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harbour, rail and telegraph: the post office and communication in nineteenth-century dublin Frank Cullen Key words: communication, harbours, railways, telegraph, post office. The nineteenth century has been described as being ‘dramatically different from preceding centuries’.2 This difference is clearly evident when examining the theme of towns and communication. In the medieval town, communication was defined by the street layout and the location of public spaces such as the market place and city gates. In the nineteenth century it was altogether different. The dissemination of newspapers and letters through the mail service in the early part of the century was augmented in the later part by the transmission of coded signals along electro-magnetic currents. As the main facilitator for this large-scale dissemination of information, the Post Office provided a vital stimulus for the development of urban communication infrastructure , as will be demonstrated in the present study of nineteenth-century Dublin. By encouraging improvements to maritime, rail and telecommunication services to, from, and within the city of Dublin, the Post Office played a key role in shaping the ground plan of this city between 1800 and 1900. The new technologies behind these developments were the inventions of steam and electricity, and the main motivating factor, the acceleration of the mail service between the two capitals of London and Dublin. This article is primarily concerned with the changing role of the Post Office in influencing these developments, and with the ultimate effects of these developments on the urban landscape. 1 Much of what follows originates from Francis J. Cullen, ‘Local government and the management of urban space: a comparative study of Belfast and Dublin, 1830-1922’ (Ph.D., thesis, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2005). 2 L. M. Cullen, “Establishing a communications system: news, post and transport”, in: Brian Farrell (ed.), Communications and community in Ireland, Dublin and Cork: Mercier 1984, p. 18. 173 the post office and steam communication - While other factors influenced the development of communication infrastructure between the two capitals (the transportation of passengers was also of major importance ), it was the lucrative contract for the carriage of the mail that provided the most important incentive for the shipping companies involved in the early part of the century. 3 The Post Office invested early in the fastest ships, which by the 1820s were powered by steam. The subsequent appearance of these larger and faster vessels making more frequent crossings and demanding improved quayside accommodation , in addition to the existing fleets of sailing vessels still thronging the harbours, all contributed considerably to the increasing burden on cross-channel traffic. The result of this was the construction and development of new and existing harbours in and around the bay of Dublin. Throughout the nineteenth and part of the eighteenth century, trade in the main port of Dublin had been hindered by the presence of a large sand bank known as the ‘Dublin Bar’. This large mass of silt stretched across the entire entrance to the harbour in the form of a hook (Figure 1).4 Because Dublin Port was tidal, water became dangerously shallow across the ‘bar’ at low tides. As a result, packet ships5 were unable to enter or leave for at least twelve out of every twenty-four hours, while those already in were forced to lie aground at ebb tides awaiting sufficient water depth. As sailing times during the first half of the nineteenth century depended largely upon irregular tides, such circumstances produced ‘great variation and consequent inconvenience in the time of dispatching the mail from Dublin to Holyhead’.6 For this reason the packet station for the Dublin mail at the beginning of the nineteenth century had been located at the Pigeon House Harbour, some distance outside the city (Figure 1). Located just inside the main harbour walls, this harbour within a harbour was built so as to dispense with the costly inconvenience of having to ferry passengers to and from vessels lying in anchorage in mid-channel. With the increase in vessel size and traffic in the second decade of the nineteenth century, facilities at the Pigeon House Harbour had become inadequate. Not only were vessels exposed to high winds, but so also were the passengers travelling along the poorly-lit and dangerous road leading 3 Also of importance was the transportation of troops and livestock. 4 “Our harbour and its improvements”, in: Irish Builder, 1 June 1879, p. 163. 5 Throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the term ‘packet ship’ was...

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