Hidden gem of Iveagh
QUESTION What were Dublin’ s Iveagh Gardens used for before they were gifted to the State? Did they once have a house? THE Iveagh Gardens, hidden behind the row of buildings on the south side of St. Stephen’s Green, have a history going back over 300 years. At one stage, they were used for the great exhibition of 1865. They were also the gardens to a couple of nearby big houses, including Iveagh House.
In the late 17th and early 18th century, the Leeson family, originally from England, had a mansion and a brewery on the south side of St Stephen’s Green. They gave their name to Leeson Street.
The family also owned the uncultivated lands south of their house, which became known as Leeson’s Fields.
Towards the end of the 18th century, in 1777, Harcourt Street was built in a southerly direction from the south-west corner of St Stephen’s Green. In 1778, Clonmel House was built; it is now No.17 Harcourt Street. Its first owner, a lawyer called John Scott, who became the first Earl of Clonmell (sic), bought 11 acres of Leeson’s Fields for use as the gardens of Clonmel House. The two were connected by a passageway underneath Harcourt Street.
In 1817, this land was leased for public use and renamed Coburg Gardens. Great festivities were staged there, such as the celebrations for the 1830 coronation of King William IV. But later in the 1830s, the gardens fell into disuse and reverted to the Earl of Clonmell’s family. The gardens remained badly neglected until they were bought in 1862 by Benjamin Lee Guinness.
At that stage, the land was covered with rubbish and was also used for grazing sheep, and little remained to show that they had once been a pleasure ground.
Benjamin Lee Guinness wanted the lands to be the garden for Iveagh House, which he had bought in 1856. A famed landscape gardener called Ninian Niven, a former director of the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, devised the new layout for the gardens.
By 1863, the new Winter Garden, together with an exhibition palace, were ready. Then from May to November 1865, a vast exhibition in the gardens attracted close on a million visitors. Over the next decade, many other events, including concerts, exhibitions, flower shows and circus performances, were staged. In 1872, the Guinness family sponsored a national exhibition there of arts, industries and manufactures.
In 1883, another member of the Guinness family, Edward Cecil Guinness, sold the exhibition palace, which was re-erected at Battersea Park in London. The gardens off St Stephen’s Green once more became the private property of Iveagh House.
Much later, in 1941, the taoiseach of the time, Éamon de Valera, opened the new gateway to the gardens, just behind the UCD buildings in Earlsfort Terrace, and the gardens themselves were transferred to the ownership of UCD. For generations of students, they became a link between Earlsfort Terrace and Newman House at 85/86 St Stephen’s Green.
As for Iveagh House itself, in May 1939, it was gifted by the Guinness family to the Irish State and has been home to what is now the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade ever since.
The gardens had many fascinating features, such as the rustic grotto and cascade, sunken lawns with fountains, wilderness woodlands, a maze, a rosarium, rockeries and rookeries. By the time they were transferred into State care in 1991, many of these features were still intact and much subsequent restoration work by the OPW has transformed the gardens into their present enticing state. The Iveagh Gardens have long been known as ‘Dublin’s secret gardens’ and now they have been fully restored into a magical place of landscapes and features.
Catherine Brennan, Sandymount, Dublin. QUESTION What are the worst lines written by a great poet? SHAKESPEARE wrote a short poem for his tomb, exhorting others to leave his body in peace: ‘Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forebeare To digg the dust enclosed heare; Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.’
John Donne, the great metaphysical poet, married the 16year-old niece of his patron, Sir Thomas Egerton, without his permission and was thrown into prison, causing him to write: ‘John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done.’
He was released and the couple spent many happy years together, producing 12 children in 16 years. SJ Kitching, London. IN HIS 1798 poem The Thorn, William Wordsworth originally wrote the prosaic lines: ‘Of water – never dry I measured it from side to side: ’Twas four feet long, and three feet wide.’
He realised this was not up to scratch and ditched the lines. However, the following was retained: ‘Unthinking Stephen went — Poor Martha! on that woeful day A cruel, cruel fire, they say, Into her bones was sent: It dried her body like a tinder, And almost turned her brain to cinder.’
Wordsworth was a repeat offender. This poem Baffled — Anecdote For Fathers has the mundane lines: ‘Now, little Edward, say why so: My little Edward, tell me why.’ — ‘I cannot tell, I do not know.’ — ‘Why, this is strange,’ said I. It is indeed baffling.’ EVEN the greats have their off days. John Keats in 1819’s To Autumn has: ‘And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn’ (surely full-grown lambs are sheep).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of the wonderful Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, dropped the ball when writing Christobel in 1800: ‘Is the night chilly and dark?/The night is chilly, but not dark.’
And Shakespeare let himself down with the banal final couplet of Macbeth: ‘So, thanks to all at once and to each one/Whom we invite to see us crown’d at Scone.’
Andrew Motion was made Poet Laureate in 1999 and penned a memorably awful rap to celebrate Prince William’s 21st birthday in 2003: ‘Better stand back Here’s an age attack, But the second in line Is dealing with it fine.’ Mike Roycroft, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.
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