The Somali Village (Postcard thanks to Neil Moxham)

Thanks to Neil Moxham for sending us this fantastic image, which we had to share here.

In a recent article on legendary Dublin prankster The Bird Flanagan, his supposed escapades at the 1907 International Exhibition in Herbert Park were discussed. It was said that The Bird stole a child from an exhibition, with Flann O’Brien later recounting that “The Bird stole the baby of the wild man of Borneo from the latters straw house or tent and smuggled it into the snug of a pub in Ballsbridge”, while Ulick O’Connor claimed he “returned it to the French pavilion, as a gesture against the decline in the French birth-rate.”

In reality, it was a Somalian Village at the International Exhibition. The International Exhibition was an incredible spectacle, which ssentially brought the world to Dublin, with tents and exhibitions from all over the world. In his book The Biggest Show in Town: Record Of The International Exhibition, Dublin 1907, Ken Finlay dug deep on the exhibition using primary sources from the time. One of those sources tells us of the Somali village, described thus:

A party of Somalis has been imported from British Somaliland, which is situated in the north-east of Africa. This village has been erected to represent the huts in which the natives live in their country. A schoolroom has also been built in which Somali children will be thought their lessons. Somalis are a nomadic race, and live chiefly by the rearing of herds and goats and sheep. They are Mohammedians by religion.

John Cavendish has written about this peculiar spectacle, noting that:

This stand proved to be of huge interest to the 2,751,113 visitors in all during the six months that the exhibition lasted. So much so, that it became the most profitable stand, earning £9,601 in sales of its pottery and other native goods.

You can only imagine how distressing the situation must have been for younger members of the community who were essentially put on exhibition for Dubliners to gawk at. This newspaper report from 14 May 1907 shows that rumours of ill-health existed during the period of the International Exhibition for example:

The Irish Times, 14 May 1907.

In the last few weeks, a number of stories from Come Here To Me! have been aired on The History Show on RTE Radio One. These stories have tied-in with content on the programme, or have been aired to coincide with historic anniversaries.

The first story aired was on 13 January, and involved an infamous incident at Deansgrange Cemetery when swastikas were on show at the funeral of ‘Nazi master spy’ Hermann Goertz. This story was read during a segment of the programme which focused on Ireland after WWII, and the podcast recording can be played here.

A scene from the funeral. Published first in The Irish Independent, Oct 22 1961.

On 20 January, our account of the workers occupation of the Rotunda Concert Hall in 1922 was read on the programme. This event occurred five years after the Russian revolution, and saw a red flag flying over the city of Dublin. The occupation was led by the talented writer Liam O’Flaherty, and the story was read on RTE Radio by the actor David Herlihy. The podcast recording can be played here.

‘Work Or Anarchy’ – Media coverage of the 1922 occupation.

On the 17 February edition of the show, our story about Vonolel was read on air. Following on from a discussion around the Irish and horse meat, Dublin’s War Horse got an airing. The loyal companion of Field Marshall Earl Roberts, this remarkable and decorated horse is buried in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. His grave must be one of the most unusual in Dublin. Again, the story was read by David Herlihy. The podcast recording can be played here.

The famous and decorated Vonolel.

Our thanks to everyone at The History Show for bringing these stories to a wider audience, and we hope that readers of the blog have enjoyed hearing the stories brought to life as much as we have.

The location of Dublin’s next McDonald’s, Temple Bar.

McDonald’s are set to move into the Temple Bar area soon, with the premises previously occupied by Frankie’s Steak House serving as the location for their newest Dublin branch. While many would argue the damage was done a long time ago with regards Temple Bar (The Hard Rock Cafe, TGI Fridays, tacky tourist traps), it is still a pretty significant piece of news for what was once referred to in the media as “Dublin’s Left Bank”. Dublin City Council had rejected a planning application from McDonald’s on the grounds that the premises would have a “detrimental impact on the mix of users within the Temple Bar area, which already has an ample supply of restaurants”, but the green light of An Bord Pleanála last year brought the proposal to a reality.

McDonald’s is a powerhouse of international business and the fast food trade, operating in 119 countries and serving tens of millions of customers on a daily basis. News of the multinational arriving in Dublin in 1976 was first reported in the Irish media in September of that year, when it was noted by The Irish Times that the company had purchased the old premises of the Hospital Sweepstakes on Grafton Street. The company was understand to be paying something in the region of £50,000 a year in rent for the premises.

The first branch of the restaurant in Ireland opened to minimal fanfare, and this is how the May 1977 opening was reported in The Irish Times:

A feature on the restaurant soon after its opening noted that it opened for about thirteen hours a day, seven days a week, far removed from the 24/7 branches in the city centre today. A 1978 report noted that the place was almost always busy, with a plain hamburger costing only 28p, a small chips 23p and a cup of coffee costing 17p. A journalist reviewing the restaurant for The Irish Times wrote that “the decor is far from appealing and my friend was convinced the seats are specifically designed so that if you relax you fall out of them.”

The expansion of the brand saw a second restaurant open in October 1978, this time on O’Connell Street. Like the first branch, this one remains open today.

McDonald’s were involved in a massive labour dispute in 1979, which lasted for almost six-months and saw the company entangled in a media storm, dragging workers through the courts in an attempt to stop them picketing the premises. This dispute began when workers within the company began to join the ITGWU union. At the time, it was reported that pay in McDonald’s was 85p an hour. The Anarchist Worker newspaper reported that “management refused to recognise the union or even to talk over the phone to union officials.” Coming out on March 16th, the workers involved picketed the two restaurants demanding the right to union recognition.

