Seamus Ennis on the Pipers Corner, Marlborough Street.

Seán O’Casey’s public house is no more. I always presumed it took its name from the playwright, who was something of a devout teetotaler, a habit he acquired from labour leader Jim Larkin.

While O’Casey’s name no longer graces the street, it was a pleasant surprise to pass recently and see the familiar Séamus Ennis gazing down. Born in Finglas (where a street today carries his name) in 1919, Ennis was a giant of Irish traditional and folk music, both as a performer and a collector of songs and tunes.

From 1942 to 1947, Ennis traveled rural Ireland on bicycle. At the age of twenty-three, he began his journey to capture the vanishing oral and folk traditions of rural Ireland. As Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin has noted, “his only tools were a pen, a satchel of music sheets and a tin whistle to verify his transcriptions.” By the time Ennis had completed his work for the Irish Folklore Commission, he had amassed more than 2,000 pieces of material, “an achievement unsurpassed by any of his predecessors in the field.”

Ennis photographed in 1955.

As a masterful player of the uileann pipes, Ennis helped to found Na Píobairí Uileann, and demonstrated his abilities as a player on a number of important records, beginning with 1959’s The Bonny Bunch of Roses.  The striking LP cover shows Ennis playing before an audience of children in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, one of several great images of Ennis contained in the Ritchie-Pickow Collection, striking images of 1950s Ireland today hosted online by NUI Galway.

Later, Ennis championed emerging traditional acts like Planxty, believing that just as he had collected a tradition, it had to be maintained and handed on. In Leagues O’Toole’s history of Planxty, the masterful piper Liam O’Flynn recalled that “Séamus was so willing to part with all the information he had, whether it was tunes or techniques or whatever. There’s that desire to pass it on.” Séamus would leave his pipes, more than a century old, to Liam in his will.

Ennis died in 1982 at the Naul in North County Dublin. There were many words of praise, perhaps the finest coming from musician and broadcaster Tony MacMahon, who has recalled how “he made me realise music is magic and a spiritual experience. It cannot be taught in any university. It is beyond that.”

In April 1846, the Dublin street performer Michael Moran passed away. Known as Zozimus, the ‘Blind Bard of the Liberties’ had spent years reciting poetry and verse on the streets of the capital, much of it composed by himself. Fearful of grave robbers, Moran was buried in Glasnevin cemetery, which boasted watch towers to keep the ‘sack-em-ups’ away from the corpses of the recently deceased.

A work dedicated to his memory was published in 1871, and noted that:

When arrived at his destined spot, Zozimus would spread out his arms, as if to catch all comers-and-goers- and say with his own great and peculiar accent:

‘Ye sons of daughters of Erin, attend.

Gather round poor Zozimus, yer friend.

Listen, boys, until yez hear

My charming song so dear.

Zozimus lay in an unmarked grave until 1988. In that year of Dublin’s so-called Millennium (a historically dubious claim, but a year that led to much positive civic pride), a headstone was placed over Michael Moran in Glasnevin Cemetery by the Smith Brothers of the Submarine Bar in Crumlin and the Dublin City Ramblers.

The grave of Zozimus, Glasnevin.

Just as the marking of the grave of Zozimus was a lovely gesture, we were delighted to hear recently of efforts to properly mark the final resting place of Thomas ‘Bang Bang’ Dudley, a much loved figure in the Dublin of the 1950s and 60s. Roaming the streets with his ‘Colt .45’, a large key he carried at all times with which to host fake shoot outs, he was a frequent site for anyone who entered the city centre via public transportation, jumping onto buses and trams. Everyone got in on the act, and as Paddy Crosbie recalled:

His favourite hunting-ground was the trams, from one of which he jumped, turning immediately to fire ‘Bang Bang’ at the conductor. Passengers and passers-by took up the game, and soon an entire street of grown-ups were shooting at each other from doorways and from behind lamp-posts. The magic of make-believe childhood took over, and it was all due to the simple innocence of ‘Bang Bang’.

At the time of his passing in 1981, he was recalled in the press as “one of Dublin’s best known and most beloved characters.” Like Zozimus, his fame didn’t follow into the gates of the cemetery, and he was buried in St Joseph’s Cemetery in Drumcondra into an unmarked grave.

Great credit goes to our friend, the ever unpredictable Daniel Lambert of Phibsboro’s Bang Bang Cafe, who decided it was time to mark the resting place of Bang Bang, fundraising through his cafe. It didn’t take long to accumulate the funds necessary, and soon a marker, complete with trademark key, will be unveiled in St Joseph’s.

Keep an eye on Bang Bang’s social media for more information on their plans to mark the life of Thomas Dudley in the weeks ahead.

Image Credit: Bang Bang Cafe,Phibsboro.

‘Gentlemen Only – Ladies Served in Lounge’

Following on from their excellent exhibition on Heffo’s Army and the phenomenon of Dublin’s 1970s GAA support, the Little Museum of Dublin is currently hosting an exhibition dedicated to the history of the Dublin pub. Avoiding all cliches, it includes sections on things like the temperance movement in the city historically, the Vintners Association and some of Dublin’s historic public houses which now exist only in the annals of history.

A recent addition to the exhibition is this sign, ‘Gentlemen Only – Ladies Served in Lounge’.  Posting it on my Instagram, it led to some excellent comments. Gerry posted:

When I worked as a lounge boy in The Kilmardinny Inn the women picketed the pub as the bar was men only.  The husband’s were put out as they could not cross the picket with their wives on the picket line! RTE had it on a news report circa 1974/75 if memory serves me right.

Similarly, Carey remembered:

The Blue Haven in Templeogue in the early 70s had the sign ‘No Dogs, No Women’ pride of place on the front door. My mother refused to allow my father or uncle to go anywhere near it!

Irish Independent, September 1977.

In 1972, when Terry Kelleher published The Essential Dublin, he noted that “No pubs are barred to women though there is an unstated convention that women use the lounge bar if there is one. ” It’s quite difficult to tell just when things changed in Dublin public houses, indeed it seems to even vary between city and county. In his excellent social history of the Dublin public house, Kevin Kearns notes:

Changes began in the postwar forties when women were gradually admitted, lounges created and comfortable furniture installed. These were healthy changes which served to “civilise” the social setting without destroying the original character of the bar area.

Regardless, the sign in the corner of the exhibition is a relic of a different time entirely now, but an important one in telling the history of the Dublin public house.

Brendan Behan with Lucian Freud in 1952, the year this article was published. One of a series of images of the men captured by Daniel Farson.

The Irish Digest magazine enjoyed great commercial success in the 1940s and 50s, bringing together content from a range of publications including The Bell, Dublin Opinion and Hibernia. It reflected a wide variety of opinions, ranging from conservative Catholic voices to the anti-censorship cries of The Bell’s team. Because of the diversity of sources it drew from, significant names like Brendan Behan, Seán Ó Faoláin and others emerge from time to time in its content pages.

This little piece came from a radio broadcast of Behan in 1952. At the time, Behan was praised in The Irish Times as “a young Dublin writer who is rapidly winning a reputation as an accomplished broadcaster with an original style of approach.” Perhaps Behan’s finest biographer, Michael O’Sullivan, has noted that “there were conservative elements in the radio service who believed that the earthy vernacular performances of Brendan Behan had no place on national radio. They would gladly have kept him off air had they been able to do so.”

