Chester and Ireland

Chester was for many centuries the most important place by far in north-western England. That was largely due to its location at the crossroads of the British Isles, where routes from southern Britain led into north Wales and the Irish Sea. On many occasions Chester's role as the point of entry into the Irish Sea region for rulers based in the South and hence a route to Ireland, made it prominent in national affairs. The effect of the Irish trade on the history of Chester has been very significant on the development of the city.

Romans and Ireland
At the outset the Romans possibly selected the site for their fortress of Deva because of its potential as a port for an assault on Ireland, which they knew as Hibernia. The Roman historian Tacitus mentions that Gnaeus Julius Agricola, while governor of Roman Britain (AD 78 - 84), entertained an exiled (and unnamed) Irish prince, thinking to use him as a pretext for a possible conquest of Ireland. At about the same time, Juvenal (Satires 2.159–160) specifically tells us, Roman "arms had been taken beyond the shores of Ireland".

Neither Agricola nor his successors ever conquered Ireland, but in recent years archaeology has challenged the belief that the Romans never set foot on the island. Roman and Romano-British artefacts have been found primarily in Leinster, notably a fortified site on the promontory of Drumanagh, fifteen miles north of Dublin - perhaps the name of the fortified promontory itself holds clues as to its Roman origin: Drumanagh has as a possible root (D)ruman, a possible reference to Romans (however Gaelic "Droim Meánach" means "Ridge of Meanach", giving another explanation). In addition, a group of burials on Lambay Island, just off the coast near Drumanagh, contained Roman brooches and decorative metalware of a style also found in Roman Britain from the late first century (this could be invasion or trade).



There may be some connection between the un-named prince and a semi-mythical Irish king. Túathal Techtmar ("the legitimate"), was the son of Fíachu Finnolach, and himself a High King of Ireland according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition. He is said to be the ancestor of the Uí Néill (O'Neil) and Connachta (Connor) dynasties through his grandson "Conn of the Hundred Battles". Túathal is said to have been exiled from Ireland as a child, but to have returned, defeated the then king and waged extensive war. Both Roman sites at Drumanagh and Lambay are close to where the semi-mythical Túathal is supposed to have landed. Some other archaeological discoveries inside Ireland, including Roman jewellery and coins at Tara, the midland ritual complex, and at Clogher, further support the possibility of a Roman invasion of Ireland. It has been suggested that the distribution of Roman remains in Ireland fits well with the places associated with Túathal's campaign. The traditional date of his return is AD76-80.

Speculating somewhat, it is notable the the unique "Elliptical Building" in Chester bears some resemblance to the ritual structures at Tara, and comes from roughly the same period as the supposed invasion by Agricola and the presence of the "prince", who may (possibly) have been Túathal, in Britain. The lead pipe from the elliptic building is dated to AD 79 and Tacitus (Chapter 24) says that in AD 82 Gnaeus Julius Agricola "crossed the sea and defeated people hitherto unknown to the Romans". While he does not specify which sea they crossed (many scholars think that Tacitus refers to the Clyde or the Forth), it should be noted that after this statement, Tacitus writes only about Ireland for the remainder of the chapter, which suggests that the people he was referring to were, in fact, the Irish. There is no evidence that Túathal was actually in Chester, but it does seem to have a contender for Gnaeus Julius Agricola's "capital" and there is the remarkable co-incidence of dates:


 * AD79: Elliptical building lead pipe (stamped on it);


 * ~AD76-80: Túathal returns to Ireland (traditional);


 * AD82: Agricola "crosses the sea" (Tacitus);

In addition Tacitus mentions that Gnaeus Julius Agricola frequently said that Ireland could be conquered with "a single legion and a few auxiliary troops", which suggests the Romans expected some special advantage if they invaded Ireland. This could have been knowledge of local troop dispositions, geography and local rivalries, but could it also have been the presence on the Roman side of a credible claimant to the Kingship of Ireland? So could the Elliptical Building have been connected to this - a palace for a potential king, with a design similar to the ritual site at Tara and a fountain that must have seemed magical at the time? A bauble to show Túathal the advantage of being a client of Rome?

Even if there was no invasion there was almost certainly trade, as the geographer Ptolemy (c. AD 90 – c. 168) writing in the second century made a map of "Hibernia" with reasonably accurate data on rivers, mountains and people, thereby demonstrating some considerable knowledge of the island had been gained by that time.