A picket on the O’Connell Street branch (Anarchist Worker newspaper)

Tony Royle has written briefly of the 1977 strike in his study of the rights of McDonald’s workers in Europe. He wrote that this dispute began when the ITGWU recruited between six and eight workers, and issued a claim for improvements in pay and conditions to which McDonald’s did not respond. When the union balloted these members for strike action, they were joined by three more workers and pickets were placed on the O’Connell Street restaurant. Solidarity was forthcoming from the Bakery Workers’ Union who stopped bread supplies to the company for a period, and the mass pickets had an impressive effect, with the unions membership in McDonald’s growing to almost thirty. McDonald’s took a High Court injunction against the Union, in an attempt to restrict the numbers on the picket to just three outside of each branch. Two full-time officials of the ITGWU were arrested on the picket line at O’Connell Street, and tensions were high throughout the dispute. An account of this dispute from the employers side is available here, in the testament of franchise owner Michael Mehigan.

The Union of Students in Ireland was among those who supported the workers cause, and it urged students working part-time for the chain to join the ITGWU. The dispute was in the newspapers too when the O’Connell Street branch was “raided” by masked individuals, who done some damage to the premises.

The dispute was only brought to an end in September, when McDonald’s agreed in principal to accept a Labour Court recommendation on the matter, though in Tony Royle’s book (Working For McDonald’s in Europe: The Unequal Struggle) it is claimed that the company was still non-union in 2000.

While the 1977 dispute is well remembered in Dublin to this day, a very peculiar incident in 1988 deserves mention too. McDonald’s invited the Irish press to come to their O’Connell Street branch in May 1988 to see the “Lord Mayor of Moscow, Chairman V. Saikin” as he “sampled his first ever Big Mac”. Saikin was visiting Dublin on diplomatic business, but had just signed an agreement with McDonald’s which would see the firm open twenty branches in Moscow. Saikin visited the O’Connell Street branch, inspected the freezers and restaurant, but refused to eat a Big Mac, departing the restaurant and leaving a McDonald’s P.R person to remark embarrassed that “he obviously has a very busy schedule”. The Soviet Ambassador was also at the restaurant, and remarked to the Irish media that his daughter ate at McDonald’s “very often”. The headline ‘Hammer and Pickles’ did actually appear in one newspaper!

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My thanks to Irish Anarchist History who sent on the links to the relevant pieces in their archive for this article. The IAH blog continues to collect and scan fantastic historical documents, from pamphlets to newspapers.

This Dublin Penny Journal scene shows a Sedan chair at College Green.

Thankfully, sedan chairs have long vanished from the streets. I saw one recently at a museum in Edinburgh, and it really is difficult to picture a time when they were a common sight on the streets of British cities. Essentially a sedan chair was a chair or windowed cabin, which would be carried by at least two porters through the streets. You could say that these were human taxis in their day.

In his study of Irish tourism between 1750-1850, W.H.A Williams noted that in 1771 sedan chairs “outnumbered licensed carriages in Dublin, to the benefit of the Dublin Lying-In Hospital, which had been granted a duty on the chairs. The use of sedan chairs persisted in the largest Irish cities into the 1830s.” The process of licensing the chairs is made clear in this brief piece from the front page of the Freeman’s Journal in 1786:

Front page of Freeman’s Journal, April 25th 1786

Thanks to the licensing process, we are able to see just where the owners of sedan chairs lived, and Peter A.Clarke researched this in his study Two Capitals: London and Dublin, 1500-1840. Based on the 1785 returns, it is evident that “over two-thirds of the holders of sedan chair licenses were members of the titled nobility”, going on to write that “the licensees lived for the most part in Henrietta Street, Rutland Square, Sackville Street, St.Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square”. These were among the wealthiest streets and squares of eighteenth century Dublin, popular with Parliamentarians and other elites.

Colonel Henry Luttrell was assassinated while traveling in a sedan chair in Dublin on 22 October 1717, by a “band of ruffians” according to the Biographical Peerage of Ireland, which was printed in 1817. Frank Hopkins writes about this in his book Rare Old Dublin: Heroes, Hawkers and Hoors. Luttrell was a figure who had deserted from the army of the Catholic James II to fight alongside Williamite forces following the Siege of Limerick in 1690. None too popular then amongst Catholics, he was murdered when travelling between a Cofffee House on Cork Hill and his lofty residence on Stafford Street.

Illustration of a sedan chair in the eighteenth century (wiki)

In a talk given on ‘Early Dublin Transport’ in 1938 for the Old Dublin Society, A.M Fraser detailed how in 1779 there were actually hackney coaches in Dublin, in proportion to its size, than were to be found in London, and likewise with sedan chairs. She also noted that the revolutionary Lord Edward Fitzgerald was conveyed to Dublin Castle in a sedan chair following his capture in 1798. This is also found in Thomas Moore’s account of the arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, where it’s noted that “from Thomas Street he was conveyed, in a sedan chair, open at the top, to the Castle, where the papers found upon him, – one of them confirming the line of advance upon Dublin, from the county of Kildare, were produced and verified.”

The capture of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, before he was taken to Dublin Castle.

Only last December, an interesting find at a Dublin auction house brought sedan chairs back into public discourse in Dublin. Michael Parsons wrote in The Irish Times that:

A rare book published in 1788, which has turned up at Mealy’s auction, contains a list of private sedan chair owners in Georgian Dublin, published to pressure them into paying annual charges.

More than two centuries later, the book reveals that some of the city’s wealthiest residents were “in arrears” and were being carried about without having paid their annual licence fee.

Many names of the rich and powerful in Dublin were contained within that book, some of which can be read in The Irish Times article here.

An article in the same paper from 1910 looking back on the earliest forms of public transport in Dublin noted that “the hazard on Rutland Square, opposite the Presbyterian Church, is called ‘The Chair’, as it was originally one of the stands which the sedan chair proprietors occupied.”

