08 April 2016

An early morning start in
the Hermitage in Lucan

The Hermitage Medical Clinic … overlooks the Liffey Valley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Over the last eight or ten years, I have been through the doors of most hospitals in Dublin, public and private.

I had an early morning start this morning with a visit to the Hermitage Medical Clinic, a 101-bed private hospital in Lucan, West Dublin. It is a teaching hospital of the Royal College of Surgeons, but my visit this morning was very different from my visit to the RCSI earlier this week for the ‘Surgeons and Insurgents’ exhibition on the Easter Rising of 1916.

Having taken a series of refresher courses last month on chaplaincy care, including the role of chaplains in hospitals, it was interesting to find myself as the patient instead today.

The clinic stands in the Liffey Valley, on grounds that slope down to the river, between the Hermitage Golf Club and the grounds of the King’s Hospital school.

The clinic and the golf club take their name Hermitage from folklore and the local story of the Five Knights and the beautiful maiden. The story tells of a knight and a maiden who eloped on horseback. The story says they were pursued by four gallant knights, also on horseback, who overtook the couple at the Hermit’s Cell.

A fight to the death ensued.

The maiden’s choice excelled as a swordsman, but the other four were equally brave. Four duels were fought in succession by the runaway knight. But at the end of the fourth encounter, five gallant knights lay dead on the emerald green sward. All five were buried nearby and from their graves sprang five lime trees that still cast their shadows over the waters of the River Liffey below.

The maiden was buried there too, but the lone slender whitethorn tree that marked her grave has long disappeared.

Another version of the story says the first knight was rejected by the maiden’s father and became a recluse in the cell at the Hermitage, but emerged in time to rescue her from an enforced and unhappy marriage.

In the chase, the suitor, rejected by the father, was pursued by five knights. Four were fell to the hermit’s sword-craft and the fifth failed in courage.

The only published version of this story is found in a rhyming ballad published in 1899. According to the ballad, the gallant hermit was revived in the hermit’s cell where he was nursed back to life by the maiden, who crossed to the Hermitage in a shepherd’s humble boat that “darts into a little creek”:

And ever in perpetual youth, they haunt the lovely dell,
All safe from foe or mortal ill, protected from a spell.
Nor doomed alone to human state, they various forms assume:
Perchance the cushat’s note is theirs, perchance with owlet’s plume
They flutter ’midst the noble limes, by Liffey’s gentle waves
Which daily shed a solemn gloom, upon the foemen’s graves.


Hermitage House was a large two-storey building over a basement with magnificent views of the surrounding wooded countryside and the banks of the River Liffey. It stands close to the site of the ruins of Ballyowen Castle. In 1650, a family named Nottingham lived there, but as Jacobites they lost their property about 1690.

It is said that Hermitage House was built 1700 for Major General Robert Napier. By 1740, the place was passed to the Hon Robert Butler (1759-1806), MP for Belturbet, Co Cavan, and later 3rd Earl of Lanesborough.

Sir Lucius O’Brien (1731-1795) became the owner about 1780. His country seat was at Dromoland Castle, Co Clare, and he had two famous grandsons and a famous granddaughter: Lucius O’Brien (1800-1872) succeeded was MP for Co Clare and later inherited a family title as the 13th Lord Inchiquin; William Smith O’Brien (1803-1864), was a leader of the Young Ireland revolution in 1848, was tried for treason, deported to Tasmania, but later returned to live in Co Limerick; and Harriet O’Brien (1811-1883) married Canon Charles Henry Monsell (1815-1850) of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and as the widowed Harriet Monsell she founded the order of Anglican nuns, the Community of Saint John Baptist, in Clewer, Windsor, in 1851.

Sir Lucius O’Brien was followed at Hermitage in 1798 by James Fitzgerald (1742-1835), who like O’Brien was also an MP for Ennis. He married into the Vesey or de Vesci family, who owned a large estate in Lucan. His wife Catherine later became the 1st Baroness FitzGerald and Vesey in 1826.

Meanwhile, what remains of the original Hermitage House within the present golf-club building suggests a villa that was built around 1800. Perhaps it superseded or incorporated an earlier house.

James Naper Dutton (1744-1820), 1st Lord Sherborne, later owned Hermitage. In 1818, he sold the house to his tenant, Robert Brennan, for £8,400, along with 139 acres of land on the banks of the River Liffey. By 1841, the Hermitage estate was the property of Sir John Kingsmill, a retired army colonel and a Governor of the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham.

