The Welsh Chapel on Talbot St

While it is perhaps not surprising that cities such as London, Birmingham and Liverpool saw a surge in Welsh chapels – chapels where the faithful could worship in Welsh – I was surprised to learn that a Welsh Methodist chapel was built in Dublin in 1838. The intended congregation were mostly sailors from Holyhead, with the intention that encouragement to spend an hour in prayer was an hour less in the public house. Other members of the congregation drew from the 300 Welsh soldiers billeted in the city, patients coming on the boat from Holyhead for treatment at the Adelaide Hospital, and Welsh people who had taken up residence in the city to work as maids, nurses, and other professionals. Encouraged or not, before the chapel was built, those wishing to worship in Welsh had to use a Dutch Lutheran chapel on Poolbeg St, although all collections had to go to “the Dutch”.

Capel Bethel, as illustrated in Wrth Angor yn Nulyn (Caernarfon, 1968) © Gwasg y Bwthyn, Caernarfon, taken from Roberts (2018)

The chapel’s foundation stone was laid in 1838 on land secured by John Roberts, a Holyhead business man, thanks mostly to the efforts of the first pastor, Rev Robert Williams. The church was named “Bethel Church”. It was 40 ft x 27 ft, built of brick and cornerstone of Whitland granite from south-west Wales, at a cost of £500. The chapel appears to be just too late for noting on the OSi map of about 1840, but does appear in the 1842 Pettigrew and Oulton’s Directory and in the 25” maps from later in the century. The 1862 City Street guide proclaims a “WELCH METHODIST PREACHING HO.” at the junction between Talbot and Lower Gardiner Streets, with the chaplain named as Rev. Evan Lloyd. Lloyd was a popular preacher but perhaps more than that; another city chaplain remarked that he was “the father of all the Welsh girls in Dublin”!

OSi map (25″) showing church highlighed on Talbot St

The chapel’s capacity was reported to be regularly full in the 1840s, and with the onset of railway and ferries, capacity of 300 needed to be expanded in the 1860s, when a new gallery added 60 more spaces (nicknamed the quarterdeck by maritime patrons). In fact only sailors were allowed on this quarterdeck, and an account of a captain visiting with his wife is reported, with the good lady being told on seeking to enter the gallery: “main deck for you my girl!”. Further building work in 1894 was supported by money from Methodists across Wales, a ‘Wesleyan nobleman’, as well as a member of the Moravian cause, and “even received help from the Papists”.

In the 1901 Census, the chaplain John Lewis is recorded aged 42, and living at 77 Talbot St with his wife Elizabeth and their one year old Alun. 10 years later they were joined by a daughter, Olwen, and were living behind the church in Moland Place. John was by all accounts a character, and was known as the “Welsh bishop”, wearing a wide, flat hat on his missions around the city. The hat reportedly took a bullet in the Civil War.

William Griffith’s Shoes and Ladies’ Fashions. Photo: 1968. © Gwasg y Bwthyn, Caernarfon. Taken from Roberts (2018). The house on Moland Place is just visible behind the church.

However declining congregation meant that the Church’s days were numbered. It was likely that it was severely damaged in the War of Independence; the National Archives are full of requests for compensation for building damage in this area during the War, including one from William Griffith a boot merchant, at 78 Talbot St. There was an explosion outside Moran’s Hotel in July 1922, and several houses and businesses on the street claimed compensation.

Griffith the bootmaker comes back into our story when the church finally closed in 1938. He took over the building and had a shop there. The doorway moved to the corner and tiling added advertising “Griffiths”, still there to this day. The building was last used as an internet café, looking seriously worse for the wear, but thanks to the effort of the Welsh Society in Ireland is now on Dublin City Council’s protected structure list. They are petitioning for a plaque.

A clip from the RTÉ programme Capital D, including a remarkable interview with the 103 year old Howell Evans is available on YouTube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpFHYO-DNZ4

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Image from Google Street View (2018). The tiling, announcing “Griffith’s” is visible at the entranceway

Notes

• Evans, H. (1981). A Short History of Dublin’s Welsh Church, 1831 – 1939, available at the Welsh Society in Ireland’s website: http://www.welshsociety.ie/features/
• McLean, E. (2013). The extent of Welshness amongst the exiled Welsh living in England, Scotland and Ireland, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, page 36.
• Roberts, D. (2018). ‘Two hands over two sands’: Capel Bethel, Dulyn: the Welsh chapel in Dublin. Folk Life, 56(2), 65-76.

