HISTORY: Dublin in the Medieval World: studies in honour of Howard B ClarkeEdited by John Bradley, Alan J Fletcher and Anngret Simms, Four Courts Press, 616pp, €50
DUBLIN, LIKE other populous ports, has long attracted immigrants. Some arrived as conquerors and plunderers and were hardly welcome. Others have enlivened and enriched the city. One relatively recent arrival, Howard Clarke, the medieval historian trained in Birmingham, belongs firmly to the latter group.
Bringing the perspective of an outsider, familiar with urban development in continental Europe, he has applied his skills to uncovering the fabric and elucidating the societies and economy of Dublin before the seventeenth century. With little other than the two cathedrals of St Patrick’s and Christ Church visible, any reconstruction depends on piecing together the archaeological finds and interpreting abstruse documents. Professor Clarke mapped and published his findings, most splendidly in an atlas in the series produced by the Irish Historic Towns project. This work accompanies a career of inspirational teaching at University College Dublin. Most recently as the secretary of the Royal Irish Academy, he has not only cherished but invented traditions. Moreover, he has taken his discoveries to a wider audience via the Dublinia project in the former Synod Hall beside Christ Church cathedral.
Colleagues, friends and former pupils, almost all from Ireland, have decided not to garland him with laurels as of old, but to resort to that more modern tribute: the festschrift. Such volumes of essays can be off-puttingly miscellaneous in their contents. Not so with the huge battalion that has been marshalled to write in Clarke's honour. It is his own career that gives coherence to a hefty book of nearly 600 pages. The writers focus intently on the city. All, directly or indirectly, are indebted to his pioneering work in recovering and detailing the lay-out and development of the now largely vanished city. Besides the cathedrals, only fragments of the chapter house of St Mary's survive, although the toy fort towers of Dublin Castle may mask medieval donjons.
Two of the most resonant essays, by Colm Lennon and Jacinta Prunty, trace how previous generations reacted to the dramatic transformations of the capital. Nostalgic regret and aesthetic consternation at the losses were offset by a pragmatic acceptance of change. Even in the eighteenth century, the Wide Streets commissioners were as ruthless as Baron Hausmann would be later in Paris in sweeping away the crooked and ancient. If the venerable fabric of Dublin could not be preserved, then at least it could be recorded accurately and its many meanings interpreted. The essayists pass lightly over the shameful Wood Quay saga, a stimulus to some of Howard Clarke’s own research. Mention is made of the more recent destruction of a portion of medieval walling and its replication in the basement of a Temple Bar restaurant. True to the positive tone of the collection, Anngret Simms, one of the editors, while eloquent about the vicissitudes that have attended the Dublinia displays, echoes Professor Clarke, currently chairing the board of management, in emphasizing the success of this private venture. Squeamishness about turning scholarly history into consumable heritage is suppressed, since Dublinia communicates something of the character of the lost city of Viking and early-medieval times.
The essays range dizzily over time and topic. The sea served to connect Dublin with an extensive maritime world, while a ring of mountains isolated it from much of the interior of Ireland, although maybe not as much as was once alleged. Perched on the coast, the port became an outpost first of a Scandinavian and then of the Norman empire. Conquest and colonization brought drawbacks, but also diversity and enrichment. Buildings, artefacts, clothing, customs and language reflected the impact of strangers.
If, in its nature, the collection is not to be absorbed in a single session, there is much here to inform and entertain. Mirroring the variousness of Howard Clarke’s own work, the volume is an exciting brand-tub into which to dip. Accordingly, the interested will learn of the Vikings’ use of boats, of the toys, diet and dress of Norse children growing up in Dublin, of the languages spoken by their parents and the array of sacred relics amassed by the future Christ Church cathedral.
Institutions and rituals intended to unite the inhabitants of Dublin, a motley crew at best, are analysed. True to Howard Clarke’s own approach, the contributors are alert to the numerous links with other places. So the reader is whisked to St Gall, Cologne, Wetzlar, Sens, Tournai, Ribe, Rome and Jerusalem. There are crimes: treasures stolen from Clonmacnoise in 1129; a murdered body thrown down a well in 1379. Earlier, in 821, women were abducted from Howth. Did Daniel Maclise or James Barry never paint the scene? Dublin also acquired more than immigrants from its nearest neighbour. Holy relics were plundered from Holyhead, building stone was shipped in from Somerset, sometimes to construct buildings modelled after churches at Worcester and Salisbury and castles in south Wales.
For specialists there is fresh information and interpretations to ponder and even to dispute. For lovers of Dublin, the contributions tell much that is new about the capital. It can be predicted that some readers, alerted by the text, will troop off to see the chapter house of St Mary’s Abbey, entombed in a Victorian warehouse and evoked by James Joyce, or even the replica of the ancient wall in Luigi Malone’s. Above all, though, they will return to Howard Clarke’s writings and maps to understand what lies buried under their feet.
Toby Barnard teaches history at Oxford University. His most recent book, Improving Ireland?is published by Four Courts Press