Falkiner — The Phoenix Park, its Origin and early History . 473 



have been given up to members of the Lord Lieutenant's staff, and in 

 1719 was in the occupation of an official called the Gentleman of the 

 Horse. ^ It was still standing when, in 1734, the Duke of Dorset 

 directed the provision of a powder magazine in such part of the Phoenix 

 Park as might seem most proper for the purpose, and the Lords 

 Justices, with that carelessness of historical associations by which the 

 eighteenth century is unhappily distinguished, having fixed on the 

 ground occupied by the old Phoenix House and stables as the most 

 suitable spot, theYiceroy gave orders for the demolition of the buildings. 

 Thus the handsome Jacobean mansion became a thing of the past, and 

 the magazine and fort, whose erection evoked the last satiric spark 

 emitted by Swift's expiring intellect, has ever since occupied the site 

 of His Majesty's House of the Phoenix.^ 



The Duke of Ormond was appointed Lord Lieutenant in November 

 of 1661, the administration having been previously confided to Lords 

 Justices. But the interminable difficulties besetting the impossible task 

 of devising an act of settlement which should reconcile the contending 

 claims of the successive grantees of the forfeited lands of Ireland 

 delayed his arrival in Ireland until the following July. Immediately 

 on his appointment Ormond communicated with Sir Maiuice Eustace, 

 the Irish Chancellor and one of the Lords Jiistices, as to the most 

 fitting place for the Yieeregal abode, and Eustace recommending the- 

 Phoenix as a pleasant summer dwelling-house, which, moreover, was 

 in the near neighbourhood of his own seat at Chapelizod, the Yiceroy 

 gave directions for its enlargement, and on his arrival took up his 

 residence there. ^ 



Pre-occupied with weightier matters, Ormond's correspondence in 

 1662 throws no light on the circumstances in which the project for 

 forming the Park originated, but there can be little doubt that it was 

 in the neighbouily intercourse between Yiceroy and Chancellor that 

 the suggestion of a deer-park near the Yieeregal residence was first 

 mooted. Eustace had already spent a long life mostly in official 

 harness. Appointed Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, with 

 the approval of Strafford, in 1634, he had the address to hold that 

 office through the stormy times that followed until the advent of 

 Cromwell involved him in misfortunes which culminated in a seven 



^Estimate of repairs, Oct. 7, 1719, British Departmental Con-., Irish Eecord 

 Office. 



2 Duke of Dorset to the Lords Justices, 8th Oct., 1734, Irish Record Office. 

 =* Orrery's " State Letters," vol. i., p. 62. 