It was undoubtedly the rise of the hackney carriage in the nineteenth century which brought about the demise of the sedan chair in British cities. What a sight they must have been in eighteenth century Dublin however, carrying the rich to and from their coffee houses, and revolutionaries to Dublin Castle!

Sir Patrick Abercrombie, the British architect and town planner who redesigned London after the Blitz, was long connected to Dublin city.

He was the winner of the 1916 Civics Institute of Ireland competition on town planning for Dublin which gained him £500 and recognition. Later, he was responsible for the sketch development plan of Dublin produced in 1922 produced on the basis of his competitive designs and a revised report produced in 1941. You can read more about him on Archiseek here.

Here are some sketches from his 1922 report ‘Dublin of the Future’ showing Abercrombie’s sketch of upper O’Connell Street area:

Credit – Dublin: through space and time (2001).

His view on what Capel Street and the new Cathedral could have looked like:

Credit – unz.org

A sketch of the towering 500 ft. campanile that would have been placed behind the new Cathedral on Capel Street.

Credit – http://www.unz.org

For more, you can view the full pamphlet here.

It’s hoped that over the coming weeks and months we can post several stories relating to the 1913 Lockout, looking at some of the key events and characters in brief posts which should serve as an introduction to the event and the protagonists. This brief post looks at an unusual aspect of the story of William Martin Murphy, leader of the employers in that great dispute.

William Martin Murphy (Image Credit: Multitext UCC)

More out of laziness than anything else I’ve always believed, the 1913 Lockout has often been spoken of as some sort of ‘dress rehearsal’ for the 1916 Rising. The Lockout was not a dress rehearsal for anything however, but rather it is a hugely important moment in Irish history in its own right, representing the greatest ideological battle between labour and capital in Irish history.

While ‘Big Jim’ continues to hold a central place in the popular memory and folklore of Dublin, William Martin Murphy is a figure many Dubliners are unfamiliar with in any detail. Murphy was an incredibly complex character, and his own politics were actually of an Irish nationalist type.

The eldest son of a Co.Cork building contractor named Dennis William Murphy, he was born in 1845. Educated at Belvedere College in Dublin, he worked in the offices of the Irish Builder and The Nation publications as a young man. Patrick Maume writes in his biographical entry on Murphy for the Dictionary of Irish Biography that:

In 1863 Murphy inherited the family business on the death of his father. In 1867 he moved to Cork, where in 1870 he married Mary Julia Lombard, daughter of a prominent Cork businessman, James Fitzgerald Lombard (qv). They had five sons and three daughters, whose marriages (notably with the Chance family) strengthened Murphy’s political and business alliances. His success was based on building light railways in the south and west of Ireland; he also became involved in running these railways, sat on several boards, and facilitated the merger that created the Great Southern and Western Railway.

Padraig Yeates notes in his history of the Lockout that Murphy displayed “an entrepreneurial talent rare for Ireland in that era and developed an expertise in constructing light rail and tramway systems.”

Murphy was elected as an MP for the Irish Parliamentary Party for St Patrick’s, Dublin at the 1885 general election. Following the split in the party, Murphy sided with the Anti-Parnellites, which cost him in Dublin, a city which remained loyal to the fallen leader. In 1900, he purchased a fledgling Parnellite newspaper the Irish Daily Independent from the Parnellites, merging it with the Daily Nation. This move gave birth to the Irish Independent, a paper still with us today. By the time of his death in 1919, Yeates estimates that “he had accumulated a fortune of over £250,000, had built railways and tramway systems in Britain, South America and West Africa, and owned or was a director of many Irish enterprises, including Clery’s department store, the Imperial Hotel and the Metropole Hotel”.

Two aspects of the one empire. An advertisement for Clery’s on the front of the Irish Independent (1910)

Murphy was central to the organisation of the International Exhibition in 1907, an incredible six month extravaganza that brought the world to Herbert Park. Martin Murphy had been involved in this process from the very beginning, and Ken Finlay writes about the central role he played in meetings in 1904 where the idea of bringing such an exhibition to Dublin was first put forward. In his history of the International Exhibition, Finlay notes that the proposal “that a subcommittee be appointed to prepare an outline scheme for the proposed Irish International Exhibition, dealing with the question of site, character of buildings, general characteristics, probable cost and means of financing the enterprise” was put forward by William Martin Murphy.

The exhibition was a roaring success, and Yeates notes that “he earned almost universal praise for his organisation of the International Exhibition of 1907, which was the high point of the visit to Dublin that year by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.” The Exhibition was officially opened by King Edward VII, in the presence of William Martin Murphy and other organisers. The financial support of Murphy had been crucial to the exhibition, with £12,500 forthcoming from his tram company for the Guarantee Fund at the inception of the project. So crucial was Murphy to the overall project, that at the completion of the event a dinner was held in his honour.

King Edward VII, who visited the International Exhibition.

Unsurprisingly given his leading role in organising of this huge event, a knighthood of Murphy was proposed. It is often noted that “Murphy was a committed nationalist and refused a knighthood from King George VII of England on this principle” (see this article from Irish Central). Yeates notes however that “some of Murphy’s enemies said that he only took on the job in the hope of winning a knighthood. Stung by the allegation, Murphy declared that in no circumstances would he accept a title, even if one were offered to him.” It was said that the King proposed to knight Murphy on the site of the International Exhibition, and that “to everyone’s surprise and embarrassment” this was refused by Murphy. Patrick Maume notes in the Dictionary of Irish Biography that Murphy “could not accept honours while home rule was denied.”

This refusal to accept the Knighthood in 1907 shows the complexity of the character of William Martin Murphy, an ‘establishment’ figure who led the employers in Dublin in their offensive against what they saw as the threat of Larkinism, yet Murphy himself identified as an Irish nationalist.

