Arthur Guinness, founder of the Guinness brewery.

There are many layers to the story of the relationship between Dublin and her most successful brewery. The story of Guinness is a story of, naturally enough, brewing stout.  Yet it is also a story of philanthropy, and a story of politics. At different points in the history of the company, it has been confronted by diverse opponents, including the powerful O’Connell family, with Daniel O’Connell’s son briefly going head to head with the company as a brewer himself. The founder of the company, Arthur Guinness, was undoubtedly a pioneer in his field, beginning as a small-town brewer in Leixlip before becoming one of the leading figures in a city of dozens of breweries. This brief post will look at a protracted dispute he found himself entangled in regarding the supply of water to his brewery, and the manner in which he resorted to most unusual methods (of eh….swinging a pickaxe at unwanted visitors to the brewery) to protect his supply.

While dozens of breweries may sound like a dream come true to some readers today, it should be noted that just because the city was awash with breweries does not mean the beer was any good. One eighteenth century ballad joked that:

The beer is sour – thin, musty,thick and stale

and worse than anything except the ale!

Very few of the commercial opponents of Guinness are remembered today. Sweetman’s, another eighteenth century brewery, survived right until the end of the nineteenth century. (Image: National Library of Ireland)

Yet, Arthur Guinness succeeded by producing a quality product of a higher calibre than most of his opponents. As David Dickson has noted, his success even preceded the move of the brewery towards porter:

Porter, cornerstone of the brewery’s later fame, was not brewed in the early years, and may indeed have only been introduced in the 1780s, in imitation of a similar black ale pioneered in London. But it seems that, long before its introduction, ale from Arthur Guinness’s establishment was of a more predictable and more agreeable standard than that sold by most of his rivals. In an age of economic turbulence and short-lived partnerships, his success lay in building up the core business, in consolidating its profitability and assets over the forty years that he was involved, and in training up a competent and willing heir to take over the reins – his second son, Arthur (1768–1855). These achievements were what set him apart from all but a very few of his commercial contemporaries.

The story of the humble origins of the brewery is well known. Arthur, at the grand old age of 34, signed a nine-thousand year lease on a disused brewery at St. James’s Gate in 1759, committing to paying an annual rent of £45, a relatively high figure at the time. Guinness acquired the brewery from Mark Rainsford, who is today commemorated via Rainsford Street in the vicinity of the brewery.

Having assumed control of the premises, Arthur found himself entangled in a dispute regarding the supply of water to his brewery. As Joe Joyce has noted in his history of the family, water was critical to the growing city of the eighteenth city, and while the River Liffey “provided no drinking water or water for brewing”, businesses largely depended upon the River Poddle to provide them. Arthur Guinness got his water supply from the city main, as did many of the businesses in the area of the city in which he operated, but crucially he believed that the lease he had signed entitled him to full water rights, without becoming a tenant to the city main supply of which he was a user.

As the Guinness brewery continued to expand its output, the Corporation complained that he rejected “all reasonable methods” which were made to induce him to pay for this supply. There were further tensions in 1772 when a sub-committee found that Arthur was utilising two illegal pipes, larger than permitted, to supply his brewery with its required water supply. In Guinness’s Brewery in the Irish Economy 1759-1876, it is noted that the committee observed that the waterworks beside the Guinness brewery had been described  as belonging to the city, and they believed that neither Guinness nor Rainsford, from whom he leased the brewery, had any claim to the ground in question.

In an 1947 edition of the Dublin Historical Record, the story of the attempt to bring Arthur into line with City policy is well told:

On 16th May 1775, the Committee, with the Sheriff and a number of workmen, went to the Back Course for the purpose of filling in the section between the Limerick property [neighbouring land] and St. James’s Gate. Mr. Arthur Guinness appeared on the scene and strenuously opposed the Committee. He told them that if they filled in the stream he would at once open it again; he seized a pick axe from a labourer and, placing himself in front of the workman, resisted and protested to such good purpose that the Committee, although supported by the Sheriff, whom they had brought to enforce the law, withdrew without accomplishing their design.

Arthur, the report of the Committee noted, told the men that “the water was his, and he would defend it by force of arms.” He told the men that “if they filled it up from end to end, he would immediately open it”, and his use of “very much improper language” was also commented upon.

The dispute dragged on and on,  but on 24 May 1784, Arthur agreed to sign a 8,795-year lease for the use of the water (the remainder of his original 9,000 year lease), that required him to pay £10 annually for the privilege. Ultimately, it was a compromise between the two sides.  To his credit, Arthur did have some interest in conflict resolution in his lifetime. He was a member of the wonderfully named  Friendly Brothers of Saint Patrick, described as a fraternal organisation “that opposed duelling and aimed to promote social harmony.”   While he evidently detested pistol duelling, it appears that waving pickaxes was another matter entirely!

The impressive waterfall inside the Guinness Storehouse tourist attraction today.

The latest issue of football magazine Póg Mo Goal is out now, and available to pick up in a few places around the city. Beautifully designed, it features everything from League of Ireland football to features on fan culture across the world. I’ve contributed an article to it looking at some of the most unusual games to have taken place in the historic setting of Dalymount Park, fitting given that the stadium has recently had some rare good news with Dublin City Council taking ownership of the threatened site.

One game I didn’t feature in the piece was the brilliantly chaotic visit of Scotland to Dalymount in March 1913. The game was attended by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but the clash is perhaps best remembered for the frosty reception he received and for the rioting that followed the game.

A month prior to the encounter, Ireland had defeated England in Belfast, in a footballing victory that attracted significant media attention, but going into the Scotland game the sides had met 29 times previously – with Scotland winning on 25 occasions. While the majority of the players lining up for Ireland played with English clubs, there were also representatives from Glentoran, Shelbourne and Bohemians in their midst.

About 10,000 people gathered in Dalymount Park for the encounter, but things began badly when the Ireland’s Own Brass Band, on duty to provide entertainment to the crowd, refused to play the British national anthem. Lord Aberdeen, one contemporary account noted, was “received with but a moderate degree of enthusiasm” by the crowd. Neal Garnham has written that the decision of Ireland’s Own not to play God Save The King led to a panic, and that “only the hurried arrival of a military band from the nearby Marlborough Barracks saved the occasion.” Only a month before the game in Dalymount, the presence of the Ireland’s Own band at an Ancient Order of Hibernians event at the Mansion House in Dublin was reported in the press, indicating that there was strong nationalist sentiment in the band. They might not have been the best choice for the occasion.

The Lord Lieutenant of the day, snubbed by Ireland’s Own. (Image Credit: Century Ireland, http://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/articles/irelands-lord-lieutenant-a-fount-of-all-that-slimy-in-our-national-life)

With the crowd more focused on events on the pitch than any pomp and ceremony off it, it appears they got good value for money with three goals, if not the result they wanted. Despite a Scottish win, the Sunday Independent noted that:

While Scotland won by 1 odd goal in three, they were distinctly lucky to have done so, as Ireland had by far the most of the play, and it was only weak finishing in front of the goal that prevented them following up their victory over England by a success today.

Yet, the clash between Scotland and Ireland wasn’t destined to be remembered for the three goals scored that day. Rather, the events which followed the match saw it make its way into the papers. As Andrew Ward notes in his history of the Scottish international football side:

Arthur Adams blew his whistle to end the game in Dublin and the stage was set for some of the most unruly scenes in the history of international football. Plaqyers fought to keep the ball as a souvenir. Scotland’s George Robertson reached it first, but a spectator, Patrick Gartland, knocked the ball out of Robertson’s hands and Ireland’s Andrews grabbed it. In the struggle which followed, Gartland was knocked over and feared badly injured. Rumours that Robertson had broken the spectators leg spread through the Irish crowd who were already incensed by Scotland-s second goal – there were universal pleas for offside when Alex Bennett scored – and frustrated by Ireland’s failure to save the game after dominating the second half.

For an hour, the Scottish team found themselves largely confined to their dressing room as windows were smashed by angry Irish fans, and Ward has noted that “the Irish mob pursued the Scottish players to their hotel where full-back John Walker was attacked outside.”

