Note 1: Previously we’ve looked at the city’s oldest restaurants, the first Chinese restaurants, the first Italian restaurants and the first pizzerias.
Note 2: Michael Kennedy’s excellent article ‘Indian restaurants in Dublin since 1908′ published in History Ireland in January 2010 was an invaluable resource.

The first Indian restaurant was opened in Dublin in August 1908. This enterprise, which seemed to have only lasted a few months, predated by three years the first restaurant of its kind to open in London, the ‘Salut e Hind’. ‘The India Restaurant and Tea Rooms’ was opened by Karim Khan at 20 Upper Sackville Street and offered ‘real Indian curries’ served by ‘native waiters in costume’.

Dublin’s first Indian restaurant. The Irish Times, 17 August 1908.

It would be another 31 years until Dubliners and the Indian community could sample food like this again in a restaurant. Michael Kennedy points to the ‘India Restaurant’ (later ‘Mahomets’) opening in 1939 at 50 Lower Baggot Street. It closed its doors in 1943. It is safe to say that this must be the restaurant referred to this An Irishman’s Diary in September 1939.

Reference to a Indian restaurant being opened in Dublin. The Irish Times, 02 September 1939.

A year later, the same column, offered a fascinating (but brief) insight into the shape of ethnic restaurants (i.e. Indian) in Dublin at the time. The writer wrote that he had seen ‘several white students from Trinity ‘ dining while he was there.

The Irish Times, 17 August 1940.

1956 was the next big milestone in the Indian restaurant timeline with the opening of the ‘Goldien Orient’ at 27 Lower Leeson Street. This was the brainchild of Mohammed ‘Mike’ Butt, a Kenyan of Kashmiri descent and his Dublin-born wife Terry, a graduate of Cathal Brugha Street College of Catering. It served generations of journalists, students and Indians until 1984.  (A biography of the pioneering Butt can be read here)

Mike Butt pictured outside the Golden Orient. The Irish Times, 21 March 1986.

In 1966, the ‘Taj Mahal’ restaurant was opened by Mohinder Singh Gill (aka Mark Gill) at the corner of Lincoln Place and Clare Street. Gill, originally from the Jalandhar district in the Punjab, came to Ireland after spending a couple of years in Britain. In business to the mid-1990s, the ‘Taj Mahal’ became one of Dublin’s longest-lived Indian restaurants.

The Taj Mahal (Lincoln Place side) in 1979. Credit – Dublin City Photographic Collection

While the Irish Sikh and Hindu community now numbers a few thousand, many of the  first were brought over by Gill to work in the Taj Mahal in the early 1970s. A total of 10 families, some Hindu and some Sikh but all from the same Jalandhar region, made the move to Ireland in 1972 to work as chefs in Gill’s ‘Taj Mahal’ and another restaurant of his in Cork.

In the late 1980s,the restaurant gained fame through Larry Gogan’s ‘Just a minute’ quiz on RTE Radio 2. When asked ‘Where’s the Taj Mahal?’, a contestant famously replied ‘opposite the Dental Hospital’.

The Taj Mahal (Clare Street side) in 1979. Credit – Dublin City Photographic Collection

The ‘Taj Mahal’ was taken over by Sikander Khan, a retired major in the Pakistani army, in 1987. It closed its doors in the mid 1990s. Khan’s son Nasir opened the ‘Royal Tandoori’ on South King Street in 1991 and in 1997 moved out to Donnybrook where he established the ‘Khan’s Balti House’ which is still popular today.

Thom’s Directory for 1973 shows nine Indian restaurants in Dublin, including a cluster from South Richmond Street to Camden Street, including ‘Bombay Grill’ (South Richmond Street), ‘Calcutta’ (Camden Street), ‘New Delhi’ (Lower Camden Street) and ‘Punjab One’ (Upper Camden Street).

Punjab One Indian Take Away. St. Stephen’s Green, 1972. Dublin City Photographic Collection

As Michael Kennedy has written:

By the late-1980s Irish tastes in food had become more adventurous. Foreign travel, emigration, the rising popularity of vegetarianism, increased disposable income, urbanisation and reasonably priced ethnic restaurants all explained the development.

The opening of ‘Saagar’ (Harcourt Street, 1995) and ‘Jaipur’ (South Great Georges Street, 1998) was seen as the new dawn of top end, Indian restaurants in the city.

Dubliners love of Indian food and curries has continued to grow and we now have an abundant supply of top-class restaurants, take aways and late night eateries.

What was your first experience of eating Indian food in Dublin? Where do you rate in the city today?

Recently I took part in a 1913 walking tour of the city which was recorded for DCTV, who will air the tour later in the year to coincide with the centenary of the Lockout. Essentially, I told the history of various locations briefly, and then a song relevant to that location was performed. One place we visited was the new bridge which is being constructed across the Liffey, as there is an attempt to name it after Rosie Hackett, a trade unionist from the time. Here, Alison O’Donnell sings ‘Rebel Girl’ in honour of Rosie.

Below is an image of the banner I mentioned in the piece above. Rosie and other female trade unionists took it upon themselves to raise this banner on Liberty Hall on May 12th 1917, a year after the killing of James Connolly. While James Connolly is also in the running for the naming of the bridge, as a man who never feared to put women at the front of his movement, one wonders would he be happier to see the Rosie Hackett Bridge?

Rosie herself later remembered this event, and told the Bureau of Military History:

Of course, if it took four hundred policemen to take four women, what would the newspapers say? We enjoyed it at the time- all the trouble they were put to. They just took the script away and we never heard any more….

Historically, Liberty Hall is the most important building that we have in the city. Yet, it is not thought of at all by most people. More things happened there, in connection with the Rising, than in any other place. It really started from there.

Recognition awarded to those who had served with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, issued at the time of their disbanding.

While much has been written about the attempts by the Irish Citizen Army to dig trenches in St. Stephen’s Green during the Easter Rising, another series of WWI era Dublin trenches have been largely forgotten. According to one website dedicated to the memory of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers:

The 6th and 7th Dublins were stationed at the Curragh and later at The Royal (Collins) Barracks in Dublin. They trained in trench warfare in the Phoenix Park. Today, there is an outline of one of the trenches in the Park, as a dip in the land running east/west in front of the Papal Cross.

Kevin Myers has written about the trenches in the park in the pages of The Irish Times, noting that:

In the broad green acres of Phoenix Park across the road from Aras an Uachtarain, one can see strange undulations and surface scars beneath the grass. Soon those undulations will vanish as the summer returns, and one might even believe that the scars do not exist and whatever happened to the earth is now gone, past, extinct.

One user on the dublin.ie forum has pinpointed the area they believe to be the location of the trenches, which is inkeeping with the claim on the specialist website quoted above. Below I have shown the same area in Google Maps.

Google Earth View of area.

Are there visible remains to be seen in the two aerial images above of WWI training trenches? I’m not entirely sure. I’d rather doubt it, giving the form of the lines. One comment below notes “They’re on Chesterfield Avenue across from the main road running parallel to the visitors centre”.

Area around Visitor Centre

Damian Sheils, who has done research in this field and is a conflict archaeologist has noted that it is unclear just where the Phoenix Park trenches were, but that:

Trenches were constructed in places like the Phoenix Park, Finner Camp (Donegal), Kilworth Camp (Cork) and the Curragh. The latter survive in incredible condition and look like a section of the Western Front. One account of a soldier from the Leinsters described in a letter home that these training trenches were ‘not the simple holes in the ground you might imagine.’ It is past time the Phoenix Park ones were firmly pinned down and explored- an ideal project for the decade of commemorations I think.

I’d welcome more information on these trenches as I’m very curious now.

(In terms of food history, we’ve previously looked at the city’s oldest restaurants, the first Chinese restaurants, the first Italian restaurants, the first pizzerias and the first Indian restaurants)

Vegetarian Restaurants in Dublin date back to the late 19th century while groups of Vegetarians have been organising events in the city since at least the 1860s.

In September 1866, a public meeting on Vegetarianism in the Exhibition Rooms, Rotunda Hospital was heckled by several members of the public. The meeting was held ‘for the purpose of affording an opportunity to several prominent vegetarians (to) explain … the principles and practices of the Vegetarian Society’.

