JOURNAL OF THE IRISH LABOUR HISTORY SOCIETY

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBROOK FAIR 9Lieutenant to endorse their right to remain open for the duration set out in the charters; Somewhatunhelpfully he referred them back to the Lord Mayor.15 While the Maddens in the past had concededclosing on one Sunday they were not prepared to close for two and Lord Mayor Smyth'.s attempts toenforce this on the devotees of Donnybrook got nowhere. This much is clear from the fact that in 1837Lord Mayor WiIliam Hodges was approached 'by several of the clergy and most respectable citizens'regarding the 'disgraceful violation of the Sabbath Day carried on annually at Donnybrook Fair onwhich day all the idle and disorderly people congregated .. .'16 'In a forthright manner he issued aproclamation ordering the fair to end on Saturday, 26 August. He then secured the useof a Illilitary forcefrom the Lord Lieutenant and on Saturday, 26 August, in his own words, 'had the whole of the fair greencleared by eleven 0' clock that night without accident or breach of the peace, and the Sabbath protectedfrom desecration'. For his pains he was issued with notices of civil actions from outraged booth ownerswho claimed infringement of their rights. His legal costs in defending these actions were such that hesought reimbursement from the government. He got no satisfaction. A curt note from the Undersecretaryat Dublin Castle, Thomas Drummond, merely observed: 'your application having, according tothe usual practice, been referred to the Attorney General, I am to inform you that ... it cannot beentertained' .17 So ended the earliest efforts of the Sabbatarians to dampen the humours of Donnybrook.Yet, even as the fair itself entered a quieter and less boisterous phase in the 1840s and 1850s as testifiedto by the Halls, Woodlock and the press, a fresh effort was now made to abolish it.In 1853 a new Catholic curate, the Rev. Patrick J. Nowlan, came to the combined parish ofDonnybrook-lrishtown. A reforming priest of great zeal, he initiated the new attempt to end the fair.Doggedly and successfully organising public opinion on the issue, he secured the_support of LordMayor Joseph Boyce who summoned a public meeting to the Mansion House in May 1855. The aimwas to create a committee to raise funds to buy out the rights of the Madden family to the revenues ofthe fair. Those present constituted a social mix of considerable clout, from the Marquis of Westmeath,through aldermen and town councillors to some of Dublin's leading social and moral crusaders of theage: among them were the temperance advocate and anti-slavery crusader James Haughton, and thecelebrated Carmelite moral reformer Dr. John Spratt, himself another leading light in the cause oftemperance as well as being a pioneer in the local movement for the more humane treatment of animals.Opening the meeting, the Lord Mayor's very rust observation was that they aimed 'to do away withthe annual nuisance of Donnybrook Fair, the burden o/which every artisan must have/elt'. -He revealedthat the present owners of the rights were willing to be bought out for £3,000, a small price to pay toend a place where 'numbers of citizens and labourers spent a large portion of their time in drinking andidleness'. Significantly he added'There was scarcely a servant in any house in Dublin that had not a desire to pass a portion of the week atDonnybrook and by their connection with their fellow servants the evils resulting from-·the Fair werebrought home to their very doors.'18Following an edifying resolution denouncing Donnybrook as having been for long 'the theatre ofimmorality, drunkenness and its concomitant evils', proposed by the Marquis of Westmeath andseconded, by Rev. Dr. Spratt, a subscription list was opened and a committee appointed which includedthe names of prominent citizens and property holders like John Vernon, John Sibthorpe, WilIiamDargan, together with the Lord Mayor, the Archbishop of Dublin, the curate Rev. Nowlan, and withS. Radcliffe H. Featherstone as secretary. The committee soon secured support from importantquarters. First came the all-important backing from the press, the Freeman's journal commentingeditorially that there was neither commercial nor recreational need for the fair, its importance as amarket having declined and its recreational value having been superceded by cheap da:ily rail excursionsto country and seaside,I9Then the Commissioners of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), Col. GeorgeBrowne and JohnLewis More O'Ferrall wrote to say they wished to see the fair abolished having already themselves