The religious influence of the late Roman Empire involved the conversion to Christianity of many Irish people before the arrival of Saint Patrick in the century when the Western Roman Empire disappeared. The first reliable historical event in Irish history, recorded in the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine, is the ordination by Pope Celestine I of Palladius as the first bishop to Irish Christians in 431 - which demonstrates that there were already Christians living in Ireland, before Palladius or Patrick.

Vikings and Ireland
The Vikings (or Norsemen) began carrying out raids on Gaelic Ireland in the late eighth century, and over the following few decades they founded a number of settlements along the coast. Vikings first established themselves in Dublin in 838 when they built a fortified area, or longphort, there. During the tenth century, Viking Dublin developed into the Kingdom of Dublin — a thriving town and a large area of the surrounding countryside, whose rulers controlled extensive territories in the Irish Sea and, at one time, York.

In 902 the Vikings were thrown out of Dublin. As recorded in the Annals of Ulster:


 * "The heathens were driven from Ireland, i.e. from the fortress of Áth Cliath, by Mael Finnia son of Flannacán with the men of Brega and by Cerball son of Muiricán, with the Laigin; and they abandoned a good number of their ships, and escaped half dead after they had been wounded and broken."

Many of these Vikings settled elsewhere, including one group which eventually settled in the Wirral. Some historians have suggested that allowing the Vikings to settle in the Wirral was a strange decision. What may be relevant is that Æthelflæd's brother, Edward the Elder had other issues with the Vikings at the time. Becoming king was not straightforward for Edward. A cousin, Æthelwold, disputed the succession and seized the royal estates of Wimborne, symbolically important as the place where his father was buried, and Christchurch, both in Dorset. Edward brought an army to Dorset, but Æthelwold fled to Viking-controlled Northumbria, where he was accepted as king - although it is not clear whether he was accepted as "king of Northumbria" or simply recognised as having a claim to Wessex. No explanation can be offered as to how he came to be on apparently friendly terms with the Northumbrians. In 901 or 902 Æthelwold sailed with a fleet to Essex, where he was also accepted as king (again it is not clear of what). The following year Æthelwold persuaded the East Anglian Danes (Vikings) to attack Edward's territory in Wessex and Mercia.

At about the same time that Edward the Elder was involved in the succession dispute that the Hiberno-Norse exile Ingimund sought to settle near Chester. Ingimund was a Viking who had been expelled from Ireland and had attempted to settle in north Wales where he came into immediate conflict with the Welsh. According to the Welsh Annals, Ingimund came to Anglesey and held "Maes Osmeliaun", whilst the Welsh vernacular chronicle reports that Ingimund held "Maes Ros Meilon". The site itself appears to have been located on the eastern edge of Anglesey, perhaps near Llanfaes (effectively the later site of Beaumaris) if the aforesaid place names are any clue. Another possibility is that Ingimund was settled near Llanbedrgoch, where evidence of farming, manufacturing, and trading has been excavated at a Viking-age settlement. There is reason to suspect that the Llanbedrgoch site formed an aristocratic power centre, and that it may have originated as an informal Viking trading centre just prior to Ingimund's attempted colonisation. The centre itself could have provided an important staging post between the Welsh and other trading centres in the Irish Sea region. The conflict with the Vikings is well-attested in the Welsh records but Ingimund's subsequent move to the Wirral is only based on fragmentary evidence, in Irish Annals. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as usual, hardly mentions anything that the Mercians did.

There is no reason to suppose that the events on the Wirral and in East Anglia were related, but any arrangements reached with Ingamund could have been affected by the threat from Danes on two fronts, and the close timing of these two events is often overlooked by historians. The later fortunes of Ingamund's people is not entirely certain: there was a sizeable Scandinavian "ghetto" in the southern quarter of Chester later on, centred on the church of St Olave’s (the Norwegian king, Olaf Haraldsson, martyred in 1030), and it would appear that many of them settled down in the city as merchants, possibly giving rise to the Gloverstone enclave. Some may have returned to Dublin - in 917, Sitric Cáech and his kinsman Ragnall ua Ímair sailed separate fleets to Ireland where they won several battles against local kings. Sitric successfully recaptured Dublin and established himself as king. Over time, the settlers in Dublin became increasingly Gaelicized. They began to exhibit a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism, and are often referred to as Norse-Gaels.