The Freemans Journal of 28 September 1866 noted that:

There was a large attendance of respectably dressed persons, but there were many amongst the audience who evidently attended the meeting more for the purpose of disturbing the proceedings and amusing themselves in a very disorderly manner.

Amongst those speaking were Carlow-born social reformer and temperance activist James Haughton (who had become Vegetarian in 1846); Rev. James Clarke of Salford (who had helped establish the American Vegetarian Society in 1850); ‘acknowledged statistician of the British temperance movement’ William Hoyle from Bury and writer and campaigner James A Mowatt from Dublin.

The newspaper concluded:

The last question put was directed to the Rev. Mr. Clarke, who was asked, amid much laughter what he should do at the North Pole, where there were no vegetables. The reverend gentleman said he should not go there at all. The proceedings then terminated.

The first Vegetarian restaurant in Dublin, the ‘Sunshine Vegetarian Dining Rooms‘, was located at 48 Grafton Street (now Vodafone) and was opened in March 1891 by the Dublin Vegetarian Society.

The Irish Times, 28 August 1891

Consisting of a ‘pair of the most elegantly-decorated and tastefully-fitted apartments’, the restaurant served ‘toothsome food, free from the slightest suspicion of animal matter … at a surprisingly moderate rate’.

The same article from The Irish Times noted that the ‘question of vegetarianism has not to any great extent excited public discussion in Dublin’ but the journalist wondered if this might change as the ‘restaurant has been extremely patrionised’ since opening. It is unclear how long the restaurant was in business. I would guess for for a few months or maybe a year at most.

In July 1899, the ‘The College Vegetarian Restaurant‘ was established at 3-4 College Street by Antrim man Leonard McCaughey. This hotel and restaurant is the present location of The Westin (as far as I can work out).

The Irish Times, 11 September 1900

DIT food historian Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire, in his excellent ‘Searching for Chefs, Waiters and Restaurateurs in Edwardian Dublin’, has written that McCaughey:

…had built a chain of successful vegetarian restaurants in Glasgow, Leeds, Belfast and in Dublin … (and that he) owned the Ivanhoe Hotel in Harcourt Street, Dublin, and the Princess Restaurant on Grafton Street.

The 1911 census lists Leonard Mccaughey as a 70-year-old hotel proprietor from Antrim living in 72.1 Harcourt Street with a wife, three children, a cook and two servants.

An advertisement in The Irish Times on 2 February 1900 proclaimed that ‘Vegetarian food is the coming diet’ and suggested that ‘every man and woman that has suffered from influenza should dine at the College Restaurant as the use of a pure diet is the simplest and surest cure for this woeful disease’ and another on 27 April of the same year noted that ‘The College Vegetarian Restaurant is the seat of learning in the science of food. In it all can learn how to get the best food in the easiest digestible form, at the lowest cost’.

The Irish Times (11 May 1912) reported that a foreign chef at the restaurant on College Street, Leon Cromblin, was discovered in the cellar of the premises with his throat badly cut and a razor by his side. He was taken to Jervis Street hospital where he was said to have been in a critical condition. It is not known if he survived.

The Freemans Journal, 07 March 1913

The restaurant at College Street is mentioned a number of times in the Bureau of Military Witness Statements.

Dr. Seamus O’Ceallaugh (BMH WS471) notes that just before the Easter Rising he was invited to a meeting in the Vegetarian Restaurant by Fenian Rory O’Connor where there was discussion about the upcoming rebellion and attempts made to decode the forged ‘Castle Document’. At least four such meetings took place. In addition to O’Ceallaigh and O’Connor, those present included republican solicitor PJ Little, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, writer Andrew E. Malone (LP Byrne), IRB poet Charles Kickham and playwright Dr. Seamus O’Kelly.

Dublin Brigade IRA member Michael Lynch (BMH WS511) speaks about a waiter in the restaurant who had overheard a group of Trinity College students talking about plans to set fire to the headquarters of Sinn Fein at no. 6 Harcourt Street on Armistice Night 1918. This waiter informed Sean MacMahon, Vice Commandment of the 3rd Brigade IRA, who managed to mobilise republicans at the last minute to defend it and other buildings. In the end, a motley group of ‘British soldiers, British ex. soldiers … young men of the tramp class and a proportion of students of Trinity College’ did launch some minor attacks on the Sinn Fein HQ, the Mansion House, St. Teresa’s Hall on Clarendon Street and Liberty Hall but thanks to the waiter in the Vegetarian Restaurant, local republicans were able to call up men to help fight off these attackers.

Irish writer James Cousins and wife Mary Cousins (co-founder of the Irish Women’s Franchise League and All India Women’s Conference) in their joint autobiography, We Two Together (1950), described the restaurant on College Street as a:

rendezvous for the literary set, of whom AE was the leader. We frequently joined these idealists for lunch, and later met a number of Hindu vegetarians who had come to Dublin

George William Russell (AE). Credit – cultured.com

Similarly poet and editor of The Dublin Magazine Seamus O’Sullivan wrote (IT, 16 Oct 1943) about being brought to this ‘famous and well-conducted vegetarian restaurant’ by his father in 1901 where they used to see ‘the bearded and spectacled features of A.E. and with him, Harry Norman, Paul Gregan … and others of that small, but distinguished, group of workers and writers connected with the Irish Agricultural Organisation’.

Not too long ago, we had a brief post on the website here looking at the brilliant statue of Socrates (the philosopher, not the footballer) which stands proudly in the grounds of the Botanic Gardens. This raised the issue of another philosopher who is remembered in the Botanic Gardens, albeit for very different reasons. While Socrates never walked through Dublin city, Ludwig Wittgenstein did. Indeed, the Vienna-born philosopher, considered one of the greatest minds of his time, actually lived and worked in the city.

In a 1997 article for the Sunday Independent, Ulick O’Connor noted that this was a time when Wittgenstein had just resigned a Professorship in Cambridge, and that:

Wittgenstein had chosen Dublin because of his friendship with a consultant psychiatric at St. Patrick’s Hospital in James’ Street, Maurice O’Connor Drury. Before taking up medicine, Drury had been a philosophy student of Wittgenstein’s at Cambridge. But, in 1947, at the height of his fame, Wittgenstein had decided to resign his Cambridge Professorship and settle in Ireland.

Wittgenstein spent two years of his life writing in Dublin, and indeed these were among the most productive years of his life, as it was during this time he wrote much of his most influential work, Philosophical Investigations. From November 1948 into the summer of 1949, he lived in a small modest room at Ross’s Hotel, today known to Dubliners as the Ashling Hotel. A small plaque on the front of this hotel marks the fact that Wittgenstein boarded here. This plaque was unveiled in 1988, by John Wilson, who was then Minister for Transport and Tourism.

Interestingly, he had visited Ireland and Dublin prior to this for short periods, with the first visit occurring in 1934. It was during his extended stay at the Ross’s Hotel in the late 1940s however that he truly familiarised himself with the city, and as Brian Fallon has noted he was frequently to be found “walking in the Phoenix Park, lunching in Bewley’s or in the Members Dining Rooms at the Zoo, and sometimes, during the winter, sitting on the parapet in the Palm House of the Botanic Gardens, writing.”

Richard Wall’s study Wittgenstein in Ireland provides good detail of his time here. His love for Bewley’s is evidently clear from his own correspondence. He would always enjoy the same lunch of an omelette and coffee, and was said to be delighted by the fact the staff there would always remember his order without even needing to place it. Wall notes that while we know for certain he frequently visited Bewley’s, the question of whether the great intellect ever stepped inside a Dublin pub remains unanswered. We know on one occasion that Wittgenstein and his friend Drury bought cheap cameras in Woolworth’s and then photographed the city from the top of Admiral Horatio Nelson’s Pillar!

Nelson’s Pillar on O’Connell Street.

Another plaque to Wittgenstein is found in the Botanic Gardens, a place he was said to find not alone relaxing but ideal for the purpose of writing. So close to the monument to Socrates, it’s interesting to think that one of the great philosophical thinkers of human history sat deep in thought.

