OUR heritage comes down to us in a most haphazard fashion. With the failure of the 1798 Rising, the British realised that Ireland could indeed be the soft spot for Napoleon, the “Green Linnet” of Irish history, to hit. So they decided on a major upgrade of the coastal defences right around these islands. The Defence of the Realm Act 1804, led to the building of some of the east coast’s most iconic buildings: the Martello towers.
More than 50 towers were built in Ireland, with 28 of them – mostly in line of sight of each other – dotted along the coast of the greater Dublin region. There were some 12 north of the Liffey as far as Balbriggan, and 16 on the south side out to Bray. About seven of the southside Martellos have been demolished, for one reason or another. Now the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has mounted an exhibition of the towers in Dún Laoghaire’s County Hall. The show is part of the council’s “Summer of Heritage 2011”, which runs until the beginning of September. There are also guided tours of many of the council’s historic sites and items, such as the Crimean War cannon on the East Pier, and the fabulous Oratory chapel (behind Bloomsfield shopping centre).
The Martello towers originated in Napoleon’s “backyard” – Mortella Point in Corsica. The original tower, which had resisted British naval shelling for some days, so impressed the British that they copied its design for their own use, misspelling it along the way as “Martello”. Each tower was about 40ft high, with walls up to 8ft thick at the base. The armament was an 18-pounder cannon which was mounted on a central pivot which allowed the gun easy movement in any direction. The entrance to each tower always faced away from the sea. With a garrison and gun crew of about 12 men they were, for their time, a reliable and comparatively inexpensive coastal defence system. Signalling was by flags (and by signal fires if the nights proved too dark).
The towers were not exactly five-star luxury, with living quarters, ammunition, powder and food supplies all together in a small area on several floors. The floor with the powder magazine was earthen, with a copper-plated door – to prevent sparks, which could have been disastrous for all the inmates if the gunpowder had blown up. Most of the Martellos in Ireland were built of local material: mainly of granite. However, in England, where 103 were built on the south-east coasts, many of them were actually of brick, with up to half-a-million bricks used in each tower.
As Napoleon didn’t attempt to land here, the towers were never really put to the test – in fact the only Martello tower ever “captured” in Ireland was one in Cork, captured in the Fenian Rising of 1867, by Capt Mackey. The tower atop the Millmount in Drogheda was shelled and knocked about quite a bit during the Civil War in 1922.
Today Ireland’s Martello towers are part of our history, and heritage.
The best known Martello tower is Joyce’s Tower in Sandycove, where James Joyce lived for a short while with Oliver St John Gogarty and Dermot (Samuel) Chenevix Trench during the summer of 1904. Gogarty had rented the tower from the British War Office for £8 a year. The tower and its then inhabitants feature prominently in the opening chapter of Ulysses. It is now a museum to James Joyce and has a variety of Joycean memorabilia on display.
In addition to the exhibition in County Hall, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has guided tours around one of its local Martello towers. This is at Seapoint, with the tours, which last about 45 minutes, several afternoons each week.
The tower itself, which is being renovated, has a floor space of about 1,300 square feetover two levels. Access to each floor is by spiral staircase which, had the French appeared on the horizon, would have been a busy spot as one would need to be pretty fit to move fast in its close confines. For the garrison in the 1800s, the Seapoint tower must have been a bleak place, as the nearest town was Dún Laoghaire, almost one mile away. Until the coming of the railway in the 1830s, there was little in the way of housing near the tower, and water had to be brought in, as it had no well nearby.
The guides bring the tour on to the parapet and roof of the tower, where there is a panoramic view of Dublin Bay. The city can be seen fully from this unusual angle, including the Aviva (once Lansdowne Road) stadium: as we discussed the city and the view, some of the nicknames for the shiny new stadium were mentioned: I put forward the “jellyfish” which I had heard it so described in Ringsend, while another name for it was the “bedpan”. Dublin wit is alive and well.