Dublin: Poverty, Crime and Duels

Dublin in the 18th century was a city of extremes. Visitors were struck by the over-indulgence and lavish lifestyle of those at the apex of society. But just a short distance from Dublin Castle the poor crowded the narrow streets and lanes.

The Reverend James Whitelaw, Church of Ireland Rector of St Catherine’s Church in Thomas Street, described the condition of these slums:

'This crowded population is almost universally accompanied by a very serious evil – a degree of filth and stench inconceivable… Into the backyard of each house, frequently not 10 feet deep, is flung from the windows of each apartment, the ordure and filth of its numerous inhabitants; from which it is so seldom removed, that I have seen it nearly on a level with the windows of the first floor; and the moisture that, after heavy rains, oozes from this heap… runs into the street, by the entry leading to the staircase…in Joseph’s Lane near Castle market, I was interrupted in my progress by an inundation of putrid blood, alive with maggots, which had from an adjacent slaughter yard burst the back door, and filled the hall to the depth of several inches…
The sallow looks and filth of the wretches who crowded round me indicated their situation, though they seemed insensible to the stench… In the garret I found the entire family of a poor working shoemaker, seven in number, lying in a fever, without a human being to administer to their wants…'

He counted 37 people in one house:

'Its humane proprietor received out of an absolute ruin which should be taken down by the magistrate, a profit rent of above £30 per annum, which he extracted every Saturday night with unfeeling severity. I will not disgust the reader with any further detail…'

The poor tended to cluster round two foetid streams, the Poddle and the Coombe. Their homes were often inundated by floods, as the young Edmund Burke observed from his family mansion on Arran Quay in January 1746:

'Our cellars are drowned…the water comes up to the first floor of the house threatening us every minute…from our doors and windows we watch the rise and fall of the waters as carefully as the Egyptians do the Nile, but for different reasons…[it is] melancholy to see the poor people of other parts of the town emptying their cellars…for as fast as they teem out the water, so fast does it, through some subterraneous channels, return again.'

The poor were also the most frequent victims of crime. On 10th September 1778 the Hibernian Magazine reported:

'Last Sunday morning about 3 o’clock five soldiers supposed belonging to the main guard forced an unhappy woman into an entry in Fishamble Street, and two of them guarded the pass alternately with drawn bayonets in their hands until each had gratified his brutal desires. This piece of barbarity was transacted in the presence of above twenty spectators one of whom dared not venture to the poor creature’s assistance; the military heroes threatened with horrid imprecations to stab the first person to the heart who should offer to molest them.'

Dublin’s criminals could also be drawn from the educated classes. These included the ‘pinking dindies’, skilled in slashing their victims with the points of their swords which stuck out below the open end of their scabbards. They used this technique to force passers-by to hand over their purses – generally to recoup the losses they had made at the gaming tables. In this way they also took ladies from their protectors and, as one man observed, ‘many females were destroyed by that lawless banditti’.

The students of Trinity College, given a splendid façade facing the Parliament in College Green in 1759, acquired a reputation for wild and debauched behaviour. Sons of nobles and gentlemen for the most part, they strode about wearing gowns trimmed with gold or silver according to rank.

Some could afford to dine at the Eagle Tavern, home of the notorious Hell-Fire Club, or risk a duel at Lucas’s Coffee-House on Cork Hill. Others would eat beefsteaks in The Old Sot’s Hole at Essex Bridge or mingle with the humbler classes in the ale shops of Winetavern Street. Generally known as ‘bucks’, they were often eager to join in fights in the narrow streets, wielding the heavy keys to their rooms as weapons.

Duelling was so popular amongst the Dublin gentry that duelling clubs were established. Newspapers frequently carried complaints that passers-by in the Phoenix Park were in considerable danger from stray bullets. Richard Daly, manager of the Theatre Royal fought 19 duels in two years – three with swords and 16 with pistols.

When the winter season was over the gentry deserted the capital for the countryside where the nobility were erecting splendid mansions.