A golf club was founded in 1905 on part of the land. The golf club was formed as the County Dublin Golf Club, but was forced to change its name to the Hermitage Golf Club in 1907, following objections from the Royal Dublin Golf Club, which was already registered with the Golfing Union of Ireland.

The Hermitage Medical Clinic is a teaching hospital of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

During World War I, a military hospital was established at the Hermitage in 1917. This was a convalescent and nursing home for wounded soldiers. The old wooden clubhouse was leased by the owner, a Mr Crozier, to be used as a place of rest for war-wounded and traumatised soldiers, and it was described as ‘the only shell-shock hospital in the country.’

Reading this part of the story of the Heritage area also brought me back to last Monday night’s exhibition in the Royal College of Surgeons on ‘Surgeons and Insurgents.’

The old clubhouse continued as a military hospital for some years after World War I until all the soldiers had left. This particular building was demolished in the 1930s, while Hermitage House also served as the Hermitage Hotel for a short time after World War I.

In the 1930s the club leased Hermitage House from Mr Crozier, who was then the owner. The most distinguished of the founding members was Tim Healy, who was the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State in 1922.

A later member was Dr Douglas Hyde, a brilliant linguist and founder of the Gaelic League. He became the first President of Ireland, was remained in office until 1949. But his interest in sport is also an interesting one. He was a long-standing patron of the GAA but when he attended a soccer international at Dalymount Park the GAA was incensed.

Douglas Hyde was expelled from the GAA and never sought reinstatement. It was an act of bigotry that makes me question the values of those who claimed to be the early heirs of the insurgent of 1916.

Coming down the stairs in the Hermitage … but what about driving afterwards? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

I was in the Hermitage Clinic, beside the golf club, this morning to have two growths removed from my head, one on my left temple and the other on the back of my head.

A similar mark on my nose is causing no problems, and is not even infringing on my vanity. But I was worried about these two. I wondered that perhaps they were growths related to my sarcoidosis, but I hope it has not spread from my lungs.

The results should be back soon.

I was told a few weeks ago that despite the anaesthetic I was not to worry and that I would be able to drive later.

Wonderful. I failed abysmally at my efforts to learn to drive over 35 years ago … failing to take a car from Dorset Street to Terenure, even after 20 driving lessons.

It reminded me of the popular piano joke that dates back to at least 1909.

Patient: “Will I be able to play the piano after the operation?”

Doctor: “Certainly.”

Patient: “That’s great! I was not able to play the piano before.”

Meanwhile, I have found another interesting place for riverside walks. And, while I have sarcoidosis, sarcoidosis does not have me.

Seeing cardinal and theological
virtues in some church windows

The Four Cardinal Virtues … a window seen in the Church of Sant Jaume in Barcelona last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Last week [28 March 2016], as I was leaving the Church of Sant Jaume in Barcelona, on the last day of a weekend visit to the city, I noticed a pair of windows at the back of the Church, bringing together the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues.

The church is near the Rambla on Calle Ferran, one of the busiest shopping and commercial streets in Barcelona. Calle Ferran is in what is commonly referred to as the Call Menor, an extension of the original Jewish Quarter (El Call), and this church stands on the site of what was the old synagogue of Barcelona for many centuries.

The cardinal virtues comprise a set of four virtues that is recognised in Classical writings and in Christian tradition they are usually paired with the theological virtues.

The cardinal virtues are the four principal moral virtues. The word cardinal comes from the Latin word cardo, which means ‘hinge,’ because all other virtues hinge on these four: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. The three theological virtues are: faith, hope and love. Together, the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues comprise what are known as the seven virtues.

Plato is the first philosopher to discuss the cardinal virtues when he discusses them in the Republic (Book IV, 426-435). Plato narrates a discussion of the character of a good city: “Clearly, then, it will be wise, brave, temperate and just” (427e; see also 435b).

In his Rhetoric, Aristotle writes: “The forms of Virtue are justice, courage, temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, prudence, wisdom” (Rhetoric 1366b1).

The Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero (106-43 BC), like Plato, limits the list to four virtues: “Virtue may be defined as a habit of mind (animi) in harmony with reason and the order of nature. It has four parts: wisdom (prudentiam), justice, courage, temperance” (De Inventione, II, LIII). Cicero also discusses them in De Officiis.

Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint Thomas Aquinas adapted them. Saint Ambrose (330s-397 AD) was the first to use the term ‘cardinal virtues,’ when he wrote: ‘And we know that there are four cardinal virtues temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude’ (Commentary on Luke, V, 62).

