n 1809, Cornelius Moran, an officer of the sheriff of County Dublin, came to Lucan to execute a writ against a General Buchanan. Buchanan, however, did not want to be arrested and threatened to ‘Blow his brains out’ with a pistol before escaping through his window. Moran was stabbed by Buchanan in the window escape. He ran along a wall and jumped into the lands of a neighbour. Moran pursued. The neighbour, a Mr. Gandon, then became involved, hitting and tumbling Moran, who he took for a tresspasser or a thief. Moran ran. Gandon now gathered a mob of about 50 men and followed him, pelting him with stones. Another local, Sir John White, tried to calm the mob, but he could not. The mob followed Moran as far as the hill over Cursis Stream before the chase ended.
When I first read of this incident in an old volume of the Edinburgh Register from 1810, the words ‘Cursis Stream’ gave me pause. What was a ‘Cursis Stream’? That sent me on a little bit of sleuthing to uncover what I could about the name.
It is chilly but overcast as I walk over the footbridge from Liffey Valley towards the King’s Hospital. My destination today is not part of Lucan, however. When I started this series of rambles last April, the idea was to explore the 5km around where I live. As I leave the footbridge, I put my back to the gates to the King’s Hospital and continue along the old road from Dublin to the west of Ireland, walking towards the Deadman’s Inn.
This is a very ancient road. As far as I can tell, the Bianconi coaches would have passed this way on their route west in the 18th century. It has seen its fair share of travelers over the years. It’s a much more peaceful road now, the N4 mere meters away, a modern road made to take the modern traffic.
Legend has it that somewhere in the distant past, a battle was fought between the Irish and the Danes at a place called Irishtown – a place that is not far from the current setting of the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre. A small local stream flowed from there through the area where I am now walking, joining the Liffey a little further north. The waters ran deep red with blood from the battle. In the Dúchas schools collection, there are two versions of this story. One says that a gentleman approached the river on horseback soon after. Another says it was a priest. In both versions, their horse becomes spooked by the colour of the water and refused to cross it. The man, frustrated from the horse’s refusal, cursed the stream. It became known locally as ‘Cursis Stream’.
A small settlement grew up around it in the centuries that followed. More of a hamlet than a village. The road along which I walk towards the Deadman’s is one of the few connections with this area’s remote past. The Deadman’s itself is the second – the only surviving building from the disappeared hamlet that was Cursis Stream.
People still live here. There are quite a few striking houses along this road. However, their address, I believe, locates them in Palmerstown and not Cursis Stream. I can see the Deadman’s peeking out ahead of me. I have also been on the lookout for any evidence of an old well that was historically located on this road – but I have not seen any signs of it.
Before the Deadman’s, however, is the South Dublin County Council Road Maintenance Depot, which still uses the Cursis Stream name. I have often peered into this yard from the top deck of the bus, seeing stacks of placename signs awaiting their final placement.
In 1772, artist Gabriel Beranger visited Cursis Stream and painted Irishtown Castle. The castle, an old anglo-norman structure, was, by then in ruins. As far as I know, nothing of it exists today. However, in the Dúchas schools collection from 1938, they note that it was still in existence, the field in which it was located being locally known as the “Man of War”.
Unlike many of the areas I have visited on my rambles, Cursis Stream is the name of a particular location and not a townland. It is, rather, the place where four townlands met. It is here – roughly where the carpark of the Deadman’s is, that the townlands of Quarryvale, Yellow Walls, Palmerstown and Fonthill all met. Indeed, the gigantic quarry for which Quarryvale was named, stretched this far.
It does not take long at all for me to reach the Deadman’s Inn. It is open again now, having been closed for some time. Indeed, I have a vague recollection that I may once have played a gig in the old Deadman’s Inn some years back. The old pub building is, as it happens, the original pub building from 1702. It didn’t always carry the name of the Deadman’s Inn, however and was first called ‘Murrays’. The name change wouldn’t come until 1798, when the pub was a place where carriages would stop to change horses and let coach driver’s assistants take a break.
One night in 1798, a coach was carrying Lord Norbury home to Clane. Norbury was infamously known as the Hanging Judge. Indeed, it was Norbury who condemned Robert Emmet to death in 1803. As the coach approached Cursis Stream, the driver’s assistant began to feel very ill. The driver slowed the coach down and planned to stop it at the Inn where the assistant could receive treatment. Norbury, noting that the coach was slowing, ordered the driver to “Move on … or I’ll have ye flogged and hanged.” The driver, fearful of this powerful judge, complied. The assistant was pushed from the moving coach – presumably in the hope that he might be able to make it inside the Inn to seek help. His body, however, was found in the wee hours of the morning, and the Deadman’s Inn was named.
It is here that I end my ramble for the week, having found out a little more about two local enigmas – the naming of the Inn and the story of Cursis Stream.