By 1913, with the banning of a public meeting on Sackville Street, Jim Larkin was accusing the King of England of trying to stop meetings “at the order of Mr.Murphy”

I care as much for the King as I do for Mr. Swifte the magistrate. People make kings and people can unmake them; but what has the King of England to do with stopping a meeting in Dublin? If they like to stop the meeting at the order of Mr. Murphy, Mr. Wm. Murphy will take the responsibility; and, as I have previously told you, for every man that falls on our side two will fall on the other.

Image: George Kelly

George Kelly took the great photo above, and allowed us to post it here. It’s a fantastic shot from the 1984 clash between Linfield and Shamrock Rovers, fitting to post now with the two clubs set to meet soon in the cross-border Setanta Cup.

We’ve had plenty of articles on the site recently looking at football violence in Dublin over the years, ranging from hooliganism in Richmond Park to trouble at high-profile European fixtures. One fixture we looked at in detail was Linfield and Shamrock Rovers in 1984. The game was marked out by an almost unprecedented police presence, but passed off relatively peacefully, with nothing near the anticipated crowd trouble.

Much of the fear around the class had come out of events in Dundalk in August 1979, when Linfield and Dundalk faced each other at Oriel Park. Almost 500 Gardaí were involved in policing that encounter, and journalist Peter Byrne wrote after the clash that “this was the night when the concept of All-Ireland club football was killed stone dead. Two hours of raw, naked tribalism on the terraces of Oriel Park convinced even the most reformist among us that the dark gospel of the paramilitaries has permeated Irish sport to the point where all attempts at reconciliation are futile.”

The article on the 1984 fixture is available to read here. How different will the scene look in a few weeks time from that above? If the policing at the recent Saint Pat’s/Glentoran game in Inchicore is anything to go by, not very.

The recent revelation that Morrissey and Robbie Keane are related was news to many, and the story was first brought to our attention by the brilliantly named sports website balls.ie. An image of the two arm in arm, along with a brief post from Morrissey himself, has been flying around the internet.

Morrissey wrote that:

It was a joyous head-storm to attend LA Galaxy -v- Club Tijuana last night and to see captain Robbie Keane score in the fourth minute. Why, exactly?

Well, family tree aficionados will be aware that Robbie and I share the same Irish blood; his late grandfather (Thomas Nolan) being my own father’s cousin. In filial terms the Irish blood, English heart genetic between Robbie and I is evident – his chin is my chin, my chin is his. Robbie was raised on Captains Road (as was my mother) in Crumlin (Dublin), before he was shipped out to Tallaght. He is a gentleman of the highest caliber (or, if you must, calibre), and to watch him on the pitch – pacing like a lion, as weightless as an astronaut, is pure therapy. Robbie, the pleasure, the privilege is mine.

Luke Fallon (who gave us our recent book cover, and countless illustrations and bits and pieces for this site) wasted little time getting to work. Some of you may have seen these two efforts on RTE last night, brilliantly set to the music of The Smiths. Morrissey fanatics (and eh…Robbie Keane fanatics) will get a smile from these images no doubt.

(Credit: Luke Fallon)

This image is fantastic, though perhaps only Smiths fans will get the reference, the colour and style is reminiscent of so many classic album and single covers from the bands career:

(Credit: Luke Fallon)

A book I’ve mentioned several times on this site recently is James Curry’s Artist of the Revolution, which examines the political cartoons of Ernest Kavanagh. Murdered on the steps of Liberty Hall during the 1916 Rising, Kavanagh was a prolific cartoonist who contributed work to a variety of suffragette, nationalist and labour publications. His work during the 1913 lockout is well documented in the book, and many of the cartoons he drew resonated strongly at the time with ordinary Dubliners.

Yet the employers also used cartoons during the dispute, most notably on the front page of the Sunday Independent, a publication owned by William Martin Murphy. Some of these cartoons have become familiar, but others have not been reproduced. Digging through the archives, here are a few I think are worth sharing. Some I had seen before, but others were new to me.

This cartoon below was printed on August 31st, the day after the horrific scenes of Bloody Sunday, when a baton charge by the DMP on Sackville Street filled the city hospitals. The Independent noted that “Larkin’s mobs attack police”, going on to state that “although his poor dupes were being batoned right and left Larkin kept carefully out of harms way.” Larkin was arrested on Sackville Street for attempting to address a banned demonstration.

The front page cartoon of August 31st shows ‘civic courage’ defeating ‘the strike monger’, as Hibernia looks on.

‘Dublin Saved’ – August 31st 1913

One of the most interesting cartoons during the dispute was printed on November 9th, and took aim at those who sided with Larkin. High profile targets W.B Yeats, George Russell, George Bernard Shaw and Francis Sheehy Skeffington were attacked. ‘Skeffy’, a known feminist, is shown clutching a banner calling for voting rights for women, while Yeats mourns ‘the dead past’. Shaw is presented as a ‘Buffon’, while Russell is listed as a ‘pal of the fairies.’ Russell’s condemnation of the Dublin employers was particular strong, with him writing:

Your insolence and ignorance of the rights conceded to workers universally in the modern world were incredible, and as great as your inhumanity. If you had between you collectively a portion of human soul as large as a threepenny bit, you would have sat night and day with the representatives of labour, trying this or that solution of the trouble, mindful of the women and children, who at least were innocent of wrong against you.

‘Dublin’s Four Masters’ – November 9th 1913

The paper frequently took aim at syndicalism (“A radical political movement that advocates bringing industry and government under the control of federations of labor unions by the use of direct action…”), and the cartoons of the newspaper frequently featured the word. This cartoon from September 21st shows a worker ‘blinded’ by syndicalism, surrounded by his family who wish for him to return to work. Suffering families often appeared in the newspapers cartoons during the dispute.

