This building survives in paintings

This building survives in paintings

22 Apr 1960

Church and the pool of Round tower of Dublin By Dr. George A. Little

At Eastertide the Liturgy of the Festival focuses attention on the Church. The season’s special quality of spring light renders the lines of Church architecture plain and renews its four dimensional significance. Perhaps it is from these influences that memory of St. Michael de Le Pole’s in Dublin becomes compelling.

A plaque above the archway which covered the way into St. Michaels Cemetery (now prosaically No. 15 Great Bridge St.) states: “Here anciently stood the Church and Roundtower, adjacent lay the Mill Pond or ‘ Pool’ which gave name to these buildings and to the Old City Gate in Bridge Street.” It might have added, and to the City watercourse the Poddle.

John O’Donovan recognised the founder of this church as the eighth century Aengus Mac Thail (son of Dergan), a bishop of Old Kilcullen in Kildare. He then argues from a reference in the “Annals of the Four Master” that St Mac Thail was regarded in the tenth century as a Patron of Dublin. Similar churches of Rathmichael, near Carrickmines and that of Diset Tola in Westmeath are credited to him and believed to perpetuate his name. St. Michael de Le Pole’s Church consisted of a Roundtower and ruined Church; it survived until the eighteenth century was in its destructive youth. The character of the building material used in their construction may be seen in the large uncut stones which now form the wall on the right, the entrance to what was the ancient burial grounds. Records prove that this was built from the stone’ the demolished tower.

Pictorial records

Several drawings were me of this building thus making it the earliest ecclesiastical foundation in Dublin of which we have pictorial record. Two of these pictures are really important. The first, dated 1751, was copied by J. Huban Smith in 1857 from an anonymous drawing then in possession of Sir William Beetham.

The second picture had been executed in wash by the Franco-Dutch artist Gabriel Beranger in the year 1766. This second picture and its ambiguous caption was the cause of grave errors in dating and in recognition of an architectural period; errors which continued to our time.

The first drawing shows the Roundtower, built of unworked stone and apparently (in the manner of so many similar structures) unattached to any other building. It is in the early style of these buildings. In the picture’s foreground there is a ruin of a much later ecclesiastical building, apparently that of the Benedictine Convent founded by Dame Butler In October, 1688.

In contrast, Beranger’s picture shows the ancient tower in cut stone and is an integral part of a rectangular building of two stories. This picture originated the opinion that this Church was similar in. architectural design to that of Glendalough known as St. Kevin’s.

Le Pole’s Church in Dublin

This opinion cannot be valid since none have challenged the view that this Church of St. Mac Thail was built no later than the early ninth century and it has been agreed that the Glendalough tower-addition was a conceit of the XII century.

That this latter objection was pertinent and true of the church in Ship Street is attested by the following records: An Act of the (City) Council in 1682 ordered of Michael’s de Le Pole’s Church that it be, “… forever hereafter enclosed up and preserved from all common and profane uses.”

Built school

Early in 1706, the Rev. John Jones, ” an eminent Latin master in Ship Street” solicited the incumbent and parish authorities of the controlling St. Bride’s Parish for permission to use the material of the old Church ruin for the purposes of erecting a school. This Indulgence was granted him conditionally.

He built a large and lofty school-room; with three small rooms, at the top of a flight of stairs in the tower.

The tower was, as it has always been, an entity separate from’ the other building. Its sole function, in the eyes of Dr. Jones, was to supply a stairway to the upper room of his school. This “separateness” of the tower is of great importance ‘as evidence of its age, and the nationality of its builder.

It was in this school, under the discipline of Dr. Jones’ ferule that scholars of such diverse gifts as Henry Grattan and John Fitzgibbon, who was to become first Earl of Clare_, studied.

In spite of public protest, vigorous and influential, the City Council took down the Roundtower. in part, in 1778, and demolished the remainder, together with Dr. Jones’ School, in 1789.

Dublin is indebted to the anonymous artist of the picture of St. Michael de la Pole’s Church and to Beranger also. The need for such records was great and that need remains-Epitaph

Perhaps the words Hrabanus a poet who flourished when St. Michael’s was _abuilding must remain forever true. The verse is translated by Helen Waddell thus:

“No work of men’s lands tut the weary years Besiege and take it, comes its evil day; The written word alone flouts destiny_. Revives the past and gives the lie to death.

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