Interestingly, one thing Wittgenstein admired about Dublin was the bilingual nature of the city, and he remarked about signage here that:

One thing is achieved by putting these notices in Irish. It makes one realise that one is in a foreign country. Dublin is not just another English provincial town, it has the air of a real capital city.

Wittgenstein died in April 1951, and at that time in life he was once more living in Cambridge. On death, he famously wrote that:

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits.

So, what of the Dublin he knew? The Ross’s Hotel has since been replaced, the Pillar he climbed has been transformed into the Spire, Bewley’s on Grafton Street proudly remains despite its sister-branch on Westmoreland Street being transformed into a hideous Starbucks, and the Botanic Gardens have changed little.

(In terms of food history, we’ve previously looked at the city’s oldest restaurants, the first Chinese restaurants, the first Italian restaurants, the first pizzerias and the first Indian restaurants)

This is part two of our series looking at the history of Vegetarianism in Dublin, primarily focusing on restaurants and cafes. Part One began in the 1860s and finished up in the early 1920s.

We pick up the story in the 1930s…

Frank Wyatt, editor of Vegetarian News and Secretary of the London Vegetarian Society, gave a talk in January 1933 on Vegetarianism in the Mansion House. The Irish Times (17 Jan) noted that the meeting was mostly made up of women. Wyatt, a vegetarian of twenty years standing, told the room that he was ‘satisfied that he was a healthier man than any flesh eater’.

The Irish Press, 5 March 1947

Moira Henry as one of the delegates at the 11th IVU World Vegetarian Congress 1947. Stonehouse, England. Credit – http://www.ivu.org

Moira Henry passed away in 1997. The Irish Times, 10 March 1997.

while Dublin had no purely vegetarian restaurant, hotels and restaurants generally were becoming more sympathetic towards their needs and could usually provide vegetarian meals if notice was given beforehand. Most of the members agree that a specialist restaurant would be a step forward but this would take time as well as a ‘lot of hard work and some capital’.

All changed the following year with the arrival of Good Karma at 4 Great Strand Street. As far as I can work out, this was the first purely vegetarian restaurant in the city since the College Vegetarian Restaurant closed its doors in 1922. It was opened by Jas Adams, Peter Lawson and Robert and Aaron Bartlett.

Site of Good Karma. 4 Great Strand Street as it looks today. Credit – infomatique

long room with wooden pillers and a cosily dim glow from candles and firelight. The table (made by the owners) are high if you like sitting up to your food: low if you prefer to loll across the tie-dyed cushions also made by the owners … Taj Mahal, Doctor Pepper and Crosby, Stills and Nash provided lush sounds in the background  … it makes a wholesome change from the stagnancy of Dublin eating.

John S Doyle writing in the Irish Independent in 2005 remembered Good Karma as a:

A ‘head’ restaurant not everyone knew about, with bare brick walls and no seats, only bean bags, and mellow ‘sounds’. Nice food, none of your macrobiotic stuff. The ‘staff’ were laidback types who said “all right man”, and you were to take it as a privilege to be served by them. This was 1974 (sic) or so. There were numerous Garda raids, and the restaurant didn’t last long.

…Dublin’s first macrobiotic restaurant back in the early seventies and it was filled with, run by and staffed with hippies …What made it a nice place, perhaps more than the food, was the amateur attitude of everyone involved. You never felt that it was a commercial enterprise. Sure, money changed hands, but somehow you felt you were part of a social and gastronomic experiment.

It’s pretty amazing that there are so many positive memories of a place that was open for little more than twelve months.

While the restaurant closed, the health food shop, Green Acres, in the basement remained open. Patrick Comerford in The Irish Times (39 July 1975) interviewed the owner, Philip Guiney. He told Comeford that ‘not all the staff, and only a quarter of (his) customers’ were vegetarian. Open for three years, an increasing number of older people were visiting the ship realising that it was ‘not just a place for young freaks’. These older people came to ‘supplement their diets with natural foods, and probably a small number had become vegetarian out of economic necessary‘.

The journalist also mentioned the Ormond Health Centre (run by a Mr. Evans) on Parliament Street which sold dandelion coffee, Honeyrose cigarettes and herbal tea and the Irish Health and Herbal Centre on Trinity Street (run by Ann Flood and Michael McDonald) which was ‘not vegetarian orientated by any means’ but sold a lot of products popular with the vegetarian community.

In the late 1970s, there were a number of whole-food restaurants in Dublin including Munchies at 60 Bolton Street, The Golden Dawn on Crow Street and the Supernatural Tearooms at 53 Harcourt Street.

Here is a short piece on Munchies from 1977:

The Irish Times, 6 December 1977

The Golden Dawn, established in 1976, was described by Christy Stapleton of the Vegetarian Society of Ireland in the late 1990s as ‘the closest thing to a vegetarian restaurant in Dublin’ at the time. Ran by showband singer Joe Fitzmaurice and his wife, it used to be a favourite of actors Gabriel Byrne, Vinny McCabe and Garrett Keogh while DJ Paul Webb worked there as an assistant cook and Golden Horde frontman Simon Carmody as dishwasher. Here is a link to a great 1978 RTE piece on the restaurant.

Screengrab from 1978 RTE piece on The Golden Dawn restaurant.

A vegetarian restaurant called The Harvest was operating in 1979 on the top of Harcourt Street and then at 1 Lincoln Place by early 1983. I assume they were connected. An Irish Times journalist visited the the Harcourt Street Harvest restaurant and wrote in the paper on 14 December 1979 that she enjoyed her meal of:

Chickpea pea (50p) .. a tasty and sustaining … starter. For main course there’s a wide choice but the aduki bean hamburger with rice, salad and a choice of sauce (£1.80) is something to linger over

Bananas, a self-service vegetarian restaurant, was opened at 15 Upper Stephens St by Muriel Goodwin and friends in late 1982. Lorraine Kennedy reviewed it for The Irish Times on 15 October 1983. She said she was more than happy with her ‘starter of celery soup sprinkled with watercres .. for 85p … (and) a vegetable pizza (£1.20) accompanied by a mixed salad of orange, celery and more watercress’.

Also in 1982, Blazing Salads was established as a wholefood restaurant by the pioneering Fitzmaurice family after they decided to wind down The Golden Dawn. Based at the top floor of the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre until 2001, the family moved operations to a new deli-style premises on Drury Street where it is still open today.

The Well Fed Cafe was opened in 1983 at 6 Crow Street as part of the Dublin Resource Centre (DRC) and lasted until the at least mid 1990s. A Workers Co-Operative, it served delicious veggie food at a very cheap cost and won numerous award.

Around 1984, a veggie restaurant and wine bar called Rays opened in the premises of the former Golden Dawn in Crow Street.

Cornucopia Wholefood and Vegetarian Restaurant, the granddaddy of Dublin veggie restaurants, began trading on Wicklow Street in January 1986 and has been there ever since. It was established by Neil McCafferty (1952-1993) and Deirdre McCafferty, who is still the proprietor of the restaurant.

Some early shots of Cornucopia. Credit – cornucopia.ie

In the late 1980s, the Hare Krishnas opened a Veggie restaurant on Crow Street (where Tasty Zoes is now). It lasted for about a year. In 1998, they opened their first Govinda’s restaurant at 4 Aungier Street. That’s still open and they’ve a further two in the city, one on Middle Abbey Street and one on Merrion Row.

In 1987, a ‘demi-veg’ restaurant called It’s Natural opened up beside the Olympia Theatre on Dame Street. Also that year, a vegetarian restaurant called Second Nature opened its doors in Blackrock by sisters Fiona and Susan Bergin.

Piece on Vegetarianism.The Irish Press, 22 April 1988

Cranks, a UK vegetarian restaurant franchise, opened on the first floor of Bewley’s on Westmoreland Street in 1989. I’m not sure how long it lasted.

Opened in early 1996, Juice on South Great George’s Street was Dublin’s only sit-down vegetarian restaurant for many years. Open until midnight, it was a popular place until its closure in 2011

I’ll leave it that. It would take too much work trying to trace the various veggie restaurants that have come and gone in the city since the mid 1990s.