Some of the best descriptions of the game come from Ian Paterson’s book Wings of Steel: My Great Uncle, George Clarke Robertson – A Left Winger in the Steel Towns. There, he reprints a contemporary account from a visiting journalist who recalled:

In the midst of a jostling and irresponsible crowd, I watched the melee, and was not sorry, I may tell you, to get out of it. I heard the pavilion windows being crashed in; OI heard the infuriated Dubliners shouting for Robertson to be brought out that they may deal with him; I listened to an excited clergyman in one breath denounce what he called the ‘Dastardly action’ and, in the next, appeal to the sportsmanship of the Dubliners. Can you imagine how relieved I was when I reached the outskirts of that crowd?

Scenes from the match, including the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland presenting a medal. (Source: http://nifootball.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/095-15-march-1913.html)

The Scottish Football Association minute books of the time note that “Irish FA to be asked what steps they are taking to deal with the leaders of the disturbance at the finish of the International match at Dublin on 15 March 1913, particularly with regard to the clergyman who fomented the regrettable scene and the individual who broke the window of the referee’s room and assaulted J. Walker at the door of the hotel.” In the end however, it appears nothing came of the riotous scenes.

It wouldn’t take long for similar scenes to emerge at a football match in Dublin again. Only a few short months later, during the 1913 Lockout, the ‘Riot in Ringsend’ was the end product of Jim Larkin denouncing Bohemians and Shelbourne for having scabs in their ranks of players. From Ireland’s Own Brass Brand to Larkin’s ITGWU, it seems football and politics certainly mixed in the Dublin of 1913.

Wings of Steel: My Great Uncle, George Clarke Robertson is available to purchase from Amazon.

‘Injustice To Ireland’

I had to pick up this postcard recently. The stereotypical Oirishman is shown infuriated by the display of two clocks in the window of a business premises, one of which displays the time in ‘Dublin Time’ while the other shows ‘London Time’. Underneath, it reads:

Is it there yez are, ye two-faced lyin’ blaguard wid yer mane blarney about the Sun; no Sun ivir riz anywhere, afore it did in Ould Ireland! England afore Ireland! nivir!! Hurroo!!

We’ve previously looked at Dublin Mean Time (DMT) on the blog, noting that:

DMT meant that for many years we in Ireland were in fact 25 minutes and 21 seconds behind of ‘them across the water’, a situation that remained in place until October 1 1916, when the Time (Ireland) Act brought Ireland into line with Great Britain.

Incredibly, prior to October 1916, there had been some hostility to the idea of synchronizing our watches with Britain. In August 1916, a letter appeared in the Irish Independent arguing against it on nationalist grounds! The writer noted that “the question is whether we should give up this mark of our national identity to suit the convenience of shipping companies and a few travellers”.

The Time Act became a political football in Ireland, an Ireland changed (changed utterly you could say) by the events of Easter week. Edward Carson, The Irish Times of August 12 noted, failed to understand the controversy of it all. “All he could say was that if certain hon. members stopped this bill he would see that the Dublin Reconstruction Bill, or other bills, would also be treated as controversial and not allowed to proceed”

O’Connell Street today.

In what one friend has jokingly described as “a victory for secularist alcoholics”, the Luas Cross City project eventually caught up with the statue of Father Theobald Mathew. Sculpted by Mary Redmond, the statue serves to remember the “apostle of temperance”, and it was unveiled before a huge crowd in 1893. One contemporary magazine described it as “a distinguished addition to artistic Dublin.” In the years immediately before Ireland was ravaged by the starvation of the 1840s, Matthew succeeded in enrolling some three million people into the temperance movement, pledging to abandon alcohol. It was said that over a period of only five days in Dublin, seventy thousand people enlisted. Speaking in 1889, the parliamentary leader John Redmond complained of the lack of a monument  to Father Mathew in Dublin, with one newspaper reporting that:

It was nothing short of a scandal that in the city of Dublin, where they had monuments in honour of patriots and heroes, poets and scholars, they had no statue in memory of the one man whom he regarded as the most perfect type of an Irish patriot of the present day.

A historic postcard showing the monument.

One of those who took ‘the pledge’ from Matthew was Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave and celebrated American abolitionist who would spend several months in Ireland in 1845, even sharing a platform with Daniel O’Connell. Of Matthew, Douglass would remember that “His whole soul appeared to be wrapped up in the temperance cause … His time, strength and money are all freely given to the cause; and his success is truly wonderful.” Douglass would later come to denounce Father Mathew, as the later did not issue an outright condemnation of slavery during a visit to the United States in 1849. Douglass “wondered how being a Catholic priest should inhibit him from denouncing the sin of slavery as much as the sin of intemperance.”

A young Frederick Douglass, who took the famous pledge from Father Mathew while in Ireland in 1845.

In recent months, the media and others have discussed possible new locations for the statue. One fitting location could be Church Street, where the Capuchin Order, to which Father Mathew belonged, maintain the Father Mathew Hall. In an interview with Joyce Fegan of the Irish Independent late last year, Father Bryan Shortall stated that “I’d certainly be interested in sitting down with Dublin City Council and having a conversation about relocating it to maybe Fr Mathew Square, which is just opposite our church on Church Street”. Shortall also stated that Fr Mathew was an “amazing character,” and that if he was around today he would bring the drinks industry “to its knees.”

Administering the pledge (NLI)

A Mathew Testimonial Committee had been established in Dublin in 1843, with the aim of honouring the work of the Capuchin priest. Interestingly, it was led by a wealthy Protestant businessman, Peter Purcell. It included the Duke of Leinster and Daniel O’Connell in its ranks.

The relationship between Mathew and the brewers and distillers of the Ireland of his time would, you may imagine, have been a very strained one. Yet according to one nineteenth century biography on Mathew, one influential Dublin distiller had a few words of praise:

‘No man’, said George Roe, ‘has done me more injury than you have Father Mathew; but I forget all in the great good you have done my country.’ And he presented his proud and delighted applicant with a handsome donation.

Praise also came from Colonel Beamish, head of the Beamish and Crawford brewery, when Corkonians met in 1857 to plan a commemorative statue there.

A historic image of the Father Matthew monument, O’Connell Street. (Image Credit: National Library of Ireland)

In his lifetime, Mathew toured Ireland and further afield, speaking with passion of his cause and enlisting millions behind him. He is a hugely significant and often overlooked figure in Irish social history, and while brewers and distillers may have heaped praise on him in the nineteenth century, there were no doubt others glad to see the decline of his movement in subsequent decades!

What filled our goals and bridewells? The effects of intoxication. What crowded the very lunatic asylums? Drunkenness and its effects. What fed the very gibbets? Drunkenness. I never will give up until we are freed, with the blessing and the assistance of God, from all these deplorable evils; and if I encounter during my career the sneers of some, and the contumelies of others, I must expect it….Let them show me anyone brought to misery or ruin by total abstinence. Show me anyone sent to the lunatic asylum by total abstinence. Oh no! Not a single one.

Heat fanzine ran for nine issues from May 1977, providing coverage to a new emerging Irish rock and punk scene of musicians. One feature of the fanzine, which Brand New Retro have correctly highlighted, is the brilliant front covers. A brief history of the magazine, from the Loserdom fanzine:

The subject matter covered new wave/punk band interviews, articles, reviews and later comic strips and films…by Heat Vol.2 Issue 2 the magazine was gathering momentum, but a published article “McGuinness is good for U2″ led to the end of the road. The article alleged that U2 manager Paul McGuinness had succeeded in getting a band [Modern Heirs] pulled from a support slot at a gig for U2 instead. McGuinness threatened to sue Heat unless the article was pulled but a batch had already gone to Easons.

