales from the Crypt
• 3 Forty Steps to Hell
• 4 Winetavern Street and Smock Alley
• 5 Copper Alley and Fishamble Street
• 6 Darkey Kelly and Pimping Peg
• 7 The Eagle Tavern, the Blasters and the Hellfire Club
• 8 The Black Dog, the Black Pig and Hell
• 9 Snuff Boxes and the End of Hell
• 10 Benburb Street, Portobello and the Curragh Wrens
• 11 A Place Called Monto
• 12 World’s End: The Streets of Monto
• 13 Soldiers and Sailors: Dublin, a Garrison City
• 14 Flash Houses and Kips: The madams
• 15 Piano Mary and Lily of the Lamplight: The Street Walkers
• 16 Regiments March Out, the Legion Marches In
• 17 Monto in Revolutionary Times
• 18 Dicey, Rosie and Kitty: Monto in Song and Story
• Epilogue
• Further Reading
• Copyright