Dublin (pronounced /ˈdʌblɨn/ , /ˈdʊblɨn/ or /ˈdʊbəlɪn/ ) is the largest city (being a primate city ) and capital of Ireland. It is officially known in Irish as Baile Átha Cliath or Áth Cliath ; the English name comes from the Irish Dubh Linn meaning "black pool". It is located near the midpoint of Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the centre of the Dublin Region. Originally founded as a Viking settlement, it evolved into the Kingdom of Dublin and became the island's primary city following the Norman invasion. Today, it is ranked 23rd (down from 10th in 2008) in the Global Financial Centres Index, has one of the fastest growing populations of any European capital city, and is listed by the GaWC as a global city, with a ranking of Alpha - which places Dublin amongst the top 25 cities in the world. Dublin is a historical and contemporary cultural centre for the island of Ireland as well as a modern centre of education, the arts, administrative function, economy and industry.
Name
The name Dublin is derived from the Irish name Dubh Linn (meaning "black pool"). In Irish, Dubh is correctly pronounced as Du v or Du f . The city's original pronunciation is preserved in Old Norse as Dy f lin , Old English as Di f elin , and modern Manx as Di v lyn . Historically, in the traditional Gaelic script used for the Irish language, bh was written with a dot over the b , rendering 'Du ḃ Linn' or 'Du ḃ linn'. Those without a knowledge of Irish omitted the dot and spelled the name as Dublin .
The common name for the city in Modern Irish is Baile Átha Cliath (meaning "town of the hurdled ford"). An early mention is the Táin Bó Cuailgne also known as The Cattle Raid of Cooley (with an incorrect etymology) Go Dublind rissa ratter Áth Cliath , or to Dublin, which is called Ath Cliath . Áth Cliath is a place-name referring to a fording point of the Liffey in the vicinity of Heuston Station. Dubh Linn was an early Christian monastery which is believed to have been situated in the area of Aungier Street currently occupied by Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church.
The subsequent Viking settlement was on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey, to the East of Christchurch, in the area known as Wood Quay. The Dubh Linn was a lake used by the Vikings to moor their ships and was connected to the Liffey by the Poddle. The Dubh Linn and Poddle were covered during the early 1700s, and as the city expanded they were largely forgotten about. The Dubh Linn was situated where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle.
History
Main article: History of DublinThe writings of the Greek astronomer and cartographer Ptolemy provide perhaps the earliest reference to human habitation in the area now known as Dublin. In around A.D. 140 he referred to a settlement he called Eblana Civitas . The settlement 'Dubh Linn' dates perhaps as far back as the first century BC and later a monastery was built there, though the town was established in about 841 by the Norse. The modern city retains the Anglicised Irish name of the former and the original Irish name of the latter.
Dublin was ruled by the Norse for most of the time between 841 and 999, when it was sacked by Brian Boru, the King of Cashel. Although Dublin still had a Norse king after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, Norse influence waned under a growing Celtic supremacy until the conquest of Ireland which was launched from Britain in 1169-1172. The last high king (Ard Rí) of Ireland was crowned in Dublin's Christ Church Cathedral in 1166.
In Ireland under Anglo-Norman rule, Dublin became the key centre of military and judicial power, with much of the power centering on Dublin Castle until independence. From the 14th to late 16th centuries, English crown control over Ireland was limited to a section of territory, known as the Pale, which included Dublin at its southern end, and Dundalk at its northern extremity. The Parliament was located in Drogheda for several centuries, but was switched permanently to Dublin after Henry VII conquered the County Kildare in 1504. The sacking of Drogheda, and massacre of her citizens, by Oliver Cromwell in 1649, resulted in Dublin becoming the dominant port city in Ireland.
Dublin also had local city administration via its Corporation from the Middle Ages. This represented the city's guild-based oligarchy until it was reformed in the 1840s on increasingly democratic lines.
From the 17th century the city expanded rapidly, helped by the Wide Streets Commission. Georgian Dublin was, for a short time, the second city of the British Empire after London and the fifth largest European city. Much of Dublin's most notable architecture dates from this time and is considered a golden era for the city. In 1759, the founding of the Guinness brewery at St. James's Gate resulted in a considerable economic impact for the city. For much of the time since its foundation, the Guinness brewery was the largest employer in the city but Catholics were confined to the lower echelons of employment at Guinness and only entered management level in the 1960s. After Irish independence the Guinness Corporate headquarters were moved to London in the 1930s to avoid Irish taxation and a rival brewery to Dublin was opened in London at Park Royal to supply the UK. In 1742 Handel's "Messiah" was performed for the first time in New Musick Hall in Fishamble Street with 26 boys and five men from the combined choirs of St.Patrick's and Christ Church cathedrals participating.
After 1800, with the seat of government moving to Westminster, Dublin entered a period of decline. Dublin was still the centre of administration and a transport hub for much of Ireland. Dublin played no major role in the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Ireland had no native source of coal, the fuel of the time, and Dublin was not a centre of ship manufacture, the other main driver of industrial development in Britain and Ireland. Belfast developed much faster than Dublin during this period on a mixture of international trade, factory-based linen cloth production and shipbuilding.
The Easter Rising of 1916 took place in several parts of the city, bringing much physical destruction to the city centre. The Anglo-Irish War and Irish Civil War contributed even more destruction, leaving some of its finest buildings in ruins. The Irish Free State government rebuilt the city centre and located the Dáil (parliament) in Leinster House.
The formation of the new state resulted in changed fortunes for Dublin. It benefitted more from independence than any Irish city, though it took a long time to become obvious. Through The Emergency (World War II), until the 1960s, Dublin remained a capital out of time: the city centre in particular remained at an architectural standstill, even nicknamed the last 19th Century City of Europe. This made the city ideal for historical film production, with many productions including The Blue Max and My Left Foot capturing the cityscape in this period. This became the foundation of later successes in cinematography and film-making. With increasing prosperity, modern architecture was introduced to the city, though a vigorous campaign started in parallel to restore the Georgian greatness of Dublin's streets, rather than lose the grandeur forever. Since 1997, the landscape of Dublin has changed immensely, with enormous private sector and state development of housing, transport, and business. (See also Development and Preservation in Dublin). Some well-known Dublin street corners are still named for the pub or business which used to occupy the site before closure or redevelopment.
Since the beginning of Anglo-Norman rule in the 12th century, the city has functioned as the capital of the island of Ireland in the varying geopolitical entities:
- the Lordship of Ireland (1171–1541)
- the Kingdom of Ireland (1541–1800)
- the island as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922)
- the Irish Republic (1919–1922),
From 1922, following the partition of Ireland, it became the capital of the Irish Free State (1922–1949) and now is the capital of the Republic of Ireland. One of the memorials to commemorate that time is the Garden of Remembrance.
In a 2003 European-wide survey by the BBC, questioning 11,200 residents of 112 urban and rural areas, Dublin was the best capital city in Europe to live in.
A person from either the city or county of Dubl
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