In the 10th century the reoccupied fortress at Chester became the centre for attempts by English kings to dominate other rulers around the shores of the Irish Sea, notably in the carefully staged set-piece by which King Edgar demonstrated his overlordship by having them row him on the Dee from Edgar's Field in 973. Tribute in silver extracted from such rulers was turned into coin at Chester, whose mint was astonishingly prolific in the 10th century.

Late Anglo-Saxon age Ireland
In 1051 a civil war almost broke out in England. Godwin marched on Gloucester where Leofric of Chester was leading the kings forces but a war was averted when it was agreed that the Witan would sort out the dispute. The earls of Chester (Leofric) and Northumbria (Siward) remained loyal to Edward the Confessor and the Witan eventually declared that Earl Godwin and all his sons had five days to leave England. Godwin and his sons, Tostig and Gyrth, went to Flanders. Harold went to Ireland and spent the winter with Dermont, king of Leinster.

The following year Harold sailed from Dublin with nine ships, came ashore at Porlock in Somerset and plundered the neighbourhood. He then joined up with his father and brothers and sailed up the Thames. The King summoned the northern earls, and whilst Ralph (the timid) of Hereford and Odda responded, Leofric of Chester and Siward (of Northumbria) were noticeable by their absence. King Edward the Confessor was forced to seek terms.

Ælfgar, the son of Leofric, himself was (perhaps wrongly) banished around 1055, and also fled to Ireland, where, just like Harold, he also found forces to assist his return. Holinshead writes as follows:


 * About the same time K. Edward by euill counsell (I wot not vpon what occasion, but as it is thought without cause) banished Algar the sonne of earle Leofrike: wherevpon he got him into Ireland, and there prouiding 18 ships of rouers, returned, & landing in Wales, ioined himselfe with Griffin the king or prince of Wales, and did much hurt on the borders about Hereford, of which place Rafe was then earle, that was sonne vnto Goda the sister of K. Edward by hir first husband Gualter de Maunt. This earle assembling an armie, came forth to giue battell to the enimies, appointing the Englishmen contrarie to their manner to fight on horssebacke, but being readie (on the two & twentith of October) to giue the onset in a place not past two miles from Hereford, he with his Frenchmen and Normans fled, and so the rest were discomfited, whome the aduersaries pursued, and slue to the number of 500, beside such as were hurt and escaped with life. Griffin and Algar hauing obteined this victorie, entered into the towne of Hereford, set the minster on fire, slue seuen of the canons that stood to defend the doores or gates of the principall church, and finallie spoiled and burned the towne miserablie.

The rather hopeless defender of Hereford is known to history as "Ralph the timid". He was actually a Norman: Ralph de Mantes, Edward the Confessor’s nephew by his sister Goda. Ralph’s Norman-style English cavalry forces were destroyed, with Ralph earning the insulting nomenclature of ‘Timid’ for running away with his Norman retainers and leaving his men to be slaughtered. Having seen Hereford trashed King Edward raised an army and placed Harold Godwinson in command of it. Once again all-out civil war was avoided.

Normans and Ireland
It is thought that the Dublin-Leinster army in the 1014 Battle of Clontarf may have included troops from the Duchy of Normandy. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the Normans became aware of the role Ireland played in providing refuge and assistance to their enemies. They also contemplated the conquest of Ireland. It is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that if William the Conqueror had lived for two more years (until 1089) "he would have conquered Ireland by his prudence and without any weapons". William's son, William II, is stated as having said:


 * "For the conquest of this land, I will gather all the ships of my kingdom, and will make of them a bridge to cross over".[

Gruffudd ap Cynan (c. 1055 –1137), was King of Gwynedd from 1081 until his death in 1137. In the course of a long and eventful life, he became a key figure in Welsh resistance to Norman rule, and was remembered as King of all the Welsh and Prince of all the Welsh. Through his mother, Gruffudd had close family connections with the Norse settlement around Dublin and he frequently used Ireland as a refuge and as a source of troops. He three times gained the throne of Gwynedd and then lost it again, before regaining it once more in 1099 and this time keeping power until his death. Gruffudd laid the foundations which were built upon by his son Owain Gwynedd and his great-grandson Llywelyn the Great.