In Nicholas’ Shadow

In the shadow of Saint Nicholas of Myra,

Where salt waits, oil in its cruse.

You will find your own way out of this maze.

Harry Clifton, A Son! A Son!

Parish School of the Parish of St Nicholas Without, on New St.

In the Protestant parish of St Nicholas Without, a small complex of schools existed on New St, a short street linking what is now Clanbrassil and Patrick Sts. The early Ordnance Survey map marks the school’s location and Sir John Gilbert lists details of schools in the city, most likely gathered from one of the many, many Irish Education Inquiries the Government established to try to decide what to do with education provision. He states that the school on New St had a yard and playground that was spacious. This was not common – compare, for example with St Nicholas Within, which had no yard, and a “dirt hole and necessary” on the ground floor. The school had dormitories which were airy and clean, but the school room itself was “small, dark, and inconvenient”. There were 20 boys boarding; the parish had a population of over 12,000 at the time.

1842 Petigrew and Olsen Street Directory

We can trace the school pretty easily using street directories. By 1834, there were Male, Female, and Infant Schools on the site, with the children taught by James Farrell, Miss Moore, and Miss Macnamara. By 1842, the male and female schools were run by Jenkinson Hudson and his wife. Now I should say that Jenkinson is something of an old friend, as he cropped up in my study of Wicklow schoolhouses during the Georgian era. There we find him teaching in a school in Calary, aged 20 in 1823. Calary is as remote as you get in Wicklow, on upper plains between Kilmanacogue and Roundwood. It must have been quite a change for him and his wife to move to the city. Jenkinson was replaced at Calary by John Nelson Darby, so it is likely that he conformed with the evangelical ethos of that school, and perhaps this made him a suitable candidate for the school at New Street. This is further confirmed by the fact that while the school received support from the (secular) Kildare Place Society, it was not formally associated with it (see An Education at Kildare Place). Jenkinson had received training from the Society in 1823.

A little walk

Of course, following the relaxation of penal laws in 1785, most Catholic children were openly educated by Catholics, either in hedge and pay schools, or schools established on church lands. A short walk away from New St, the Roman Catholic schools for the parish were on Francis St. This walk is different today, with New St leading directly onto Patrick St. Then, a Wide Street Commissioners map informs us, New St fed into Kevin St, with a small alley named Three Stone Alley linking New St with Patrick St. The triangle now occupied by a large junction and abandoned subterranean toilets was once a compact cluster of houses.

Three Stone Alley, linking Patrick St to New St (from Dublin City Library collection – click to go to source)

On Francis St

St Nicholas of Myra Church and schools (OSi)

St Nicholas of Myra Roman Catholic Church was built in the years following Emancipation in 1829. While there is a substantial amount of information on the church, very little appears to exist on the schools that were built on the church grounds. We know of the existence of these schools from the Ordnance Survey map which shows that by the end of the nineteenth century, at least two schools were present just north of the church.

The provision of education in early nineteenth century Ireland resembled a chaotic auction where various religious societies tried to outbid each other offering support to nascent schoolhouses. Support came with the obligations that a school would operate under the moral guidelines of a particular society, use their textbooks, and crucially, follow their interpretation of the Bible. Amid this chaos, the Kildare Place Society emerged, and became the major supporter of secular education in Ireland (see An Education at Kildare Place). The Society was formed in 1811, and from the 1820s, was the dominant Irish educational society, receiving £30,000 from Government to support schools.However, the Kildare Place Society was under attack from the Catholic bishops, and after a Parliamentary Inquiry in 1826 and Emancipation in 1829, the money previously directed to Kildare Place was used to establish the Board of National Education in 1831. Ireland had a National School system.