‘Blinded By Syndicalism’ – September 21st 1913

Another example of the paper accusing syndicalism for the failure of a peaceful settlement was this cartoon from September 14th.

‘The Pledge Breaker And The Peace Breaker’ – September 14th 1913

On November 2nd, the paper printed a cartoon showing ‘the awakening’ of a Dublin worker, who said he had enough of socialism and was ready to return to work!

‘Topical Pen Points’ – November 2nd 1913

An interesting exhibiton this week from Sketchy Inc.

I’m a big fan of the Sketchy Inc. takes on Dublin’s streets, backalleys and laneways. Back in December we featured one of their prints in our Dublin christmas wishlist, and they’ve gone on to produce more and more Dublin landmarks and less familiar streets in their own unique form. Below are a few of my personal favourite pieces:

Bolands Mill, graffiti and all:

Bolands Mill

The convention centre in all its glory:

One-time Anglo HQ:

Anglo HQ

You can check out more from Sketchy Inc. here.

Meath Street – 1984 – Photo Anthony Dempsey from the Growing Up In The Liberties page (via Where Were You?)

I encourage everyone to listen this four-part Phantom FM series on Irish youth subcultures.

Episode 1 looks at the birth of the youth cult in Ireland and focuses on teddy boys, rockers, mods and hippies.

Episode 2 focuses on the 1970s chronicling the rise of skinheads, punks and the rockabilly revival.

Episode 3 takes up the baton in the 1980s with the mod revival, psychobillies, goths, metallers, new romantics and b-boys.

Episode 4 brings the story up to present with ravers, grungers, emo kids and hipsters.

Contributors to the series include Eamon Carr (who can join the dots from Horslips to Hotwire), Garry O’Neill (author of the awesome Where Were You?), Alison O’Donnell (Mellow Candle), Dara Higgins (The Jimmy Cake), Stompin’ George, Mim Scala (author of Diary Of A Teddy Boy), Laura Lee-Conboy, Daragh O’Halloran (author of Green Beat), Irish Jack Lyons (the legendary mod) and many more.

—> You can listen to all four episodes here.

Mods on O’Connell Street – Mid 80s – Photo from Dublin Opinion. (via Where Were You?)

There was once a stage where I’d go out at least once a week with my camera, but the long dark winter nights never did anything for my productivity or enthusiasm and as such, I’ve failed miserably over the last couple of months. Now that the evenings are getting brighter, its time to get back on the horse (read ‘bike’) and get the camera out again…The snaps below were taken over two nights, one recent, the other not so recent.

The Docklands is a great place for a wander with a camera. Its less than five minutes cycle from O’Connell Bridge, but its a world away. I’ll hopefully have another piece up next week from the area around the port itself. Below, I never noticed that you could see Lansdowne Road from the Liffey before. I took this at the time, and then on a bus the other day with Donal from this here parish and he saw it and said “that’s a great snap…” Well, here you are. A bit grey but…

Apologies for the quality of the below snap, it was taken from the other side of the Liffey and daylight was starting to fade. For the sheer size of the piece its worth a look, must be at least thirty foot long. Sam has previously published a series of articles on Dublin graffiti artists, and the entry for UEK can be found here.

Below is a close-up of the sign you can see in the distance in the first image. A strange little area this, with locks and little bridges over docks off the Liffey. Looks like a great place for undisturbed midsummers drinking all the same…

Not too far away from the “Grand Canal Docks” sign are the two pieces below. I like the “Do the right thing” tag on the first, and the second just looks fantastic.

The two pictures below were taken around Christmas. I’ve never really practised taking pictures at night, so its a whole new ball game for me. Lights and shadows blur and either make or mess up a good shot. I should probably buy a tri-pod. Or a new camera. Or get lessons. Actually all three would be good. The Screen cinema below- the only cinema I’ve been in where the staff walk in and flick the light switch off pre-film. Not quite as dramatic as cineworld or the like, but oldschool.

Rathmines Church is worth a post on its own. Such a beautiful building inside and out, with its iconic green dome, initially meant for a church in St. Petersburg assembled here instead due to the social upheavals there at the time. Sorry for the headache inducing blur, but its the best snap I could get of the dome, the Moon, Venus and Mercury so close together. Definitely need that tri-pod.

Anyone interested in the other pictures I’ve stuck up, just stick “A few quick snaps” into the search bar on the right side of the blog, it’ll link you straight to them.

Back in 1965, Smithfield square and other parts of the northside were transformed into Berlin, when Richard Burton visited Dublin (along with Liz Taylor) for the classic espionage film ‘The Spy Who Came In From The Cold’. Today, a visitor to Smithfield would learn this from the local history plaque which takes pride of place within the old drinking fountain, while sharper eyes might notice the sign above the Cobblestone pub, who sell a beer named ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ in honour of the areas Hollywood connection. The cost of bringing Berlin to Smithfield was reported to be £8,000, with “firemen on call in case the rain demanded by the script didn’t arrive.” This being Ireland, they naturally weren’t needed.

You can see Smithfield transformed in the trailer for the film here:

What became of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie after filming? Digging in the newspaper archives, I found this image. It shows the set in all its glory.

The Irish Times, 30 March 1965.

This photo shows 45-year-old Dublin businessman Bart Cummins, who bought the set and who the paper reported “is moving Checkpoint Charlie to the gate of his new galvanising works at Inchicore, Dublin.” Bart purchased the set for Cummins Brothers’ brass foundry. Bart was also heavily involved in local football club Saint Patrick’s Athletic, at a time when the club were in financial dire straits and at risk of collapse. The Cummins family had long been involved in the club from its formation, and continued to play a role in the club long afterwards.