The piece may interest readers of the blog as it deals with things like sporting loyalties, with Behan noting that “we never played Gaelic football and knew nothing about it”, insisting that “we went mostly to Tolka Park or Dalymount.” As one comes to expect from Behan’s output of the time, it includes a few street ballads too.

Part 1. Click to expand and read.

Part 2. Click to expand and read.

Like many Dubliners, I love the Grattan Bridge which connects Parliament Street to Capel Street. The bridge includes beautiful representations of the mythical hippocampus (half horse, half fish) in its lamp designs, not unlike the figures that appear in the lamps at the Grattan monument on College Green and at the Vartry Reservoir.

Grattan Bridge is also somewhere you can just sit down and take things in for a while, with a series of benches. Passing it yesterday on a rainy day, I noticed a funny little addition to one such bench:

It brought to mind a few other such interventions in the city over the years, most famously of course the Father Pat Noise plaque on O’Connell Bridge, placed in the spot where the control box for the ill-fated Millennium Clock had once been.

Anyway, thanks to those responsible! Such people brighten up life in this city.

The removal of Queen Victoria from Leinster House, 1948.

As a historian with a particular interest in the areas of memory, commemoration and the role of monuments in society, I’ve had more than a passing interest in what has been happening in the United States in recent weeks with the removal and destruction of a number of monuments to the Confederacy and the losing side of the American Civil War.

Interestingly, we’ve seen a noticeable spike in traffic to articles on this blog which looked at the historic issues around monuments in Dublin, and the destruction and removal of imperial monuments here in the aftermath of independence.

Writing in 1920, the Austrian writer Robert Musil joked that “monuments are so conspicuously inconspicuous. There is nothing in this world as invisible as a monument.” Musil, an important modernist writer best remembered today as the author of the unfinished novel The Man Without Qualities, believed memorials to be an invisible feature in the landscape, but was writing at a time when impressive monuments were coming to redefine urban landscapes right across the continent and beyond, in the aftermath of events like the First World War and the Russian Revolution.

C.S Andrews, a veteran of the revolutionary period and an Anti-Treaty fighter in the Civil War, would proclaim that “there are no monuments to victory or victors, only to the dead.” Yet in truth, memorials have played a central role in trying to change historical narratives both here and abroad, and are rarely mere memorials to the dead. As Yvonne Whelan rightly notes in her study Reinventing Modern Dublin, “as powerful regimes and ruling authorities seek to underpin and legitimate their authority, the past and public memory play a crucial role and find tangible representation in the cultural landscape.” It isn’t only “powerful regimes and ruling authorities” who have sought to reshape the landscape through memorials however, as the Anti-Treaty IRA memorials dotted across the city remind us.

The Irish Times, December 18 1961. After the bombing of Lord Gough, only his pedestal remained.

Many monuments unveiled in Dublin in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries sought to create a cultural landscape that expressed Ireland’s place in the British Empire, and were condemned in the nationalist press as alien to the city. The Nation, a newspaper to which diverse voices like Thomas Davis and Lady Jane Wilde contributed, noted that:

 We now have statues to William the Dutchman, to the four Georges  -all either German by birth or German by feeling –  to Nelson, a great admiral but an Englishman, while not a single statue of any of the many celebrated Irishmen whom their country should honour adorns a street or square of our beautiful metropolis.

As monuments sought to redefine public spaces in Dublin in the interest of the British state, they also became frequent targets of political assault. The most divisive monument in the city for many years was that to King William of Orange, erected in 1701, a mere eleven years after the Battle of the Boyne where William had soundly defeated King James II. A publication in 1898 noted that:

This equestrian statue of William III stands in College Green, and has stood there, more or less, since A.D 1701. We say “more or less” because no statue in the world, perhaps, has been subject to so many vicissitudes. It has been insulted, mutilated and blown up so many times, that the original figure, never particularly graceful, is now a battered wreck, pieced and patched together, like an old, worn out garment.

Just as commemorations tell us more about the time in which they occur than the times they seek to commemorate, the choice of monuments in the city and their locations was shaped by contemporary political concerns. In 1898, with the centenary of the United Irish rebellion, republicans mobilised in their tens of thousands for the unveiling of a foundation stone for a Wolfe Tone memorial at Stephen’s Green. The veteran Fenian John O’Leary was given the honour on that occasion, unveiling a stone that symbolically had traveled from Belfast, where the United Irishmen were founded. O’Leary tapped the stone with his shovel six times, to represent each of Ireland’s provinces, America and France.  The site of the planned Wolfe Tone memorial did eventually witness the unveiling of a monument in 1907, but it was the controversial Fusiliers’ Arch, a memorial to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who had fought in the Second Boer War in defence of Empire. In less than a decade, the site at Stephen’s Green had taken on an entirely new meaning, and republicans would denounce the archway as Traitors’ Gate.

Talana, Colenso and other battles of the Second Boer War are recalled on Fusiliers’ Arch. It stands on what was the proposed location of a Wolfe Tone memorial.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Imperial monuments after independence:

Post independence, the question emerged of just what should be done with Dublin’s imperial monuments. P.S O’Hegarty, the nationalist writer and historian, outlined his belief in a letter to the Evening Herald in December 1931 that they should be left exactly as they were:

Nelson, and Queen Victoria, and other British statues are ancient  monuments, trophies left behind by a civilisation which has lost the eight centuries’ battle. The hand that touches one of them is the hand of an ignoramus and a vandal.

Yet despite the pleas of O’Hegarty and some others in public life, several monuments were removed by the state, in some cases they were controversially given away or sold at low cost. The statue of King George I, which had originally stood on Essex Bridge before finding shelter in the Mansion House, ultimately ended up in Birmingham in 1937. The decision to allow the statue to leave Dublin was controversial at the time, as regardless of the political debate around it, it was seen as a fine example of the work of a celebrated sculptor, the wonderfully named John van Nost the Elder.

In some cases, it was the placement of the memorials as much as their subjects which made them controversial. In February 1933 for example,  some members of Fianna Fáil made it to the pages of the national media when they outlined their belief that they considered having a statue of Queen Victoria outside the Dáil  “inconsistent with the main objects of Fianna Fáil.” To them, it was baffling that “this relic of imperialism should still disgrace the precincts of our Parliamentary institution.”

Yet while the state did remove Victoria, King George I and others, the majority of imperial monuments removed from the streetscape after independence were removed by republican organisations, with George II, the prior mentioned William of Orange and the equestrian statue of Lord Gough in the Phoenix Park all destroyed by targeted bombings.  A popular song  at the time of the bombing of the later, entitled ‘Gough’s Immortal Statue’, even included a verse aimed at the O’Connell Street monument to Horatio Nelson, suggesting its destruction was an inevitability:

When Nelson heard about it, he shouted to Parnell.

“How long will I be left here, now Charlie can you tell.

For I don’t feel safe upon my seat,

for I may retreat down to the street,

like Gough’s immortal statue, up near the Magazine.”

