In those days Chapelizod was about the gayest and prettiest of the
outpost villages in which old Dublin took a complacent pride. The
poplars which stood, in military rows, here and there, just showed a
glimpse of formality among the orchards and old timber that lined the
banks of the river and the valley of the Liffey, with a lively sort of
richness. The broad old street looked hospitable and merry, with steep
roofs and many coloured hall-doors. The jolly old inn, just beyond the
turnpike at the sweep of the road, leading over the buttressed bridge by
the mill, was first to welcome the excursionist from Dublin, under the
sign of the Phoenix. There, in the grand wainscoted back-parlour, with
'the great and good King William,' in his robe, garter, periwig, and
sceptre presiding in the panel over the chimneypiece, and confronting
the large projecting window, through which the river, and the daffodils,
and the summer foliage looked so bright and quiet, the Aldermen of
Skinner's Alley--a club of the 'true blue' dye, as old as the Jacobite
wars of the previous century--the corporation of shoemakers, or of
tailors, or the freemasons, or the musical clubs, loved to dine at the
stately hour of five, and deliver their jokes, sentiments, songs, and
wisdom, on a pleasant summer's evening.
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