A December 1965 Irish Press report on Saint Patrick’s Athletic

Sean Lynch has written about Bart acquiring the famous set, noting that:

He re-erected a watchtower in front of his yard in Inchicore and appeared on national television as the man with the best known replica of the Wall. He gradually sold it off in sections. Some of the material was recycled to rebuild Saint Christopher’s School, the first Travellers’ school in Ireland. Situated in Cherry Orchard at the western edge of Dublin, the school was organised and run independently of the Department of Education by civil rights activist Grattan Puxon.

Does anyone from Inchicore have any images of this watchtower, or do they remember seeing it?

With the election of a new Pope on the horizon, it seemed a good time for this blog to look briefly at the Papal Cross which sits in the Phoenix Park.

The cross is a permanent memorial to the September 1979 Papal visit to Ireland of John Paul II, the first visit by a Pope to Ireland. That visit saw something in the region of a million people crowd into the Phoenix Park, with six thousand people in the choir alone! The Papal Cross was the work of Scott Tallon Walkers Architects, and cost an incredible £50,000. It was constructed in Inchicore steelworks factory of J and C McGloughlin, and the structure weighed in at 31 tons. It, in many ways, was the main symbol of the event, attracting international media attention and designed to capture the magnitude of the occasion.

Irish Press image of cross under construction.

Writing about the cross in 2004, architect Ronnie Tallon gave some idea of how quickly the project was completed, noting that:

At the beginning of August 1979, I received a call from the Archbishop of Dublin appointing our practice to design and build an outdoor event for the celebration of Mass for one million people. He has just received confirmation that the Pope was coming to Ireland in eight weeks’ time.

Tallon wrote that “we decided that we required a cross the height of Nelson’s Pillar, which was 125 feet high, which would be clearly visible to all from the furthest reaches of the vast congregation and which would give a sense of focus to the occasion.” Tallon was afterwards awarded a Papal knighthood for his efforts in designing the cross and altar for the historic event.

The difficulties of the project were outlined by Tallon in an interview with The Irish Times before the Papal visit. He told the newspaper that “normally if you were doing a steel contract it would take six weeks to get the material in and another twelve weeks on top of that to have it fabricated and erected.”

The arrival of a part of the Papal Cross at the park (Irish Independent)

The cross arrived at the park on September 7th, and took a rather unusual route, beginning its journey in Inchicore but heading into the city and crossing the O’Connell Bridge. The sheer size of the structure meant that this longer journey was required, as shorter routes would not accommodate the cross. It took two hundred-ton cranes to lift the cross into position.

The sheer scale of the event is clear from all the same details of the day. The Papal carpet alone was two acres in size, and was delivered to Dublin upon three lorries, each carrying thirty rolls. The carpet was made in Antrim, the home county of the Rev. Ian Paisley. Ian Paisley outlined his “total opposition” to any attempt by the Pope to visit the north, and in the end Dundalk was as far north as he went.

Was Tallon ultimately satisfied with his Papal cross? He would tell a journalist that “Well, I’m never happy with anything I’ve made and if I was I’d retire. It’s one of the difficulties of any creative society. You aim at perfection, which is impossible to achieve….”

Tallon’s model of the Phoenix Park altar (Irish Times)

Kevin Myers condemned the Papal Cross in a 1990 column for The Irish Times, where he asked “Does An Taisce not have an attitude to this defacement of a public place by a cross which is a monument to vulgar triumphalism?” The “ghastly monstrosity”, he believed, had no place over a decade on from the visit. All in all however calls for the removal of the monument have been few and far between, though it has fallen victim to vandalism in its time. When the Pope who had visited Ireland died in 2005, some people flocked to the cross once more, which brought focus and attention to the condition of the monument.

Recently released state papers show that the Catholic Church sought £100,000 from the state for ownership of the cross, claiming it was owed this money from costs incurred by the 1979 visit. Journalist Joe Humphreys wrote last December of how Charles Haughey believed the site of the Papal cross needed to become an attraction in itself, when he wrote to minister of state Sylvie Barrett that “effort should be made to make it attractive, even inspirational. I think we should go for an abundance of trees of all kinds and create a pleasant sylvan setting in which visitors coming to see the cross can relax.”

The Ireland of today is a very different one from the country Pope John Paul II visited, and indeed our society has changed much for the better. Ronnie Tallon’s cross, to me as a young Dubliner, is much like Admiral Nelson must have been to people my age in the 1940s and 50s. To me personally it is almost a relic of a time which has passed, but it can not be denied it is a relic with huge architectural and historical importance.

The epic tale of a floppy-haired Pope, wearing dark sunglasses, who picks up a copy of the new Look Left outside Youth Defence’s HQ on Capel Street and is possessed to read the thing, cover to cover, with James Connolly, Jim Larkin, an old white Mercedes and some trees. Overcome by the excellent hard-hitting articles and well-designed graphic content, he is struck with an epiphany at the Papal Cross (42 seconds) and comes running down the hill. No doubt he has seen the error of his ways

Available for €2 in Easons and other newsagents, this 48 paged issue includes articles on:

- The history of the 1913 lockout by Brian Hanley

- The state of the Northern Irish Left by Paul Dillon

- Emigration by Dara McHugh

- Abortion Rights Campaign by Siobhan Mitchell

- Interview with Owen Jones (columist and author ‘Chavs’) by Kevin Squires

- Belfast Punk band Stiff Litttle Fingers by Sam McGrath

- Luther Blissett’s Derry City and his later anarchist ‘career’ – Pope Kevin Branigan I

LL14 (Credit – LL FB page)

This advertisement from 1914 is interesting, promoting the Fallon’s company who produced uniforms for the Irish Volunteers. It encourages the reader to “Keep out the foreigner”, and interestingly it notes that the company use “trade union made” materials. By foreigner, the company are referring to non-Irish companies who produced uniforms. This advertisement appeared frequently in the Irish Independent, newspaper of William Martin Murphy who had led the employers offensive in 1913 against Jim Larkin and his trade union.

