Image by Pól Ó Duibhir

Thankfully, my The Pillar: The Life and Afterlife of the Nelson Pillar was recently released, it should be sitting on the shelves in all good bookshops at the moment. One of my favourite aspects of the book is the fact it is loaded with new photographs that haven’t been put into print before, many of the taken by Pól Ó Duibhir, who I first came into contact with some years ago thanks to the blog.

I thought I’d post a few of Pól’s images on here today to mark the fact we have settled a launch date for the book, which is  July 7th in Hodges Figgis at 6.30pm.

Image by Pól Ó Duibhir

A personal favourite image is this one below, showing the souvenir hunters who  onto descended O’Connell Street, taking anything they could from the once imposing monument.

Image by Pól Ó Duibhir

The image below as used for the cover of the book, and it shows the remains of Francis Johnston’s Pillar from the vantage point of Francis Johnston’s (rebuilt) GPO. As Pól has noted “the photograph shows that thanks to its perspective, the GPO column appears to dominate that of Nelson for the first time ever. It was to be a temporary little arrangement however as Nelson’s Pillar was destined to soon bite the dust.”

Image by Pól Ó Duibhir

Image by Pól Ó Duibhir

These are only a small selection of Pól’s images, and I am indebted to him for contributing them. There are plenty more inside the book.

While Trinity College Dublin was founded in 1592 with the Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I, women couldn’t actually study there until 1904. Certainly, there was a belief among some in authority within the university right up until that point that the admission of female students was strongly undesirable, with the Board warning in 1895 that “If a female had once passed the gate….it would be practically impossible to watch what buildings or what chambers she might enter, or how long she might remain there.”

In January 1904, the short notice that “the Board of Trinity College have received a letter from the King authorising them to admit women to the degrees of Dublin University” appeared in several Irish newspapers. This was the end-product of many years of debate among the Board of Trinity College Dublin and university society more broadly speaking.

The first female student to enter the institution was Isabel Marion Weir Johnston.  She hailed from the north of the country, and was the daughter of Sir John Johnston, who had been a prosperous businessman in Derry and was a former president of the ‘Londonderry Chamber of Commerce’.

In a 1964 article on the subject of Trinity’s earliest female undergraduates,  G.C Duggan wrote that “those women undergraduates of her time who are still alive have vivid memories of her remarkable personality shown not so much in brilliance in examinations as in outstanding character symptomatic of the new world of the 20th century.” Johnston organised dances,  tennis tournaments and established the Elizabethan Society, an important society as women were barred from the major societies right into the 1960s.

George Salmon, the Provost of Trinity College Dublin from 1888-1904.

Certainly, the final Provost of Trinity College Dublin in the years prior to the admission of female students  had opposed any change in the admissions policy for much of his reign. George Salmon, who today gazes over the square of the university,  ran the institution on fiercely conservative lines which included opposition to female students, though he dropped his veto on the matter  when the Board of Trinity voted in favour of female admissions in the early twentieth century.  The popular Dublin story has it that Salmon remarked “women will enter Trinity College over my dead body”. While I’ve never quite been convinced Salmon made this remark, it’s interesting just how long people have been attributing it to him. Susan M.Parkes, in her fascinating article ‘A Danger to the Men? Women in Trinity College Dublin in the First Decade, 1904 -1914′, quotes from Johnston herself who recalled:

I had to keep my terms by examination and was not allowed to attend lectures. Dr. Salmon had said that women would only enter TCD over his dead body, and when I arrived in Dublin in January 1904 I was informed that as he had died that day, the examination had been put off until after the funeral.

There were very real restrictions on Isabel Marion Weir Johnston and other early female students in the university, who were essentially shielded away from the male student populace, and who did not enjoy many of the same rights of their fellow students, such as the use of dining facilities.  The graduation of the first female students from the university was reported in December 1905, with the Provost of Trinity College Dublin addressing female graduates and their guests in the dining hall the institution, a place ironically normally off-bounds to them.

Isabel was not there however. She did not complete her degree, instead marrying Stephen Kelleher, a young Fellow of TCD who lectured in Classics, and later settling down in England. Only a few short years after Isabel in 1909, the following short news-item appeared in The Irish Times:

10 April 1909

While women may have entered Trinity College Dublin as students as early as 1904, there were restrictions on their rights as students right into the 1960s, which included a ban on joining major societies, and being off-campus by 6pm. Speaking in the 1950s, Dr. Owen Sheehy-Skeffinton told one Trinity College newspaper “women form half the society with which one has eventually to come to terms.”   Today, there is a female majority in the student body of Trinity College Dublin.

A 1955 ‘Trinity News’ headline reporting on the banning of women from societies in Trinity College ( http://www.trinitynewsarchive.ie )

Lody in Naval uniform. Credit – pinterest.com

It was reported today in the Daily Mail (sorry for the link but they’re the only news service covering the story) that a letter written by Carl Hans Lody (1877–1914) has been unearthed, nearly 100 years after his execution.

Lody was the most famous German spy of World War One and the first out of eleven to be executed. He was shot by firing squad on November 6, 1914 in the Tower of London becoming the first person to be executed there for 167 years.

Carl Lody’s Final Letter, 5 November 1914. Credit – dailymail.co.uk

On the day before the execution, he wrote to the guard’s commanding officer:

I feel it my duty as a German officer to express my sincere thanks and appreciation towards the staff officers and men who were in charge of my person during my confinement.

Their kind and considered treatment has called my highest esteem and admiration as regards good fellowship even towards the enemy and if I may be permitted, I would thank you for making this known to them.

The letter had been stored at the Guards Museum at Wellington Barracks, but has now been uncovered as part of an exhibition at the museum on the First World War, and the role of the Foot Guards during the conflict.

Born in Berlin, Lody joined the German Navy in 1900 – serving for a year before he was transferred into the First Naval Reserve. He then went on to enter the merchant navy, where he served on English, Norwegian and American ships. After a period of working as a tourist guide on the American-Hamburg line, Lody (who spoke fluent English with an American accent) traveled to Britain as a spy at the outbreak of war in order to observe and report back on the country’s naval fleet.

From Edinburgh, posing as a tourist and using an American passport under the name of “Charles A. Inglis”, he sent telegrams and letters to an address in Stockholm which was used as a cover for German intelligence. His first coded message read:

Must cancel. Johnson very ill. Lost four days, Shall leave shortly, Charles.

He was reporting that there were four ships being repaired at the Firth of Forth dock, and that several others were about to head out to sea. The Germans dispatched an U-21 submarine which attacked the HMS Pathfinder becoming the first ship ever to be sunk by a torpedo fired from a submarine.

After this first success, Lody’s lack of training started to show, and he began to make mistakes – putting his address on his letters and writing them in German. Most significantly and unbeknownst to Lody, M15 were intercepting all of his correspondence.

In September 1914, he traveled to Dublin via Liverpool. From the Gresham Hotel, he wrote a detailed letter in German describing the military ships in Dublin Bay and useful conversations that he had overheard in the city. MI5 decided to act and ordered his arrest.

Enroute to Cork (Queenstown),which was then the largest British naval station in Ireland, Lody stopped off in Killarney, Co. Kerry. On October 2nd, he was arrested by Inspector Cheeseman of the Royal Irish Constabulary while staying at the Great Southern Hotel.