In the 1120s the historian Henry of Huntingdon regarded Chester's distinct attribute as being "near to the Irish" (not the Welsh). At the time, Gaelic Ireland was made up of several kingdoms, with a High King claiming lordship over most of the other kings. In May 1169, Anglo-Norman mercenaries landed in Ireland at the request of Diarmait mac Murchada (Dermot MacMurragh), the deposed King of Leinster, who sought their help in regaining his kingship. They achieved this within weeks and raided neighbouring kingdoms. This military intervention was sanctioned by King Henry II of England. In return, Diarmait had sworn loyalty to Henry and promised land to the Normans. The Norman invasion was a watershed in Ireland's history, marking the beginning of more than 800 years of direct English and, later, British, conquest and colonialism in Ireland.

In 1170, there were further Norman landings, led by the Earl of Pembroke, Richard "Strongbow" de Clare. The event is mentioned in the Annals of Chester for that year, together with the birth of Ranulf de Blondville. They seized the important Norse-Irish towns of Dublin and Waterford, and Strongbow married Diarmait's daughter Aoífe. Diarmait died in May 1171 and Strongbow claimed Leinster, which Diarmait had promised him. Led by High King Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair (Rory O'Conor), a coalition of most of the Irish kingdoms besieged Dublin, while Norman-held Waterford and Wexford were also attacked. However, the Normans managed to hold most of their territory.

In October 1171, King Henry II landed with a large army to assert control over both the Anglo-Normans and the Irish. This intervention was supported by the Roman Catholic Church, who saw it as a means of ensuring Irish religious reform, and a source of taxes. The 1175 Treaty of Windsor acknowledged Henry as overlord of the conquered territory and Ruaidrí as overlord of the remainder of Ireland, with Ruaidrí also swearing fealty to Henry. The Treaty soon collapsed: Norman lords continued to invade Irish kingdoms and the Irish continued to attack the Normans.

King John
Had all gone according to plan, King John would not be known as one of the worst kings ever to sit on the English throne. Less than a decade into the English invasion of Ireland, in 1177, King Henry II looked to reorganise his newest acquisition. The leader of that invasion, Richard fitz Gilbert (Strongbow), had died the previous year and the conquest threatened to falter. A new leader was needed, and Henry used the opportunity to provide for his youngest son, John ‘Lackland’. At a council at Oxford, Henry declared that the nine-year-old boy should be crowned king of Ireland. This decision was perhaps more about Angevin court politics than it was about the situation in Ireland, but it nevertheless began an association between John and Ireland that would span almost four decades. John had three surviving older brothers, one of whom had already been crowned king of England in order to secure his succession there, so in 1177 there was every indication that John and his descendants would rule an independent kingdom of Ireland.

Gerald of Wales was chosen to accompany John, in 1185, on his first expedition to Ireland. This was the catalyst for Gerald's literary career; his work Topographia Hibernica (first circulated in manuscript in 1188, and revised at least four times) is an account of his journey to Ireland; Gerald always referred to it as his Topography, though "history" is the more accurate term. He followed it up, shortly afterwards, with an account of Henry's conquest of Ireland, the Expugnatio Hibernica. Both works were revised and added to several times before his death, and display a notable degree of Latin learning, as well as a great deal of prejudice against foreign people. Gerald was proud to be related to some of the Norman invaders of Ireland, such as his maternal uncle Robert FitzStephen and Raymond FitzGerald, and his influential account, which portrays the Irish as barbaric savages, gives important insight into Cambro-Norman views of Ireland and the history of the invasion.

From the moment he set foot in Ireland in 1185, the seventeen-year-old John displayed a self-assured arrogance towards his intended subjects. Even Gerald understood the need for discretion in face-to-face dealings, and chastised John for his treatment of the previously loyal Irish kings who came to render him service. Gerald claims that John and his companions mocked the Irishmen’s "outlandish" dress and pulled their unfashionably long beards. True or not, the story is at least in keeping with the disregard for property rights, loyalty and diplomacy that John showed when dealing with the Irish. The would-be king alienated many of the island’s resident élites (Irish and English), lost most of his army in battle or through desertion, and limped back to England, uncrowned and penniless, less than eight months after his arrival. A golden crown set with peacock feathers reportedly arrived from Rome the following year — John had his belated papal approval

Norman Decline
The Black Death arrived in Ireland in 1348. Because most of the English and Norman inhabitants of Ireland lived in towns and villages, the plague hit them far harder than it did the native Irish, who lived in more dispersed rural settlements. After it had passed, Gaelic Irish language and customs came to dominate the country again. The English-controlled territory shrank to a fortified area around Dublin (the Pale), whose rulers had little real authority outside (beyond the Pale). By the end of the 15th century, central English authority in Ireland had all but disappeared. England's attentions were diverted by the Wars of the Roses. The Tudor reconquest of Ireland took place during the 16th century.