The decision to place monuments like that to Admiral Nelson in Dublin in the first place was, of course, shaped by colonial desires to ‘mark’ Dublin as a loyal city. Nelson was unveiled only years after the United Irish conspiracy had brought two rebellions into the open, in 1798 and again in 1803. Nelson had never sat foot in the country, though no doubt the memorial meant something to many of those who had lost loved ones at battles like Trafalgar. Yet Nelson’s Pillar, the work of Dublin-based architect Francis Johnston and constructed primarily of Wicklow Granite, was in many ways a more Irish monument than that which would ultimately replace it,  with the Spire the work of the London-based firm of Ian Ritchie. Rarely was it proposed that such monuments be removed from sites of contention and placed elsewhere. Could Nelson and Victoria still be labeled controversial monuments if they sat in the National Museum of Ireland, placed in their proper context?

Just as many monuments were erected here after moments of rebellion and political crisis, it is telling that the monuments which are now being removed in the U.S were erected at particular monuments of tension, illustrating that they too were more shaped by contemporary political concerns than anything to do with the past. One striking graphic shows that “the construction of Confederate monuments peaked in the 1910s and 1920s, when states were enacting Jim Crow laws, and later in the 1950s and 1960s, amid the Civil Rights Movement.”  Undeniably, these now controversial monuments tell us more about the 1910s and the 1960s than they do about the American Civil War.

The decapitated Seán Russell, Fairview Park.

Even today, memorials in Dublin remain controversial, and it is not merely monuments to those associated with Empire. Take for example Seán Russell, the IRA Chief of Staff who died on a German U-Boat during the Second World War having sought military assistance from Nazi Germany. His Fairview monument has been decapitated and vandalised in a remarkable variety of ways, firstly by conservative nationalists who found the original raised fist pose of the monument to be communistic, and later by anti-fascist activists who regarded the memorial as one to a Nazi collaborator. Russell himself maintained that “‘I am not a Nazi. I’m not even pro-German. I am an Irishman fighting for the independence of Ireland.” In many ways, he embodied a certain physical force tradition in Irish republicanism that has always been there, willing to seize upon the old mantra that ‘England’s Difficulty is Ireland’s Opportunity’, regardless of which doors it involved knocking upon. As people call for their removal even of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, it’s likely we’ll hear more about Russell’s memorial in times ahead.

I believe the decision to give away memorials like that to Victoria and George I was a mistake on the part of the Irish state, but so too was the decision to leave figures like Nelson in provocative places where they were first erected as imperialistic symbols of control. To my mind the controversial monuments in the United States today belong in museums, with proper contextualisation around not only the individuals depicted, but the context of their unveiling and the individuals responsible for their placement there.

Once again, the History Ireland Hedge School rolls into the Mindfield area of Electric Picnic this weekend, and once again I’m participating. We have two discussions lined up that hopefully will appeal to CHTM readers that find themselves in a field in Laois this weekend, and both of which were picked around historic anniversaries.

Both panels take place in the Leviathan tent of the Mindfield area.

The Radiators from Space, via peteholiday.com

The summer of punk, 1977.

Saturday, 12:45PM (Note the earlier start time than normal)

Forty years ago the Sex Pistols chart-topping ‘God Save The Queen’ thumbed its nose at the pretentions of the rock establishment — ‘prog-rock’, ‘concept albums’, long hair and interminable guitar solos. Meanwhile in Dublin bands like the Boomtown Rats, the Radiators From Space, The Atrix and U2 (yes, U2!) burst upon the scene, and from the North, the Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers and Terry Hooleys ‘Good Vibration Records’. Join History Ireland editor, Tommy Graham for a stroll down musical memory lane with Donal Fallon (Come Here To Me), Pete Holidai (Radiators from Space), Eamon McCann (journalist) and Anne Byrne (sociologist, NUIG).

Vladimir Lenin and Roddy Connolly, 1920.

The Bolshevik Revolution — in the dustbin of history?

SUNDAY: 3PM. 

In the face of claims of the total triumph of neo-liberal capitalism and a generation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, how should we mark the century of the Bolshevik Revolution? Should it be consigned to the ‘dustbin of history’ — or can it be recycled? Join History Ireland editor, Tommy Graham, for a no-holds-barred discussion with John Horne (historian, TCD), Oliver Eagleton (playwright & activist), Brian Hanley (historian, Uni. of Edinburgh) and Frank Barry (economist, TCD).

On Monday evening it pissed rain.

This was a foregone conclusion, as an outdoor event had been organised. Despite the weather, they came in their droves to Phibsboro for a day to celebrate Lord Dudley, known to generations of Dubliners as ‘Bang Bang’.

With the great street character buried in an unmarked grave in Drumcondra, the team behind the Bang Bang Cafe in Phibsboro decided it was time to mark the final resting place of Thomas Dudley. A new plaque was unveiled in his honour, The Mero was sung with gusto, and then it was back to Phibsboro.

My thanks to photographer Luke Fallon for capturing these images of the street celebration. Pat McGrath beautifully brought Bang Bang to life,performing from a play by Dermot Bolger. Dermot himself said a few words and read poems about the street and those who made it. I said a little about the Dublin of Bang Bang’s time, and Shane Coleman of Newstalk kept it all together as MC.  Thanks to Mary Clarke of Dublin City Library and Archives for bringing along the key.

DermotBolger reads. (Image: Luke Fallon)

Coddle! (Image: Luke Fallon)

Pat McGrath (Image: Luke Fallon)

Pat McGrath (Image: Luke Fallon)

Daniel Lambert of Bang Bang Cafe (Image: Luke Fallon)

Your Humble Narrator (Image: Luke Fallon)

Since March of this year, I have been delighted to contribute to the Dublin Inquirer newspaper, an independent and very important news source for the capital.  My monthly historical contribution is always exclusive to that publication, and an earlier version of this piece on the architect and activist Uinseann MacEoin appeared there. 

Uinseann MacEoin speaking in 1996 at the unveiling of the restored Liam Lynch memorial, Tipperary. (Image with thanks to Ruadhán MacEoin)

Uinseann MacEoin lived a remarkable and colourful life, which brought him from the ranks of the Republican movement to the frontlines of the battle for the heart and soul of Dublin city, as developers and preservationists struggled for influence in the 1960s and 70s. He left his mark -quite literally – on Henrietta Street, which is soon to witness the opening of a museum dedicated to the story of tenement Dublin. As editor of the influential (and controversial) Plan magazine, he sought to expose poor developments and abuse of planning laws in the capital, never afraid to call out other architects when it mattered.

Uinseann Ó Rathaille MacEoin was born in Pomeroy, Co. Tyrone, in 1920. His middle name was a nod towards Michael Joseph Ó Rathaille, a participant in the 1916 Rising who was killed in action in Moore Lane during the evacuation of the General Post Office. This alone said something of family convictions, but so did the fact his father was interned upon the Argenta, a prison ship moored in Larne Harbour in the early 1920s. The MacEoin family would resettle to Dublin while Uinseann was still a boy, and he himself drifted into republican politics as a young man in the 1930s. He served a year in prison for IRA membership, before being interned in the Curragh during the period ridiculously known here as ‘The Emergency’.

