Devilment, debauchery and din in Donnybrook
In deluxe D4 the famous Fair was foul for centuries
SHADE your eyes. Pinch your nose. Block off your ears. Oh, and lock up your daughters. The sage advice to avoid the noxious sights, smells and sounds – while protecting young ladies’ innocence – was generally well observed when the annual Donnybrook Fair arrived to disturb the sedate south Dublin district for the last week of August and the first week of September.
Over the 600 years it lasted, the fair earned worldwide notoriety for its uninhibited behaviour, drunkenness, licentiousness and wild brawls, so much so that the word ‘donnybrook’ claims an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a scene of uproar and disorder’.
The carnival, founded in 1204, faced relentless public and religious pressure until it was finally abolished in 1855.
Though principally an animal fair for the buying and selling of cattle and horses, it allowed brisk trade for stallholders selling toy trumpets, drums, whistles and popguns to keep children happy while the adults could enjoy various sideshows featuring comedy and musical routines, magical acts, daring acrobatics and horsejumping competitions.
And, of course, there were popup pubs – lots of them.
It was when the business of the day was over that the merrymaking got out of hand. So much drink was consumed that regular outbreaks of violence were inevitable. Fists, sticks and bottles (empty, of course) were flung with wild abandon and many a head suffered equal pain from injuries and nextday hangovers.
Clearly, Donnybrook Fair was no place for self-respecting females to be seen.
SOME who went there with pure romantic notions found ‘matches’ that went further than intended and led to rushed trips to the altar. Sir Jonah Barrington, the noted judge, politician and historian, wrote that ‘more marriages were celebrated in Dublin the week after Donnybrook Fair than in any two months during the rest of the year’.
Taking account of the number of ‘painted prostitute, drunken youths and lassies’ to be found there, the Dublin Penny Journal observed in 1833 that ‘there is more misery and madness, devilment and debauchery than could be found crowded into any equal space of ground in any part of this globe. It has been calculated that during the period of Donnybrook Fair there is more loss of female character and greater spoliation of female virtue among the lower orders than during all other portions of the year’.
Another writer denounced the festival as ‘a disgrace upon civilised Europe’.
It was King John, the Norman ruler of Britain and Ireland, who took the credit – or the blame – for introducing Donnybrook Fair. Encouraged by the great popularity of events such as Bartholomew Fair in London, he commanded Meiler Fitzhenry, his chief justice in Ireland, to establish similar carnivals at Waterford and Limerick as well as the one in the capital.
Donnybrook Green was the site for the Dublin festival. It stretched from where the Bective and Old Wesley ground is now located and bridged the River Dodder to the current Dublin Bus depot.
King John’s intentions were, at least, honourable. He was convinced that the fairs offered animal dealers and other traders the opportunity for profitable business, while enabling visitors to enjoy the many attractions and where the more boisterous young could let off steam. In modern terms, you could say ‘the craic was mighty altogether’.
Not much has been recorded about the early centuries of Donnybrook Fair.
It wasn’t until the 19th century that newspapers and periodicals began to enlighten their readers with colourful accounts of what they were missing if they heeded the critics.
An example of the wide variety of eating and drinking to be sampled was provided in an eyewitness account of 1823. In one tent, he observed, the fare on offer included ‘sirloin, ribs, rounds, flanks, skin briskets, six dozen boiled chickens, 28 Wicklow hams, kishes of potatoes, carts of breads and gallons of punch’.
A popular verse of the period summed up the typical occasion:
What made the town so dull? Donnybrook Fair. What made the tents so full? Donnybrook Fair. Where was the joyous ground, Booth, tent and merry ground? Donnybrook Fair. Beef, mutton, lamb and veal, Donnybrook Fair. Wine, cider, porter and ale, Donnybrook Fair. Whiskey, both choice and pure, Men and maids most demure Dancing on the ground flure, Donnybrook Fair.
Barrington, in his widely read ‘Personal Sketches’, insisted that the fair’s bad reputation was unfounded, that it was ‘a mistake to suppose that Donnybrook was a remarkable place for fighting, or that much blood was ever drawn there. On the contrary, it was a place of good humour.’
He went on to say: ‘Men, to be sure, were knocked down now and then, but there was no malice in it. A head was often cut, but quickly tied up again. The women first parted the combatants and then became mediators; and every fray which commenced with a knockdown generally ended by shaking hands and the parties getting dead drunk together.’
BARRINGTON had no time for boxing, the ‘brutal species of combat’ so admired by the English, but he admired the skill shown at Donnybrook by exponents of stick swinging, which he likened to fencing. Even if a little blood was occasionally shed, it ‘did not for a single moment interrupt the song, the dance, the frolicking and good humour’.
Whatever about Barrington’s objections to the sport of boxing, the main attraction at Donnybrook Fair in 1819 was the appearance of the legendary Irish bareknuckle champion Dan Donnelly.
Inside his tent, a 10ft ring was erected and, for a modest fee, admirers would crowd in to watch Donnelly boxing exhibition bouts with his English sparring partners – George Cooper and Bob Gregson – and demonstrate ‘how things might be done in the ring’.
Unfortunately, Dan was rarely sober enough to fulfil his duties and the boxing action was mostly left to Cooper and Gregson. Attendances soon fell away when it couldn’t be guaranteed that the star of the show would perform and the venture was a flop.
By the middle of the 19th century, mounting pressure from the churches, the police and the civil authorities – boosted by the establishment of the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart overlooking the site – proved decisive.
In 1855, the Committee for the Abolition of Donnybrook Fair bought out the licence from the owners for £3,000, today’s equivalent of €355,000, and the last fair opened for one day in the following year before being confined to history.
Now an upmarket area populated with homes that are among the most sought after in Ireland, only an artisan supermarket bearing the name ‘Donnybrook Fair’ hints at the district’s shady past.