Croppies' Acre

Croppies' Acre
The Croppies' Acre, with Collins Barracks behind.
Croppies' Acre
TypeMunicipal
LocationWolfe Tone Quay, Dublin 7
OSI/OSNI gridO 141 344
Coordinates53°20′51″N 6°17′14″W / 53.347464°N 6.287136°W / 53.347464; -6.287136
Area1.8 hectares (4.4 acres)
Operated byDublin City Council
StatusOpen all year

The Croppies' Acre (Irish: Acra na gCraipithe[1]), officially the Croppies Acre Memorial Park, is a public park in Dublin, Ireland. It contains a memorial to the dead of the 1798 Rebellion.[2][3][4]

Location and access

The site, located on the north bank of the River Liffey to the south of Collins Barracks (formerly the Royal Barracks) is traditionally believed to have been used as a mass grave for Irish rebel casualties of the 1798 Rebellion.[5][6] There is a low limestone retaining wall along Benburb Street at the northern end of the park, with an entrance of square cut limestone piers with double wrought-iron gates. The eastern boundary is also limestone with granite caps, with the western end meeting redbrick buildings. At the south-east corner is the main entrance.[7]

History

The Irish rebel casualties of 1798 were known as Croppies due to their short-cropped hair emulating the revolutionaries in the French Republic.[7] It was also called Croppies' Hole at the time.[5][6] Some rebels' bodies were also exhibited at the Croppies' Hole, tied to pikes.[8]

The National Graves Association maintains that it was also used after 1798 to bury veterans of the conflict, including Matthew Tone, brother of Wolfe Tone.[9] Bartholomew Teeling was also supposedly buried at Croppies' Acre after being hanged at Provost Prison, Arbour Hill.[10] However, archaeological investigations have failed to find any human remains and its status as a grave is uncertain.[11][12] The precise site of the burials was long disputed, all being known was that the dead had been buried on marshy ground near the Royal Barracks. Other reports mentioned that the corpses of the executed were thrown into the Liffey as a public deterrent; the river being tidal at this point. In addition, the River Liffey was realigned in this area to extend the city's quays. The supposed "Croppies' Acre" was for a long time a soldiers' playing field[13] and was also known as the Esplande when it was reconfigured and used as a food kitchen around the 1850s.[7]

Redevelopment as a park

The Memorial Park was designed and laid out in 1998 for the bicentenary of the 1798 Rebellion. This followed a "Save the Croppies Acre" campaign from the National Graves Association when rumours the area would be paved to provide parking for the then new National Museum of Ireland sited at Collins Barracks were circulated in the press.[7]

During the redevelopment, a monument was constructed in the eastern section of the park of a spiral stone wall, with the stone slabs designed to represent graves. Some of the stones are engraved with patterns or words including words from Seamus Heaney's poem Requiem for the Croppies.[7]

Along the boundary with Wolfe Tone Quay, there is a row of mature London plane trees, withe younger Norway maple along the eastern boundary.[7]

It was closed in 2012 by the Office of Public Works due to anti-social behaviour, including drunkenness and the use of hard drugs. Ownership was transferred to Dublin City Council and the Croppies' Acre was reopened in 2016[14] and reopened by Lord Mayor Críona Ní Dhálaigh. Before the reopening, further paths and landscaping improvement works were undertaken along with improving pedestrian access to the park.[7]

Croppies Memorial Park

There is the larger Croppies' Acre, and a secondary smaller, triangular park near the Frank Sherwin Bridge called Croppies Memorial Park, bounded by Wolfe Tone Quay, Benburb Street, and Temple Street West. It is also maintained by Dublin City Council, with the parks separated by the Dublin Civil Defence Headquarters.[7]

This half an acre plot first appears on maps in 1838, and was sold by the Wide Streets Commission to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests in 1843. It was transferred to the OPW in 1860, and in the mid-twentieth century, Dublin Corporation took over the site during road improvement works associated with the construction of the Frank Sherwin Bridge. The site had been previously known as the Crimean Trophy Plot and hosted granite gun platforms displaying Russian cannons and ammunition seized during the Crimean War. These remained there until 1970, when the park was redeveloped alongside the bridge construction.[7]

During the redevelopment, the walls and railings were repaired and a large water feature was created in the centre of the plot with flood lighting. The water feature was formed from six slices of granite from two large boulders fixed to granite columns from the demolished mansion at St Anne's Park, Clontarf. The works cost £30,000 and the water feature cost £7,000, which was donated by the Dublin Chamber of Commerce to mark their bicentenary. The park, then named the Croppies Memorial Park due to its proximity to the Croppies Acre, was officially opened in 1984. The Anna Livia sculpture was added to the park in 2011.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Acra na gCraipithe/Croppies' Acre". Logainm.ie.
  2. ^ Collins, Peter (2019). Who Fears to Speak of '98'?: Commemoration and the Continuing Impact of the United Irishmen. Ulster Historical Foundation. ISBN 978-1903688236 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ Beiner, Guy (2018). Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198749356 – via Google Books.
  4. ^ Collins, James T. (28 January 1978). "Life in Old Dublin". Tower Books – via Google Books.
  5. ^ a b "Selection of Reports and Papers of the House of Commons: State of Ireland ; [1]". 28 January 2019 – via Google Books.
  6. ^ a b Collins, James T. (1978). "Life in Old Dublin". Tower Books – via Google Books.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Boylan, Christy (2024). The Park and Gardens of Dublin. Dublin: Eastwood Books. pp. 289–292. ISBN 9781913934149.
  8. ^ Forché, Carolyn; Wu, Duncan (2014). Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English, 1500–2001. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393347661 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ Fitzgerald, Cormac (14 June 2016). "1798 Rebellion memorial park that closed due to anti-social behaviour will reopen today". TheJournal.ie.
  10. ^ "A shocking picture from the Croppies Acre memorial". 11 October 2013.
  11. ^ Larkin, Laura (8 June 2016). "DCC report places question mark over Croppies Acre 'burial ground'". Herald.ie.
  12. ^ Falvey, Deirdre. "National Museum to unveil plans for major revamp". The Irish Times.
  13. ^ McNally, Frank (2019). 111 Places in Dublin that you must not miss. Emons Verlag. ISBN 978-3960410263 – via Google Books.
  14. ^ "Croppies stand up – An Irishman's Diary about reclaiming a Dublin park". The Irish Times.
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