The Commissioners of Education offices and Training School were at Malboro’ Street (National Archives of Ireland)

Having petitioned for its formation, the Roman Catholic church quickly began to associate schools it currently supported as well as new schools with the National Board. This involved applying to be connected with the Board, through support of teacher salary, request for desks, books, etc. These applications are now kept in the National Archives of Ireland, and they are a rich source of information on localities. The earliest record for St Nicholas Without is an application in 1842 for a Female School. In this, the correspondent Fr Matthew Flanagan reported that the school house, consisting of two rooms, each thirty by forty feet, had just been completed, having been built by private subscription. Later documents make it clear that this building was in fact a school for boys and girls, with a room for each. The application was approved, and the school became popular. An application for further assistant in 1868, from Fr E McCabe, requested a salary for Eliza Saunders, aged 18. Her qualifications included a “Certificate of Professors”. She would join Mary Ledwidge, principal teacher, Julia Shalvey, Margaret Dowling, Kate Macken and M. A. Shalvey (both junior monitors). There were at that time 190 boys and 190 girls on the rolls, with average attendance of 116 boys and 116 girls.

Application for St Nicholas Without Infant School Assistant Teacher Salary, 1862 (National Archives of Ireland)

The complex grew, and as well as girls and boys, the parish applied for assistance with an infant schoolhouse in 1853. The application by Fr Flanagan requested money for payment of teacher’s salary and for supply of books. He stated that the schoolhouse was newly built, with brick and slate in the cottage style, 65 feet long and 18 feet wide, standing close to the church on Francis St. It was furnished with a gallery and capable of accommodating 170 children, who were taught by Elizabeth Murphy, aged 44. Daily hours were 10 to 3, with hours devoted to religious instruction 12 to 12.30. Books used were those of the National Board. A salary of £10 was granted to Elizabeth and books for 150 children provided.Again this school was successful.Several applications for further assistance followed; within a decade there were 234 boys and 131 girls on the roll, with an average daily attendance of 138 boys and 60 girls.

While the Roman Catholic schools of the parish embraced the National School system, there is no record of the schools at New Street joining the system.Initially schools with a Protestant ethos were reluctant to join the National School system, and they continued with the support of the Kildare Place Society, which later became the Church Education Society. However, by the 1850s, money began to run out, and schools tended to drift into the National system. It is likely therefore that in the absence of any application, the schools at New Street closed.

Roman Catholic schools clearly continued on with some success, and in the 1930s, a new schoolhouse was built at Carman’s Hall, a narrow lane linking Meath and Francis Streets, just in front of St Nicholas of Myra church. Casey describes it as a simple modernist building by Robinson and Keefe, with statues of the Virgin, St Nicholas, and original Irish signage. Like its predecessors, it is now closed. The footprint of the schools around the church at Francis St is now occupied by a modern building housing Francis St CBS.
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St Nicholas of Myra National School, Carman’s Hall

 Notes

• The records of the National Board of Education are available in the National Archives of Ireland. There is a card index. The files accessed for this article included: ED1-29-136, ED1-29-118, ED1-29-1. Those eager to follow up the schools’ histories are encouraged to examine the ED2 records.
• A contemporary image of the intended elevation of St Nicholas of Myra Church is available in Dublin Penny Journal, reproduced at Dublin City Library. Meanwhile, I enjoyed this letter from Sgt. Brace in 1977 to The Irish Times…
• Christine Casey (2005) The Buildings of Dublin, Yale University Press.
• Michael Seery, Education in Wicklow; From Parish Schools to National Schools, 2014.This book is free to read on Google Books.

St Nicholas of Myra School and Church, from Carman’s Hall

Last Post on James’ St

Having served the area since 1891, James’ St post office recently closed and is currently for lease. It was one of several post offices designed by “the always interesting” J. Howard Pentland. Others in Dublin include Ballsbridge, Phibsborough (demolished and rebuilt in 1960), and Blackrock in 1909.  Maire Crean’s magnificent book “Lost Post” provides substantial detail on James’ St post office, including the original proposal of the floor plan, now kept in the National Archives.

James’s Street Former P.O.; Part Original Ground Floor Plan (National Archives of Ireland, reproduced in Crean).

James’s Street P.O.; Original Elevation (National Archives of Ireland, reproduced in Crean).

The public office is visible to the left of the plan, and the sorting office to the right. Crean also treats us to the original elevation – clearly it was originally intended to be a Gothic affair. The door to the public office is on the left on the plans, but from the existing building, we can see it is on the right.