As long as the Dee remained navigable, Ireland was Chester's chief overseas trading partner, and as such the main source of Chester merchants' prosperity in the later Middle Ages and the 16th century. Although the early 16th century overseas trade at Chester with Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Brittany expanded, only merchants with a sizeable turnover could carry the heavy costs which arose from carriage from anchorages down the River Dee estuary and from high customs duties. The share of the port's trade controlled by Cestrians fluctuated. Dubliners dominated the Irish Sea trade, and there was strong competition for the rest of the overseas trade from English, Welsh, and Continental merchants. The involvement of the city's leading merchants appears to have ceased between the 1460s and the 1490s. Thereafter, however, their share increased until in the 1510s they were dominant. Such merchants, generally aldermen or common councillors, were engaged mainly in the Spanish trade but also maintained an interest in the Irish and coastal trade. In 1538-42, during Chester's trading zenith, 40-45 per cent of traders were Chester freemen. Most were probably only occasionally involved, and between 1500 and 1550 there were forty or so significant Chester merchants who shipped through the port. Their trade was predominantly in importing iron and wine and exporting hides and cloth, but few were specialists.

Elizabeth
Chester's political importance to the English Crown from the 1590s into the early 18th century arose because it was the main staging post on the route between the two capital cities: about 185 miles from London by road and 150 from Dublin by sea. However, one of the main difficulties of the last years of the rule of Queen Elizabeth was the war in Ireland which broke out in 1579. The crisis point of the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland came when the English authorities tried to extend their authority over Ulster and Aodh Mór Ó Néill, the most powerful Irish lord in Ireland. Though initially appearing to support the crown, Ó Néill engaged in a proxy war in Fermanagh and northern Connacht, by sending troops to aid Aodh Mag Uidhir lord of Fermanagh. This distracted the crown with military campaigns in the west while Tyrone consolidated his power in Ulster. Ó Néill openly broke with the crown in February 1595 when his forces took and destroyed the Blackwater Fort on the Armagh-Tyrone border. Later named the Nine Years War, Ó Néill focused his action in Ulster and along its borders, until Spanish promises of aid in 1596 led him to spread the conflict to the rest of Ireland.

Chester was the main port used for sending English troops levied in other parts of the country, who passed through the city frequently and in growing numbers. The mayor and other officials were often fully occupied with receiving them and arranging quarters, food, and money. Ships were requisitioned and provisioned, and supplies of food, drink, stores, and ammunition were sent to Ireland. The repeated demands strained local markets, especially during the shortages of the later 1590s: prices rose, ships' masters demanded large payments, disaffected men deserted in droves and were rarely captured, weapons were often found to be defective, moneys were embezzled, profiteering was rife, and Chester earned a reputation as a "robber's cave". Disorderly conduct was frequent, especially when troops were delayed by bad weather or lack of ships. To contain it, in 1594 the mayor erected a gibbet at the High Cross.

With the Irish victory at the Battle of the Yellow Ford, the collapse of the Munster Plantation, followed by the dismal vice-royalty of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the power of the Crown in Ireland came close to collapse. In October 1601 Spanish forces landed in Ireland. During the two years from early 1600 many reinforcements passed through Chester, the mayor received a stream of orders from the privy council, and there were further problems of supply and unruly behaviour.

Civil War
War in Ireland began again with the Irish Rebellion of 1641, when Irish Catholics rebelled against English Protestant rule. When news of the insurrection reached King Charles I, he and the English Parliament promised to send troops. It led to the 1641–1652 Irish Confederate Wars, part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, with up to 20% of the Irish population becoming casualties. The Confederation eventually sided with the Royalists in return for the promise of self-government and full rights for Catholics after the war. On 14 June 1645, Charles's main army was decisively beaten at the Battle of Naseby by the New Model Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax. The King then withdrew to Hereford, hoping for more reinforcements from Wales and Ireland.

