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LIFE OF CHARLES HALIDAY. CXX1
has known Sandymount all his life, and Sandymount lay
in the wash of the Dodder, a river which has had a great
influence on the port of Dublin, and has undergone such
changes that it required long investigation
aid of his local knowledge to comprehend
as well as the
its former state.
Thus when Gerard Boate, writing in 1645, describes the A.D. 1645,
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stone bridge, built over the Dodder, in consequence of the bulk where
drownin^ of Mr. John Usher, father of Sir William Usher, **"'? bridge
3tflnu8
as upon the way between Dublin and Ringsend, 1 I doubt
if it could have been ascertained without his aid that this
bridge was where Ball's-bridge now stands, and that the
way from Dublin to Ringsend lay over Ball's-bridge. Mr.
Haliday even was mistaken on this point, for he makes
the way from Ringsend to Dublin, at high water, to be by
the line of Bath-avenue, then overflowed by the sea. 2 But
it will be seen by Sir Bernard de Gomine's map by how
many devious streams, and through what a waste of sand,
the Dodder made its way to the Lifiey, though now
running in one straight
stream between the artificial
banks made in 1796. 3 He also supplied me, in illustration
of Mr. Haliday's statement, that, at the period of Sir
Bernard de Gomme's map, " the sea flowed almost to the
foot of Merrion- square," 4 with the curious, and what to
many
would seem the incredible fact of the Duke of
Leinster, so late as in the year 1792, shooting
the breach
in the South Wall in his yacht, and landing safely at
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Merrion-square ; and the extract from the newspapers of
the year 1760 describing the bodies of two murderers as
county of Wexford, and succeeded Hunt, and Jeffares, and thus into
so well that the underwriters of equity business.
Liverpool, who were interested in
'
Appendix, p. 233, n.
the case, made him their counsel-
J
Ibid., pp. 241, 242.
in-ordinary. This brought him
3 Ibid., p. 242, n.
into connexion with Mr. James * P. 231.
Watt, Queen's Proctor, a member Ibid., n. 1.
of the great house of Harrington,