The existing building is part of a trio of red-bricked buildings on the site: two at the pavement, and one in between; a three-storey building recessed from the road. Casey seems doubtful that such a grand building could be for a postmaster, and I can’t find anything in the 1901 Census to counter her opinion. The Post Office in that Census was given number 106, and was of course uninhabited. Using that numbering system, 105 and 104 are the adjoining buildings, and they too were unoccupied in 1901. By 1911, the numbering had shifted to what we currently have: the post office at no. 109, and the large house at 108 was a boarding house for four brewers from England and four domestic servants. 107 remained unoccupied.

Stafford Johnson gained a substantial amount of information from two pieces of paper found in a bin. Most other remaining archives were destroyed.

Postal history can be traced back to James’ St much earlier than 1892. Dublin had an innovative and efficient postal system known as the “Penny Post”, which was established in 1773. The city joined London to be unique in the world with such a system, although according to Stafford Johnson—who has provided us with one of the rare monographs on this topic—Dublin “has some matter for pride in the fact that it maintained the general character of the Penny Post unaltered until the end.”

The Penny Post operated in parallel to the pre-existing General Post system. From 11th October 1773, letters not exceeding four ounces could be delivered from the Penny Post Office in the GPO yard or any of eighteen Receiving Houses around the city, at a cost of one penny. The receiving houses were named in the original correspondence and included Mr. Charles Wren, Hosier, at the Sign of the Stocking, Francis-street near the Combe, Mr. Bredberry, Grocer, at the Sign of the three Swedish Crowns, George’s Quay and Mr. Bourke, Grocer at the Black Boy and Sugar Loaf, Capel-street near Essex-bridge. By 1810, there were 54 receiving houses in the city, and 29 country receiving houses, the extra distance to the country (suburban areas) costing 2 pence.

Doorway, James’ St Post Office (Photo: B)

The original system involved a pre-payment of one penny which was given in to the Penny Post Office or receiving houses. Letters that did not have the accompanying penny were opened and returned to the sender. A plea was made to be as precise as possible with the address, and those intended for lodgers were to name the landlord or the sign (on the building) to assist the post men.These men wore a distinctive uniform from 1810, and like their colleagues in the General Post system, rang a bell when on collection duty.

In 1810, the pre-payment system was abandoned. The official reason isn’t known, but Stafford Johnson offers with some confidence his theory that pre-payment ran counter to the public sentiments of the time. Payment on delivery would be preferred as it secured a safer delivery, and poorer people could take advantage of the system by refusing to accept delivery (and hence avoid the charge) while learning who the letter was from. Apparently secret codes were used so that the recipient could interpret the message with accepting the letter. Nonetheless, the system was a successful and efficient means of communication in the city. The post-masters general were eager to highlight the benefit of their system and regularly published the notice:

So expeditious and regular is the dispatch and delivery of letters by this Office that two persons residing in the most distant parts of the City from each other, may write four letters and receive three answers in the day for the trifling expense of one penny on each.

James’ St Post Office (Photo: B)

Back at James’ St, a receiving house opened on the street in 1809/10, and we can propose that this house is a precursor to the post office mentioned at the head of the article. The listing of a receiving house at No. 75 in the 1862 street directory adds some weight to this proposal. Here, William Madden, M.D. operated his medical practice, and acted as a Post Office Receiver. In addition to the house on James’ St, a second receiving house opened on Echlin Lane (now Echlin St) after 1810. The latter joined receiving houses at Broadstone Hotel and Portobello Hotel linking the city system with the Royal and Grand canal harbours (see In the fields off James’ St).

The Penny Post system ended in 1840, because of a combination of factors, not least the duplication with the General Post system. Stafford Johnson closes his article with the following:

Looked at as a whole, the Penny Post was worthy of the City and fulfilled its functions truly and well. For 66 years it gave a service which for cheapness and quickness has never been equalled. All this was done by men on foot, and to-day, in spite of the advantages of modern science, there is nothing to come up to that old system of which all that remains is a memory and some faded old letters.

Letter Box on No 107 James’ St (Photo: B)

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Notes

• Christine Casey (2005) The Buildings of Dublin, Yale University Press.
• Maire Crean (2012) Lost Post : A Selection of Ireland’s Post Office Buildings. See also Dublin Institute of Technology repository for Crean’s thesis on this topic.
• J. Stafford Johnson (1942) The Dublin Penny Post: 1773-1840, Dublin Historical Record, 4(3), 81-95.