Unlike the theological virtues, which are the gifts of God through grace, the four cardinal virtues can be practiced by anyone; thus, they represent the foundation of natural morality.

1, Prudence (φρόνησις, phronēsis; Latin, prudential):

Saint Thomas Aquinas ranks prudence as the first cardinal virtue, because it is concerned with the intellect.

Before him, Aristotle defines prudence as recta ratio agibilium, or ‘right reason applied to practice.’ It is the virtue that allows us to judge correctly what is right and what is wrong in any given situation. When we mistake the evil for the good, we are not exercising prudence; in fact, we are showing our lack of it.

Because it is so easy to fall into error, prudence requires seeking the counsel of others, particularly those who are sound judges of morality. Disregarding the advice or warnings of others whose judgment does not coincide with ours is a sign of imprudence.

Prudence is also described as wisdom, the ability to judge between actions with regard to appropriate actions at a given time.

Prudence was assigned to the rulers and to reason. Saint Augustine says prudence is love distinguishing with sagacity between what hinders it and what helps it.

2, Justice (δικαιοσύνη, dikaiosynē; Latin, iustitia):

According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, justice is the second cardinal virtue, because it is concerned with the will.

Justice is also considered as fairness, the most extensive and most important virtue.

Justice stands outside the class system and divisions of man, and rules the proper relationship among the three of them.

Saint Augustine says justice is love serving only the loved object, and therefore ruling rightly.

3, Fortitude (ἀνδρεία, andreia; Latin, fortitude):

According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, fortitude is the third cardinal virtue. This virtue is commonly called courage, and is also known as fortitude, forbearance, strength, endurance, and the ability to confront fear, uncertainty, and intimidation

Fortitude allows us to overcome fear and to remain steady in our will in the face of obstacles, but it is always reasoned and reasonable. Someone exercising fortitude does not seek danger for danger’s sake. Prudence and justice are the virtues through which we decide what needs to be done; fortitude gives us the strength to do it.

Fortitude was assigned to the warrior class and to the spirited element in humanity. It is the only one of the cardinal virtues that is also a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Saint Augustine says fortitude is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved object.

4, Temperance (σωφροσύνη, sōphrosynē; Latin: temperantia):

Temperance is the fourth and final cardinal virtue, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas. Temperance is also known as restraint, the practice of self-control, abstention, and moderation tempering the appetition.

Temperance is the restraint of desires or passions. This is the virtue that tries to keep us from excess, and, as such, requires the balancing of legitimate goods against our inordinate desire for them.

Temperance was common to all classes, but primarily associated with the producing classes, the farmers and craftsmen, and with the animal appetites, to whom no special virtue was assigned.

Saint Augustine says temperance is love giving itself entirely to that which is loved.

The Cardinal Virtues are often depicted as female allegorical figures and became a popular subject for sculptures and stained glass windows in churches and are depicted with symbolic items. Temperance has a wheel, bridle and reins, vegetables and fish, a cup, water and wine in two jugs. Justice is commonly depicted with a sword, balance and scales, and a crown. Fortitude characteristically is shown with armour and a club, and is seen with a lion, a palm, a tower, a yoke and a broken column. Prudence is seen with a book, scroll and mirror.

The Three Theological Virtues … a window seen in the Church of Sant Jaume in Barcelona last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The three Theological Virtues are: Faith, Hope and Love (see I Corinthians 13).

1, Faith: belief in God, and in the truth of his revelation as well as obedience to him.

2, Hope: expectation of and desire of receiving; refraining from despair and capability of not giving up. The belief that God will be eternally present in every person’s life and never giving up on his love.

TS Eliot writes in East Coker:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.


3, Love: a supernatural virtue that helps us love God and our neighbours, more than ourselves.

TS Eliot writes in Burnt Norton:

Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.


There have been various efforts to combine the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues. Saint Augustine sees faith as coming under justice.

In traditional theology, it is held that these virtues differ from the cardinal virtues in that they cannot be obtained by human effort. A person can only receive them through Divine grace.

The three Theological Virtues are often depicted in art as young women, with symbols that are identify them. Faith is seen with a cross pointing upward, staff and chalice, lamp, candle, hands together with fingers extended together. Hope has an anchor, harp, flaming brand or palm, with her hands closed and her fingers interlocked with each other. Love has a flaming heart, is seen with children, is gathering fruit, and has her hands crossed over her heart.

Faith, Hope and Love … a window in Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)