Lody after his arrest. Credit – .josefjakobs.info

The police discovered Lody’s true identity when they found a tailor’s ticket in his jacket bearing his real name and an address in Berlin. He was taken to London and detained at Wellington Barracks, before being convicted of espionage following a court martial, and sentenced to death.
On the morning of his execution, he was reported to have said to the officer who escorted him from his cell: “I suppose that you will not care to shake hands with a German spy”. “No,” the officer replied; “but I will shake hands with a brave man.”

He was executed  at the Tower by an eight man firing squad made up of members of the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards. Lody was first buried in the Tower of London and later disinterred and transferred to the East London Cemetery in Plaistow then finally to Highgate Cemetery, north London.

In May 1934, the Nazis unveiled a memorial to Lody in his northern German city of Luebeck.

Lody memorial pictured in 1938. Credit – Wikipedia.

A part of the memorial, embedded in the medieval Burgtor town gate, can still be seen today:

Lody memorial today. Credit – Wikipedia.

An intriguing tale of espionage in which Dublin played an important part.

For more information on Lody, check out these articles published on the BBC, M15 and the Independent.

All readers are more than welcome to pop along to this on Monday night. The guest speaker is the brilliant Pól Ó Duibhir, who provided me with many of the photographs in the book and on the blog of Nelson’s demise.

West Pier, Howth.

One thing I’ve wanted to see with my own eyes for a long time are the footprints of King George IV, recorded for posterity at Howth’s West Pier. It was there that  he first set foot on Irish soil in August 1821. On his own birthday (he had just turned  59), he was said to arrive in very high spirits. ‘Very high spirits’ , of course, a polite way of saying he was pissed drunk.  George, contemporary reports noted, “was received with the utmost enthusiasm by the inhabitants of Dublin.”

Standing beside the very small footprints of King George IV.

Historian Turtle Bunbury has noted that “Dublin rose to the occasion with banners, flags and bunting strewn across the city in a fantastic display of Royal pageantry. By night, every public building was illuminated while fireworks exploded into the sky and the citizens guzzled hogshead after hogshead of free porter.”

George stayed in Ireland for a number of weeks, departing the country via  Dún Laoghaire, which was renamed ‘Kingstown’ in the aftermath of his visit. It would remain under that name until independence in 1922,  and while the name has reverted, there is still a trace of the visit to be found there, with a monument commemorating the visit still standing. A bombing of the obelisk did minimal damage in 1970, but did lead The Irish Times to remark “It is a harmless enough relic – indeed, in some ways, a pleasantly absurd one. Fifty years after independence perhaps we could afford to leave it alone”

George IV monument at Dún Laoghaire. Illustration via http://www.archiseek.com

Front view of the Ballsbridge IRA memorial. Credit – Sam (CHTM!)

A stones throw away from a US Embassy is an odd location for a memorial to a revolutionary guerrilla army.

But this is the case for the plaque and celtic cross at the corner of Herbert Park and Clyde Road in Ballsbridge dedicated to the memory of the officers and men of the IRA’s Third Battalion Dublin Brigade.

Significance and context

On the 13th of May 1973, in one of his last public appearances in office, President Eamon De Valera unveiled the IRA memorial in front of a crowd of several hundred. A little over a month later, and at the grand age of 90, De Valera retired from political office.. Commandment of the Third Battalion in the lead up to and during Easter Week 1916, De Valera died in the Linden Convalescent Home, Blackrock on 29 August 1975 aged 92.

During the 1916 Rising, the Battalion saw action at nearby Boland’s Bakery on Grand Canal Street, Haddington Road Railway Bridge, Clanwilliam House on the north side of Mount Street Bridge, St. Stephen’s School and the Parochial Hall on the south side of bridge and No. 25 Northumberland Road. After their surrender, De Valera and his men (infamously he allowed no members of Cumann na mBan to serve with him) were held in horse-boxes in the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) just a few minutes from the present day memorial.

The main focus of the Third Battalion during the post-Rising revolutionary period was the area around Northumberland Road, Mount Street Bridge,  Pearse Street, Bolands Mills, Dame Street and the district known as the Dardanelles, including Aungier Street and Wexford Street.

IRA veterans march in formation to the memorial unveiling. Credit – Irish Independent (14 May 1973)

The timing of the unveiling is obviously significant. It took place during the height of the conflict in the Six Counties – in the shadow of 1972, the bloodiest year of the ‘Troubles’ in which nearly 500 people lost their lives.

A memorial to the IRA, unveiled by the President of Ireland, during the summer of 1973 has serious implications. On the day of the ceremony, two members of a British Army foot patrol were killed when a remote controlled bomb hidden in a disused factory was detonated by the IRA on the Donegall Road, West Belfast. While in The Diamond, near Coagh, County Tyrone,an IRA member was shot dead as he drove through an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) check point.

Broe Family

The memorial was fashioned by sculptor Dermot Broe. A second generation sculptor, his father Leo Broe (1899–1966) was an IRA veteran who saw active service in the Camden Street area with C Company, 3rd Battalion I.R.A during the Tan War. A well-known monumental sculptor and artist, he was responsible for many IRA monuments including the sixteen foot Phibsborogh Volunteer opposite the Library on the North Circular Road unveiled in 1939.

Another sculptor son Desmond, who died suddenly in 1968, was responsible for the commemorative plaque over the birthplace of Patrick and Willie Pearse at 27 Pearse Street (known as Great Brunswick Street until 1924) and the Kevin Barry memorial in Rathvilly, Carlow (unveiled in 1958).

Plaque outside 27 Pearse Street fashioned by Desmond Broe. Credit – michael7000.files.wordpress.com

Daughter Irene (1923 – 1992), another sculptor, produced busts to Donogh O’Malley and the Masalsyian prime minister Abdul Rahman.

Memorial and unveiling

On 13 May 1974 De Valera, in heavy rain, first inspected the guard of honour which was drawn from the Second Battalion, Cathal Brugha Barracks and the Eastern Command Training Depot under commander Captain Peter Archibald.

Accompanied by Colonel Sean Brennan. his senior aide-decamp, he was then escorted to seats beside the memorial, which was set in a railed area off the pavement and surrounded by tulips and other flowers in the adjoining private gardens.

Liam Kavanagh, who served as a volunteer in Bolands Mill in 1916, gave a brief address to the crowd. He paid tribute to the “courage, endurance and devotion to duty of deceased members, some of whom died in action, others from imprisonment, and other hardships and some on the scaffold.”

The Army Number One Band then played the Last Post as a small group of veterans of his the Brigade saluted their dead comrades. Later De Valera inspected the memorial with Mr. Kavanagh and Mr. Leo Kelly, secretary and treasurer of the Old Dublin Brigade. Finally, the cross was blessed by the chaplain of the Old Dublin Brigade, Fr. Tom Walsh, O.P.

Eamon De Valera inspects the memorial. Credit – Irish Press (14 May 1973)

The memorial has been diligently described by Michael Pegum as a:

“Stone Celtic cross on oblong plinth. Plinth width 69cms, depth 48cms. Total height approx 240cms. A black marble panel on the base of the cross records the unveiling. Behind the cross are three black marble slabs with inscriptions in Irish and English. Height 99cms, width of each side panel 95cms.”

