Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle was built early in the thirteenth century on the advice of Meilier Fitz-Henri, then holding the pbsitioii of Lord Justice. King John wrote: "We commaud you to oreet a castle in Dublin, in such place as you sliall judsre most expediont, as well to curb the city as to dcfend it, if occasion shall so require, and tliat you make it a strong as you can with good fosses and sound walls. But you are iust to finish one tower, that aftorward a castle, pálaCG and other works that requirc more time may bc more conveniently raised. You may take for this use 300 marks from G. Fitz-Kobort in which he stands indebtcd to us." No plan of the castle as ereoted uuder this order is extant. Tlie oldest existing portion, the Hirmiugharn tower, is supposed to have been built about 1Ü40. In 1461 a Parliament held in Dublin cnacted that "as the castle was ruining and likely to fall," each court (the courts of law werc held in the castle) should contribute -10 shillings a year to its repair. In the reign of Elizabeth, Sydney caused the castle "to bo made the best lodging for the Uovernor that was in Ireland." Verses commemorativo of this wero set up there, but taken down wLen the famous Strafford was Viceroy. Sydney does not seem to have had a very "good time" notwithstanding, for ho writes to Court in 1589. "I have met a familiarty of penury, as 1 think, nevernone endured as a Prince's deputy. I am forced to borrow, nay, almost to begfor my dinner. How then doth my servants, how my children, how the poor country which iiath borne all without receiving anvthing these ten years past?" Sydney lef t 1578. About' 1582 the statement appears in official correspondonce that there is no place for the law save only an old hall in the castle. The same, very dangerously placed over the munition and powder, whcre a desperate fellow by dropping down a match might war all." A chanco to make a modern dynamiter's mouth water. From the seventeenth century the castle Wás gradually enlarged tomeet requirements. It is about in the centre of Dublin and not by any mcans a cheerful abode. ïhe vioeroy passes about one f ourtli of a year thore, the rest at tlio Vice-Royal Lodge, a comfortable, but by no means splendid, mansión in the Phcenix Park.
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Ann Arbor Courier
Old News