Heat (Sept. 1977)

The September 1977 issue of Heat ran with a Time magazine style frontpage, telling readers that “the cover is the first in a series of thinly-disguised covers, ok? For punks only!” Among the papers distributors, Golden Discs, Dolphin Discs and Easons are listed. In the fanzines editorial, the absence of any sizable punk scene in Ireland is lamented, but it did insist that “the bands we have now are musically and song-wise much tighter and a lot better than a lot of their English contemporaries. Rock N’ Roll is alive and well and Dublin. The future depends on the upcoming young bands.”

In particular, Heat championed The Radiators. who had released TV Tube Heart in the year the publication had come into being, and who could boast of being the first punk band to see chart success with their single Television Screen. (Check out Come Here To Me’s interview with Phil Chevron of the band here) There was also plenty of coverage of the Boomtown Rats in this issue. A rather unkind review of Thin Lizzy at Dalymount Park, which described the band as having “as much stage presence as two rubber plants” captures the irreverent attitude of the fanzine in places!

Advertisement for Record and Tape Exchance, 16 St. Richmond St

The following review of a festival in Dalymount Park complains that having arrived to see “The Rads and The Rats”, the writer was confronted by “groups of hippies” and “lizzy loonies”. The Rats “got three times the response that The Radiators had received – they had six pogoers whereas The Rads had only two!”

Review of Dalymount Festival.

The Radiators get a kind review, and it’s noted that “they are not a Grade A, die hard punk band but for catchy, snappy hi-energy songs they can’t be beaten….I dunno if this will be a hit or not, it sure as hell should be huge.”

‘Rads’

The Boomtown Rats review includes a picture of the band at Dalyer, while a second feature on the band noted that:

When I first saw the Rats months back at the Nashville, Geldof was all mouth. “We’re the Rats, fuck you!” When you hear that sort of bollox after every song it’s not long before you start getting very angry. When the shit hits the fans, the fans kick back.It didn’t come as a great shock when I read that some stud had clobbered Geldof in Camden’s Music Machine.

‘Rats’

It has been argued that “the dominant feature of Heat was its ability to take the piss throughout its handwritten pages.” Its risque humour would eventually land the fanzine in hot water, but it remains an important part of the story of the emerging punk music scene in the Dublin of 1977.

One million minutes of historical video dating back to 1895 have been uploaded onto YouTube by Associated Press and British Movietone. The digitised archival footage, made up of 550,000 video stories over two YouTube channels, includes coverage of political milestones and historical moments in sport, fashion, science and entertainment.

Searching for ‘Dublin’ yields some fascinating results.

Drive down Mespil Road and Baggot Street:

Mr and Mrs Walt Disney 1946 visit Ireland where they meet President O’Kelly and Eamon de Valera:

SF/PIRA march through Dublin, 1976:

IRA men arrested during radio station siege at the GPO, 1973:

Hundreds more videos via British Movietone here and AP Archive here.

Following up on Sam’s post drawing attention to the fact a huge archive of rare archival video footage has just been uploaded onto YouTube, I was particularly struck by the wonderful madness of one clip in particular, entitled ‘Publicans Take To Water’.

The clip shows huge crowds gathering along the Liffey to watch the ‘Pub Tub Derby’, a curious event in the city in the 1960s which aimed to raise funds for the construction of new swimming pools in the city.

As Cyril J Smyth has noted:

The sponsors of the race comprised eleven well-known Dublin publicans. The tubs used for the event were formerly Guinness stout barrels and bore the names of the respective pubs on them. The course was between Capel Street Bridge (Grattan Bridge) and O’Connell Bridge. The winning pub received the Guinness Perpetual Trophy, presented by Arthur Guinness & Sons (Dublin) Ltd. Individual prizes were awarded to the ‘pilots’ of the first four tubs past the finish line.

Music on the liffey: A screenshot from the clip.

While many of the pubs who participated in the Pub Tub Derby on the years it ran are no longer with us, Madigans of Earl Street and the Lord Edward are still going strong today. A great comment about the event on YouTube from Liam Tuohy is worth sharing too. Posted below a video of Sean Dunphy’s ‘If I Could Choose’ (one of Ireland’s best ever Eurovision entries, even if defeated by Sandie Shaw!), he noted:

Years ago I had the great pleasure of sharing the bill with Sean for “The Pub Tub Derby” while we both stood rocking in a small boat on the Liffey under Dublin’s O’Connell Bridge. It was then, and still is, one of my most enjoyable and funniest memories while working as DJ Lee all thanks to Sean and his enormous personality

News coverage of the Pub Tub Derby, 1966.

While jumping into the Liffey remains popular today, especially among the kids who gather at the docks, swimming up it in discarded Guinness barrels has been relegated to history. These kind of little tidbit videos make a great addition to YouTube.

O’Donovan Rossa, taken from his book ‘Irish Rebels in English Prisons: A Record of Prison Life.’

Deliberately here we avow ourselves, as he avowed himself in the dock, Irishmen of one allegiance only. We of the Irish Volunteers, and you others who are associated with us in to-day’s task and duty, are bound together and must stand together henceforth in brotherly union for the achievement of the freedom of Ireland. And we know only one definition of freedom: it is Tone’s definition, it is Mitchel’s definition, it is Rossa’s definition. Let no man blaspheme the cause that the dead generations of Ireland served by giving it any other name and definition than their name and their definition.

The above words are taken from the oration delivered by Patrick Pearse a century ago at the graveside of veteran Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in Glasnevin Cemetery. Architect of the Fenian dynamite campaign, which brought havoc to the streets of London in the 1880s, O’Donovan Rossa was a fiercely controversial figure in his lifetime, and embodied of the physical force tradition of Fenianism. Indeed, even yesterday the Irish press pondered with the question of whether or not O’Donovan Rossa could be classified as a terrorist.

The death of ‘Dynamite’ O’Donovan Rossa, as he was known to sections of the press at the height of his infamy, created a perfect moment for a nationalist spectacle. Thomas J. Clarke later remarked to his wife that “If Rossa had planned to die at the most opportune time for serving his country, he could not have done better.”

The graveside oration was delivered by the school teacher Pearse, an emerging figure in the radical separatist movement, and following it came a volley of shots. Sean T. O’Kelly,later President of Ireland, remembered feeling an immense pride and that he was part of an historic occasion as the salute was fired:

This must have been one of the first if not the very first occasion on which this military demonstration took place in our lifetime and this too in its way made a deep impression not alone on all who were present but on all who read the report afterwards. The I.R.B. and the Irish Volunteers were very proud of having been able to accomplish this military demonstration despite the orders of the British against the carrying of arms.

In the run-up to the funeral, Dublin Metropolitan Police intelligence commented on the planning of the event, noting in internal correspondence that “delegates from America will be in attendance, and nothing is being left undone to make the affair as impressive as possible. Those concerned are anxious that the greatest harmony will prevail.” The funeral saw the Irish Citizen Army, the armed wing of the labour movement, marching alongside the Irish Volunteers and even members of the National Volunteers,  the name bestowed upon those who had followed the nationalist leader John Redmond in his call for Irishmen to support the British war effort. The GAA, the Gaelic League, Sinn Féin, the Hibernian Rifles and others also joined the long march to the cemetery.

Yesterday, the centenary of the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa was marked by a variety of groups, with a state commemoration held in the morning at Glasnevin Cemetery and the unveiling of new plaques on the O’Donovan Rossa Bridge by the National Graves Association. Without a doubt however the highlight of the day was the large-scale reenactment of the funeral itself, organised by Sinn Féin and with the support of O’Donovan Rossa’s family. Thousands took to the streets, marching from City Hall to Glasnevin, but particular credit is due to those who got properly into the spirit (unlike this writer who showed up in a Patagonia raincoat) and dressed in the style of 1915.

The following images were taken by our friend Paul Reynolds of Rabble, and we thank him for permission to publish them here.

Image: Paul Reynolds.

Image: Paul Reynolds.

Image: Paul Reynolds.

Image: Paul Reynolds.

Image: Paul Reynolds.

Image: Paul Reynolds.

Image: Paul Reynolds.