Interestingly it is dedicated to men of the 3rd Battalion who ‘died for Ireland in 1916 and since’. This is interesting wording as it encompasses members of the battalion who fought and died in the Tan War, Civil War and possibly in later military action.

The text of the Ballsbridge IRA memorial. Credit – Sam (CHTM!)

The Embassy of the United States in Dublin (to give it its full title) was constructed between 1962 and 1964 on a triangular site at the intersection between Elgin Road and Pembroke Road.

So at the time of the IRA memorial unveiling, they had been there for a decade while the nearby British embassy was opened just six months afterwards.

The British Embassy has been based at 29 Merrion Road, Ballsbridge since December 1974. They were forced to relocate after their previous premises, 39 Merrion Square, was besieged for three days and attacked for 24 hours by thousands of people in response to the Bloody Sunday murders in Derry on 30 January 1972.

Image Credit: William Murphy (Flickr. Many more images of Dublin:  http://tinyurl.com/nmnkpeb,  Creative Commons copyright)

Given the never-ending controversies that came with his O’Connell Street column, many Dubliners may be surprised to hear there is a Nelson Street in the city today, named in honour of Horatio Nelson. Located in Dublin 7 in the north inner-city, I walk by it on an almost daily basis, though Sráid Nelson didn’t catch my eye for quite some time.

The renaming of streets in the Irish capital was already long underway by the time Irish independence was achieved in 1922, with an increasingly nationalist Dublin Corporation from the late nineteenth century onwards attempting to reflect nationalist history on the streets of the city. A 1921 ‘Report of the Paving Committee’, contained within the minute books of Dublin Corporation, advocated the following changes among others:

That Capel Street be renamed Silken Thomas Street.

That Beresford Place, home of trade union headquarters Liberty Hall, be renamed Connolly Place.

That Gardiner Place and Row be renamed Thomas Ashe Street.

Some suggested street name changes put before the Corporation at the time were accepted, for example renaming Great Brunswick Street to Pearse Street.

Certainly, the issue of renaming particular streets and locations in Dublin continues to pop up to this very day. In recent years some have advocated for example that the quays be renamed after Irish writers, something that was proposed by Gay Mitchell in 2006. This was something Mitchell had first proposed in 1991, and speaking in support of the plan at the time, Tony Gregory remarked “I feel that most Irish people have a pride in their own cultural heritage and very few would have any great interest in the old imperial legacy of Wellington and Essex. I don’t think Burgh Quay is named after Chris de Burgh!”

While the Corporation has proven quite willing to rename streets historically, a few interesting ones like Nelson have survived long into the days of independence.

Nassau Street. Its historic blue street marking is still visible under the contemporary sign. (Image: smirkybec, http://www.wikipedia.org, Creative Commons)

That Nassau Street managed to retain it’s name is surprising, as the street was only thus named in the eighteenth century, after the coming to power of King William of Orange, who belonged to the House of Orange-Nassau. J.T Gilbert in his classic history of Dublin wrote that in the eighteenth century a life-sized bust of King William III was to be found on this street.

Very oddly, the Irish language name for this street has appeared as both Sráid Nassau and Sráid Thobar Phadraig,  with the later reflecting the streets historical name of St.Patrick’s Well Street, after a 12th century well found there.  It’s unusual that both names have appeared in street signage historically, and indeed at the very same time on different ends of the street!

One family who are more than honoured in Dublin are the Wellesley’s, and in particular Arthur Wellesley, better known as the Duke of Wellington. Wellesley Place, Wellington Road,  and Waterloo Road, after the Battle of Waterloo, all reflect the contribution of this family to history.  While Dublin folklore suggests Wellington remarked “being born in a stable does not make one a horse”,  nowhere on record did he actually make this remark, so perhaps he would actually approve of streets named in honour of him and his family in this city!

It is likely that sheer familiarity alone prevented many streets in the city from being renamed, for example Talbot Street, named in honour of  a former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the third Earl of Talbot Charles Chetwynd. We’ve previously looked at the movement to rename this street in the 1940s after Irish republican Sean Treacy,  a campaign which led to a sustained campaign of flypostering the proposed name over the streetsigns in the area and interruptions of Corporation meetings.

On November 1st 1943, members of the Ailtirí na hÁiseirghe  organisation created uproar at a meeting of Dublin Corporation, by shouting from the public galleries while the Corporation was sitting. At the time of the interruptions, the Corporation was discussing the planned removal of Queen Victoria’s statue from Leinster House. One man rose and shouted: “Get rid of all the symbols of slavery in the streets! We demand that Talbot Street be renamed Sean Treacy street. Young Ireland is awakening.”

Often we walk down our streets without knowing who or what their names commemorate,  but in a city with such a troubled relationship historically with monuments and statues – it’s interesting that our British past is still often commemorated in the street names around us. Something to think about as you walk down Horatio Nelson’s street.

Article on ‘Grille’ from Trinity News (31 October 1968)

On the 27th of August 1968, a group of left-wing Christians were attacked and harassed by local parishioners in St. Andrew’s Church, Westland Row after they attempted to hold a public prayer meeting.

The meeting, organised by the Irish Christian Socialist magazine ‘Grille’, was attended by around forty-five people including my uncle Michael and my granny. The first issue of this magazine was launched the previous month and had sold 1,000 copies. It was produced by a nine member editorial board made up of John Feeney (Secretary), John Byrne (Co-Ordinator), William Ledwich, Aoife Kearney, Erwin Struntz and four others.

A parishioner questions activists from ‘Grille’ while they read from the Bible. Credit – Irish Independent, 26 August 1968

The meeting was held to draw attention to the fact that ‘much publicity’ had been given ‘to the advice of right-wing Catholics on the birth control issue.’ The Christian Socialists hoped to add their voice to the debate and help correct ‘the imbalance of this situation.’

They were not granted permission to use the church nor did they ask for it as they felt all practising Catholics were already part owners of all churches.

After gathering in a side alcove, a member of the group opened the proceeding with The Lords Prayer and then read from the Gospel According to St. Matthew. At this point, a man jostled him and knocked the bible out of his hand. A woman, who later transpired to be the aggressors wife, tried to calm the situation telling her husband ‘You’re making a show of yourself. Let them go on with it. It’ll all fizzle out’.

Two middle-aged parishioners look menacingly at one Bible-reading ‘Grille’ radical. Credit – The Irish Times, 26 August 1968

Meanwhile a group of ten men, moved in on the ‘Grille’ group pushing them about, throwing punches and pulling women’s headscarves off their heads. Activist John Byrne was punched in the mouth as he was singing a hymn.

The mob bombarded the young Christian radicals with questions: ‘Are you Irish? Are you Catholic? Are you from this parish? Are you a communist?’

A certain Francis Mayer from Ringsend told an Irish Times journalist:

If this happened in our parish, we’d get them by the scruff of the neck and throw them out. Look at their faces; they’re not Irishmen at all. They’re a pack of foreigners

Scuffles break out at the ‘Grille’ pray-in. Credit – The Irish Independent, 26 August 1968

For reasons of safety, the group moved the meeting to the University Church, Stephens Green where it passed off without further incident.

John Feeney told the crowd and waiting journalists: ‘We have been demonstrating against the misuse of authority by the Pope; in his encyclical on birth control; and the misuse of authority by the Russians with their tanks and guns in Czechoslovakia. The people who attacked us earlier in Westland Row showed violent disrespect for authority and the church; exactly the failing they attribute to us.’.