Fallon’s advertisement, 1914

As ever, we wish every success to the annual Feminist Walking Tour. I had high hopes of attending and supporting the event, but am away in Italy for the weekend (it’s a hard knock life). The event is free, and is followed by food and refreshments in the Pav, at Trinity College.

A (tiny!) selection of CHTM articles around feminism:

The censorship of feminist magazine Spare Rib in Dublin.

Bread and Roses, a look at the UCD feminist zine in the 1970s.

The invasion of Leinster House, 1971.

Statues of Dublin: Constance Markiewicz and Poppet, Tara Street.

Plaque in honour of leading Dublin feminist Francis Sheehy Skeffington.

A screengrab from the British Pathe footage, showing thousands at the Wellington monument in 1926.

In the years following Irish independence, one issue of contention that existed was the issue of political commemoration, and just what ‘war dead’ could and should be remembered in the city. While the state was constructing the narrative of the revolution it claimed had brought about its establishment, thousands of Irish citizens still identified with, and partook in, events like Armistice Day. The poppy was openly sold in Dublin and other Irish cities and towns, and thousands would march in honour of Ireland’s war dead on an annual basis. This brief post looks at the Armistice Day celebrations in 1926, when an impressive 40,000 people attended the ceremony in the Phoenix Park, at the Wellington obelisk. Similar demonstrations occurred in the years before and after 1926, but this post uses it as a sort of case study.

The popularity of Armistice Day, or ‘Poppy Day’, is evident from sales of the remembrance poppy in Dublin in the 1920s. In his history of the IRA from 1926 to 1936, Brian Hanley notes that “Poppy Day was observed by thousands of people, particularly in Dublin during the 1920s. Over 500,000 poppies were sold in the Dublin area in 1924.” This was at a time before the British Legion had even opened an office in Dublin, which they did in 1925. It was late October of 1925 when the poppy was formally launched in Ireland, something which led republican women to the creation of the Easter lily in 1926, as an ‘alternative’ symbol, and Ann Matthews has looked at this symbol in great detail during the course of her research on the role of women in the republican movement. The popularity of the Easter Lily never even approached that of the Poppy. In the inaugural year of the symbol, we know from Cumann na mBan’s (The women’s republican movement) own Annual Reports that only £34 was raised from sales of the lily, pittance when contrasted with the £7,430 evident from the “Annual Report of the Southern Ireland Area of the British Legion”, documenting poppy sales.

A modern variation of the Easter Lily, a symbol first displayed by republicans in 1926.

Armistice Day in 1926 witnessed a huge procession through the streets of the capital, destined for the Phoenix Park. The Irish Times wrote after the event that “Dublin was astir early for the ceremonies, and at 8am the great march to the Phoenix Park began.” Crowds assembled in the park, and were joined by ex-servicemen who marked from Beresford Place, ironically the home of Liberty Hall, and where the immortal words ‘We Serve Neither King Nor Kaiser- But Ireland’ had hung on a banner just over a decade previously in an act of anti-war defiance. On the command being given by A.P Connolly, President of the British Legion in the Free State, about twenty different contingents of ex-servicemen began the march to the Wellington monument in the Phoenix Park.

The Wellington Obelisk (NLI)

The Irish Times wrote of this gathering of the park that:

It would be hard, indeed, to estimate the size of the gathering. It did not, however, number less than forty thousand. From an early hour people began to arrive by every kind of vehicle and on foot, and an hour before the ceremony began the wide open space in the Phoenix Park surrounding the Wellington Monument was densely crowded.

The Wellington monument, completed in 1861, commemorates Arthur Wellesley, who secured British victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. As Prime Minister of Britain, Wellesley oversaw Catholic Emancipation in 1829, and his statue in the Phoenix Park is one of the grandest monuments on the island. Footage of the huge assembly at Wellington’s memorial in 1926 is available on the British Pathe website, and can be viewed here.

Newspaper reports at the time noted that a perfect silence followed the Last Post, and “so deeply impressive it was that when one closed one’s eyes to pray one felt alone in the vast acres’ of the park.” Yet Remembrance Day was not perfectly observed in the city, as some republican and anti-imperialist elements organised protests around the events, something which had been occurring in the years before 1926, and would escalate in the 1930s, with the IRA organising protests under the auspices of the Anti-Imperialist League. An interesting quote in Hanley’s book from Frank Ryan shows that he believed the British Legion marchers would be drawn mainly from “bank clerks and students of Trinity College”, but in reality this just wasn’t the case. As Hanley correctly notes, “a section of working class Dublin continued to identify with its contribution during the First World War well into the next decade, but the image of well heeled pro-British demonstrators was a powerful mobilising tool.” Adrian Hoar notes in his biography of Ryan that the annual demonstrations against Poppy Day “would become synonymous in the public mind with his name”, but other influential figures such as Peadar O’Donnell were also involved.

Among the thousands gathered in the Phoenix Park, newspaper reports noted that a “party of Fasciti in their striking black shirts” was to be found. While there was no physical confrontation in the park between veterans, republicans and others, there were some scenes of violence in Dublin on the day, although not on the same scale as previous Armistice Day celebrations. The Irish Times noted that “between 300 and 400 men and women” were involved in opposition to the day, and noted that:

Divided into gangs, they moved about the city, snatching poppies from peaceable citizens and molesting ex-servicemen. One gang, larger than the others, attacked two police men in Dawson Street, and broke into the Representative Body in St. Stephen’s Green in order to remove a Union Jack from a window.