While MacEoin never lost his republican convictions, it was architecture and planning which would come to dominate much of his life from the time of his release. This journey began with studying and correspondence while in the Curragh, and as an early career architect he worked with Michael Scott and Partners and Dublin Corporation, before establishing his own practice. His background made him somewhat unusual in the days of the great debates over the future of Dublin’s urban landscape, with Hibernia magazine describing him once as “a rabid republican cum architect cum town planner of definite convictions cum determined preservationist and exposer of shady planning applications.” In not dissimilar terms, The Irish Times wrote in 1963 that MacEoin was “already well known for his trenchant criticisms of the workings both of his own profession and that of central and local government.”

Uinseann MacEoin in the Irish Press, 1963.

The destruction of Georgian Dublin was sometimes cheered on by narrow minded gombeens wrapped in green flags, who regarded the eighteenth century city as “the creation of an alien aristocracy”, seeing it as something that said nothing of Irish life and experience and was out of place in the capital of an Irish Republic. The Irish Times warned its readers at Christmas 1959 that it was becoming increasingly clear “the days of Dublin’s Georgian heritage are numbered”, but MacEoin and other preservationists and activists fought bravely. There were victories, but more often defeats; in 1964, MacEoin was one of those to sign a letter to the Taoiseach deploring the plans to gut Georgian houses for the Electricity Supply Board premises near Merrion Square. Shortly afterwards, a journalist joked that MacEoin had “acquired the reputation of being a consistently Angry Young Man”, though at least “his thunderbolts are aimed in all the right directions.”

MacEoin took on those he disagreed with, yet provided them a platform to put forward their arguments too. In the pages of Build, a publication he edited, he interviewed the brilliantly talented but controversial Sam Stephenson, who made the case that “a city must live. It must evolve and keep changing.” In response, MacEoin accused Stephenson of “cheque book planning”, clearing some of the finest parts of the city.

MacEoin didn’t hold back; a 1967 article in the magazine Scene attacked the Planning Act which he believed developers were dancing around, joking that “Act is right, it should be in a circus”. He was highly critical of what he viewed as an attempt to drive long established working class communities out of the city to the benefit of developers, believing that it had led to the “imposition of a rigid class conscious boundary”. As historian Erika Hanna has noted, MacEoin “condemned the destruction of the inner city as resulting from a combination of cultural myopia and the Corporation’s policy of creating Catholic homes in the suburbs.” We know now that many of these initiatives of local and national government failed, moving people into under-resourced suburbs which were soon plagued by social problems.

MacEoin was briefly jailed for refusing to pay his television licence, maintaining that the state broadcaster failed Irish speakers. (1978)

Together with his wife Margaret, who shared his passion for preservation, MacEoin took the necessary steps to save whatever they could of Georgian Dublin themselves. Establishing the company Luke Gardiner Ltd, named in honour of the great eighteenth century developer of northside Dublin, they purchased homes on Henrietta Street and Mountjoy Square. His son Ruadhán recalled that “My parents put what little money they had into buying houses in the north Georgian quarter.” Numbers 5-7 Henrietta Street were purchased by MacEoin in the early 1970s, and he wasted no time in renaming one of the homes ‘James Bryson House’, in honour of an IRA Volunteer who had died on active service a few short years earlier. Today, the plaque remains upon the home.

James Bryson House plaque, Henrietta Street.

Beyond saving the buildings of Georgian Dublin, MacEoin produced a number of important histories of the Irish republican movement, including the groundbreaking oral history collection Survivors, in which he interviewed veterans of the revolutionary period. This was an important work, as some veterans of the 1916-23 period had refused to talk to the Bureau of Military History, a state initiative to record their first hand testimonies. It was left to republicans like Ernie O’Malley and MacEoin to gather important memories. He also compiled The IRA in the Twilight Years, which told the story of the republican movement after its defeat in the Civil War.

Beyond life as a historian, architect and activist, he also adored mountain climbing, taking to the Alps and succeeding in climbing all of the Munros. By the time of his passing in December 2007, MacEoin had done much to protect and preserve the heart of the city. While born in Tyrone, he became synonymous with the streets of the nation’s capital, and loved them with all his being.

C.L.R James speaking in Trafalgar Square, London. (1935)

Whether cricket or Marxism is your bag, C.L.R James is a towering figure in each world. They are, I concede, two worlds that tend not to meet. His 1963 memoir Beyond a Boundary, which he himself described as “neither cricket reminiscences nor autobiography”, is widely regarded as one of the finest books ever written on any sport. He maintained that “cricket is first and foremost a dramatic spectacle. It belongs with theatre, ballet, opera and the dance.”

Born in Trinidad in 1901, Cyril Lionel Robert James made important contributions in many fields of life. As a historian, he penned The Black Jacobins, an acclaimed history of the Haitian Revolution, and he would make many important intellectual contributions to the field of postcolonial studies. A lifelong political activist, he was highly critical of the Soviet Union under Stalin, and was aligned with Trotskyist movements in the turbulent 1930s. He arrived in Britain in 1932, taking up a job as cricket correspondent with the Manchester Guardian and throwing himself into political activism in London.

In 1935, he arrived in Dublin, lecturing on the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Here, he befriended Nora Connolly O’Brien, the daughter of James Connolly, and encountered opposition from some surprising quarters.

The response to the invasion of Ethiopia: 

An imperial grab for Africa, Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia was condemned by the League of Nations by fifty votes to one (the single dissenting voice being the Italians themselves).  Despite condemnation, little real action was taken by the European powers after the commencement of the invasion in September 1935, and the annexation of the country allowed Mussolini to proclaim that “the Italian people have created an empire with their blood. They will fertilize it with their work.” The following year, Mussolini would send men and planes to Spain to crush democracy there, but 1935 demonstrated his disregard for the sovereignty of other nations to all who were paying attention. From Dublin, Éamon de Valera had been one of the few political leaders to loudly condemn the actions of the Italians, warning the League of Nations that “if on any pretext whatever we were to permit the sovereignty of even the weakest state amongst us to be unjustly taken away, the whole foundation of the League would crumble into dust.”

James, then a member of the Independent Labour Party, wrote extensively on the fascist invasion, writing in The New Leader:

Let us fight against not only Italian imperialism, but the other robbers and oppressors, French and British imperialism. Do not let them drag you in. To come within the orbit of imperialist politics is to be debilitated by the stench, to be drowned in the morass of lies and hypocrisy.

He was a founding member of the International African Friends of Ethiopa, and in this capacity lectured all over Britain, speaking at a protest rally in Trafalgar Square on the need for solidarity. In December 1935, he arrived in Dublin to address a meeting opposing Italian fascist aggression, finding a weak left but some welcoming faces. James would later recall that “he didn’t really understand what it meant to be revolutionary until he went to Ireland.”

Meeting Nora Connolly O’Brien and the Irish Citizen Army:

A young Nora Connolly in Irish Volunteer uniform, taken before the 1916 Rising.

In Dublin, C.L.R James found an ally in Nora Connolly O’Brien, a veteran of the revolutionary period who shared the socialist republican worldview of her martyred father.