John Feeney of ‘Grille’ talking to press and supporters (Indo, 26 Aug 1968) 2

The Irish Christian socialists of ‘Grille’ magazine continued its activity in the late 1960s.

It organised a picket and fasting outside the Garda Club on Harrington Street in September 1968 during a visit of Chicago Irish-American police officers. This was in the immediate wake of the police brutality against demonstrators outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

In April 1969, they were part of the forty strong picket which clashed with Gardai outside RTE’s studios in Donnybrook during an appearance of bigoted Conservative MP Enoch Powell who was a guest on The Late Late Show.

The last reference to the group is from May 1970 when it co-organised a picket at the US embassy, attended by 600 people, after the American invasion of Cambodia.

Postscript:

John Feeney (1948 – 1984), a leading student radical leader in UCD, went to work with the Irish Press and and later resigned from his role as researcher on the ’7 days’ RTE programme. He was dismissed as editor of the Catholic Standard but later became a leading columnist with the Evening Herald. He died tragically in the November 1984 Beaujolais Air Crash which killed nine people. The private airplane was traveling to France for the annual ‘race’ to bring the first bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau to Ireland when it crashed near Bournemouth, overladen with luggage.

The other eight passengers were Nial Hanley, editor of the Evening Herald; Kevin Marrow, former editor of the Dublin Sunday World and then a columnist for the Sunday World and Evening Herald;  Tony Hennigan, diary editor of the Irish Independent; Pat Gibbons, owner of the Sands Hotel in Portmarnock, Co Dublin; Francois Schelbaum, manager of the Sands Hotel; Cormack Cassidy, a wine merchant; Arrigo Chichi, Italian restaurant owner of Kikis, Sandymount, Dublin and Jack Walsh, the pilot.

Aoife Kearney, later to become wife of the John Feeney and mother of his five children, published a celebrated ‘savagely satirical and sexually explicit novel about modern Irish society’ called The Rule of War in 2011.

One of their sons, Chekov, has written an enjoyable account of his childhood and political journey towards Anarchist politics.

Erwin Struntz (1903 – 1995), a left-leaning Austrian-born journalist, escaped to Ireland from Vienna with his Jewish wife in 1938. Their getaway was planned and executed by Herbert Butler from Kilkenny who was active with the Society of Friends (Quarkers). Struntz, later became a Quarker convert, and managed the famous Unicorn Restaurant on Westland Row.

William Ledwich, son of a Church of Ireland rector, was ordained an Anglican priest but resigned in 1984 in protest against the consecration of Professor David Jenkins as the Bishop of Durham.

Plaque at Glasnevin Cemetery.

A new plaque to Shane MacThomais was unveiled yesterday at Glasnevin Cemetery. Shane was the resident historian of the cemetery for many years, and the author of an excellent history of the important site,  Glasnevin: Ireland’s Necropolis.   A  documentary about the cemetery, entitled One Million Dubliners , recently won the Best Irish Feature Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh, and thankfully it will be airing in a number of Dublin cinemas later in the year. The plaque will be placed just inside the main entrance to the Cemetery opposite the museum.

This recent video captures Glasnevin  using a drone camera, giving some beautiful views over the historic site and should be all tne encouragement any reader who hasn’t yet visited the cemetery will need to make the trip:

One thing the  new documentary explores is the manner in which certain graves attract huge attention, in particular the final resting place of Michael Collins. Some others are almost hidden away.  Shane once remarked to my father that Ernie O’Malley’s grave was one that fell into the later category, rarely attracting the attention  of visitors. O’Malley’s huge contribution to the revolutionary period in Ireland is like something from a Hollywood blockbuster at times, and his fantastic memoirs of the period, in particular On Another Man’s Wound, played no small part in developing my love of Ireland’s history. We thought that perhaps the best tribute to Shane would be to leave flowers on Ernie’s grave yesterday.

The Stoneybatter and Smithfield People’s History Project are doing wonderful work in Dublin 7 promoting both the history of the area and broader Dublin history.  After many months of planning and fundraising, they have now announced their ‘Street Stories Festival’ for September. The Facebook page is here.

Running over a full weekend, there will be talks, gigs, walking tours and more from September 26 to 28. The Friday night event,  with the photographer David Jazay,  should appeal to many. His great pictures of Dublin in the 1980s and 90s include many shots of Dublin 7, an area which has changed greatly in recent times:

Via http://davidjazay.com/?ds-gallery=dublin-2

The event will kick off on Friday night with a talk by David Jazay on his photographic story of inner city Dublin in the 1980s and ’90shttp://davidjazay.com/?page_id=2. This will be followed by a music session in the Cobblestone.

On Saturday we have talks throughout the day on a wide range of subjects from the Mother and Baby homes, to Dublin in World War I, from Life in Medieval Smithfield to the Massacre in North King Street during the 1916 Rising and lots more.

Saturday night will see Dublin’s favourite ska/reggae band The Bionic Rats rocking the Back Room of the Cobblestone, after which we will keep the dancing going with some guest DJs.

Sunday will be a relaxed day of walking tours and film showings.

 

On Good Friday I did a fundraising walking tour of Smithfield and the area around it for this festival. There have since been other walking tours examining women’s history in revolutionary Ireland and the 1798 connections of Dublin 7 and its environs. John Gibney of History Ireland, and author of an excellent biography of 1916 leader Sean Heuston, will be giving a walking tour on  August 9th for this good cause:

(Apologies for the lack of updates of late, these are busy times!)

Gang violence has featured on Come Here To Me before; with the Pinking Dindies, the Liberty Boys and the Ormond Boys of the 18th century, through the various fracas’ of the Animal Gangs and on to the Black Catholics in the 1970’s and 80’s and onwards all making an appearance. Dublin has always had its fair share of troublesome groups and there’s always plenty to write about them.

One event we haven’t yet covered that jumped out at me recently while reading John Edward Walsh’s “Rakes and Ruffians,” was a three day riot involving both the Liberty Boys and the Ormond Boys which brought Dublin to a standstill in mid- May, 1790. Accounts of Dublin from the late 18th/ early 19th century are rarely without mention of the two groups whose infamy is still regarded to this day. Injuries, maimings and deaths are all purported to have taken place in this encounter, making it one of their bloodiest.

According to J.D Herbert’s Irish Varieties, for the Last Fifty Years: Written from Recollections, the Ormond Boys were the “assistants and carriers from slaughter-houses, joined by cattle drivers from Smithfield, stable-boys, helpers, porters, and idle drunken vagabonds in the neighbourhood of Ormond Quay,” whilst the Liberty Boys were, “a set of lawless desperadoes, residing in the opposite side of the town, called the Liberty. Those were of a different breed, being chiefly unfortunate weavers without employment, some were habitual and wilful idlers, slow to labour, but quick at riot and uproar.”

Weaver’s Square, home of the Liberty Boys, from John Roque’s map of 1754. Taken from http://irishhistoricaltextiles.files.wordpress.com

The Liberty Boys notoriety spread further than Dublin, and references to them can be found in several newspaper articles from across the water, including one in the Leeds Mercury from January 1867 which refers to them as French Huguenots who have “degenerated physically.” “They are the Liberty Boys of Dublin, the dwellers in ‘The Coombe,’ or hollow sloping down to the river, famous for their lawlessness, their strikes, and their manufactures of poplin and tabbinet. They do not seem at all favourable specimens of humanity as you watch them leaning out of windows in the tall, gaunt, filthy, tumble down houses around and beyond St. Patrick’s.”