We have always had a great interest in the history of Dublin on the big screen on this blog. Some of my favourite posts to write and research were on the theme of Ireland and the cinema, for example this post looking at Ireland, A Nation, a 1914 nationalist film that fell victim to British censorship, or the time they built a Berlin Wall in Smithfield (and its unusual connection to Saint Patrick’s Athletic!). That’s not to mention Fu Manchu, Educating Rita or political attacks on Dublin cinemas in decades past.

A new exhibition at the Little Museum of Dublin looks at an unusual aspect of the story of Irish cinema – costumes. Some of my favourite films, including Intermission, The Wind that Shakes The Barley and Jimmy’s Hall feature. The exhibition covers 1987 onwards, and has been brilliantly curated by Eimer Ni Mhaoldomnaigh and costume historian Veerle Dehaene.

Intermission, from 2003, remains one of the finest (and funniest) films set in Dublin, with Colin Farrell playing a blinder as petty criminal Lehiff. In the run-up to the release of the film, many journalists were sent bottles of brown sauce, and no doubt thousands were convinced to pour HP sauce into their cups of tea having seen the film! This is just one of several dodgy Colin Farrell jumpers in the exhibition:

Intermission.

The last exhibition in this space drew from the Christy Brown collection recently acquired by the Little Museum of Dublin and the National Library of Ireland, so there is some continuity with the inclusion of some costumes from the classic My Left Foot.

My Left Foot

The uniform of The Big Fella, or Liam Neeson, makes an appearance. Not to be considered Treatyite by nature, the exhibition also includes a costume from . Damien O’Donovan, Anti-Treaty volunteer in Ken Loach classic The Wind That Shakes The Barley!

Michael Collins.

A more recent addition comes from Lenny Abrahamson’s Frank, featuring Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Michael Fassbender. The head was of course inspired by Frank Sidebottom, the comic persona of Chris Sievey. Frank left the world such classic songs as ‘Guess Who’s Been on Match of the Day’ and ‘Christmas is Really Fantastic’.

Frank

There’s a lot more, including Good Vibrations and The Commitments. Get in for a look.

Dublin Songs and Stories, an event we organised back in June in conjunction with Johnny Moy and all at The Sugar Club, was a roaring success. As well as being a great night of talk and music, featuring everyone from street artist MASER to the unrivaled Barry Gleeson, we raised almost two thousand euro for Pieta House in the process.

There was a belief on the night that we should do it again, and we have decided we will try and carry the night into the future. This time, we’re hoping to donate any takings to the Rape Crisis Centre, a hugely important service in the city that deserves financial support and which has seen its funding ravaged in recent times. Once again, we’re getting together a mix of musicians, historians, story tellers and people we think are worth hearing.

Tickets in advance are recommended, the last night was near a sellout. You can get them here. It kicks off at 8pm in The Sugar Club once again. The event page is up now too, be sure to click attending if you’re coming along.

BP Fallon, by Maser.

BP Fallon has certainly lived a colourful life, and has more than a few stories to tell. I’m always amazed by where he shows up! He has managed Johnny Thunders, and photographed everyone from Jerry Lee Lewis to Public Enemy, Emmylou Harris to Iggy Pop. From DJing on the radio as a teenager to becoming publicist to acts like Led Zepplin and T Rex, he’s even rubbed shoulders with The Beatles along the way. Steeped in the Dublin music scene and now immortalised by Maser in Temple Bar (see above), he’s a perfect addition to this kind of night.

ADW

We’re long term fans of ADW, posting a lot of his work on the site over the years, from his ‘tribute’ to Bertie Ah€rn above to his recent new take on our rather ill-fitting city motto and coat of arms, declaring that “Obedientia Civium Urbis Felicitas.” He has used the city as a canvas over the years, and his work is thought-provoking and humorous, just how we like it.

Steve Averill

At our first Dublin Songs & Stories night, we were very fortunate to have Pete Holidai from The Radiators From Space join us. The Rads are a band that have long fascinated us, and in 2012 Sam had the pleasure of interviewing the late and great Philip Chevron. As well as keeping the spirit and passion of the Rads alive through the Trouble Pilgrims in recent times, Steve Averill is a graphic artist responsible for producing all of U2’s album covers, which have become truly iconic.

Skippers Alley album cover

We recently had the good fortune of catching John Flynn of Skippers Alley in the very same venue we’re taking over, opening for folk miscreants Lynched at what was a night of fantastic music. John is a part of Skipper’s Alley, a young band bring a great energy to traditional and folk music in this city at present. When I heard him perform As I Roved Out that night I made it my mission to rope him into our next night! Thankfully, he agreed. I’m very excited about this one.

Ailbhe Smyth

Ailbhe Smyth has been active in some of the social movements we have written about on this blog for decades, campaigning in a wide range of feminist and LGBT campaigns for change in Irish society, witnessing some landmark moments along the way. In light of the recent referendum, for which she served as an advisor to the Yes Equality campaign, we want to sit down with Ailbhe and ask what’s changed and what hasn’t, and to talk about radical movements in Dublin in recent decades.

Mick Pyro, the front man of Dublin band Republic of Loose, is someone I’ve had the good fortune to see perform before. His unique vocals, and the bands feelgood sounds, earned them a cult following, and the admiration of many in the Irish music scene and press, including Sinead O’Connor. Like ourselves, he likes a bit of Adidas.

“There was one club in the city, as far as I was concerned, and it was Sides.”

As An Talamh tells the story of the rave scene in Dublin historically, taking in venues and nights like Sides and the now legendary raves in the Mansion House. It is the story of Power FM, the Banana Boys, bedroom promoters and those who kept a vibrant rave scene alive in a changing city, among other things.We’re going to chat to James Redmond about this project, and show a few clips to give a taster.

The Cricket Bat That Died For Ireland.

Think of trying to tell the history of the Easter Rising in a few objects, what would you pick? A copy of the 1916 Proclamation? The flag that flew from the GPO? These, of course, are hugely important historical artifacts. The Cricket Bat That Died for Ireland, the blog of Brenda Malone, however is concerned with the more overlooked items in the collection of the National Museum of Ireland. Take the bat itself, shot in Elvery’s during the Rising, he has the bullet to tell the tale. Other items highlighted by the fascinating blog include the last letter (or so he thought) or Eamon de Valera, who believed he would be executed for his role in the insurrection.

I recently picked up this postcard, which was sent from Dublin to Clones in Co. Monaghan during the War of Independence. Congratulating “my dear Harry” on the occasion of “your magnificent victory”, I can’t help but think and ponder what Aunt Mary might have been referencing!

I love little historical artifacts like this, as they give great insight into life at the time. That someone could buy a postcard showing a Volunteer in front of a tricolour with the words “the spirit still lives on in the men of today” and post it without interference is interesting in and of itself.

Stamped ’17 January 1920′ on reverse.

Political postcards were common in the Ireland of the early twentieth century, in fact within weeks of the 1916 Rising postcards depicting the destruction of the “Sinn Féin Rebellion” as they incorrectly christened it were in hot demand.

In Ulster, some of the more colourful postcards depicted what life would be like under Home Rule, often with grass growing over the streets and the place in tatters. A particular favourite comes from the enjoyable Fadó Fadó blog, showing a Unionist nightmare of Carrickfergus. Notice the graffiti on the wall proclaiming “Major McBride’s Irish Militia”, in reference to John MacBride who had fought against Britain in the Boer War. John Redmond takes a kicking too, with the statue pedestal telling us that “Redmond Rex Hibernie.”

Anti Home Rule Posrtcard (http://irishmemory.blogspot.ie/)

3 September 2015, The Sugar Club.

We’re very happy to present the poster for the second Dublin Songs & Stories night we’re hosting. Once again, the night is an eclectic mix covering all from traditional Irish music to the history of forgotten youth cultures and movements. We’re again grateful to our buddy Johnny Moy in The Sugar Club for helping to pull it all together. There are legends here and there are up and comers we’re very excisted by.

The first night was a sell out, raising funds for Pieta House in the process. This time, we’re supporting the Rape Crisis Centre.  Tickets are available here, and all help in promoting this night (via blogs, the press or anything else) is very much appreciated.

