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SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES OF DUBLIN. 223
the old bridge had been destroyed in 1314, 1 its substitute APPENDIX.
swept away in 1385, 2 and at least twice subsequently re- old bridges of
DubliD -
built it is sufficient to have traced so far the existence of
an artificial passage across the Liffey at Dublin ; but
between this link and the next, by which we should form our
chain of corroborative evidence, there is a long interval.
We have records of bridges over small rivers in Ireland,
in 924, and are told that a king of Ulster was celebrated
for bridge-building in 739 ; but we cannot refer to any
incident connected with the existence of a bridge or tochar
at Dublin, between the commencement of the fifth century
and the close of the tenth. This, however, is an interval in
which we may safely rely
on circumstantial evidence. It
was within this period that Ireland was celebrated as the
school of ecclesiastical learning. It was the Island of
Saints, and from it ecclesiastics travelled throughout Europe
to teach ; and to it European scholars journeyed to learn.
We may
therefore rest assured that whatever of art or
science was then known elsewhere, was not unknown in
Ireland, and that when there was sufficient art to build
churches and round towers, to construct " nailed barks,"
and to supply all that ships required for long voyages,
can, by leave of the City Council, Gate and Audoen's Arch, with a
took a toll, and I myself, when a wall running from one to the other."
boy, have seen the holy water Annales Hibernica, MSS. in
vessel (as tradition had it) for Marsh's (St. Patrick's) Library,
sprinkling the passengers." Hi- Class 3, Tab. 2, No. 7.
bernia Dominicana, by Thomas De
Burgo. 4to, 1762, p. 189. 8 "A.D. 1386. The king con-
141 In the year 1315, Edward sidering the losses of the citizens of
Bruce, with his army advanced Dublin through the late breaking
to Castleknock, only three miles down of Dublin bridge, has granted
from Dublin northwards. Whereat them a ferry over the Liffey, there
the citizens being alarmed broke for four years. (Table
of tolls
the bridge of Dublin, and burned annexed.) 9th of January, in 9th
the suburbs, and also demolished year of King Richard II." Calen-
the monastery of the Dominican dar of Patent Rolls of Chancery,
Friars in Oxmantown Green, and Ireland. Folio. Dublin. (Record
with the stones built Winetavern Publications) Art. 93, p. 124.