The hostility between the two gangs often led to full scale riots between upwards of 1, 000 men and these occurred several times a year, but especially in the run up to the Mayday festival. The city would be brought to a standstill, with businesses closing, the watchmen looking on in terror, as battles raged for the possession of the bridges over the Liffey. Walsh’s book reports the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alderman Emerson as saying “it was as much as his life was worth to go among them” regarding such riots.

Essex Bridge and Ormond Quay, where the main battles took place.

The battle this piece refers to though began on May 11th 1790 and lasted several days. The riot coincided with an election in the city, although an opinion piece in the Freeman’s Journal on the Thursday of that week described the violence as wanton, saying:

“The situation of the capital on Wednesday night was dreadful in the extreme; it was shocking to civilisation, for outrage was openly and without disguise directed against the civil protection of the city. On other occasions, grievance, from sickness of trade, from injury by exportation of foreign commodities, from the high price of provision and the low rate of labour, grievances from the want of employ and a variety of other causes were usually alleged for the risings of the people, but on the present occasion, no grievance exists, and the fomenters of disorder are without such a pretension. “Down with the police” is the cry and demolish the protection of the city is the pursuit.”

“In different parts of the town, prodigious mobs of people were assembled and the avowed purpose of their tumultuous rising was declared in the vehemence of their execrations against the police. “Down with the police, five pounds for a police man’s head.” They were the shouts which filled the streets.”

“In Mary Street, no passenger could escape the shower of brick bats and paving stones intended for the police. In St. Andrew’s Street, the scene was if possible more dreadful, for the mob not content in driving the Police watchman before them proceeded to pull down the watch house in which he took refuge. .. (The Men) were obliged to fire and three of the rioters fell.”

The riot only came to a conclusion on the Thursday due to military intervention, when a “party of men on horse dispersed the rioters and stood guard for the remainder of the night which prevented more bloodshed and massacre…. The blood of the unfortunate wretches who met their unhappy fate rests at the door of those few incendiaries who stimulated by their playful insignias unthinking persons to destruction.” And people think Love Ulster was bad!

In 1987, RTÉ broadcast three half-an-hour specials of the music show ‘Visual Eyes’.

Slotted between a behind-the-scenes look at U2 playing Modena, Italy and an extended one-on-one interview with David Bowie in London, there was an RTÉ prime time special on the career and songwriting talents of Dublin legend Paul Cleary.

Paul Cleary, 1980s. Uploaded by Mark Sherlock.

With only a few weeks until The Blades much anticipated gig at the sold out Electric Picnic festival, it’s perfect timing that this 30mins Paul Cleary special has been uploaded onto YouTube.

Presented by Dave Fanning and produced/directed by Billy Magra (aka McGrath), this is the first time the programme has been available in 27 years.

Intertwined with interviews of Paul Cleary at locations on Sandymount Strand and RTE, the show contains footage of:

- ‘The Reunion’ on Anything Goes (1980)
– ‘Ghost of a Chance’ on The Late Late Show (1981)
– ‘The Bride Wore White’ on Anything Goes (1981)
– ‘Revelations of Heartbreak’ on Non Stop Pop (1982)
– ‘Downmarket’ music video (1983)
– Footage from the 1983 Hot Press Music Awards
– ‘Those Were The Days’ on TV GA GA (1985)
– Recording of the Concern charity record written by Paul Cleary (1985)
– ‘Too Late’ by Paul Cleary with Ray Lynam on TV GA GA (1987)
– ‘Badlands’ (198?)
– ‘Some People Smile’ by Paul Cleary on The Late Late Show (1983)

The show’s graphic designer Billy Morley (ex-guitarist with Revolver / The Radiators / The Defenders) sadly passed away earlier this year. Producer Billy recalled on The Blades Facebook fan group:

Normally quiet & unassuming, he passed me in the RTE corridor after the 3 specials (U2, Paul and Bowie) aired and without breaking stride threw an aside as he passed – ‘the Cleary fella wrote the better songs’. Indeed.

Previous blog piece on the The Blades:

A conversation with Paul Cleary
Lyrics from the two Blades LPS
Still sounding sharp, looking back at The Blades
Revelations (Of 45s)
The Blades Are Sharp
Building A Wasteland
os Blades?
The Blades singles
Emm Gryner’s version of Downmarket

Benjamin Franklin as he appears in the wallets of Americans (Wiki Commons)

In  September 1771, Benjamin Franklin arrived in the city of Dublin, in the company of colonial agent Richard Jackson.  One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Franklin is a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776, though five years earlier he was based in London, attempting to negotiate on behalf of the American Colonies. Franklin detailed his views of Dublin and Ireland in a letter to Thomas Cushing, a lawyer and statesman from Boston, Massachusetts.  Franklin had a keen interest in Irish affairs, writing in a letter two years prior to visiting the country that “all Ireland is strongly in favor of the American cause. They have reason to sympathize with us.”

While in Ireland, Franklin was struck by the contrast between the grandeur of Dublin city itself and the intense poverty of those beyond its core. He commented to Cushing that:

Ireland is itself a poor country, and Dublin a magnificent city; but the appearances of general extreme poverty among the lower people are amazing. They live in wretched hovels of mud and straw, are clothed in rags, and subsist chiefly on potatoes. Our New England farmers, of the poorest sort, in regard to the enjoyment of all the comforts of life,  are princes when compared to them.

Franklin visited the Irish parliament at College Green, and was granted the honour of sitting in the chamber of the parliament alongside the elected Irish parliamentarians.  To Franklin, this was “a mark of respect for our country.”  It should be noted that the Irish parliament of the time was off-limits to the Catholic majority in Ireland, and was an entirely Anglican assembly, something later parliamentarians would seek unsuccessfully to reform. Franklin wrote of the parliament on College Green, telling Cushing:

Before I left Ireland I must mention that being desirous of seeing the principal Patriots there, I stayed till the Opening of their Parliament. I found them disposed to be friends of America, in which disposition I endeavored to confirm them, with the expectation that our growing weight might in time be thrown into their scale, and, by joining our interest with theirs, might be obtained for them as well as for us, a more equitable treatment from this Nation. There are many brave spirits among them, the gentry are a very sensible, polite and friendly people. Their Parliament makes a most respectable figure, with a number of very good speakers in both parties, and able men of businesses.

Parliament on College Green, which Benjamin Franklin visited. (NLI)

While in Ireland, Franklin spent three days at Hillsborough, County Down. He was a guest to Lord Hillsborough, the Colonial Secretary and a political opponent (frequently described as a nemesis) who he had encountered in Dublin. Walter Isaacson in his biography of Franklin writes that this was an “astonishingly friendly visit”, with Franklin writing to Cushing that he believed Hillsborough was not genuine in his friendliness but rather “he apprehended an approaching storm and was desirous of lessening beforehand the number of enemies he had so imprudently created.”