The poster had been produced by practice&Theory, and nicely compliments the poster for the first night which is below. The last poster drew on the work of Jim Fitzpatrick and Maser, two participants in that line-up. This time, it’s a nod to ADW – who recently reinvented Dublin’s rather ill-fitting city motto and coat of arms!

Dublin Songs and Stories (Part I), way back when!

I noticed a Facebook post getting quite a few shares this morning on my timeline, in relation to Varahagiri Venkata Giri, the fourth President of India. The Sinn Féin 1916 National Commemorations page, which has been posting some great little historical nuggets, posted an image of Giri, along with a brief history stating:

The fourth President of India Varahagiri Venkata Giri was a member of Sinn Féin and an Irish Volunteer in 1916 whilst studying law at U.C.D. and was expelled for his activity.

At the time Giri came to power in India in 1969, the Irish Independent wrote that he was “a founder of the Indian Labour Movement, and is known to many as the Jim Larkin of India.” Giri, the paper noted, was a student at University College during the Irish revolutionary period, “taking his LLB and becoming a barrister, before being deported by the British.”

‘Jim Larkin of India’ – a 1969 edition of the Irish Independent.

Giri’s name appeared in the Freeman’s Journal in June 1916, in the aftermath of the insurrection, where it was noted that he was called to a bar, described as the “oldest son of Varahagiri Venkata Jagiah, of Berhampore, Madras Presidency, India.” He was one of several Indians reported to have been called to the bar in that edition of the newspaper. To Giri, it would have meant little – he had already received an order from the authorities to leave the UK by July 1st!

Of his time in Ireland, we can learn much from his memoir My Life and Times, which was published in 1976, and which Colm Kenna drew on for an interesting An Irishman’s Diary column in 2008. In it, he recalled being lectured by Thomas MacDonagh, who would later be executed for his role in the insurrection that was to come. Giri recalled that “his classes were very popular and his cottage at the foot of the Dublin mountains was a centre of literary and revolutionary thought.” Trade union leader James Connolly made a particular impression on Giri, who recalled meeting him on “several occasions”, remembering that “the plight of workers in Ireland at that time was miserable. I saw grinding poverty and squalor in the areas of Dublin inhabited by the working class.”

In Dublin, Giri was active within the Dublin India Society, which drew support from the dozens of Indian students in the Irish capital. In the aftermath of the struggle of Indians in South Africa for equal rights in 1914,  his society in Dublin prepared a pamphlet entitled The South African Horrors, which was well received. The cause of the Indian people received sympathetic coverage in Irish nationalist newspapers, including Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Féin, as well as The Irish Volunteer.

Engagements between Irish nationalists and Indian nationalists can be found in the Bureau of Military History statements, which recorded the memoirs of participants in the 1913-21 period. A particularly intriguing story of international espionage and plotting is contained in the witness statement of Robert Brennan, a senior figure in the Sinn Féin Press Bureau during the War of Independence. He recalled being introduced to two Indian men here, who presented him with a most interesting proposal:

The first was a very big and prosperous gentleman, (Mr. A.) who told me he belonged to the constitutional wing of the Indian Nationalists. He owned a lot of chain stores in India. He assured me he was willing to fall in with any  plan the second Indian, whose was Bomanji, and I agreed to. He did not know what Mr. Bomanji had in mind and he did not want to know. – The less he knew the better. He then withdrew and Mr. Bomanji came in. He was a small, quick, intelligent gentleman and he told me at once that he belonged to the militant group in India. His plan was twofold. Firstly, the Indian Moslem League and the All Indian Congress Party were, for the first time – holding their annual conventions in the same town and on the same date. It had been agreed between the leaders that at a pre-arranged signal, a motion could be put forward simultaneously, in both conventions that the rival sects would join hands for the purpose of ending the British occupation. They were then to meet jointly and set up a Provisional Government for India and, thereafter, carry  on on Sinn Fein lines. Our part was to send one or two advisers who would, behind the scenes, guide the movement.

It was necessary that these advisers should get to India as soon as possible before the day set for the Conventions. The other plan of Bomanji’s was to prepare for a guerilla war against the British. For this purpose, he needed a number of Irish guerilla leaders, twenty or thirty to start off with. They would ostensibly be employed in the chain stores owned by Mr. A. but their real work would be to train companies of selected men in the science of guerilla warfare.

In subsequent decades, there remained strong sympathy for India in Irish nationalist circles, which was reflected in the pages of newspapers like An Phoblacht in the 1930s. Indian speakers were common at republican events in Ireland, and Brian Hanley has written in his history of the IRA in this period that “during 1931 the organisation even attempted to bring Mahatma Gandhi to Ireland for a speaking tour.The presence of Indian speakers was thought by the IRA to have been useful when promoting the ‘Boycott British’ campaign during 1932.” The following advertisement frequently appeared in An Phoblacht during the period, encouraging people to support the Indian Store on Dame Street:

An Phoblacht.

Last week, I posted an image on our Facebook page (give us a like, go on) of a road sign in Temple Bar that had been modified via some well-placed stickers to become a tribute to The Clash album cover London Calling. Almost 300 people liked the image, and my thanks to those of you who pointed out there and on twitter that it was the work of Clet Abraham.

Temple Bar.

A painter and sculptor by trade, Clet’s sticker work is to be found all over the cities of Europe. Born in Brittany, he said in a recent interview that “it literally takes 10 seconds” to transform a dull street sign into what you see here. We’ve spotted a few more around the city too:

Haughey on the campaign trail (Magill)

Charles J. Haughey could be all things to all people. When he emerged on stage during The Late Late Show special celebrating The Dubliners, he told Gay Byrne that what appealed to him most about the band was that they came from his part of the world, the northside of Dublin. Yet Charlie had been born in Castlebar, the son of two veterans of the revolutionary period from Derry, one of whom later joined the Free State army. Beyond any connection to the northside of Dublin though, another thing arguably linked Charlie and the band he was celebrating on Gay Byrne’s platform that night – they could both sell a record or two.

Charlie’s Song, released in 1981, is today better known as ‘Arise and Follow Charlie’. It’s a record not many people would boast of owning in a collection today perhaps, but there are certainly thousands of copies of it in houses up and down the country, and it’s an interesting relic of twentieth century Irish cultural history. Recorded by The Morrisseys, it was the soundtrack to the 1981 General Election campaign. Writing in the Kilkenny People in June 1981, a reporter stated that:

Touring with Charlie is not only exhausting – it can be hazardous, with all those high-powered cars burning up country roads as entourage and security men dash at breakneck speed from one town or village to the next. It is not for one with a musical ear either. After a couple of dozen pays, Charlie’s Song loses whatever appeal it may have had initially – except perhaps for the tone deaf.

The cover for Charlie’s Song (https://rockroots.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/charliessong/morrisseys-charlies-song-cover-a/)

The excellent rockroots blog, which aims to build an archive of often overlooked Irish singles, notes that Charlie’s Song was the brainchild of Donie Cassidy, founder of CMR records, who had a strong background in the showband scene. Cassidy wrote the song with Dublin folk singer Pete St. John, and as rockroots note the lyrics of the song “apparently did nothing to embarrass Haughey, who appointed Cassidy a campaign manager for this and four successive general elections.” Interviewed about the song at the time, Donie Cassidy said “it’s got all the ingredients of a hit. Strong lyrics, a catchy air, the best group around and, of course, it’s based on the most popular man in the country.” The “strong lyrics” Donie spoke of included:

Young and old we all approve
He’s kept the Country on the move
He’ll help the Nation to improve
So Rise and Follow Charlie

With Charlie’s song we’ll sing as one
With Charlie’s song we’ll sing along
With Charlie’s song we’ll march along
We’ll Rise and Follow Charlie

In his biography of Haughey, Ryle Dwyer notes that during the election campaign “Haughey ran a high-profile, presidential-style campaign”, and that the song was an important dimension of this. Haughey traveled by helicopter, and Gene Kerrigan in Magill wrote that it was the unpredictable nature of the man that made him exciting for journalists to follow on the campaign trail – “You don’t know when he might lash out and clock someone or suddenly take a flying leap and start biting the furniture.”