During the early part of the Civil War Chester was in Royalist hands and was beseiged to an increasing extent. It is often said that Charles wished to keep Chester open as a port during the Civil War so that he could land troops from Ireland. The Confederates, in the context of the English Civil War, were divided over whether to send military help. Ultimately, they never sent troops to England, but did send an expedition to help the Scottish Royalists, sparking the Scottish Civil War. Whether landing Royalist troops from Ireland at Chester would ever have made any military sense in the larger-scale conduct of the war is doubtful. In November 1644, William Harris and partners were paid £833, 16 shillings and 11 pence to take Cheshire Cheese to Ireland – the first shipment of the Civil Wars to have had a named source. Previous shipments had just been called "cheese". In 1646–1650, there were cheese shipments from Chester and Liverpool to Dublin and Derry, which were presumably of Cheshire cheese.

In August 1649, a large English Parliamentarian army, led by Oliver Cromwell, invaded Ireland. It besieged and captured many towns from the Confederate–Royalist alliance. Cromwell's army massacred many soldiers and civilians after storming the towns of Drogheda and Wexford. The Confederate capital Kilkenny was captured in March 1650, and the Confederate–Royalist alliance was eventually defeated with the capture of Galway in May 1652. An officer claimed in 1650:


 * "Nothing is more certain than this, that in the late wars both Scotland and Ireland were conquered by timely provisions of Cheshire cheese and biscuit." (Swinburne, Dancing with Mermaids, 317, citing C. H. Firth 1992, Cromwell's Army, 3rd edition, 223.)

Confederates continued a guerrilla campaign until April 1653. This saw widespread killing of civilians and destruction of foodstuffs by the English army, who also brought an outbreak of bubonic plague.

Linen and Railways
Connexions with Ireland were again evident in the brief flourishing of linen imports in the later 18th century. For a short time by far the greatest share of trade at the fairs in Chester came to be linen. The linen trade had developed through Chester in the late 17th Century. By 1700 it reached 61,400 yards of imports (about 40 miles) and by the 1780's the trade reached its maximum of some five and a half million yards (over 3,000 miles) was imported. The first Linenhall had opened off Northgate Street in the 1740's, and a second, much larger Linenhall opened in 1778. However trade fell off equally quickly as English merchants becan to deal directly with the Irish, the Belfast-Liverpool route grew in importance over the Dublin-Chester route, cotton became cheaper and the River Dee continued to silt. In 1785 65.1% of the consignments despatched from Dublin were destined for England and 41% of those were consigned to Liverpool, with Chester only having 2% of the trade. By the 1830's the Linen trade was all but dead and even at it's peak the trade could not have done more than enrich a few rather rather than provide any lasting industry.

With the passing of the Act of Union in 1800, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, elected Irish members of the new United Kingdom Parliament sought the same quality of travel and postal facilities as their fellow members from England, Wales and Scotland. There was a regular, official postal service from London to Dublin via Holyhead, which later developed a mail-coach service that also carried passengers. By 1819, this normally left London at 8pm and arrived in Dublin, favourable winds permitting, early evening two days later. Improvements continued slowly, and by the time Thomas Telford had completed his A5 road with improvements through Shrewsbury, Llangollen, Betws-y-coed to Bangor in 1819, and his Menai Suspension Bridge in 1826, the London to Holyhead journey by road and ship was down to under 30 hours. Chester's Grosvenor Bridge was to a large part a response to Telford's A5 route and the percieved threat to the historic Irish trade through Chester.

During the late 1830's there was much discussion of the possible route of an improved rail and sea communication with Dublin. The proposed, competing routes were:


 * By rail from London to Chester (via Rugby), and then onwards by rail through Flint, Conway and Bangor to Holyhead, where the small existing port would need improvement. Apart from a few short sections (near the Great Orme, for example) the railway would run along a flat coastal strip from Chester to Bangor, and few tunnels would be needed. This was largely a traditional route from Chester to Angelsey, used by the Romans and various Norman and later English invaders over the centuries.


 * By rail from London to Shrewsbury, and thence up the valley of the upper River Dee and through hills and mountains to Llangollen, Corwen, Bala, Barmouth, Portmadoc and Porth Dinllaen (near Nefyn). From the latter there would be a sea-crossing to Dublin. While a shorter rail route, this would have been the most expensive to build due to the terrain. A similar railway line was later built, but only survives in part today. The great advocate of Porth Dinllaen was Henry Archer, Secretary of the Ffestiniog Railway Company, who engaged the services of Charles Vignoles to survey the route in 1835.