In Ireland, the left was in a moment of crisis. Faced with a hostile anti-communism which had the potential to spill into physical violence (as happened with the ransacking of Connolly House in March 1933), the movement had also been torn apart by a series of splits. There was a moment of great hope in 1934 with the birth of the Republican Congress, an attempt to bring about a broad alliance of left republican, socialist and communist activists, and a movement which proclaimed that “a republic of a united Ireland will never be achieved except through a struggle which uproots capitalism on its way.” Ideological disagreement in its infancy had largely crippled the Congress, and created ill feeling among activists. One outcome of the turbulence of the period was the reemergence of a revolutionary body styling itself the Irish Citizen Army,  which included veterans of the 1913-23 period in its ranks, such as Nora herself and Seamus McGowan. It was members of this body who were central to the invitation of C.L.R James to Dublin.

James was condemned in the pages of Workers’ Voice, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland, for “devoting his main conclusions to a most irresponsible attack on the Communist Party and the Soviet Union.” James was denounced from the floor by a Communist Party speaker, who told the gathered crowd:

Those responsible for bringing the lecturer to Ireland and Mr James himself should remember that reactionary though certain sections of the Irish working class leadership is, this is the first attempt inside the revolutionary forces to try and disseminate such lying counter-revolutionary propaganda against the Communists. Such Fascist activity has been left to the clergy and the Duffy and Cosgrove movement up to date.

Not startled by the denunciation he received here, James invited Nora Connolly O’Brien to lecture in London on the Irish situation, an invitation she availed of. Nora’s contacts with Trotskyites in the British left led to a correspondence with Leon Trotsky himself, who wrote to her affectionately in June 1936:

I was very touched by your kind letter. A great deal of circumstances prevented me from writing to you immediately. I always have been greatly interested in Ireland, but unfortunately my interest remained only platonic. I never had the opportunity to study in detail Irish history and politics. Since my early days I have got, through Marx and Engels, the greatest sympathy and esteem for the heroic struggle of the Irish for their independence. The tragic fate of your courageous father met me in Paris during the war. I bear him faithfully in remembrance. I made up my mind to read your book about your father in the very next time.

James maintained an active interest in Irish politics, writing an article on “Ireland and the Revolutionary Tradition of Easter Week” for the 25th anniversary of the rebellion. There, he maintained:

British banks still dominate Ireland, but some of the chains have been struck off. Today de Valera knows that if he were to countenance aid to Britain, his doom would be sealed. Connolly had made a tactical mistake, but his faith, in the Irish hatred of British imperialism was a profound revolutionary faith, based on knowledge of his people, revolutionary courage and intuition, and a deep understanding of Irish history. His rashness was valuable beyond the timid caution of a thousand lesser men.

By the time of his passing in 1989, James had compiled a remarkable body of work, spanning political theory, history, sports and other fields. He believed that “when history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity.”

This article would not have been possible without the excellent workersrepublic.org resource, an important collection of primary source materials.

R. Atkinson & Co, Irish poplin manufacturers (Image: National Library of Ireland)

Like many Dubliners, I pass through Merchants’ Arch a few times a week, normally in a hurry somewhere. Connecting Liffey Street and the Temple Bar district via the Ha’penny Bridge, the archway even pops up in Ulysses, as Leopold Bloom searches for a (rather naughty) book for his beloved Molly. Much has changed since the time of Bloom, but there are still people selling goods in the Arch from time to time, not to mention buskers and long-established businesses.

Like much of what is beautiful and old about the city today, the Wide Streets Commission is to thank for this arched passage, insisting on it as a necessary thoroughfare. Established by an Act of Parliament in 1757, this body reshaped Dublin as the people knew it, creating networks of new streets and leading Dublin into a new era.  As the masterful study Dublin Through Space and Time notes, “the Wide Streets Commissioners brought a truly European vision of urban design to Dublin.” So many of the streets we enjoy today – Parliament Street, D’Olier Street, Westmoreland Street – are part of the vision of this body.

Merchants’ Arch forms a part of the Merchants’ Hall, built to the designs of the celebrated architect Frederick Darley in 1821. Today occupied by a public house and restaurant, the building was constructed for the use of the Merchant’s Guild, who originally had their premises at the Tailors Hall in Back Lane, near to Christchurch Cathedral. In the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth, Dublin was home to a number of Guild Halls which reflected industry in the city. The Tailors’ Hall and Merchants’ Hall were joined by Weavers’ Hall in the Coombe and the Bricklayers Hall on Cuffe Street. As Frank Hopkins has noted, it seems almost every group of skilled Dublin workers were represented by a Guild. He points towards “the Goldsmiths Guild, the Guild of Carpenters, Millers, Masons and Heliers, the Cooks and Vintners Guild, and the Guild of Tallow Chandlers….”, not to mention “the Guild of Barber-Surgeons and Apothecaries”.

A contemporary description of the new Merchants’ Hall.

Depictions of Merchants’ Arch historically have been less than flattering; take William Orpen’s painting ‘The Knackers Yard’ from 1909. It depicts a rundown and shabby passage. Notice what appears to be the royal coat of arms above the archway itself. The passage continued to excite Dublin artists in subsequent decades, with Harry Kernoff among the other artists to depict it.

William Orpen’s ‘The Knackers Yard,1909’. Image credit.

Following the disbandment of the Merchant’s Guild, the hall served a number of purposes in subsequent decades, with historian Maurice Curtis noting that these roles “included a shirt-and-poplin factory…and a Protestant boys school.” The name R. Atkinson & Co adorned the building during its time as a poplin factory.

One figure associated with the archway was Thomas Traynor, originally from Tullow in Carlow. An active member of Irish Volunteers and later the Irish Republican Army, he was executed in Mountjoy Prison in 1921, following his capture for involvement in a raid on Crown Forces. Traynor ran a shoe and boot repair company in the archway. There was a lot of activity in the area during the War of Independence, with a secret IRA munitions factory at Crown Alley (beside what is now the Bad Ass Cafe) producing grenades.

In the decades following independence, Merchants’ Arch became synonymous with book sellers, bric-a-brac and the like. Embodying this spirit was the ‘Old Curiosity Shop’, run by Ted Keogh, which for more than 20 years sold just about everything.  Ted sold “antiques, cut glass, books, oil paintings and boxing and racing prints.” Other businesses who came to call it home included Matthew and Sons Antiques, Oman’s Books and Mojo Records.

Browsing in Merchants’ Arch, c.1960s (Image: National Library of Ireland)

One curious little feature of the arch is a memorial plaque to Phil Lynott, commemorating his music video for Old Town, some of which was shot on the nearby Ha’penny Bridge. The Arch has long been associated with Dublin buskers, some of whom make an appearance in this Éamonn MacThomáis feature from 1983. Like so much of the output he left behind, the MacThomáis piece is important to historians and researchers today, as he walks right through Merchants’ Arch and talks of the various businesses present.

Today, Merchants’ Arch is home to businesses including Mojo Records, China Blue shoes and much more besides. Last year, two people were injured when some of the historic fabric of the arch collapsed. While much has changed in the area around the archway, it remains a hive of activity in the heart of the city.