Haughey on the campaign trail (Magill magazine)

The 1981 election was bitter, and not only between the two leading parties. Haughey encountered protest from supporters of H-Block prisoners, some of whom were standing for election to the Dáil. Bobby Sands, the first hungerstriker to die during the 1981 hungerstrikes, had succeeded in obtaining a Westminster seat, and campaigners hoped to do the same in the Irish parliament. As Dwyer notes, in Leterkenny the Taoiseach “suffered the indignity of being hit on the head with an egg, and when he tried to leave the town his car was blocked by protestors who kicked and pounded on it while the Gardaí strove to clear the way for him.” In Dun Laoghaire, there was an attempt to dump a can of paint on him. Gene Kerrigan wrote at the time of the frequent protests Haughey encountered from such activists, but also the routine developed while seeking votes:

The formula was always the same -shake hands, how are you, shake hands,kiss a woman, how are you. A tall dark-haired young man carrying a Polaroid camera followed Charlie everywhere. Again and again he took pictures of Charlie shaking hands with or kissing a punter – There’s a nice picture of you with the Taoiseach.And on election day you can go out and vote for the man whose picture is on your mantlepiece.

In The Irish Times, Olivia O’Leary reported of an old woman watching Haughey work a crowd and asking “my God, are they all gone mad? What is he but God’s creature like the rest of us, except he has a salary.” The refusal of RTE to play Charlie’s Song, for fear of bias, was attacked publicly by a number of figures in the Fianna Fáil party, including a young Bertie Ahern. A performance of the song on The Late Late Show was cancelled, leading to further complaints in the national press.

A young Bertie Ahern, “chairman of the Fianna Fáil Youth Committee” complains of RTE’s refusal to play the song.

Recorded by Tipperary folk group The Morrisseys, it was not alone a commercial success, but one that opened many doors, as Donie Cassidy of CMR Records was destined to become a Senator in Leinster House in 1982. Ultimately however, the song couldn’t see Charie over the line – the election resulted in a Fine Gael-Labour minority government, and the loss of six FF seats. The Anti H-Block candidates succeeded in winning two seats, and over 29,500 first preference votes.

Haughey, of course, would return to power in 1982, though not for long. He would regain the position in March 1987, holdng it until 1992. His political career has been tarnished by corruption, which is a story for another day, though perhaps best summed up by one letter writer to The Irish Times in 2006 who wrote that “It is customary not to speak ill of the dead. In the case of Charles Haughey there is no need. The unvarnished truth is sufficient to tarnish his reputation forever.”

Last weekend was a busy one for sports desks around the country with an All- Ireland football semi final, the All-Ireland hurling final, Ireland versus England in the eggball and one that might have gone under the radar in some quarters, the third and (until the draw for the Leinster Senior Cup was made) last Bohemian FC versus Shamrock Rovers derby of the season. The weekend also marked the 125th Anniversary of the foundation of Bohs and fan group ‘The Notorious Boo Boys’ started proceedings off on the Friday night in style.

Refugees Welcome/ Our Bohemian City. Credit: Paul Reynolds

Around thirty members of the group made their way to the Ha’penny Bridge at 1:25 AM on Saturday morning to mark the occasion, unveiling a banner first saying “Refugees Welcome” and a second saying “Our Bohemian City,” no doubt a nod to the game the following day. The banner drop didn’t go unnoticed on the night, with one Twitter user posting “Just witnessed a bunch of football hooligans stage a protest for refugees on the Ha’Penny Bridge. Bizaare but lovely.” I’m not sure the NBB would describe themselves as ‘football hooligans’ but the sentiment was there! The above image was also shared hundreds of times across social media platforms, with Panti Bliss herself getting in on the act.

125 Not Out. Credit: Extratime.ie

The game the next day was always going to have something relating to the historic weekend, and the NBB started each half with a display. As the players came out for the first half, a crowd cover showing the ever aggravating Hooperman having his head knocked off by Dennis the Menace with a cricket bat was unveiled with a message saying “125 not out.” The second half saw a return of the “Our Bohemian City” message banner, with some accompanying “atmosphere enhancers…”

Our Bohemian City. Credit: Extratime.ie

Credit: Paul Reynolds

Credit: Paul Reynolds

Credit: Paul Reynolds

Venezuelan Bohs (!!) Credit ©INPHO/Colm O’Neill

The game itself could have gone either way, with the crowd suffering a bit due to the kick off time (15:00 on a Saturday afternoon) and the clash of so many other sporting events, as well as the Electric Picnic being on. Despite that, both sides played host to visiting from as far away as Venezuela; the Copa90 video covering the last derby inspired a group of Toulouse fans to come to the game with their own Bohs banner! A goal apiece was probably a fair result, with one of the moments of the day coming after the game from Bohs midfielder Keith Buckley who, when picking up his bike from where he had locked it, encountered a Luas rammed full of Bohs fans who serenaded him with his own chant. He responded by posting the selfie below on Twitter, with the caption “Gettin’ me bike at the luas and see these nuts singing my name ! selfie of the year that’s why I love this club.”

Keith Keith Buckley, he will tackle you… Credit: Keith Buckley.

The weekend finished off on the Sunday with a Family Day in Dalymount Park, with a Bohemians Legends team taking on an Irish Legends team. Plenty of old faces were to be seen on and off the pitch, with Glen Crowe proving to be Bohs hero once more, slotting the ball home to make it one nil. The anniversary programme isn’t over yet, with two more events to come.

On Thursday 1 October, a History Ireland Hedge School will take place at Dalymount Park with the title, Dublin in 1890 – when Bohemians were born.This will be a panel discussion with historians on the social, cultural and political conditions of Dublin in 1890 when a group of students met to found Bohemian Football Club and will feature, amongst others, our very own Donal Fallon. Tickets available here for a paltry €5. Two days later, on Saturday 3 October, Bohemians will lead a Tour of Bohemian Graves at Glasnevin Cemetery. This will leave at 11 am from the Finglas Road entrance of the cemetery and end at the Prospect Square entrance. Tickets available here for €4.

It’s been a while since a post highlighting upcoming events in the city (beyond our own nights!), but there’s a few great events ahead that I want to highlight here. Firstly, our nearest and dearest at Rabble are bringing their own unique brand of culture (!) to Friday night by taking over Jigsaw at Belvedere Place. If the name doesn’t ring a bell – it was formerly Seomra Spraoi. It’s been a busy year for all at Rabble so far, and there’s plenty more to come from them. The name of the night is a fine tribute to Denis O’Brien, if we’re allowed highlight that. Simon Conway and Giles Armstrong are on the decks. It’s BYOB, which beats paying €6.50 for a pint in some awful nightclub in town any day of the week.

Rabble Ruckus.

Bargaintown is the story of Dublin’s inner-city before the Celtic Tiger, shot in the inner-city of 1988 by David Jazay. David has described the city in the film as “derelict but hauntingly beautiful, and chock full of amazing characters.” The 2015 restoration of this footage was supported by the Irish Film Institute and Goethe-Institut Dublin, and it will be screened on Sunday 27th September in the IFI. More information here.

Bargaintown. See -http://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-before-the-celtic-tiger-2305950-Sep2015/

On 1 October, I’m taking part in a History Ireland Hedge School at Dalymount Park entitled ‘Dublin in 1890 – When Bohs were born’. The event page is here. This year is of course the 125th anniversary of Bohemian F.C, and while my scarf may be red and white this discussion is all about the context of the Dublin Bohs were born into, and will no doubt touch on the history of The Beautiful Game in Dublin. Chaired by Tommy Graham, the editor of History Ireland, Dr Mary McAuliffe (UCD), Dr David Dickson (TCD, Author of Dublin – the Making of a Capital City) and Ciaran Priestley (a historian who has written some fascinating articles on Bohs) are also on the panel. Dickson’s masterpiece work on Dublin doesn’t need another rave review – so I’ll just say it’s a great feeling to share a panel!