Appendix 1:

It seems there have been three different incarnations of Vegetarian Societies in Dublin:

Dublin Vegetarian Society, 1880s – mid 1910s

Dublin Vegetarian Society, 1946 – early 1960s

Vegetarian Society of Ireland, 1978 – Present

‘Duck, You Sucker!’ – The cover for a recent DVD special edition of the 1971 film.

Duck, You Sucker!, also known as A Fistful of Dynamite and Once Upon a Time… the Revolution, is a 1971 Italian film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Rod Steiger,James Coburn and Romolo Valli. A much praised film, the film caused considerable controversy at the time of its release with certain scenes deemed excessively violent. The film is set in Mexico in 1913 around the time of the Mexican revolution.

The plot is a bit of a head scratcher, centering around the story of Sean Mallory, an explosions expert from the IRA hiding out in America. Mallory comes into contact with Juan Miranda, a Mexican outlaw who attempts to convince him to join a raid on the Mesa Verde national bank. Details on the film can be found on its Wiki page, but what makes of interest to Come Here To Me is this scene below, which tells viewers why Mallory felt the need to leave Dublin.

The bar in Toners shown in the film.

Here, we see a familiar pub, Toners on Baggot Street! This flashback scene shows us just why Mallory is on the run from the British authorities, following a shooting in the pub:

Another flashback scene in the film was filmed at the grounds of Howth Castle in Dublin:

The film is hugely entertaining and Ennio Morricone’s excellent score works incredibly well with the flashback scenes. Users of the popular internet film review site Rotten Tomatoes have given the film a glowing 90% approval rating.

My thanks to Peter Box Andersson who put this idea into my head, and reminded me what a rich history Dublin has as a filming location historically!

As part of background research for my dissertation, I am trying to collate a list of Irish archives/museums and community/individual history projects that have an active Facebook page and post historical material. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

Do you know of anymore?

Cultural/Social:

Dublin Dockers – Amazing selection of scanned images. Post regularly.

Irish Queer Archive – Excellent quality of scans and descriptions of items. Posts every few days.

Irish Photo Archive – Amazing selection of images. Updated at least once a day.

Irish Traditional Music Archive – Mainly contemporary posts. Some historical images.

Where Were You? – Series of photos posted in batches every other week. Lots of personal comments and memories.

Gay Health Action (GHA) Benefit Disco at Sides DC. Flyer, designer unattributed. 1985 [Ephemera Collection, IQA/NLI]

Established:

Irish Architectural Archive – Post regularly but not much historical stuff.

County Archives

- Clare – Updated quite a bit. Interesting conservation photos.

- Cork – Very irregular posts. Some historical material.

- Donegal -Updated quite regularly. Mainly historical items.

- Waterford – Updated quite regularly. Some historical material.

Glasnevin Museum – Great mixture of posts about contemporary issues (tour guides etc.) and historical bits and pieces.

National Library of Ireland – Excellently run page. Updated regularly.

Political:

Irish Anarchist History Archive – Irregular posts of scanned up documents or photos.

Irish Student Movement Research Project – Nice mixture of scans and short text posts.

Official Republican/WP Archive – Diverse selection of photos and newspaper clippings. Some scans not of high quality.

Students outside Dail Eireann highlighting the Stardust (Artane, 1981) and the Central Hotel (Bundoran, 1980) fire disasters. Credit – Irish Student Movement Research Project.

Religious:

Capuchin Archive - Post fantastic historical documents every other day.

Sport:

Dublin Maccabi (Jewish sporting club)  – All historical photos and documents. Lots of personal comments and memories.

Jackie Jameson Irish Football Legend (Bohs) – Mainly historical photos being posted.

Dalymount Park in 1952. Credit – Jackie Jameson Irish Football Legend

Recently, we’ve featured a series of blog posts looking at the year 1913, which primarily have involved the Lockout and its effect on the city of Dublin. While browsing the archives, I stumbled across a very interesting article from November 1913 which was printed in The Irish Times, dealing with the ‘Dublin Volunteer Corps’, or ‘Dublin Volunteer Force’. This was an armed movement established by Dublin loyalists, following in the footsteps of the Ulster Volunteer Force, and about whom little has been written. The article claimed in its subheading that “over 2,000 men” were enrolled within this band of men, and noted that:

While Ulster is preparing to resist Home Rule by force if necessary, and is busy building up a great citizen army, the spirit of militarism that has gripped that province and fired the enthusiasm of its young manhood is also at work in Dublin.

Dubliner Edward Carson inspects the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1914.

The paper noted that “should a Home Rule Parliament be established in Dublin, this volunteer force is intended to be used in the preservation of the civil and religious liberties of Protestants in Dublin and the south.” It was noted that “company after company was formed, and drill instructors were appointed”, and that while membership was at first confined to members of the Orange Institution, due to an excess of applications it was decided to broaden the ranks, with “over 2,000 men already enrolled.”

It was claimed that the force would serve as a reserve of the Ulster Volunteers, and that:

should civil war break out in Ulster as a consequence of Home Rule, the leaders of the Dublin Volunteers have undertaken to hold in readiness a force of at least 2,000 men for service wherever required by the Commander-In-Chief of the Ulster Army.

Union flags can be seen on Grafton Street, in this photograph taken around the time of the last Royal Visit to a British Dublin, 1911.

The training of these men was reported to take place “at various centres in the city three nights of every week”, and that firing exercises and musket training featured. It was also claimed that similar training was happening in various locations outside of the city, in South County Dublin.

From that 1913 report, I wondered what else I could find online. A recent report in the Belfast Newsletter shined further light on this force, noting that:

IN June 1935, a Dublin Board of Works employee was among a group working at part of the Dublin GPO (General Post Office), the men having been assigned to remove presses from the cellar of the GPO Customs Parcels Section, located at 10 Parnell Square.

When several presses were removed however, some mortar appeared insecure, and when touched, collapsed. Upon further investigation the employee realised he had uncovered a large cavity several feet long. Within it, in perfectly dry conditions, lay a massive arms cache. He had discovered over 90 rifles and over 2000 rounds of ammunition.

This weapons were not in fact for Irish nationalists, but rather the new Dublin loyalist organisation. The Belfast Newsletter piece is a fascinating insight into the group, focusing on the role of Fowler Hall for Dublin Loyalists. Located at 10 Parnell Square, this was one of several Orange Halls in the city and a centre of activity for the organisation.

Interestingly, a 1964 article in The Irish Times claimed that these weapons were actually found during renovations in 1927, and claimed that at least one rifle was stamped “For God and Ulster.”

The arms from Fowlers Hall discussed in The Irish Times in 1964.

The Orange Order were forced from the Fowler Hall by the IRA at the time of the split of the organisation into Pro and Anti-Treaty wings, and in his Witness Statement to the Bureau of Military History republican Patrick J. Kelly noted that “During the period when Belfast refugees were pouring into Dublin the Dublin Brigade H/Q quartered the homeless in the Fowler Hall, Parnell Square, and supplied them with food.”

It’s certainly interesting to think about this band of Dublin loyalists, willing to take up arms against their fellow Irishmen. What else is known about this organisation?

Strange Passion, 31 May 2013

Three Irish Post Punk bands return to the stage this Friday after a 30 year hiatus following the release of critically acclaimed compilation Strange Passion in 2012.

The Grand Social, Dublin. Friday 31st May. Doors open 8pm. First band on at 8.30pm sharp. €12 entry.

Line up:

The SM Corporation(Irish rock entry)

Dublin electronic experimenters come electro-pop pioneers 1978-1987 made up of Tina O’Brien (vocals), Paul Wynne (Keyboards, Rhythms) and Steve Rapid (Keyboards, Noises)

SM Corporation, 1979.

Chant! Chant! Chant! (Irish Rock entry)

Dublin post punk legends (reminiscent of The Birthday Party and Gang Of Four) made up of Eoin Freeney (vocals), Robby Wogan (guitar), Larry Murphy (bass) and Paul Monahan (drums). Supported the The Fall in Cork & the infamous 4 BE 2′s charade in the Trinity JCR.

