DUBLIN

DUBLIN. The rapid physical, economic, and demographic expansion of Dublin in the late Middle Ages came to an end in the mid-fourteenth century. The most striking feature of the long period of stagnation that ensued—which lasted until the early seventeenth century—was the cessation of the suburban growth previously promoted by the Anglo-Norman monastic foundations. As a result, the city's core remained within the old walled settlement, which was located on the south side of the River Liffey, nearly a mile from where the river met the sea at Dublin Bay. In keeping with its position as Ireland's main port and the administrative capital of the English lordship, the city was secure against contraction. Even disruptive changes such as were caused in the 1530s by the dissolution of religious houses as part of Henry VIII's efforts to promote a Protestant Reformation could be turned to at least partial advantage; it encouraged some redevelopment and contributed to the emergence of the wealthy Catholic Old English elite that exercised a dominant command of civic politics in the second half of the sixteenth century. By this time also, the city had recovered from the devastating effects of the Black Death (1348), though its population continued to suffer the effects of epidemic disease. According to contemporary estimates, 3,000 people, or one-third of the city's population, then reckoned at 9,000, succumbed to plague in 1575. Modern assessments, however, put the city's population around that time at a more modest 5,500 to 8,000.

The condition of the city improved greatly from the early seventeenth century as, following the decisive military defeat of the native Irish, a new ruling elite—the New English—comprising soldiers, officials, settlers, and artisans, who arrived in substantial numbers from England, displaced the previously dominant Catholic patrician families. Dublin grew rapidly as a commercial, administrative, and industrial center as a result. This was not without interruption, notably during the war-torn 1640s, but the setbacks experienced then were soon reversed, as the growth of the city's population from about 20,000 in the 1660s to 45,000 in 1685 attests. Propelled by the immigration of English and French Protestants (Huguenots), the population had doubled again by 1730 when it exceeded 90,000. The city continued to grow rapidly, but the main engine of demographic growth thereafter was the in-migration of Catholics from the countryside, which pushed the population to 182,000 in 1798. The denominational character of the city was transformed in the process; in 1715, the city's population was nearly 70 percent Protestant, whereas in 1798 it was 70 percent Catholic.

Rural dwellers were drawn to the city in large numbers by the prospects of employment. One of the most vibrant sectors was construction, as the wealthy aristocratic elite (which also sustained a network of fine craftsmen, luxury goods sellers, and aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual endeavors) stimulated a building boom that transformed much of the city. As a result, not only were graceful townhouses and elegant public buildings introduced into the much reconfigured old city (to which the Wide Street Commission [1757] made an important contribution) but extended suburban development flourished as well, promoted by ambitious developers who oversaw the construction of classical Georgian squares and long streets of imposing houses with distinctive red-brick fronts to the southeast of the old city and north of the River Liffey. The relocation of the Custom House closer to the mouth of Dublin Bay was no less critical since, in tandem with a new easterly bridge, it moved the center of the city out of its old walled town and half a mile closer to the sea. It also linked the various major developments of the eighteenth century, which was critical to Dublin's emergence by the end of the eighteenth century as the "second city" of the British Empire and one of the most improved cities in Europe.

DUBLIN

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