Skipper’s Alley are a fantastic seven piece trad ensemble that are gaining quite the following in recent times, and deservedly so.They are taking to the stage of The Sugar Club (our favourite venue dare we say!) on October 4th., with more information here. If you made it to our last Dublin Songs & Stories night, you would have heard John Flynn from the band, who delivered a great little set. There is something wonderful happening in the traditional and folk music scenes of Dublin of late, and Skipper’s Alley are joined on the night by Ye Vagabonds. Having seen them recently in both The Cobblestone and at Electric Picnic, I’m eager to hear more from them too. This should be a great night.

Skipper’s Alley in a chipper. Why not.

This night from State.ie and Hope Promotions is an absolutely incredible line up on October 4th, bringing together the best of all worlds, from hip hop to punk rock, for one great night in The Grand Social. I am a big fan of the band Fierce Mild and got along to their EP launch in this same venue a few months back before the referendum (check out Equal People). Young Hearts Run Free, Nialler9 and more besides will be DJing on the night too.

What can be said about Hope Promotions? Bringing Jawbreaker, Green Day and other bands to Dublin in the early 1990s, Hope is a huge part of the history of the punk scene in this city. As you can see, this is a fundraiser for a very good cause. Just how we like them. Be sure to support this one.

Credit: Luke Fallon.

Thanks to Luke Fallon for this image, showing that Fleet Street has somehow made the leap from Dublin 2 to Dublin 8. Street names and their origins is something that has long interested us on the blog, see for example this piece on names that survived the chop after 1922, including Nassau Street and Waterloo Road.

We wonder how long the sign has been up!

Though Magill is no more today, the magazine was hugely important in its day and remains a very useful tool for those researching the Ireland of the past.

Founded by Vincent Browne in 1977, the magazine included frequent contributions from some of Ireland’s most relevant journalists, including Eamonn McCann and Gene Kerrigan. It also included the photography of Derek Spiers, who captured great images of social movements in the Dublin of the 1970s and 80s. The magazine frequently found itself making headlines in other publications. A 1982 edition, exposing criminal activity on the part of the Official IRA, caused serious headaches for Sinn Féin The Workers’ Party (SFWP), while the magazine also interviewed many controversial individuals, including Provisional IRA spokesmen and criminal elements.

Today, the archive of the magazine is online and free to browse, thanks to the people at politico.ie, and it’s something I want to highlight here. From 1977 to 2008, the collection covers very important moments in Irish political and social history, and it should be noted the publication was incredibly diverse; from the League of Ireland to youth subcultures in Dublin, there is much of merit here.

I have decided to pick out a few particular issues I think will interest CHTM readers here:

Magill, April 1983.

Click here for this edition of the magazine.

In April 1983, Magill interviewed the killers of Declan Flynn, an innocent gay man beaten to death in Fairview Park, a well-known cruising spot for the gay community in 1980s Dublin. Flynn was just one of a number of gay men attacked in the park by bigots in the early 1980s. When five men were put on trial for his death in March 1983, Justice Sean Gannon disgracefully told the court that the actions of the men “could never be regarded as murder.” Maggie O’Kane’s interview with some of Flynn’s killers makes for harrowing reading:

They began to beat and kick him. When they had finished Declan Flynn lay on the path choking on his own blood.Tony Maher knew he was dying, he opened his shirt button,his hands were trembling, he felt all panicky. Robert Armstrong went to get the ambulance, the others just stood there and looked. They turned him on his side and then they legged it.

Earlier this year, with the passing of the marriage equality referendum, flowers and ‘Yes Equality’ badges were left at the bench where Declan Flynn sat before he was brutally murdered.

Magill, November 1983.

Click here for this edition of the magazine.

The Dunne family were a scourge on working class Dublin, directly responsible for the importation of large quantities of drugs that would tear communities apart. Mary Raftery’s piece on the family highlighted the manner in which they were personally profiting from the lucrative heroin trade that was reeking havoc on inner-city Dublin in the early 1980s. Raftery’s piece shocked the public, by shining a spotlight on the rise of a criminal empire that the state was slow to confront:

Down through the years every housing estate had its share of criminal families. They were known to be involved in various kinds of crimes, break-ins and shoplifting and the like. The Dunnes were in that tradition, distinguished only by their success and by their progress to bigger crimes. By the 1980s they had become an anachronism – very visible, their connections obvious.Crime had become a more professional pursuit, with specialist individuals coming together for criminal projects.

As public consciousness of professional crime increased and the issue became one of embarrassment for politicians and police alike the Dunnes became an obvious target.This was why, in the early summer of 1982, Charles Haughey and Sean Doherty had a meeting with Patrick McLaughlin and Joseph Ainsworth, the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of the Gardaí. Haughey told them bluntly that he wanted something done about the Dunnes,that they were walking the streets freely. He told them he wanted the Dunnes in prison within twelve months.

Magill, March 1984.

Click here for this edition of the magazine.

Like the Dunne family, Ma Baker was responsible for pushing misery onto working class communities. Magill noted that “day by day the heroin bushfire moves Southwest across Dublin, with one community suffering as another chases the pushers out.” Colm Toibin, Mary Raftery and Maggie O’Kane penned a fascinating report on the drugs crisis gripping Crumlin at the time:

Ma Baker and her sons are among the largest pushers in the Crumlin area of Dublin. They have between 150 and 200 regular clients and operate all over Crumlin, but usually not outside it. Five of her distributors are members of her own family. A further six are small boys.The boys are all local and she does not use kids who take heroin. She also changes them regularly. Her nephew, who is currently charged with possession of heroin with intent to supply, also distributes for her.

One of her sons is serving an eighteen months sentence in Mountjoy. Two of her other sons are facing drug-related charges.Baker is not her real name, but she is widely known by other pushers and by addicts as Ma Baker, a corruption of Ma Barker, the name of the machine gun-wielding head of an infamous criminal family in the US in the Thirties.

Magill, 1986.

Click here to read this edition.

In 1986, Magill turned its focus to some of the reactionary Catholic forces who were preparing to do battle in the divorce referendum. Emily O’Reilly and Gene Kerrigan combined to produce an eye-opening report on the shadowy bodies preparing to fight any attempt to introduce divorce into Irish society:

The campaign against divorce will be run by a group of Catholic professionals, shadowy but well-organised, linked in varying degrees to Opus Dei and the Knights of Columbanus. Seasoned by their victory in the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign, they have no difficulty in raising finance and no shortage of powerful connections. Even the bulk of Family Solidarity members are unaware of their existence.

Magill, April 1982.

Click here for this edition of the magazine.

In April 1982, a Magill article entitled ‘In the Shadow of a Gunman’ raised awkward questions around the Official IRA, noting that “SFWP aspirations towards socialist respectability are undermined by the continued military operations of the Official IRA.” The magazine listed a number of murders and criminal activities which it claimed the OIRA were directly responsible for, and the magazine would also examine “the trade union and media infiltration by SFWP.”

[Note : We have previously looked at the history of bona fide pubs, kips and early houses in the city]

There a number of private bars and social clubs in Dublin that cater for different people depending on their profession, nationality or politics.  Here is an incomplete list. Please leave a comment if you have any other suggestions or memories.

The Members Bar in Leinster House is open only to TDs and Senators. It keeps on serving as long as the Dail is sitting, which occasionally could be as late as 4 or 5 in the morning.  The two Dáil bars (members and visitors) save more than €1,000 annually in duty payments because they are exempt from holding a pub licence under ‘parliamentary privilege’.

The RTÉ Sports & Social Club in Donnybrook has a bar and restaurant plus a function room, gym, squash courts and a sauna. As of 2013, the club had around 800 and 900 members, made up of current staff and former employees.

[For journalists of another generation, the Irish Times Club above a bookmakers on Fleet Street opened around midnight and stayed serving until 6.30am. Entry was granted by ringing a bell and hoping for the best.]

