History of Mud Island, by Weston St. John Joyce
Westward of the North Strand, between Nottingham Street and Newcomen Bridge, and extending as far as Ballybough Road, was a locality of evil repute in former times, known as Mud Island, inhabited by a gang of smugglers, highwaymen, and desperadoes of every description, and ruled by a hereditary robber chief rejoicing in the title of “King of Mud Island.” For about 200 years down to the middle of last century, this den of robbers was a plague spot in the district, enjoying an extraordinary immunity from molestation in consequence of what had at length come to be regarded as a sort of prescriptive right and sanctuary attaching to the locality, until at last no officer of the law durst show his nose within its sacred precincts unless backed up by an overwhelming force of military or police.
The settlement of Mud Island is said to have originated at the time of the Plantation of Ulster, when three brothers, driven out of their ancestral patrimony, came southwards and settled in the neighbourhood of Dublin, one of them taking up his abode by the sea here on what was then a waste tract of land, to which his descendants by virtue of long occupation, in time acquired a squatter’s title. Then and for long afterwards, open country intervened between this place and the city, the North Strand was under water, and a rough bridle track extended along the shore some distance eastward of BallyboughRoad, which was, until the building of Annesley Bridge in the highway to Malahide, Howth, and Clontarf. In the course of time as the population of the colony increased, a considerable village of mud cabins grew up, and some of the inhabitants even departed so far from professional etiquette as to engage occasionally in honest occupations, such as carting sand, &c., when there was insufficient business in their own 5pecial line to go round.
At the time of its colonisation, Mud Island was no doubt, as its name indicates, an island off the slob lands along the estuary of the Liffey, and probably accessible on foot at low water from the shore.
A hundred years ago, it was so usual an occurrence to find a dead body in one of the lanes or alleys of “The Island,” that it occasioned little or no comment, and if any of the “islanders” had the bad taste to mention the matter, he would be told significantly - “‘Tis a wise man that never saw a dead one.” The murdered persons were usually excisemen, bailiffs, or other limbs of the law, but be the victim who he might, the murderers were rarely brought to justice.
In the early part of last century this was a favourite landing place for smuggled goods, the contraband vessels usually lying out in Clontarf Pool or the Poolbeg; then, when night had fallen and the way was signalled clear, boats were run ashore under Annesley Bridge to what was called “The Little Sea,” between the Tolka and Fairview Strand, for at that time the road from Annesley Bridge to Fairview Corner was an elevated causeway, with the sea on both sides, and Fairview Strand really deserved its name. Encounters between the smugglers and the preventive men were frequent, not unusually attended with loss of life and even so recently as 1850, smuggling was carried on in a desultory way in this neighbourhood, although the presence of the police barrack at Fairview was a serious obstacle to the operations.
A reference to the newspapers of the 18th century will furnish ample evidence of the extraordinary lawlessness of this neighbourhood - a condition of affairs which seems to have been acquiesced in if not actually connived at by the authorities, notwithstanding the fact that murders, robberies and outrage5 of every description were of constant occurrence.
(Thanks to “The Neighbourhoods of Dublin” by Weston St. John Joyce - originally published in 1909 - for this information.)