Chant! Chant! Chant!, 1980

Choice

Dundalk electronic pop band formed in 1980 with Brian McMahon (aka Dougie Devlin) on bass, Ciaran Vernon (aka CV) on synths, Noel McCabe on drums and Jaki McCarrick on vocals. With the departure of drummer, the band became a three-piece – with a drum machine.

Choice, early 1980s

For those interested, check out our previous post – Dublin Punk & New Wave singles timeline (1977 – 1983)

A contemporary illustration of a Royal visit to the slums of Dublin.

This above illustration from 1885 captures a rather surreal moment in the history of inner-city Dublin, when the slums of the city were visited by none other than the Prince of Wales, Prince Albert Edward. He would later visit the poor of Dublin again on a Royal visit in 1903, although on that occasion he had risen to the role of King. His 1885 visit to Golden Lane attracted huge media attention at the time, a

The visit of Prince Albert Edward in 1885 was not universally welcomed, and Dublin Corporation voted by 41 votes to 17 against participating in the official welcoming of the Prince to Dublin. Yet while Dublin Corporation were rather hostile to the visit on the whole, one individual who seized upon the presence of the Prince in Dublin was Sir Charles Cameron. Cameron held charge of the Public Health Department of Dublin Corporation for over a half century, and was a tireless campaigner for improved health standards in the city. Cameron accompanied the Prince on a visit to the slums at Golden Lane, ironically located very close to Dublin Castle.

This map from the late eighteenth century gives an idea of the proximity of Dublin Castle to Golden Lane. (Source: http://dublin1798.com/dublin15.htm)

In his memoirs, Charles Cameron discussed this visit to the slums, writing that:

I suggested to Earl Spencer, Lord Lieutenant at the time, that as the Prince of Wales had visited many model dwellings for the working classes, he ought to see some of the wretched dwellings in which the poor lived and which it was desirable should be replaced by healthy abodes. The proposal met with some opposition from the Prince’s entourage, but ultimately it was agreed that he would visit the slums, but strictly incognito. At 11 o’clock one morning, the Prince, the Duke of Clarence, and Sir Dighton Probyn left Dublin Castle in a plain carriage to visit, under my guidance, slums, and also the model dwellings erected at the expense of Sir Edward Cecil Guinness (now Viscount Iveagh). We went to Golden Lane, which was not far off.

Just as we stopped at a large tenement house a woman discharged into the channel course a quantity of water in which cabbage had been boiled and which contained fragments of leaves. In getting out of the carriage the Duke of Clarence unfortunately stepped into this fluid, slipped, and fell. He was much startled, and his coat and one glove were soiled. We wiped him with handkerchiefs, and Sir Dighton, a man of almost gigantic stature, took o:ff a light overcoat and invested the Duke with it. As the Duke was of moderate height, the coat reached nearly to his feet. On entering the large yard of the tenement house, a ragged boy familiarly took the Prince by the arm and enquired what he was looking for. The Prince took all this, including the Duke’s contretemps, with great good humour, and in visiting the rooms he left something behind him which delighted its recipients.

This visit is also referenced in King Edward VII, his life & reign; the record of a noble career, published first in 1910. There, it is noted that:

The heir to the British throne, accompanied by his heir, Prince Albert
Victor, was there among the dwellers in the slums of the Irish capital, unannounced, unguarded by soldiers or police, trusting himself, with a manly and well-merited confidence, to the people themselves. Readily recognized, he and his son were, at every step, attended by words of welcome and by ringing cheers from those who, apart from political agitation, are as warm-hearted and loyal as any people in the world.

In 1903, as King Edward VII, he once more visited the slums of the city, and it was noted that Lord Iveagh donated a sum of £50,000 to be distributed among the various Dublin hospitals, as a result of this visit and its impact. While these visits certainly attracted considerable media attention, the problem of slum housing in Dublin continued long into the days of Irish independence, and without famous visitors it went largely ignored.

Charles Cameron would become a Freeman of Dublin, an incredible honour to have bestowed among an employee of Dublin Corporation. Writing in his memoirs, published in the year of the Lockout, he noted that “I would like to bear testimony to the wonderful kindness which the poor show to those who are still poorer and more helpless than themselves.”

There have been a small but not insignificant number of reactionary murders in Dublin and on the island of Ireland since the 1920s. I have tried to compile a list of these here. They are divided up into areas of anti-Semitism, homophobia and racism.

I have purposely not included murders in regard to nationality (Irish/English) or religion (Catholic/Protestant), as due to this island’s history, these are a completely different matter.

Obviously not all murders of ‘foreign nationals’ in Ireland can be considered ‘racist’. Those that have been included all had a racial element to them though.

Anti-Semitism:

31 October 1923: Bernard Goldberg, Dublin
Golderg (42), a Manchester jeweller and father of four, was shot on St Stephen’s Green after three men had stopped him and his brother Samuel and demanded their names.

The Weekly Irish Times, 3 November 1923.

14 November 1923: Emmanuel Kahn, Dublin
Dublin-born Kahn (24) of Lennox Street, was gunned down in Stamer Street in Portobello as he returned home after an evening playing cards. David Millar, who was with him in the Jewish Club in Harrington Street, was also shot in the shoulder but managed to stagger home.

The principal instigator of these two murders was Commandant James Patrick Conroy, who claimed to have resigned from the army in December 1924 because he disagreed with the policy of the then government. He fled to Mexico and then to the United States, along with with two other suspects, after the incidents. No-one was ever convicted. A curious footnote to the whole affair was found in remarks in the Dail in February 1934, when Fianna Fail finance minister Sean McEntee claimed that one of the killers was walking free, and was a member of the fascist-style Blueshirts organisation.

Sexuality:

3 June 1979: Anthony McCleave, Belfast
McLeave was murdered in one of the city’s best known ‘cruising areas’. He was found with his head rammed onto a spike on a protective bollard outside the fire station on Chichester Street. The RUC closed the case within twenty-four hours but was it reopened after a campaign by the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association (NIGRA) which was backed by the McCleave family. No-one was ever charged with his death.

8 September 1982: John Roche, Cork
Roche (29), a gay man, was murdered by Michael O’Connor in the Munster Hotel in Cork City. The victim, who worked in the hotel as a night porter, was found tied to a chair in one of the bedrooms. He had been stabbed in the chest with a 15cm (6″ ) knife. Repulsed by the victim’s alleged advances O’Connor stabbed Roche, telling him “Your gay days are over”.

Evening Press, 11th May 1983. Credit – Irish Queer Archive

November 1982: Henry McLarnon, Ballymena, Co. Antrim
McLarnon (22), father of two, was murdered by Richard John Nicholl in Ballymena. In court, Nicholl said that McLarnon had lured him to the quarry where he had made a sexual advance. In response, he stabbed McLarnon with a work tool. There was controversy at the trial when Nicholl was convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter and received a two-year suspended sentence. In 2002, Nicholl took his own life.

21 January 1982: Charles Self, Dublin
Self (33), a RTE set designer originally from Glasgow, was murdered in his flat on Brighton Avenue, Monkstown. He was found with knife wounds to his chest and neck. The investigation led to almost 1,500 gay men being questioned, photographed and fingerprinted at Pearse Street Garda Station. For many in the gay community, it felt like the police were more interested in compiling dossiers on gay men rather than solving the brutal murder. No-one was ever charged.

9 September 1983: Declan Flynn, Fairview Park, Dublin
Flynn (31), an Aer Rianta worker, was beaten to death by a group of five teenagers in a ‘gay-bashing’ incident in Fairview Park. The gang had been responsible for a spate of attacks on gay men in previous weeks and it emerged that they used the park to target members of the gay community. As Flynn lay dying, £4 from his pocket and his watch was stolen. In court, one of the teenagers admitted that “we were all part of the team to get rid of the queers from Fairview Park”. The five male teenagers were all released on a suspended manslaughter charge with Judge Sean Gannon saying “This could never be regarded as murder”.

Fairview Park Protest March photographed on Amiens Street by Derek Speirs, courtesy “Out For Ourselves” (Womens Community Press, 1986). Credit – Irish Queer Archives

7 February 1997: David J. Templeton, Belfast
Templeton (43) was a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland who was murdered after he was ‘outed’ as a gay man by the Sunday Life newspaper. Three men wearing balaclavas, believed to have been UVF members, entered his home in north Belfast and beat him with baseball bats with spikes driven through them. He died in hospital several weeks later.