Franklin traveled on from Ireland to Scotland, where he was again shocked by an intensely poor peasantry. Following his trip to Scotland and Ireland he returned to London,  though he returned to the United States in March 1775. The rest, as they say, is history.

In 1977, the American Ambassador presented a bust of Benjamin Franklin to the Bank of Ireland to commemorate the visit. Speaking at the unveiling of the bust, the Ambassador (Walter J.P Curley) noted that

Franklin’s friendship for Ireland was no fleeting whim.  He had said “You have ever been friendly to the rights of mankind and we acknowledge with pleasure and gratitude that your nation has produced patriots who have nobly distinguished themselves in the cause of humanity and America.”

In San Francisco in 1973, gay activist Harvey Milk successfully petitioned gay bars in the Castro District to stop selling Coors beer. This was in response to an appeal from the Teamsters union who called for a boycott of Coors as the company refused to sign a Union contract. The gay community were themselves hostile to the company as Coors implemented a strict employment discrimination policy and refused to hire gay workers. With the help of a coalition of Arab and Chinese grocers the Teamsters had also recruited, the boycott was successful. In return, the Union hired more gay men to drive Teamsters beer trucks. It was a splendid example of solidarity.

A year later in Dublin, a very minor but compelling event brought together trade unionists and gay activists. Even if was just for fifteen minutes!

On Saturday 27th June 1974, ten lesbians and gay men protested in Dublin in what was the first ever public demonstration of LGBT Pride on the island of Ireland. The group included Northern Irish gay political activist Jeff Dudgeon and the then Trinity Lecturer David Norris.

Gay activist outside the Department of Justice, 27 June 1974. Photo – Gareth Miller. Credit – Irish Queer Archive (Facebook)

The protestors first picketed the British Embassy in Ballsbridge where one of the group organisers, the Sexual Liberation Movement (SLM) handed in a letter to the British Embassy in protest against the existing anti-gay legislation in Northern Ireland.

The group then marched to the Department of Justice on St. Stephen’s Green holding signs such as ‘Homosexuals are Revolting’ and ‘Lesbian Pride’. The small group of brave men and women literally stopped traffic as bus drivers and bicycle messengers slowed down or came to a screeching halt while trying to get a better look.

Gay activist outside the Department of Justice, 27 June 1974. Credit – Irish Queer Archive (Facebook). David Norris Collection.

David Norris, in his autobiography, recalls an incredible incident when a lorry pulled up outside the Department during the picket:

A large roll of carpet was flung out the back of the lorry and a burly man descended. He took one look at us and shouted back to his colleague in the driving seat, ‘Jesus, Mick, they’re fuckin’ queers!’

A head appeared at the window and took in the situation. Then a deep bass voice shouted back, ‘Whorrabowra sure I don’t give a bollicks, a picket’s a fucking picket mate’ and with that an even larger and more muscular lorry driver jumped out of the cab and joined our picket for a quarter of an hour, leaving the minister’s carpet stranded on the pavement.

A splendid example of worker solidarity.

For more photographs and memories, check out the Irish Queer Archive on Facebook.

A curious feature of The Irish Times in  the late 1970s was the frequent appearance of advertisements paid for by the North Korean state, detailing Kim Il-Sung’s thoughts and ideological positions on a wide range of issues. The advertisement below, which declared Let Us Smash The Two Koreas Plot and Peacefully Reunify The Country! is a typical example, showing a picture of Kim Il-Sung alongside a message read at “the 30th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”

The Irish Times, 22 February 1979.

Kim Il-Sung’s face would have been a regular sight for readers of the paper, appearing sometimes on a monthly basis.  The advertisements referred to him by a variety of titles including ‘Great Leader’ and ‘Comrade’. The first reference I found to these advertisements was within The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party. In the book, Sean Garland, a leading figure in the Official Republican movement, talked about visiting North Korea and informing authorities there that “putting full-page ads into The Irish Times of Kim Il-Sung’s thoughts was a waste of money because nobody fucking read them.” Curiously, The Irish Times itself reported in April 1976 that “after spending a fortune on propaganda material extolling its economic achievements in recent years, North Korea is now virtually bankrupt….the propaganda mainly took the form of advertisements, many of them in western papers.”

The Irish Times, 16 February 1978.

The Irish Press wrote about the advertisements in April 1976 calling them “indescribably boring”, and noting that the advertisements were “carefully camouflaged to resemble the paper’s own editorial matter.” Readers of the Dublin-based newspaper saw only the same official state portraits of Kim Il-Sung. In the North Korean media, it was common practice to reprint these Western advertisements as if they were news reports and not paid content. Certainly, they are some of the most unusual advertisements to ever appear in Irish newspaper history.

An interesting comment followed us posting this piece on Facebook. It was highlighted there that in the 1970s the library of Trinity College Dublin was presented with a series of books on Kim Il-Sung by the “State Central Library of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” Images of the books have been posted to Facebook by DH History, the history society of the university.

A gift to TCD from the DPRK. Via http://www.facebook.com/duhistory

My thanks to Luke Fallon for providing these images, we’ve posted some of his images before on the site (for example the Croppies Acre memorial) and it’s a nice dimension to the blog that looks at Dublin today and not just the historical city.  Included here are some recent events in the city, such as the demolition of the Charlemont Street flats and the All City Tivoli Jam, along with images of life in the city.

Charlemont Street flats demolition.

A posing dog.

Theobald Wolfe Tone memorial, Stephen’s Green.

Liffey boardwalk.

Stephen’s Green.

O’Connell Street

Bloomsday in the bookies.

The office of the Lord Mayor have an official page over on Facebook, which I recently stumbled upon. It reminded me of something I’d wish to look at briedly on the site before, which is the Lord Mayor’s chain. It is photographed here on  our current Lord Mayor, veteran republican Christy Burke.

Image Credit: https://www.facebook.com/LordMayorDublin?fref=photo

What people tend not to notice is the presence of a certain William III on the chain, better known to us today as King William of Orange. The current Lord Mayor’s chain of Dublin was completed in 1698, only eight short years after the Battle of the Boyne and within the lifetime of William. The previous Lord Mayor’s chain showed Charles II upon it, who commissioned the first Lord Mayors Chain for the city.

The original Lord Mayor’s chain, according to W.G Strickland, was taken by Sir Terence McDermott, Lord Mayor of the city who who fled to France during the religious wars of the  late seventeenth century. What became of it remains a mystery. Bartholomew Van Homrigh, the Lord Mayor of Dublin following William’s victory at the Boyne, was first to wear the William III chain, and it  was valued at the time at £1,000.  A Dutch merchant, Van Homrigh expressed his hope that “in everlasting memory of the great services of William III to the Protestant inhabitants and as a mark of his royal grace and favour” William would bestow  such a chain upon the city.

Thanks to Póló for this image showing clear detail of William III.

Kathleen Clarke, widow of 1916 leader Tom Clarke, made headlines in Ireland and further afield by refusing to wear the chain during her time in office. Dublin’s first female Lord Mayor, Clarke objected to the symbolism of the chain. Clarke also removed a portrait of Queen Victoria from the Mansion House, stating that “I felt I could not sleep in the Mansion House until  she was out of it.”  During her time in office Northern unionists asked the city of Dublin, perhaps tongue-in-cheekly, to hand over both the William city chain and the portrait of Victoria. Perhaps they were unaware that the words ‘Erin Go Bragh’, or ‘Ireland Forever’ in English, are inscribed on the Belfast Lord Mayor’s equivalent, but that’s a story for another blog….