 * London to Liverpool by rail, and then by sea to Dublin. This would have involved the longest sea-crossing and the Irish Sea crossing was both notorious in poor weather and needed pilotage from Holyhead into Liverpool.


 * Via Gloucester and New Quay in Cardigan Bay - a route favoured by Brunel.

Fortunately for Chester, the route chosen was that along the north Wales coast. The Chester and Holyhead Railway was thus conceived to improve transmission of Government dispatches between London and Ireland, as well as ordinary railway objectives. Its construction was hugely expensive, chiefly due to the cost of building the Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Strait. The company had relied on Government support in facilitating the ferry service, and this proved to be uncertain. The first Irish Mail was operated by the London & North Western Railway on 1 August 1848. As the Britannia Bridge had yet to be completed, the first services terminated at Bangor and recommenced at Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. The company opened its main line throughout in 1850: at a half-yearly shareholders' meeting in March 1850, it was stated that the Britannia Bridge had cost £674,000, three times Stephenson's estimate. The Holyhead station was more than a mile from the pier, and the line was extended to reach it much later, in 1851. It operated twice daily in each direction, although this was reduced to daily during World War II. For many Irish migrants, the Irish Mail route to Euston proved a depressing introduction to England. Reardon Connor recalled in "A Plain Tale from the Bogs" (1937) how


 * "From Chester onwards there is nothing but flatlands and sights of industry, mine-tops, slag heaps, fields of green that seem sickly after the emerald grass of Ireland, cows of a colour and shape never seen on the other side of the Irish Sea, wagon-loads of coal, poultry farms, and very rarely the sight of even a low hill"

On the night of 23 May 1970, a fire took hold in the Britannia Bridge. The fire was very severe, and so intense that the main tubes buckled and were unusable. The line had to be closed at that point. A new bridge superstructure was designed, capable of carrying rail and road traffic on separate levels; it was a braced arch structure, using the original foundations. The crossing was reopened to rail traffic on 30 January 1972, and to road traffic in 1980

Famine
The Roman Catholic presence in the city from the mid 19th century was very largely of Irish origin. Irish migration to Chester peaked in the mid 19th century and then declined somewhat: in 1851, in the immediate wake of the Potato Famine, some 7 per cent of Cestrians were Irish-born, accounting for about 2,000 people, but by 1901 the level had fallen to 3 per cent (though of a considerably larger total population), and in 1991 stood at about 2 per cent. In the 2011 census 1% of the pubpulation of Chester described themselves as Irish.

The position of the Irish poor in England was complicated by the provisions of the Poor Law. This was largely aimed at settled poor rather than vagrants or refugees and was initially administered via the church.

The main Irish district in the city throughout the 19th century was around Steven Street in Boughton, while Irish people were always to be found elsewhere in Chester, they were not quite confined in a ghetto. Father John Briggs stated in The Chester Courant in 1847 that there were 469 Irish people living in Steven Street alone, most of them sleeping three to a bed and sometimes only on straw. On 14 February 1847 the Chronicle reports over 300 destitute Irish are relieved with soup, coal and money from Father Carberry and his Charity. The newspaper notes these:


 * "unfortunate and starving creatures were huddled up in large numbers in very confined and filthy dwellings"

Another description makes this community "poor, riotous, tight-knit and happy". In December 1880, Irish children were given tickets entitling them to free meals at the Town Hall, and at one point clogs were handed out, because so few of them had adequate footwear.

An almost comically abortive Fenian plot against Chester Castle took place in 1867. Their plan was that around 2,000 men would infiltrate Chester and, under American-Irish command (by officers with experience in the American Civil War), seize a cache of rifles belonging to the Chester Volunteers. These arms would be used to storm the castle, at that time garrisoned by only 60 regular soldiers of the 54th Regiment. The castle arsenal contained 10,000 rifles and 900,000 rounds of ammunition, which the Fenians hoped to obtain. Once armed, the plan was to commandeer a train, take the arms to Holyhead, seize a streamer, sail to Wexford and raise a revolt in Ireland. The plan was discovered and thwarted on the eve of its proposed execution.

Related Pages

 * Vikings;
 * Portpool;

Online

 * King John and Ireland;
 * John's first expedition to Ireland;
 * Irish Maritime Trade in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in Patterns of Trade, Market Structures, and Merchant Communities;