(Note: Some websites list Darren Bradshaw, a gay men and RUC officer, murdered in 1997 by the INLA as a homophobic murder. However, it is probably fair to say that he was killed because of his occupation rather than his sexuality?)

7 September 2002: Ian Flanagan, Belfast
Flanagan (30), a civil servant, was battered with a wheel brace and stabbed with a kitchen knife in the grounds of Barnett’s Demesne park. His two killers ‘deliberately set out to target a member of the gay community’. Raymond Taylor was sentenced to 13 years and Trevor Peel was given 14 years.

3 December 2002: Aaron (Warren) McCauley, Belfast
McCauley (54), a nurse for over 30 years at Muckamore Abbey hospital, was lured and battered to death in a well-known ‘cruising’ spot. He was found in an alley just 30 yards from the Church Lane toilets and died two days later without regaining consciousness. The attack was believed to have been motivated by homophobia. His injuries consisted of a blow to the side of the head and another to the throat. Nobody was ever charged.

23 March 2008: Shaun Fitzpatrick, Dungannon, Co. Tyrone
Fitzpatrick (32), a supermarket manager, was kicked to death after leaving Donaghy’s Bar by two homophobic Lithuanian men. The court heard that when Mr Fitzpatrick’s body was found, he had been beaten so savagely that paramedics thought he had been shot. The pair were sentenced to to life imprisonment.

5 February 2012: Andrew Lorimer, Lurgan, Co. Armagh
Lorimer (43), a former canoeing instructor and security guard, was kicked and beaten to death with a hammer in his own flat in Portlec Place. Three men were charged with the ‘homophobic murder’.

Race:

24 December 1982: Abousef Abdussalem Salim, Limerick
Salim (21), a Libyan trainee airplane pilot, was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver by a Limerick man who screamed ‘nigger’ and ‘bastard’ before the attack at a taxi rank on Thomas Street. The attacker was sentenced to five years penal servitude for manslaughter.

The Irish Independent, 3 February 1984.

24 June 1996: Simon Tang, Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim
Tang (27), a Chinese businessman, was beaten and robbed as he left his takeaway business in Carrickfergus. Described by police as a ‘racist attack’, the father of two had his watch and the night’s takings stolen. He was taken to hospital but later died from his injuries. In 2002, two men were remanded in custody charged with the murder but they were later released. No-one has been convicted of the killing.

27 January January 2002: Zhao Liu Tao, Dublin
Tao (29), a Chinese student of English, was attacked by a five-member gang in Beaumont, on the northside of the city. The gang were reported as making racist taunts and a fracas followed. One of the youths struck Mr Zhao with a metal bar. He died three days later in Beaumont Hospital. An 18-year-old youth was sentenced to four years detention, the last two years were suspended because of the perpetrators age and the fact that he had no previous convictions.

29 August 2002: Leong Ly Min, Dublin
Min (50), who had been living in Dublin since 1979 after fleeing Vietnam, was assaulted in Temple Bar. He suffered head injuries and later died in hospital. Two men were charged in relation to this crime. At the time it was reported by the media that there might have been racist insults used during the attack.

Anti-Racist protest after murder of Leong Ly Min. Credit – An Phoblact

23 February 2010: Pawel Kalite and Marius Szwajkos, Dublin
Kalite (28) and Szwajkos (27), Polish nationals, were racially abused before being stabbed in the head with screwdrivers on Benbulben Road, Drimnagh. Two Dublin teenagers are currently serving mandatory life sentences.

2 April 2010: Toyosi Shittabey, Dublin
Shittabey (15), a talented footballer originally from Nigeria, died after being stabbed in Tyrrelstown, Dublin 15. A row with “racist undertones” began outside the house of Paul Barry at Mount Garrett Rise between Paul, his brother Michael and a group of black males and white females after one of the females asked Paul for a cigarette lighter and he had refused. Believing a phone was taken by the group, Mr Barry and his brother Paul went into his house to fetch a knife and then pursued them in a car. They encountered the group of teenagers at a roundabout in Tyrrelstown. Shittabey, known as “Toy”, urged his friends to walk away again but was stabbed in the heart by Paul Barry The two brothers were charged with murder. Paul Barry (40) committed suicide the day before the trial was due to begin. His brother Michael (26) was acquitted because it was his brother inflicted the stab wound. It transpired that Paul had been involved in another racist knife attack ten years previously.

P.H Pearse, one of the signatories of the 1916 proclamation, executed for his role in the rebellion.

The afterlife of the Nelson Pillar on O’Connell Street is every bit as interesting as its lifespan, and from the late 1960s onwards various committees and campaign groups lobbied with the aim of placing a monument in the location where Nelson had stood. One reaccuring proposal was to replace Nelson with a monument to Patrick Pearse. Indeed, the idea of putting Pearse on top of the monument was even floating around before the destruction of the Pillar, with a motion calling for Nelson to be removed and replaced by the revolutionary leader brought before Dublin Corporation in August 1948.

In 1979, architect Yann Goulet brought forward a controversial model for a proposed Pearse monument to the City Council.

Architect Yann Goulet with his proposed monument to Patrick Pearse, photographed at City Hall in 1979.

Higher than the GPO, and containing over £150,000 worth of bronze, the proposal was ridiculed when brought towards the City Council, with Councillor Frank Sherwin stating “it should be thrown in the Liffey”, while Councillor Hanna Barlow described it as “the yoke”. The proposed 100-foot-high abstract monument did not enjoy significant support from any quarters, but it is was just one proposed monument in honour of Pearse for the site. An earlier proposal in the same year came from the Pearse Commemoration Committee, who proposed a much more traditional style monument, to be carried out by sculptor Gary Trimble. The Irish Independent newspaper totally opposed any monument to Pearse in an editorial which noted:

If anything is to replace the Pillar, it should be something which will bring people together, and not something which will caused divisiveness and bitterness, as the proposed Pearse statue is clearly destined to do.

There were wild scenes at one meeting to discuss a proposed Pearse monument, when Lord Mayor Paddy Belton condemned the Pearse Commemoration Committee as “a bunch of Provos”, insisting that members of Sinn Féin were to the fore of the campaign to honour Pearse on O’Connell Street. This was a hugely controversial remark, as the Pearse committee had come from a very broad spectrum of Irish society, including Gael Linn and other Irish language groups. Bord Fáilte also objected to any planned memorial to Pearse, a surprise blow to the campaign, on the grounds that “it may interfere with the view of the GPO which is the vocal point of O’Connell Street.”

Trimble’s proposed monument was comparable in size to the monument to Parnell, and would show Pearse reading from a book, surrounded by children:

Trimble’s proposed monument.

Various points of view on any proposed monument to Pearse were reported in the media, ranging from over-the-top praise (“The messiah of the nation’s revival” in the words of Frank Sherwin) to calls for a monument that would be inclusive of the other 1916 leaders. Tomas Mac Giolla for example noted that James Connolly should not be forgotten in any monument at the site. The Pearse pressure group continued to campaign for the placing of a monument to Pearse on O’Connell Street, even if the Pillar site itself was off-limits. Councillor Pat Carroll reportedly pondered if it would be possible “to take down one of the monuments in O’Connell Street, such as that of John Gray, which did not seem to be too important.” However with Gray’s leading role in establishing a clean water supply for much of Dublin, I’d argue today he is far from unimportant!

Today, James Connolly remains the only one of the seven signatories of the proclamation with a statue in Dublin city centre.

Many thanks to Mick Healy for sending these on.

‘Postcard views of Dublin’

O’Connell St

College Green

Parnell Monument

St. Stephen’s Green

A cast of Jonathan Swift’s skull, at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (Credit:LIFE)

A rather unusual story from the history of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral involves the remains of Jonathan Swift and his companion Esther Johnson, popularly known as Stella. Today, a visitor to the cathedral will see the epitaph Swift himself wrote. While it is in Latin, it has been translated into English as follows:

Here is laid the Body
of Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Sacred Theology,
Dean of this Cathedral Church,

where fierce Indignation
can no longer
injure the Heart.
Go forth, Voyager,
and copy, if you can,
this vigorous (to the best of his ability)
Champion of Liberty.

