River Dargle
The River Dargle rises in the Wicklow Mountains and runs down to the sea at Bray.
The name of the river is from the Irish An Deargail, meaning "Little red spot"; it is believed that this is a reference to the prevailing tint of its rocks.
The source of the River Dargle is on the northern slopes of Djouce Mountain. Frim here it flows down and over the highest waterfall in Ireland, falling 398 feet over the Powerscourt Waterfall on the Powerscourt Estate.
Below Powerscourt, the Dargle flows through the Glencree Valley where it is fed by the River Glencree. Below this, it runs east for a further eight miles to be joined by a small tributary, the Swan River,, which enters the Dargle opposite the People's Park in Little Bray. Half a mile later, the Dargle reaches the Irish Sea in Bray Harbour.
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The Battle of Bloody Bank
In August 1402, the O'Byrne clan settled a large mercenary army, composed mainly of their relatives, the O'Meagher clan, at the Dargle near Bray. The authorities in Dublin received advance warning of the intended raid from the Walsh family of Carrickmines, whose lands stood directly in the path of the mercenary army. Led by John Drake, who was three times Lord Mayor of Dublin, the citizens of Dublin and the Walsh clan together scored a decisive victory over the O'Byrnes and O'Meaghers on the banks of the Dargle, which action is commemorated as the Battle of Bloody Bank. The slaughter was terrible – one estimate puts the death toll at four thousand, although this was probably an exaggeration – so that the area became known as Bloody Bank, until it was renamed in the nineteenth century as Sunny Bank. The outcome greatly improved the security of Dublin, and seriously weakened the power of the O'Byrne clan.[1]
In literature and in popular culture
Sir Walter Scott visited the area in 1825 and mistakenly assumed that Dargle was the name for any glen hereabouts. He used the word in his novel Redgauntlet seven years later: Glen, nor dargle, nor mountain, nor cave, could hide the puir hill-folk.[2]
About 1838 the eminent judge Philip Cecil Crampton, who lived at St Valery House, by the Dargle, became a supporter of the temperance movement: to show his fidelity to the cause, he emptied the entire contents of his wine cellar into the river.[3]
The folk song Waxies' Dargle makes an indirect reference to the river. Non-religious holidays in Dublin, especially tradesmen's days off, were traditionally referred to as a "Dargle Days", from the habit of the Irish upper classes of travelling off to the banks of the Dargle, to picnic and engage in field sports such as tennis, on such days. The "Waxie's Dargle", on the other hand, is a humorous reference to the annual outing of the Dublin shoe-makers and repairers (who were known as "Waxies", from their practice of periodically running a ball of wax along the string as they stitched) to Irishtown on the River Dodder.[4][5]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about River Dargle) |
- Location map:53°12’31"N, 6°6’9"W
- Dargle River River Guide
References
- ↑ O'Byrne, Dr. Emmett: 'O'Byrne promised to be loyal to the King': The Irish Independent 18 April 2012
- ↑ Notes and Queries, January–June 1898
- ↑ Ball, F. Elrington: 'The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921' (John Murray, 1926) Vol. 2 p.282
- ↑ Share, Bernard: 'Slanguage, A Dictionary of Irish Slang' (Gill and McMillan, 1997 and 2005) ISBN 0-7171-3959-X
- ↑ Quidnunc; An Irishman's Diary in The Irish Times 9 October 1933, page=4
