HISTORY OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN. CHAPTER I. CHURCH OF ST. MARIE DEL DAM-CORK HOUSE-CORK CHANGE SWAN-ALLEY-CORK-HILL-PARLIAMENT-STREET-THE ROYAL EXCHANGE. A CONSIDERABLE portion of the southern side of the acclivity at present known as "Cork Hill" was anciently occupied by a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the precise date of the erection of which has not been recorded; but it most probably was founded before the twelfth century. In the Archives of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity is preserved a deed, executed about 1179, by Archbishop Lorcan O'Tuahal, among the witnesses to which appears the signature of Godmund, priest of St. Mary's, which church acquired from the contiguous mill-dam, noticed in chapter v., the name of "Sainte Marie del Dam," or "De la Dam," and was assigned by Henri de Londres, Archbishop of Dublin in the early part of the thirteenth century, to Ralph de Bristol, Treasurer of St. Patrick's Cathedral (1219-1223), as portion of the prebend or corps of his dignity. The diadem used at the coronation of Lambert Simnel, at Christ Church, in 1487, was said to have been taken from a statue of the Virgin Mary in this edifice. Sir Richard Edgecombe, the Commissioner despatched from England by Henry VII., held a conference in 1488, in " the church called our Lady of the Dames," with the Earl of Kildare, and other lords of the English colony in Ireland, relative to receiving into the royal grace James Keating, Prior of Kilmainham, and Thomas Plunket, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who had forfeited their allegiance by supporting Simnel. "At their meeting in this church, great instaunce," says the contemporary narrator, "was made to Sir Richard to accept and take Justice Plunket, and Prior of Kilmainham to the King's grace, and that they mought have their pardons in likewise as other had, forasmooch as the Kyng had grantid pardon generally to every man. Sir Richard answerid unto theme with right sharp words, and said, that he knew better what the King's grace had commaunded him to do, and what his instructions were, than any of theme did; and gave with a manfull spirit unto the seyd Justice Plunket, and Prior, fearful and terrible words, insoemuch that both the seyd Erle and Lordes wuld give no answear therunto, but kept their peace; and after the great ire passed, the Erle and Lordes laboured with souch fair means, and made such profers, that Sir Richard was agreed to take the seyd Justice Plunket to the Kyngs grace ; and soe he did, and took his homage and fealty upon the sacrament; but in no wise he would accept or take the seyd Prior of Kilmainham to the Kyng's grace. And ere then he departid out of the seyd Church of Dames, the seyd Erle of Kildare delivered to Sir Richard both his certificate upon his ooth under the seal of his arms, as the obligation of his sureties; and ther Sir Richard in the presense of all the Lordes delivered unto him the King's pardon under his gret seal in the presence of all the Lordes spiritual and temporall.” Dr. John Alan, in the early part of the sixteenth century mentions, that the parishioners of " Sancta Maria de la Dam” consisted of the inmates of the Castle, with a few others; and adds that the church possessed one carucate of land, called Tackery, not far from Carrickmayne, on the Dublin side of CHURCH OF ST. MARIE DEL DAM. 3 Shankill; and also owned a house occupied by a goldsmith on the eastern side of the Pillory of the city. In the reign of Henry VIII. the parish of St. Mary was united to that of St. Werburgh by George Browne, the first Protestant Archbishop of Dublin; and in 1589, Richard Thompson, Treasurer of St. Patrick's Cathedral, demised to Sir George Carew, for sixty-one years, the house, messuages, church, and church-yard of St. Mary, by the Castle of Dublin, with all buildings, court-yards, back-sides, gardens, orchards, or commodities thereto belonging, for the annual rent of six marks nine shillings, Irish. Shortly after this period the church of St. Marie came into the possession of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, who erected upon its site a mansion subsequently known as "Cork House." Of the monuments of the old church, but one, which was removed from Cork House to St. Werburgh's Church, appears to have been preserved. Dineley, who examined it in the reign of Charles II., describes it as a "very fair monument;" and adds:-"It is thought to represent the founder and foundress [of the church of St. Marie] in the shape of a knight in armour mail with a shield with three crosses, not much unlike those on the shield of Strongbow in Christ Church; his lady also laid down at his left side on a cushion guarded with angels. This monument is supported round about with several figures of saints, apostles, and Scripture history." After its transfer from Cork House the monument was placed in St. Werburgh's Church; thence, about the middle of the seventeenth century, removed to the cemetery, and finally, inserted in the southern wall of the church, where it may still be seen, as noticed in our first volume, page 36. Another vestige of the church of St. Marie del Dam was preserved in the name of "Salutation-alley," which existed on the eastern side of Cork House till after the middle of the last century. Richard Boyle, the founder of Cork House, born in 1566, the second son of a younger brother, was originally a studeut > in the Middle Temple, and being unable to defray the expenses necessary for the completion of his studies, he became a clerk to Sir Richard Manwood, Chief Baron of the English Exchequer. Dissatisfied with his salary in this office, Boyle resolved to visit "foreign countries," and, he writes, "it pleased the Almighty, by His divine providence, to take me, I may say, just as it were by the hand, and lead me into Ireland, where I happily arrived at Dublin on Midsummer eve, the 23 June, 1588. All my wealth being then twenty-seven pounds three shillings in money, and two tokens, which my mother had formerly given me, viz. a diamond ring, which I have ever since, and still do wear, and a bracelet of gold worth about 107.; a taffety doublet cut with and upon taffety; a pair of black velvet breeches laced; a new Milan fustian suit laced and cut upon taffety; two cloaks; competent linen and necessaries; with my rapier and dagger." Boyle's first step to fortune in Ireland was his marriage, in 1595, with Mrs. Joan Apsley of Limerick, who brought him a dowry of £500 per annum. He subsequently acquired lands and property with a rapidity which, even in those times of forfeiture and embezzlement, excited the suspicions and jealousy of the officials of the Irish Government, from whose charges he contrived to acquit himself, personally, before the Queen, who having, he tells us, sworn" by God's death," that these accusations were ungrounded, appointed him Clerk of the Council in Munster. Boyle further ingratiated himself in the royal favour by the speed with which he carried to London the important intelligence of the rout of the Spaniards at Kinsale, in 1601 :-" I left," he writes, "my Lord President at Shandon Castle, near Cork, on Monday morning about two of the clock, and the next day delivered my pacquet and supped with Sir Robert Cecil, being then Principal Secretary, at his house in the Strand, London." The purchase, at a very low rate, of Sir Walter Raleigh's lands in Munster augmented the importance of Boyle, who re |