He died on the 19th Day of the Month of October,
A.D. 1745, in the 78th Year of his Age.

Among the exhibited items in the Cathedral today is a cast of the skull of Swift, but incredibly this cast dates to 1835, ninety years after the passing of the Dean. William Wilde, the father of none other than Oscar Wilde, would later detail the examinations upon the skull. Wilde was a prominent medical figure in Dublin, a leading eye and ear surgeon as well as author of several works on medicine. In his work The Closing Years of the Life of Dean Swift he described the exhuming of the body in 1835 in some detail.

A plaque to Wilde upon the family home at Merrion Square today.

By 1835, the magnificent Cathedral found itself in dire need of restoration and renovation owing to water damage, and Wilde notes in his study that the frequency of flooding in the River Poddle led to much injury to the cherished cathedral. Repairs to the Vaults led to the exposure of the coffins of Swift and Stella, and Wilde stresses in his study that the repairs were “the sole cause of these sacred relics being again exposed.”

Incredibly, these coffins were not alone moved but actually opened, and among those present was the anatomist Dr. John Houston, who described the remains of Swift by writing of how “the bones were all clean, and in a singularly perfect state of preservation. When first removed, they were nearly black, but on being dried they assumed a brownish colour.”

Not alone were the coffins of the dead opened, but the skulls of both Stella and Swift were removed from the Cathedral, for examination by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. As Wilde notes:

The British Association were, at that very time,meeting in Dublin, and the skulls of Swift and Stella were then removed, for the purpose of being phrenologicaly examined by the corps of phrenologists that used to follow in the wake of that learned body…

For those unfamiliar with the term, Phrenology can be described as “a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or module.”

Casts and drawings of the skulls survive from 1835, and a number of these drawings were used as illustrations in the work of William Wilde:

From Wilde’s study.

The observations made by one examiner of the skull seem quite humourous today, given the status of Swift as one of the greatest wits in Irish history:

On looking at Swift’s skull, the first thing that struck me was the extreme lowness of the forehead, those parts which the phrenologists have marked out as the organs of wit, casualty and comparison, being scarcely developed at all.

It has been noted that the skulls were ‘going the rounds’ at the time, becoming objects of great curiosity to Dubliners and visitors alike, and while the main examination of the skull was said to have occurred at the home of Sir Henry Marsh, Wilde notes in his study that “during the week or ten days which elapsed before they were returned….they were carried to most of the learned, as well as all the fashionable societies of Dublin.”

The manner in which the skulls were examined angered many at the time, and brought considerable criticism upon the then Dean of the Cathedral. Swift and Stella’s skulls were thankfully brought back to the cathedral. William Wilde’s study of the Dean is a very readable work available to read in full here, and particularly interesting is Wilde’s observation that a loose bone in Swift’s inner ear (Ménière’s disease) was responsible for much of his behaviour that was sometimes presented as insanity.

Wilde noted that:

… neither in his expression, nor the tone of his writing, nor from an examination of any of his acts, have we been able to discover a single symptom of insanity, nor aught but the effects of physical disease, and the natural wearing and decay of a mind such as Swift’s.

Today, a cast of Stella’s skull can be seen in Marsh’s Library, next to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, while Swift’s can be viewed at the cathedral.

This Sunday, I’m happy to be taking part in a discussion at the History Festival of Ireland. This is the second year of the event, and it is taking place “amidst the ruins and walled gardens of Ducketts Grove in Co. Carlow.” There is a great line up of events for the weekend, with Saturday and Sunday both seeing discussions on everything from the Bronze Age to the 1913 Lockout. The full programme is available to read here.

The discussion I’m taking part in is on history in the 21st century, and I’m sharing the panel with people who I think are doing very interesting things as far as bringing history to a mainstream audience is concerned.

Sunday – 1.15pm A Future for Our Past: History in the 21st Century - Roisin Higgins (chair & author of ‘Transforming 1916′), Donal Fallon (co-founder of the Come Here to Me blog), Tommy Graham (founder of History Ireland magazine) and Neil Jackman (founder of Abarta Audioguides) on the way in which our understanding of history is being honed by technology.

The event is being organised by Turtle Bunbury, who also runs the brilliant Wistorical page on Facebook. It has posted a few Dublin gems in recent times, including a brilliant little tidbit on the 1911 Census Form of 1916 leader Seán Mac Diarmada.

Seán enjoyed filling out the census form in April 1911. Under “Marriage”, the 26-year-old remarked “Single, but not for long” and under “Disabilities” he wrote “heart-broken from being single”.

Under “Religion”, he entered “Náisiuntacht na h-Eireann”, meaning “The Nationhood of Ireland”. This was helpfully, but erroneously, translated by the enumerator as “Church of Ireland”.

At the time Seán was living at 15 Russell Place, Dublin…

With potential names for the new bridge across the River Liffey at Marlborough Street whittled from seventeen candidates down to ten recently, only two women’s names remain in the running- Rosie Hackett and Kay Mills.

Now it’s not as if Dublin is awash with bridges or in fact any landmarks named after women of historical importance. When you look at our abundance of waterways; the Liffey, the Grand Canal, the Royal Canal, the Dodder, the Tolka and the Camac, (and they’re only the ones that haven’t been forced underground,) you’d expect more than one name to pop up. I’m not going to include Victoria Bridge or the Anna Livia Bridge for obvious reasons, and Sally’s Bridge (an alternative name for Parnell Bridge) doesn’t exactly count either. So even at an approximate guess of the fifty or so bridges in Dublin City named after historical figures, and I’m open to correction, there is currently only one named after a woman, and that’s not even a decade old. The Anne Devlin Bridge was opened in 2004 to facilitate the crossing of the canal by the LUAS at it’s Suir Road stop. And even at that, they spelled her name wrong on the plaque.

“Ann” Devlin Bridge. Photo by hXci.

Anne Devlin was born into a family of nationalist stock near Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow in 1780; amongst others, she was cousin to famed Irish rebels Michael Dwyer and Hugh Byrne on her mother’s side. At the age of 17, and just a year before the rising of 1798, Anne moved to Inchicore where she became a servant of the Hempenstall family. Brought back to her homestead by her father in early ’98 she, along with the rest of the Devlin’s and Dwyer’s suffered at the hands of the British authories and watched as her father Bryan was thrown into jail without being charged of a crime where he was to stay for two years before a suprising aqcuittal on retrial. Two uncles and two cousins of Anne suffered the same fate and Hugh Byrne was executed having escaped and consequently recaptured.

Persecution drove the family to move to Rathfarnham, where they became neighbours of  “Mr. Ellis,” an assumed name of none other than Robert Emmet, who had taken residence there with the intention of preparing for his rising of 1803. Anne, along with Rosie Hope (wife of Jemmy Hope) took on the roles of housekeeper’s at Emmet’s house at Butterfield Lane, although in reality, they were much more than that. Anne was to become an advisor, messenger and confidante between Emmet and his partner, Sarah Curran. The failure of the rising, where numbers failed to materialise, and having lost control of his men in the Thomas Street area, who having spotted the Chief Justice, Lord Kilwarden in his carriage, pulled him from it and stabbed him to death with their pikes, caused Emmet to go into hiding.

The house at Butterfield Lane was searched, and finding Anne there, soldiers submitted her to questioning. Her repeated replies of “I have nothing to tell; I’ll tell nothing,” led to Anne being surrounded and advanced upon with fixed bayonnets. The piercing of her skin head to toe still didn’t break her, and she was taken outside where they half- hanged her from a tilted cart.  She still would not speak and was later arrested and taken to Kilmainham Jail where she was again questioned by Henry Charles Sirr. Sirr offered her £500 for the where-abouts of Emmet’s hiding places and co-conspirators to no avail and she was thrown in jail. Her entire family was imprisoned in an effort to wear her down, leading to the death of her  8 year old brother, and Emmet himself before his execution begged her to speak, knowing himself to be a dead man either way. She refused, saying she did not want to go down in history as an informer. She was eventually released in 1806 under an amnesty upon the change of British administration in Ireland.  