Union flags were burnt in the city too, in one instance following a meeting on O’Connell Street which was addressed by the republican priest Michael Flanagan among others. Another flag was burnt at College Green. The violence of Armistice Day led to the republican socialist George Gilmore appearing in court, on charges of assault, as this 20 November newspaper report details. Gilmore would spend a period in prison for his activities, but was later instrumental to moving sections of the republican movement to the left in the 1930s.

Throughout the 1930s, street violence became much more common place at political commemorations in Dublin. Not alone did the republican-left continue to organise in opposition to Armistice Day, but there would also be violent confrontation with the Blueshirts and the nationalist right. This brief post is by no means a very in-depth look at Armistice Day events even in 1926, but is designed simply to show that four years after independence, and a decade on from the Easter Rising, some in Dublin still identified with the commemorative events of the British Empire.

‘No Strength Without Unity’ – Paul Reynolds.

Tomorrow marks the return of the beautiful game in Dublin, and we would encourage you to support your local football club and invest in football in this country. Bohemians and Pats are at home, with Shels only down the road in Bray.

Below are the first set of fixtures in the Premier Division, all kick off at 7.45.

Prices from €5 for kids and €10-€15 for adults
Bohemians v UCD
Bray Wanderers v Shelbourne
Derry City v Sligo Rovers
Dundalk v Shamrock Rovers
St. Patrick’s Athletic v Drogheda United

Our friends at Rabble sum it all up as “Pyro, flags and the last of the mars bars.” There’s more to it than that though. Most grounds have a chipper van as well.

Boardwalk Bloc (Shamrock Rovers supporters)

On Sir John Rogerson’s  Quay on the Southside of the Liffey stands a statue of Irish born Admiral William Brown. It was unveiled nearby in September 2006 by the Teflon Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, but was relocated here, with an added plinth and plaque in August 2012. The statue was lucky to have made it to these shores at all. Two bronze statues were commissioned to be cast in Beunos Aires, and then transported here for unveiling in Foxford, where the Admiral was born, and on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, where the below photograph was taken.

The statues were a gift from the Argentinian Navy to the people of Dublin and Foxford and was donated as part of the anniversary celebrations of their foundation. However, a mix up regarding who would pay for the transport of the statues meant that they almost didn’t arrive in time for their official unveiling. Given that in Argentina over a thousand streets, several hundred schools, a couple of towns and a football club bear his name, it would be a shame were he not celebrated here in the country of his birth.

Admiral William (Guillermo) Brown

Born in Foxford, Co. Mayo June 22nd, 1777, William Brown was brought to Philadelphia at the age of nine. Irish was his first language, with his first education having come from his Uncle, the parish priest in the village of his birth. Three years after arriving in Philadelphia, in an area already heavily populated by Irish immigrants, he began work as a cabin boy. Within ten years of this, his status had risen to Captain of a US Merchant Navy vessel. He was press-ganged into the British Navy, and fought several battles against the Spanish. Respect for his skill at sea grew, and in his mid-twenties, he was already the master of a large schooner.

Shortly before the Battle of Trafalgar, his ship was captured by the French and Brown was imprisoned. He was first placed in a prison in Verdun, where he contrived to escape having charmed the governor’s wife into handing over a warders uniform. He was re-captured within hours and was transferred to Metz, where he managed to burn a hole in the roof of his cell using a hot poker, and escape using a rope of knotted bedsheets and made his way to England via Germany. He was heralded a hero on his return, fell in love with the daughter of a wealthy family and married.

But the his adventures at sea were only beginning. Brown and his family relocated to Argentina at a time when the South American colonies were in revolt, with Argentina no different. Brown made his base in the town of Ensenada, not far from the captial Beunos Aires. He established several trade routes, but was constantly harassed by the Spanish navy.  This provoked Brown to take a hand in the revolt, and the Spanish quickly learned they had made a bad enemy. After several raids, with his ship was finally impounded by the Spanish, Brown made his way to shore where he procured two small fishing vessels. He rounded up as many English speaking sailors he could; Irish, Scottish and English and with a dozen or so men in each boat, he sailed out into the Estuary where a well armed Spanish Cruiser was anchored. The men boarded the unsuspecting vessel, overpowered the men aboard and captured her.

Statue of “Admirante Brown” in Argentina

His exploits earned him praise from the highest levels, and Brown was asked to take control of a small band of ships to lead the naval resistance against the Spanish. To say he succeeded in his role would be an understatement. Several times in the face of adversity with a small ragtag bunch of ships, he stood up to Spanish warships and was victorious, capturing many, burning others. Once, having taken control over a narrow estuary, he cut a new deck into one of his largest ships, lined the new deck with canon, ran her aground on a sandbank, and simply blasted an oncoming naval flotilla to smithereens.

Another occasion, on Patrick’s Day 1817, along with the assistance of another Irishman, James Kenny, forced the retreat of Commodore Romerate, one of the Spanish Navy’s prized officers. But it was not only on the sea that Brown helped the fight for independence. Any spoils he earned were sold via a businessman and friend by the name William White, and the proceeds for these bought guns and ammunition for ground assaults. And while his battles are too numerous to mention, the ones that earned him most plaudits were at Martin Garcia and Montevideo. After the declaration of Argentine independence, he went on to help the Uruguayan cause sailing against the Brazilian navy in his merchant vessels.

William Brown died on May 3rd 1857. His funeral oration, delivered by later Argentine president Bartolomé Mitré read: “Admiral Brown bears with him the admiration of all patriots, and the love of all good men; and the Argentine Navy remains orphaned of the old father who watched over it’s birth in the bosom of the River Plate, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Plate and the Paraguay will be forever the immortal pages on which will be read his greatest deeds. And while one sloop floats on these waters, or one Argentine pennant flies above them, the name of William Brown will be invoked by every sailor as the guardian genius of the seas.”