Looking up Merchants’ Arch from Crown Alley (Image: RTÉ Archives, from Éamonn MacThomáis footage)

In the early 1920s, a criminal street-gang from Dublin’s North Inner city named the ‘Sons of Dawn’ terrorised citizens and business-owners . Amidst the backdrop of a violent guerilla War of Independence, it would seem that easy-access to firearms and a general breakdown in law and order helped the group to operate in an already strained and tense city. After a successful intelligence operation, the gang were finally caught in the midst of a robbery and arrested by the IRA.

The first mention of the ‘Sons of Dawn’ in the newspaper archives comes from January 1920. On the night of the 16th, three masked men robbed Roger Pollock on Ailesbury Road in Ballsbridge.  A half an hour later, the same group robbed another passerby John Connolly. At least one of the gang was armed with a revolver. As the Evening Herald (17 Jan) reported, the robbers told Connolly – before they took his money and pocket-watch  – that he had met the ‘Sons of Dawn’.

The Evening Herald, 23 January 1920

On the night of 22 January, a “well-known” but unnamed resident of Garville Avenue, Rathgar was held up by a gang of three men as he posted a letter close to his home. They helped themselves to his watch watch and a measly three shillings. The Irish Independent (24 Jan 1920) said that one of the gang told the victim : “If you are going to make anything about this. Say it was the Sons of Dawn. Good Night.”

Under the heading of ‘Murty’s Letter’ in The Irish Times (31 January 1920), a journalist described the ‘Sons of Dawn’ as a:

… a new order of Irish reformers and men of action, with a way of its own. Their plan of campaign is to wait around the corner on dark nights and when you go to post a letter in the letterbox , (they) demand your watch and your money at the muzzle of a gun. Or they may vary that programme by raiding a post office or burgularin’ (sic) a house and carrying off the safe and its contents…

The Nationalist and Leinster Times (7 Feb 1920) reported that the ‘Sons of Dawn’ had been active in Athy, County Kildare and had broken into a pub on William Street. It seems unlikely however that the Dublin ‘Sons of Dawn’ would travel up to 80km to undertake such a burglary. If anything though, it would seem to illustrate that a gang of robbers with a menacing name can prompt journalists farther afield to pin similar crimes on them.

The anxious and sleepless citizen, the late reveller in the mansion, the guardians of the city’s peace, paused a moment to wonder what daring marauder, what anarchist, what Son of Dawn, had ventured forth to shoot, loot, or be shot at.

This period saw the establishment of the Irish Republican Police (IRP) under the authority of Dáil Éireann. Liam O’Carroll, a Dublin IRA captain, described in his Witness Statement (no. 594) how the organisation undertook a:

a considerable amount of police work … in conjunction with the Dáil Courts … with a view of undermining the [Dublin Metropolitan Police] … The duties involved were varied and concerned a large number of personal cases, robberies, house-breaking and the like.

The brazen activity of the ‘Sons of Dawn’ brought them to the attention of the IRA in Dublin. Volunteers Sean Brunswick (BMH WS No. 898) and Nicholas Laffan (BMH No. 703) also make reference to this particular gang in their witness statements.

O’Carroll stated that the group were also known as the ‘Moore Street Gang’ and:

… usually met in a billiard saloon connected at the time with Woolworth’s of Henry Street, and Woolworth’s themselves had engaged Volunteer police to keep the premises under observation.

Downfall

An IRA Volunteer obtained information that the gang planned to rob a wholesale tobacco business owned by Patrick McEvoy known as Magill’s at 105 Capel Street (now the Outhouse LGBT community centre).

No. 105 Capel Street ‘Cosmon Ltd’ in 1978. It was previously known as Magill’s. Credit – Dublin City Council Photographic Collection

At around 10.30pm on 22nd September 1920, four members of the ‘Sons of Dawn’ robbed Magill’s of tobacco and about 20 packets of cigarettes. As they were leaving the building through the back door, they were greeted by 16 armed members of the IRA. The gang of four were marched away blindfolded to a “house unknown” where they were placed in a cellar and kept until 9pm the following day.

Liam O’Carroll’s Witness Statement reveals that the gang was brought to the Colmcille Hall at 5 Blackhall Street in Smithfield. A brisky 10 minute walk from Capel Street. This building had been owned by the Gaelic League since 1900 and was used as the HQ of the 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers/IRA from 1914 to 1922.

Advertisement for a Ceilidh dance in the Colmcille Hall, 5 Blackhall Street. Evening Herald, 16 November 1921

Besides being caught red-handed immediately after the robbery, the IRA searched the boys and found a photograph of the four of them with “The Sons of Dawn, 1919, 1920” and “The Boys of Dublin” written in ink on the back.

The four were named in the newspapers as :

• Thomas Corlett of Cole’s Lane [off Moore Street]
• James Gannon of Moore Street
• Matthew Reid, No Address Given
• Henry Thomas of Dominick Street [off Parnell Street]

They were tried before a five-person “Court of Republican officers” and found guilty of robbing the Capel Street premises along with other three businesses on Henry Street: Menzies and Co.,  Lipton’s Ltd. and Burton’s. The armed robberies in Ballsbridge and Rathgar were not mentioned.

The Evening Herald, 25 September 1920

Corlett and Gannon were sentenced to be flogged twelve times “on the bare back” and five years deportation.

Reid was sentenced to three years deportation and Thomas to 12 months deportation.

A press release of some sort was sent to the newspapers as the Evening Herald (25 Sep 1920) published details of the detention that only the IRA captors could have known. Such as how that one of the prisoners:

… broke down and wept while another asked to be shot rather than leave the country. He was given the option and quickly accepted the first order of the court.

The four boys were taken from the building separately and two IRA police officers were detailed to walk with each for half-an-hour (in circles no doubt) before they were let go on Green Street.

It would appear that the DMP picked them up in the following days as the Evening Herald (14 October 1920) reported that the same Matthew Reid and Thomas Corlett were charged with the break-in of Magill’s on Capel Street and sentenced to nine months imprisonment each. James Gannon and Henry Thomas do not appear to have been charged by the authorities.

So it would appear, despite assertions in the Witness Statements by former IRA volunteers, that the boys were not forced to emigrate from the country.

Copycats?

In October 1920, four houses were broken into in the neighboring villages of Kilternan and Jamestown in South County Dublin. The Freeman’s Journal (8 Oct) reported that the masked and armed men had left a receipt for their seized money with the signature ‘The Sons of Dawn’. Times were certainly changing as the chairman of the Rathdown Guardians told the newspaper that “this was a serious matter and should be referred to the Republican police”. It is unclear whether this was another ‘branch’ of the original ‘Sons of Dawn’ or a gang who wanted to use an already-established name.

The Sons of Dawn

So what else can we find out about the gang members? After a good bit of digging, I think I’ve been able to identity some background information on all four ‘Sons of Dawn’ boys. Their exact addresses in 1920 were as follows:

• Thomas Corlett, 34 Cole’s Lane. Born 18/05/1901.
• James Gannon, 38 Moore Street. Born 11/07/1899.
• Matthew Reid, 21 Upper Rutland Street. Born 04/02/1900.
• Henry Thomas, 38 Lower Dominick Street. Born 1891 or 1895.

