View in Phoenix Park. This image appears in “Dublin Illustrated,” the magazine’s article on Ireland’s capital city. Source: The Graphic 57-58 (17 August 1878): 173. Click on image to enlarge it.
Commentary from The Graphic
Although it does not possess the tall and ancient trees which give so much beauty to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, the Phoenix Park is considered by many to be the fairest and grandest of all enclosures of the kind in the British islands. It lies to the west of Dublin, and covers the enormous space of 1,753 acres; of these 160 are occupied with the demesne surrounding the Viceregal Lodge. Ethnologists tell us that the name “Phoenix "is derived from the Irish word “Finniske” — “a spring of clear water." This term, which may be intended as a figurative description of this salubrious rendezvous, in process of time has been corrupted into Phoenix, and this name has been the more lastingly ensured to the Park by Lord Chesterfield, who, when Lord-Lieutcnant, erected therein a Corinthian pillar of Portland stone, on the abacus of which there is a neatly chiselled Phoenix, represented as if fluttering forth from the flames surrounding it.
No one can penetrate so far into the Park without perceiving the extraordinary beauties which the scene is embellished. No park in the immediate vicinity of London can boast of possessing a drove of deer; yet here, on all aides, short-horned antelopes, with skin pf black and dun colour, are browsing on emerald grass or gracefully skipping at lightning speed amidst the trees. Not to far distant as to appear even separated from the Park, sweeping upwards, till they reach almost to the blue clouds are the Dublin mountains. From no point of the metropolis but this is the long range of the I Dublin mountains to imposing, and in all weather their grandeur is apparent. When good Queen Bess directed that a park should be made here, a design not completed till Charles II was on the throne, the deer and the mountains were the staple attractions; hut the work of later generations has added to the features for which it is now more famous. The Viceregal Lodge, originally the mansion of the Park Ranger, Mr. Clements, has, since the Union, been the summer palace of the Viceroy. It is a long white, two-storied building, and though insignificant in stature, contains apartments sufficiently numerous and capucious for the assemblage of a Court. Not many hundred yards from the Viceregal residence is that of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, which is also also surrounded by a demesne. In the PhoenixPark are also residences and buildings for the use of the Ranger, the Royal Hiberian Military School, the Head-quarters of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the Ordnance and Trigometrical Survey Department o Ireland.
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Bibliography
“Dublin Illustrated.” The Graphic (17 August 1878): 169-81. Internet Archive online version of a copy in the University of Illinois Library. Web. 14 August 2018.
Last modified 13 August 2018