Archive footage of Clarke speaking has been uploaded by RTE to YouTube:

This weekend sees the inaugural Street Stories Festival happening in Stoneybatter and Smithfield. There’s a wide variety of talks, walks, gigs and more taking place over the weekend, beginning tonight and carrying right through to Sunday. The majority of the events are free to attend and below we’ve listed a few we think are particularly interesting, along with the information on venues and times.

Tonight sees it all begin with David Jazay, a photographer and film maker, talking about photographs he took in a Dublin before the Celtic Tiger. Jazay took many photographs of Dublin life in the late 1980s and early 1990s, showing a city that would witness huge change in the decade ahead. From shop owners to long-since redeveloped streets, the images mostly compromise Dublin’s inner-city areas.

Tonight in the Cobblestone, 7.30pm.

William Gallagher of Martin+Joyce’s Butcher shop, Benburb Street (David Jazay)

Tomorrow there are a wide variety of historical talks, covering both local history and the larger picture. At 12.30PM Liz Gillis, author of ‘The Fall of Dublin’, will be discussing the North King Street Massacre in 1916 in The Cobblestone. Brian Hanley is talking at 2.30PM on Dublin in the First World War, with that talk taking place in The Generator, Smithfield. 2.30PM also sees archaeologist Franc Myles discuss ‘Smithfield Through The Ages’ in The Cobblestone. One of the very first meetings hosted by the local history society, Myles packed the pub out before on the theme of Smithfield’s early development and history. At 4.30PM Las Fallon will be talking about ‘Dublin Fire Brigade and the Irish Revolution’, revealing that some firefighters were in the business of starting fires and not stopping them during the revolutionary period! That talk takes place in the Elbow Room, at 32 North Brunswick Street.

The Four Courts ablaze in 1922.

On Sunday two walks have been organised to coincide with the festival. Firstly, there is a walk looking at the role of women in the Irish revolution leaving from the O’Connell Street Spire at 2pm. At 4pm, the ever-entertaining Alan MacSimoin will be taking people on a walking tour of historic Smithfield, covering everything from Vikings to film stars and back again.

More information on the festival and the wide variety of talks taking place can be found here.

To give an idea where the venues are, this map should come in handy. They are all a handy stroll from one another.

The Four Corners of Hell was the colloquial name given to the junction where New Street, Patrick’s Street, Kevin’s Street and Dean Street met in The Liberties, Dublin 8.

In the shadow of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, this crossroads was infamous for having a public house on each corner and the immediate area after closing time was legendary for its rowdy crowds and punch ups. Revelers from rival neighborhoods or families would pour out onto the streets when the pubs shut and would settle old scores and new disputes with their fists. Famed local cop Lugs Brannigan and his men based out of nearby Kevin Street Garda station would often have their work cut for them. Its heyday was from the 1950s to the early 1980s.

Illustration of The Four Corners of Hell. Credit – Sam (CHTM!)

The cross-roads is almost unrecognisable today now due to the demolition and road widening that occurred in the 1980s.

The shaded buildings were demolished by the council. Credit – Irish Times (13 May 1985)

The four pubs were as follows:

1. Kenny’s
2. Quinn’s
3. O’Beirne’s
4. Lowe’s

Arial shot of the Four Corners of Hell, nd. Credit – ‘Growing up in the Liberties’s’ FB page

1. Liam Kenny’s on the corner of 49 Patrick Street and 9 Dean Street. Status – Building demolished and currently the site of a 99c store.

In the 1920s, the pub was run by a F. Martin and was known as Martin’s Corner. In February 1921, he was robbed at gunpoint by a man who made off with £10.

Publican Joseph Cody took over the premises around 1950. He had previously ran a pub at 21 Braithwaite Street in the nearby inner city area of Pimlico.

The Irish Times (12 January 1949) reported that two local men late one night the previous August had produced a pistol, forced themselves into the bar, asked for a dozen stout and whiskey and then shot and broke a bottle of wine and a mirror. Christopher Dunne (32) and Laurence Tierney (26), both of New Street, were found guilty of being in a possession of a firearm without a certificate. Dunne was sentenced to six months hard labour while Tierney was given a suspended sentence of nine months and bound to keep the peace for three years. The duo were found not guilty of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life, conspiracy and armed robbery.

[The aforementioned Christopher Dunne was father of career criminal Christy 'Bronco' Dunne Jr. who along with his brothers were chiefly responsible for flooding the city with heroin in the late 1970s and 1980s].

On 5 October 1949, landlord Cody was fined £12 for having opened his pub during prohibited hours on April 10th (Good Friday) last. Twelve men were found on the premises by police. On 3 January 1951, now based in Dean Street in the Four Corners of Hell, Cody was again fined (£1) for allowing two women to drink in his bar after closing time.

On 21 November 1953, William Jackson (24) of Dowker’s Lane off Lower Clanbrassil Street was sentenced to nine months imprisonment for having stolen £7 from a cash box in Cody’s pub. Two others, Patrick Dandy (24) of Oliver Bond House and Thomas Claffey of Cashel Avenue, Crumlin were sentenced to 12 month’s imprisonment each.

On 14 September 1954, Kilkenny-born John Kelly (40) with an address on Cork Street was sentenced for four months imprisonment for assaulting Joseph Cody. The publican was shoved down the stairs, kicked repeatedly and received two black eyes in the attack.

On 9 August 1955 it was reported in The Irish Times that Mrs. Breda Cody, landlord Joseph’s wife, was brought before the District Court to “answer a complaint that she had taken a widow’s pension order book in exchange … for intoxicating liquor … and had failed to return it”. She was bound to be of good behaviour for two years. His husband was fined 10- for opening his premises on Good Friday on which the incident involving the pension book occurred. The family were going through a difficult patch. Mr. Cody admitted that:

… they were unable to make ends meet … (and) unable to pay a mortgage on the premises … They had not even a home now and were allowed by the purchaser of the premises to leave their furniture temporarily in them.

As far as I can tell, Liam Kenny took over the premises in 1963 and it was known as Kenny’s thereafter.

Liam Kenny’s, 1970. Credit – Dublin City Photographic Collection.

In the mid 1980s, a large area of Patrick Street and Dean Street was taken over and demolished by the Council using compulsory order. Patrick Street was to be widened and lands to the west of Patrick Street to be used for housing and development purposes. After years of stalled building work and planning objections, the seven-story apartment block ‘Dean Court’, comprised of 200 apartments in eight separate blocks, was put on the market in 1994.

The shop front where Kenny’s once stood was a Chartbusters video rental shop and is currently a 99c discount newsagent.

Where Kenny’s once stood. Corner of Dean Street and Patrick Street. Credit – myhome.ie

2. Quinn’s on the corner of 50 Patrick Street and 31/31A Upper Kevin Street. Status – Demolished, replaced by pub (now closed) and apartments.

P. Kenna, Tea Wine & Spirit Merchant 50 Patrick Street Dublin. c. 1900. Credit – @OldDublinTown

This pub was previously known as P. Kenna’s (see above), Kiernan’s (c. mid 1900s – 1920s), Cahill’s (1930s), Brannigan’s (mid 1940s) and Hamilton’s (late 1940s).