Thomas Corlett was born on 18 May 1901 at 5 Rotunda Market to parents Alfred, a postman, and Alice Corlett (née O’Brien). Rotunda Market near Moore Street linked Denmark Street and Cole’s Lane which all vanished with the building of the Ilac Centre. In 1901, the family were still living at 5 Rotunda Market and in 1911, the family including Thomas (9) were living at 34.1 Cole’s Lane. At the time of his arrest in 1920, Thomas was still living on Cole’s Lane.

The Freeman’s Journal (16 Jan 1920) reported that a Thomas Corlett (18) was found not guilty of breaking into a bottling store on Henry Place and stealing four dozen bottles of stout and two dozen bottles of whiskey. This overlapped with the period during which the ‘Sons of Dawn’ were active. The ‘Irish Prison Registers 1790-1924’ reveal that Thomas was charged  with “illegal possession of a silver dish” (February 1920);  “breaking and entering” (September 1920) and “shop-breaking” (October 1920).

In September 1933, Thomas Corlett of 34 Cole’s Lane was fined £11 in the District Court, according to the Irish Press (15 Sep), for failing to comply with the National Health and Unemployment Insurance Acts. In October 1933, a Thomas Corlett was charged with breaking into the Catholic Church at Mount Argus, Harold’s Cross, Dublin 6 the previous August and stealing the contents of the collection box. The Irish Times (28 Oct) noted that Corlett was proprietor of the Technical Cafe, 36 Bolton Street. He was later acquitted after a witness was recalled and re-examined.

Thomas Corlett. Register of birth, 18 May 1901. Credit : http://www.irishgenealogy.ie

James Gannon was born on 11 July 1899 at 67 Patrick Street to parents Patrick, a baker, and Margaret Gannon (née Logan). In 1901 , the family including James (1) had moved to 2 Moore Street Market and by 1911, the family with James (10) had moved a few doors up the street to 38 Moore Street. At the time of his arrest in 1920, James was still living on Moore Street.

In August 1921, a James Gannon (21) was sentenced to three years “penal discipline” in the Borstal institution Clonmel, County Tipperary for breaking into two premisses in Dublin and stealing clothes and alcohol. The Evening Herald (4 Aug 1921) noted that the man’s mother was a “dealer in clothes”. This individual is the same age as the ‘Sons of Dawn’ James Gannon whose mother was a “Second Hand Clothes Dealer” according to the 1911 Census. The same newspaper article described the boy as having lost his father in the First World War and falling into “bad company” while his mother was “not aware he (was) suspected of being concerned in other criminal enterprises”. It would appear that his arrest and interrogation by the IRA was not enough to put him on a moral and law-abiding path.

James Gannon. Register of birth, 11 July 1899. Credit : http://www.irishgenealogy.ie

Matthew Reid was born on 4 February 1900 at 15 Hill Street off Parnell Street to Charles, a labourer, and wife Mary Reid (née Hand). In 1901, the family including one-year-old Mat were still living at 15.4 Hill Street. By 1911, the Reids including Matthew (11) had moved to 56.1 Bow Lane West in Kilmainham, Dublin 8. (Matthew’s mother’s name has changed but everything else matches). When Matthew was arrested in 1920, the newspapers did not provide his address but it would appear it was 21 Upper Rutland Street as the ‘Irish Prison Registers 1790-1924’ shows that Matthew Reid, who was born at 15 Hill Street, was charged with”breaking and entering” (September 1920). In July 1916, the same Matthew Reid was arrested for “larceny”. His address at the time in 1916 was 4 Belmont while 15 Hill Street was listed as his birthplace.

Matthew Reid. Register of birth, 4 February 1900. Credit : http://www.irishgenealogy.ie

The ‘Irish Prison Registers 1790-1924’ reveal that Henry Thomas lived at 58 Lower Dominick Street in 1920. His birthplace was listed at different times as Dublin, Liverpool and London and there are conflicting years of birth.

In 1901, the Thomas family made up of Albert, a butcher, his wife Mary and son Albert (8) were living at 2.2 Sandwith Place near Pearse Street. In September 1910, Henry was charged with ‘obscene language’. The records show that he was living at 49 Summerhill and was born in Church Street. In November 1910, he was arrested for ‘loitering and house-breaking. The Summerhill address corresponds with the the 1911 census which shows that Henry (16) was living with his family at 49.7 Summerhill. In May 1917, Henry was arrested for ‘larceny’ of a ‘gold ring’ worth £8. The family had moved to 7 Lower Dominick Street while his birthplace was listed as ‘Liverpool’. In March 1918, Henry of 58 Lower Dominick Street was charged with stealing a sum of money. His birthplace this time was listed as Arran Quay. In December 1918, Thomas was charged with stealing a blouse worth £3. His current residence was 58 Lower Dominick Street while his birthplace was listed as Sandwith Street, Dublin (which corresponds with 1901 census).

If you think you might be related to any of the four boys, we’d love to hear from you. Did a grand-parent or grand-uncle or an elderly neighbour ever talk about the Sons of Dawn?

Next time I’ll be looking at another Dublin criminal outfit who were also tracked down and captured by the IRA in the same time period.

Poster for Mansion House meeting referenced in below article, February 1918.

The following article appeared in the 23 February 1918 edition of Irish Opinion: The Voice of Labour.  Written in the immediate aftermath of a phenomenal meeting at Dublin’s Mansion House, when thousands thronged the venue and surrounding streets to herald the Russian revolution, Thomas Johnson of the Labour Party offers some vision of what may happen “if the Bolsheviks came to Ireland.”

Johnson, born in Liverpool to Irish parents in May 1872, served as leader of the Labour Party for ten years, beginning in 1917. He was elected in 1922 to the Dáil as TD for Dublin County in an election which saw a surprising Labour vote, with 17 of the 18 candidates put forward by the party elected, and 21.3% of the overall vote secured.

In may was, Johnson is remembered as a reformist political figure and not a revolutionary; he himself asked in 1925 “shall the aim be honestly to remove poverty…or are we to agitate and organise with the object of waging the ‘Class War’ more relentlessly, and use ‘the unemployed’ and ‘the poverty of the workers’ as propagandist cries to justify our actions…I do not think this view of the mission of the labour movement has any promise of ultimate usefulness in Ireland.”

Here though, we see a Johnson who is looking on at the events in Russia with great hope and optimism in their immediate aftermath. Notice the references to the “Irish Republican army”, to the “Dublin housing problem” which could be resolved through socialist change, and to the need for political education and the study of Russian tactics.

My thanks to Dr. Brian Hanley for providing me with a copy of the article, which I have transcribed.

IF THE BOLSHEVIKS CAME TO IRELAND.

The great gathering of Dublin citizens at the Mansion House to acclaim the social revolution in Russia was a sign to all parties in Ireland that the people in demanding independence are not going to be satisfied with a mere political change, no matter how drastic. What they need, and are quickly coming to recognise, is a change of social and economic relations. It is not only to British authority that this is a warning: it is a call to the conservative forces of all political parties to rally to the defence of the existing social order. All those people whose prosperity is dependent upon the institutions of rent, interest or profit or who can be persuaded that the national well being can only be built upon a basis of capitalism – “the most foreign thing in Ireland” – will be told that their own and their country’s future is endangered if any countenance is given to the doctrine that Labour is king.