The Garda Siochana Boat Club (established 1954) in Islandbridge has a function room with bar. From 1964 to 2014, the Garda Club on Harrington Street in Portobello boasted two ballrooms and a members bar.

Garda Club, Harrington Street. Credit – Irish Times (2014).

According to an Irish Times article from 2014, the club was:

regularly packed on Mondays and Thursdays during the peak years of the 1970s and 1980s.

At that time most of the unmarried members of the force lived in garda stations such as Harcourt Terrace and Pearse Street. The balance of the support for the club came from what was known as “flatland” – inner city flats rented by teachers, civil servants and firemen “up from the country”.

The club has been in decline since the 1990s, partly because a great many of the young gardaí could not afford to buy houses in the city, opting instead to live and socialise in outlying towns such as Mullingar, Drogheda, Dundalk and Naas.

Housed in two beautifully restored Georgian buildings (36 & 37) on Parnell Square, Club na Múinteoirí (The Teachers’ Club) has a lovely old-fashioned bar upstairs and a large function room in the basement.  It was opened by the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation in 1923. The renowned Góilín Traditional Singer’s Club meets there every Friday evening.

Teachers Club bar, 2012. Credit – M Stephen M. (Yelp)

The Millmount House in Drumcondra was once home to the Prison Officers Association of Dublin. Prison Officers from Mountjoy are known to drink in the snug in The Hut in Phibsboro.

On the first floor, block A of the Newman building (Arts Block) in UCD, there is a small private bar called the UCD Common Room Club which is open to UCD staff and their guests.

For those working in Dublin Airport and their families, the Airport Leisure Social Athletic Association (ALSAA) in Toberbunny has a bar, gym and a large sports complex.

There is a bar and lounge on the first floor of the Dublin Postal Sports & Social Club in Tallaght. A balcony offers panoramic views of the Dublin Mountains. Full Membership of the social club is open to An Post and subsidiary company employees.

MacTurcaills on Townsend Street (now closed) , a stone’s throw away from Tara Street Fire Station, was once very popular with firefighters and their families. The Dublin Fire Brigade Sports & Social Club took over the famed Ierne Ballroom on Parnell Street in 1994 and ran a members bar, a snooker room, the main ballroom and a smaller lounge. It closed down some years ago.

The City of Dublin Working Men’s Club on Little Strand Street off Capel Street has been based there since 2003. The club’s previous home for 115 years was on Wellington Quay. In 1891, it boasted of having “300 members generally on its books (and) a large lecture and concert hall, library, and reading-room, as well as a comfortable bar and billiard-room.”.

City of Dublin Working Men’s Club, Wellington Quay (1989). Credit – Pat Liddy (Irish Times).

A brief history of the club:

Article by Pat Liddy, Irish Times, 05 Apr 1989.

This building was sold to Brushfield Ltd (a trading name for the Clarence Hotel, which lists Bono, the Edge and businessman Harry Crosbie as directors) who opened a popular live music venue called The Workman’s Club in 2010.

City of Dublin Working Men’s Club, Little Strand Street from Google Maps.

There is also the Inchicore United Workingmen’s Club (estd. 1884) on Emmet Road. It be can viewed on the 1911 Census here. It was fined back in 2000 for after-hours drinking:

Irish Times, 13 Jan 2000.

While around the corner, the Inchicore Sports and Social Club overlooks Library Square. Both clubs were set up to serve the large workforce of the the nearby Inchicore Railway Works, the headquarters for mechanical engineering and rolling stock maintenance for Iarnród Éireann which remains the largest single industrial complex in Ireland.

Inchicore Sports and Social Club. Credit – elementsyoga.ie

Ned McLoughlin, chairman of the Inchicore/CIE Sports and Social Club, provided background information on the organisation for a 2013 Dublin City Council report:

The first Club House …was built as a social amenity by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company in the tradition of philanthropic employers of the Victorian age, and the building increased in size to provide their workers with a reading room, dining hall, dispensary and sewing rooms, where sewing classes were provided for the women and girls of the community. The Club, also known as the Railwaymen‟s Institute also included a pond and garden to the rear, bandstand and fountain to the north and a ball alley …

The Railwaymen‟s Institute continued to serve the railway workers and their families throughout the years of the GS&WR, and laterally Córus Iompair Éireann (CIE) established in 1945, with membership open to all employees. The CIE Social Club closed in 1987 and was reopened in 1991 by a group of ex. members under a 20 year lease from CIE expiring in 2014.

There used to be similar workingmen’s clubs on James Street and York Street but they are long gone.

Club Italiano is a voluntary, non-profit organisation which has been organising social, cultural and recreational activities for Italians living in Ireland for forty-five years.  Their Social Club in Tibradden Lane, Rathfarnham has been open since 1983 and has a bar/function room.

As far as I know the Turkish Social Club on North Lotts does not have a bar but is where members of the Turkish community come to socialise, play pool and watch TV.

The basement Club Conradh na Gaeilge on a Georgian building Harcourt Street is an Irish language speaking pub and home to regular concerts, singalongs and sean nós nights. It is open from 8pm every night.

Club Conradh na Gaeilge, 2011. Credit – http://publin.ie/

A 2009 review of the premises on Yelp.ie reported:

There’s a great sense of camaraderie, as everyone is there with a common purpose (to speak Irish and get ossified), and the drink is way cheaper than every where else in town, and they sell bottled stout!

If you’re a tourist, you shouldn’t leave Ireland without drinking bottled stout. Guinness as we know it (creamy and cold) has only been around for about fifty years, whereas bottled stout (more viscous, sharper and served at room temperature) is nearly exactly what Guinness would have been like in its original incarnation (porter). You’ll get served a lot quicker at the bar if you can order in Irish, as one barman in particular tends to ignore those pleading for a drink in English, regardless of how long they’ve been there, until all of the Gaeilgeorí have been served, so repeat after me: Buidéal Guinness, más é do thoil é. Good.

The decorative Freemasons Hall on Molesworth Street has a small private bar in their library. It is known as the Masonic Club and has a couple of drinks on tap and about four tables with chairs.

Masonic Club, Freemasons Hall.

The Cois Life Bar upstairs in Liberty Hall boasts of gorgeous panoramic views of the city. I think there is also a small bar as part of the function room in the UNITE offices on Middle Abbey Street and possibly in O’Lehane House (Mandate) on Cavendish Row.

The Dublin Conservative Club at 20 Camden Row, Dublin 8 does not have a website or any social media accounts. You’d certainly pass it without ever knowing what it was or its significance.

Dublin Conservative Club, Camden Row from Google Maps.

The clubs origins, as far as I can tell, lay in the City and County of Dublin Conservative Workingmen’s Club (CWC) who were founded in 1883 to cater for the social needs of working-class Protestants in the city.

From the 1880s to the 1960s, they owned substantial Georgian house at 38 York Street, off St. Stephen’s Green where the modern extension to the Royal College of Surgeons now stands. In circa 1962, they moved to their current premises at 20 Camden Row.

Constructed by architect Charles Astley Owen in 1901, it was originally the ‘Home of Rest for Protestant Dying’.

I’ve been to the large function room on the top floor for a Northern Soul gig and a New Years Party before. It was a unique experience, climbing up the stairs to reach this fabulous space with wooden floors and nearly pitchback room with shadows of people dancing the night way. While the music was blaring, the thick walls meant that no one could hear the party from the street downstairs.

The downstairs members bar is apparently an amazing sight with conservative and protestant imagery adjoining the walls. It has played host to events by the Dublin Loyal Rangers Supporters Club and the local Dublin & Wicklow L.O.L. 1313.

Postscript ;

Meanwhile, there are also established Gentleman’s Clubs like the Stephen’s Green Hibernian Club and the Kildare Street Club on Stephen’s Green; the Arts Club on Fitzwilliam Street; the Royal Automobile Club on Dawson Street and newer, less aristocratic private members clubs like Residence and Odessa but I think they deserve their own article.

There are also numerous bars in various GAA, Rugby, Cricket and Football grounds but I’ve left them out too.