An advertisement for the sale of Cahill’s. Credit – Irish Independent – 28 April 1945.

It was taken over by John Quinn and his brother James around 1950.

Quinns, c. 1970s. Credit – Noel Moran (‘Growing up in the Liberties’ FB page)

In December 1952, Thomas Lane (21) from Oliver Bond House was charged with breaking into the pub, stealing liquor and then assaulting a Garda. He was sentenced to two months in jail.

In the late 1950s, the Unemployed Protest Committee used 50 Patrick Street as the contact address for their organisation.

It was reported in the Irish Press on 9 November 1960 that four young men were charged with assaulting publican John Quinn and his brother James on the night of 23 September. They also smashed a plate glass window. The four individuals, all from Crumlin, were William Travers (21), 306 Cashel Road; William Doran (22), 38 Durrow Road; William Kinselle (22), 39 Durrow Road and Henry Hickey (18), 27 Windmill Park. The trouble started when the men tried to bring their bottles and glasses downstairs from the lounge. When Quinn tried to stop them, he was set upon by the group.

Quinns, 1976. Credit – Dublin City Photographic Collection.

John Quinn passed away in April 1965.

Quinns, c. early 1980s. Credit – @OldDublinTown.

The pub was later known as TPs before finally being taken over by Patrick Nash.

At some stage, the building was knocked down and a one-story Nash’s replaced it. I’ve heard from two reliable, separate sources that in ‘Dublin wit’ you could finish a relationship by telling your boy/girlfriend that “you’d meet them upstairs at Nash’s”. As the story goes, the jilted lover would turn up to the one-story pub and realise the game was up.

The premises was demolished and replaced by a modern bar (retaining the name Nash’s) with apartments upstairs.

Pat Stacey reviewing the pub in the Irish Independent (10 July 2001) described its decor as “simple and comforting  – a mixture of stone walls and wood furniture”. The clientele was made up of “a bedrock of locals, drawn from the four corners of the junction … (and) a light sprinkling of passers-by and tourists”.

This current reincarnation of Nash’s closed down a couple of years ago and the premises is still empty.

Nash’s, 2010. Credit – morrisseys.ie.

3. O’Beirne’s on the corner of 30 Upper Kevin Street and 1 New Street. Status – Demolished to make way for road widening.

At the turn of the 20th century, the pub was owned by Alderman John Davin. From 1905 to 1935, it was known as the The Premier House and ran by Daniel Lynch. Following a brief period when it was under the direction of Christopher Casey, the pub was managed by Francis Moran from the late 1930s until 1947.

Morans pub. Credit – Irish Independent, 8 March 1947.

In 1947, Desmond ‘Dessie’ O’Beirne from Sandymount, Dublin 4 bought the premises for £8,000.

O’Beirnes, c. 1970s. Credit – Dublin City Photographic Collection

The pub was demolished circa 1980 along with many parts of Upper Kevin Street/New Street to make way for road widening and the new cross-roads.

O’Beirnes. Screengrab from ‘Dublin: a Personal View’ (RTE, 1979).

4. Lowe’s at the corner of 7 Dean Street and 57-72 (?) New Street. Status – Demolished and replaced by apartments.

Lowe’s, 1968. Credit – Dublin City Photographic Collection.

Previous owners of this pub included James Vaughan (1897 – 1917), James Madigan (1917-1923) and Joseph Dunne (1924 – 1955).

It was taken over by William Lowe in the mid 1950s.

Lowes, 1976. Credit – Dublin City Photographic Collection.

The pub closed in 1989.

Lowe’s. Screengrab from ‘Dublin: a Personal View’ (RTE, 1979).

Other houses on Dean Street, one of the city’s smallest streets, remain standing. The view today:

Corner of New Street and Dean Street, 2014. Credit – Sam (CHTM!)

Conclusion:

Journalist Frank McDonald lamenting the destruction in the area wrote in The Irish Times (13 November 1979):

Patrick Street will soon become a major highway as soon as all the buildings opposite St. Patrick’s Cathedral are knocked down. The corner of Patrick Street, Kevin Street and New Street will be transformed into a major traffic interchange, although the gents’ toilets, surround by oak trees, is to be preserved because of it’s “outstanding civic design character”. But there’s doubts that it will look somewhat incongruous in its new surrounding.

Architect Robert McCauley’s drawings for the cross-roads after Dublin Corporation’s major development plans. Credit – Irish Times (5 June 1986).

He further noted in the same newspaper (13 May 1985) that the corporation’s work in the mid 1980s had completely devastated Patrick Street:

…with the street left pock-marked for years by derelict sites, scrapyards and half-demolished buildings. But for the Iveagh Trust flats, St. Patrick’s Park and the cathedral, Patrick Street would have been lost. Three local pubs which have long served as neighbourhood centres will go, never to be replaced. New Street and Clanbrassil Street will lose a total of five pubs.

While the Liberties is still a thriving, bustling and exciting neighborhood, the development of this particular cross-roads and the related destruction obviously had a huge negative impact on the area’s community spirit. With four pubs demolished and a dual-carriageway cutting through one heart of the Liberties, the destruction turned a community intersection of pubs, shops and life into a soulless traffic junction.

[Thanks to John Fisher, Seán Carabin and Brendan Martin for additional information].

(Image Credit: Thanks to Garry O’Neill, ‘Where Were You’)

In October 1966, young teenagers grabbed national media attention by demonstrating on the streets of Dublin against the hugely negative attention that was being brought onto ‘Beat Clubs’ by the press and authorities. A part of the popular ‘Mod’ youth culture of the period, these were clubs were youngsters danced away to the popular hits of the scene. Amidst scare stories that these emerging popular youth music clubs were attracting drug users and trouble makers, a small determined band of teens paraded down O’Connell Street and other city centre streets with placards proclaiming “WE ARE NOT DRUG ADDICTS”, WE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT” and “THIS IS 1966 NOT 1906″. One placard even proclaimed that “IT’S A MOD WORLD.” Teenagers handed a petition with 2,500 signatures on it into Leinster House for the attention of the Minister for Justice

The Sunday Independent noted that “onlookers who watched yesterday’s marchers were left in little about about how the city’s teenagers feel about the accusations which have been levelled against them both by the Garda authorities and in Dail Éireann.” To the paper it was Dublin’s “most colourful and possibly most enthusiastic protest”, with “mini skirts and trouser-suits, long hair and beards: blasting loudspeakers, chanting teenagers and screaming motor cycles.”

The issue of Beat Clubs was raised in the Dáil on more than one occasion in the 1960s. On one occasion a Fine Gael TD, Paddy Harte, asked a government Minister to clarify just what ‘Beat’ and ‘Beat Clubs’ meant. Unsatisfied with the response, he stated “obviously the Minister does not know. He is a square.”

The media interest in teenagers and the places they congregated in the 1960s and 70s makes for interesting reading material today. In 1970 it was reported by the Sunday Independent that “”fifty teenage girls from Finglas are to boycott a Dublin Beat Club were they dance six times a week and spend about £2 each, because the club has banned Dublin’s newest cult, “girl skinheads.” One of the girls told the press that “we go with boys who are skinheads and weirdos, but we are definitely not looking for rows because we got our hair cut like this.”

Sunday Independent 19 April 1970.