Anne Devlin portrait, by Maser. Photo by hXci.

After her release, Anne found employment under Elizabeth Hammond at 84 Sir John Rogersons Quay, where she spent four years. She married a man named Campbell and had two children, a boy and a girl and made a living washing and cleaning. Campbell died in 1845 and Anne, whose children lived away from her, was left alone in a squalid residence at 2 Little Elbow Lane in Dublin’s Liberties. An appeal was made for assistance for Anne in the Liberty Newspaper in 1947, and while there was some response, it was far from adequate. She died in obsecurity on September 16 1851 and was buried in a paupers plot in Glasnevin before her body was exhumed by Dr. R. R. Madden, the chief historian of the United Irishmen, and re-buried in the plot she lies in today.

—

One from fifty is not enough. Sign the petition to have the new Liffey bridge named in honour of Rosie Hackett here:

Recently, I bought an old second-hand copy of And Nelson on his Pillar, a retrospective history of the Pillar that was published a decade on from the explosion in 1966.

From buying second-hand books over the years, I know that anything and everything can fall out of them. Old currency, bus passes, mass cards, match tickets and you name it. Still, I was surprised when I opened this book to see a picture of three kids on top of the monument, looking down over Dublin from the viewing platform! Not alone this, but the youngsters were named as Robert, Stephen and Russell. Taken in 1959, it’s highly likely they are still among us today, but they could be anywhere in the world.I’ve a hunch the kids might be English, owing to the fact that they refer to Nelson’s Column and not Nelson’s Pillar.

Click to expand and get a better view. Do us a favour and share this one around!

‘Robert, Stephen and Russell on top of Nelson’s Column, June 1959.”

On 13 October 1970 Saor Eire member Liam Walsh, a welder and fitter by trade and father of four, was killed in a premature explosion when himself and another member Marin Casey were planting a device at a railway line at the rear of McKee army base off Blackhorse Avenue in Dublin.

Joining the Republican Movement in 1953, Walsh had been the commanding officer of the south Dublin unit of the IRA during the late 1950s and was interned for a time in the Curragh. He lived at 50 Tyrone Place, Inchicore and, at the time of his death, was awaiting trail on charge of taking part in an armed bank raid at Baltinglass in August 1969.

Liam Walsh in IRA uniform. Photograph belonged to the late Paddy Browne.

We have been passed on some photographs of his funeral by Barbara O’Reilly. The photographs belonged to the late Paddy Browne who can be seen in the third picture with beard carrying a flag at the front of the colour party .

The funeral took place on 17 October 1970 and was attended by over 3,000 people.

The cortege left from Inchicore, was diverted down O’Connell Street and marched all the way to Mount Jerome cemetery in Harold’s Cross.

Funeral of Liam Walsh (Saor Eire), 1970. Photos were in possession of the late Paddy Browne

Here is the cortege as it made its way down O’Connell Street. Note the two hands with revolvers.

The Irish Times (20 October 1970) described how after a piper played a lament:

Two men, dressed in black berets and anoraks, fired four rounds of ammunition into the air as a tribute to the dead man.

An estimated 50 gardai and a dozen special branch accompanied the cortege but no action was taken.

Funeral of Liam Walsh (Saor Eire), O’Connell St, 1970. Photos were in possession of the late Paddy Browne

Here is the colour party as it entered the cemetery. The Irish Times (19 October 1970) reported that an elderly man shouted ‘So long soldier!” as his coffin was being lowered.

Funeral of Liam Walsh (Saor Eire) arriving at Mount Jerome Cemetery, 1970. Photos were in possession of the late Paddy Browne

Trinity College Dublin (Robert French collection, NLI.)

The antics of Trinity College Dublin students have made it into the national media on many occasions, but recently I stumbled on a particularly boisterous day out in 1914, when students went on a rampage in the city, attacking both the Mansion House and the offices of the Women's Social and Political Union among other places. A wild day out ended with ten students arrested, the Civic flag of the Mansion House ripped to pieces and Countess Markievicz, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington and others on the wrong side of student pranksters.

Trinity Monday was a traditional June day of debauchery in Dublin. On that day, scholarships were traditionally awarded to leading students through a formal ceremony that occurred on the steps of the Examinations Hall in the front square of the college. In 1914, crowds gathered here to hear the Vice Provost announce the newest Fellows, but the Irish Independent reported that "after the announcements had been made signs of some excitement became noticeable." The students made a rush for the gates of the college and towards the city, but were turned back by college authorities. Previous years had seen Trinity Monday descend into pranks and games on the streets of the city, and the college was hell-bent on preventing a repeat. It was reported however in the newspapers that there was a rush of hundreds of students for the Lincoln Place gates, with some emerging from over the railings of the university. From here, their day would take some amazing turns.

Shortly after midday, there were unexpected visitors at the offices of the Women's Social and Political Union on Clare Street. The Irish Independent reported that “a large number of the students arrived here” and that “a number of them bundled papers and banners together and threw them out of the window to a cheering crowd outside.” Not content with this, a political flag belonging to the movement was stolen, which was later carried triumphantly from the building.

Media coverage of the ‘escapades’ of the Trinity students (Irish Independent)

The real headline grabber of the day out was yet to come. Still clutching the stolen flag of the female political activists, the students made for the Mansion House, and rushed the building as a delivery was taking place.The day had taken a rather sinister turn just prior to this, with the students assault a cabman who refused to drive them to the Mansion House free of charge from outside the Kildare Street Club, and he later required hospitalisation. At the Mansion House, bizarre scenes followed.

The Irish Times reported that:

On a landing they found the municipal flag, which owing to the absence of the Lord Mayor from the city was not hoisted on the pole on the house-top. The students tore up the flag, and hoisted the ‘Suffragette’ flag upon the flagpole. For an hour this floated over the Mansion House.

Loud cheering and laughter was reported outside from the assembled students and curious Dubliners, but this was not to be the last of the days antics.

The students marched in the direction of Grafton Street, where the next victim was a bellman working at an auctioneers premises. It was noted that “his bell was commandeered and the man himself, despite his protests, was taken on the shoulders of a number of the students and a solemn procession, with the bell leading the way, was formed down to College Green.” The bellman was carried as far as the Theatre Royal Winter Gardens, where he was substituted for a large advertisement hoarding, of the music hall singer George Lashwood. The celebrated singer was performing at the theatre at the time, but for the students, the huge hoarding was destined for the River Liffey. The Irish Times reported that this huge hoarding was so heavy it took twelve students to carry it to O’Connell Bridge.

Above: A performance by George Lashwood.

The suffrage activists hadn’t had their final run-in with the students however. At Nelson’s Pillar, one student gave a sarcastic speech in which he said “Gentlemen, we are all in favour of votes for women, and we shall now proceed to the offices of the Suffragettes.” The second political offices of the day to be targeted was on Westmoreland Street, where among others Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and the Countess Markievicz were present. These offices were also ransacked, but the students were confronted and attacked by “a male sympathiser of the Suffragettes.” Most of the mob made for Amiens Street Train Station to welcome the Trinity Athletic team into the city, but the day was about to come to an abrupt end for the partying students, as the cabman who had been assaulted earlier in the day and a number of Suffragette activists arrived to identify the ringleaders of the gang under police protection. Ten students in total were arrested, and fines were handed out for the damage done to the Mansion House flag and the Suffragette offices. The college also took action against the students, with expulsions handed out to the participants.

An unprecedented and bizarre protest followed this, with Trinity students staging a mock ‘funeral’ the following week through Dublin, with the Irish Independent estimating that between 400 and 500 students from the college marched in Dublin in costume, and that “vigorous cheering” was indulged in at the Suffragette offices on Westmoreland Street. Escorting all this were donkey ‘cavalry’ riders, dressed in the costumes of clowns. The newspaper reported that “the whole parade was characterised by fun and merriment, and provided unlimited amusement to the spectators.” Yet I wonder just how amusing the female activists who had their offices trashed by these same students a week earlier found it.