Labour also must take warning. We acclaim the Russian revolution, and our hearts respond to the call of the Russian people to join with the workers throughout war stricken Europe in dethroning Imperialism and Capitalism in our respective countries. But, as we asked at the meeting in the Mansion House, are we prepared to take action if opportunity offers? Is Labour organised sufficiently? Are our trade unions and our trades councils, our co-operative societies and our Labour parties properly supported and in close enough relations to become the centres of economic life in a new society? Are our working class leaders or spokesmen devoting time and effort in reading and study to fit themselves for the duties that may be forced upon them?

The framework of the new Russia consisted of 50,000 co-operative groups in town and country, organised within the past six or seven years. The archive men and women who made the revolution had devoted years to the work  of propaganda, to study mental discipline and self-sacrificing service of the people. While Ireland has produced but one Connolly, Russia has produced hundreds; men and women of great intellectual power, devoting their lives entirely to the work of organisation, education and agitation, and receiving in return no reward but persecution, imprisonment, poverty and the love of the people.

The Soviets – the councils of workmen, of peasants and of soldiers – who are now in power in Russia have their Irish equivalents in the trades councils, the agricultural societies, and – dare we say it?- the local groups of the Irish Republican army.  An Irish counterpart of the Russian revolution would mean that these three sections co-operating would take control of the industrial, agricultural and social activities of the nation. Power would no longer be in the hands of the wealthy nor authority be wielded by the nominees of an Imperial Majesty. Industry would be diverted towards supplying the wants of the Irish people and agriculture towards providing food for those engaged in industry. Food and houses, clothing and education, these would be provided for all the people by the labour and service of all the people before luxuries or superfluities were allowed to any. The private profit of the private proprietor would not then determine what class of goods should be produced, whether cattle should be raised or corn grown, the needs of the people would decide.

Probably, as in Russia, the first act found to be necessary would be following the example of the capitalistic governments at the outbreak of war, to declare a moratorium  (“I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word!”) suspending temporarily the repayment of debts and making illegal all interest!By this act alone, the income of the workers would be increased about 25 percent.

The land of the country would be made free of access to those who were willing to cultivate it to the best communal advantage. The Dublin housing problem would be immediately tackled,and might be made less pressing by a distribution of the congested population from the tenements over the partially occupied mansions of the suburbs!

These are a few of the things that would happen if the Bolsheviks came to Ireland. it is right that our friends who join with us in acclaiming the Bolshevik revolution should understand its implications. It means that as society is based upon labour, Labour shall rule. And that means a complete overturning from the present state wherein, though society is based upon labour, capital and property rule.

ASK is a monthly(ish) night in MVP, which aims to bring together people with eclectic music tastes and raise money for good causes in the process. It draws together people from this parish, Sunday Books, Foggy Notions and more besides. So far, we have raised money for MASI (Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland) and the Gay Switchboard.

The night returns next Thursday after a brief hiatus, with a night to raise funds for One Family, a national organisation supporting lone parents. We are delighted to be joined by Dorje de Burgh, whose late mother Sherie was central to One Family. With the Irish Family Planning Association and One Family, Sherie truly made a difference to the lives of many people, and has been recalled as a “visionary who worked tirelessly to support women, couples and parents through the difficult landscape of unplanned pregnancies, relationship separation, parenting and family conflict.”

The nights are good fun, bringing together a mix of music I don’t think you’ll find anywhere else in the city, not to mention plenty of visuals pulled from the archives of yore, Fintan Warfield’s remarkable collection of tambourines, whatever flowers we can haggle from the sellers and more besides. You probably won’t hear the Bothy Band and Chicago House played one after the other anywhere else, and that’s ok.

Event page is here.

MVP is located at 29 Upper Clanbrassil, Dublin 8.

Thomas Ashe

The centenary of the funeral of Thomas Ashe occurs next week, a defining moment of a year in which the revolutionary forces continued to reorganise themselves after the Easter Rising.

In some ways, 30 September 1917 was a replay of 1 August 1915, the day when P.H Pearse told the gathered mourners at the funeral of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa that “life springs from death, and from the graves of patriot men and women spring live nations.” Now, Pearse himself was dead and gone, and the Volunteer movement had lost both men and rifles to Easter Week. The logistics of the Ashe funeral were to prove a challenge to a revolutionary movement reemerging from the shadows.

The Thomas Ashe funeral, much like that of O’Donovan Rossa, was political theatre and a propaganda spectacle, and as Fianna Éireann boyscout Seán Prendergast remembered it, “the funeral of Ashe epitomised not the burial of a man of a dead  generation but one who represented a living generation of men who had fought and suffered and were fighting and suffering in Ireland’s cause.”

That Thomas Ashe made it into 1917 was surprising in itself. Major John MacBride, a veteran of the Second Boer War, had wisely advised the young Volunteers in Jacob’s factory before their surrender that “if it ever happens again, take my advice, and don’t get inside four walls.” The failed tactic of seizing buildings in the heart of the capital and proclaiming a Republic before the world stood in stark contrast with the tactics adopted by the men who fought under Ashe at Easter Week. In scenes more akin to the subsequent War of Independence, Volunteers under Ashe’s command attacked the RIC Barracks at Ashbourne in County Meath. In a vicious five hour battle, eleven RIC men and two Volunteers lost their lives.  The men under Ashe caused chaos for the RIC in North County Dublin too, raiding the RIC at Swords and Donabate.

Sentenced to execution following the insurrection, his sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. Much like Éamon de Valera, Ashe perhaps owed his escape to sheer timing. He was court-martialed on the 8 May, by which stage it was clear the tide was turning against further executions. Even John Redmond, the constitutional nationalist leader who condemned the Rising as a German plot, understood the executions to be an “insane policy”, correctly warning that “if more executions take place in Ireland, the position will become impossible for any constitutional party or leader.” Ashe, like many revolutionaries, did his time in the internment camps that followed. Ashe took a leading role in the reorganising of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the secret society central to bringing about the rebellion through its clandestine networks in Ireland and the United States.

A memorial card for Thomas Ashe.

Ashe may have cheated death in 1916, but he died on 25 September 1917, having gone on hungerstrike after his arrest under the Defence of the Realm Act for a seditious speech he had delivered at Balinalee in Longford. He had earlier courted the attention of the authorities with a speech delivered at Ardfert in Kerry, in which he outlined a bizarre hope that “Ireland might be preserved from the tyranny of the Jews and moneylenders of London who are at present running the World War.” The decision to force feed Ashe proved fatal, and the later inquest into his death would condemn prison authorities for the “inhumane and dangerous operation performed on the prisoner, and other acts of unfeeling and barbaric conduct.”

Richard Walsh, a senior Volunteer in Mayo, remembered that the response to the death of Ashe demonstrated something to the leadership of the nationalist movement:

Ashe’s funeral proved that there existed an unsuspected enthusiasm for the organisation of the Volunteers all over the country, which the men at the head of affairs had not suspected. The country at that time was travelling faster than the leaders anticipated.

Republican boyscouts from Na Fianna Éireann provide the guard of honour at City Hall. (Image Credit: History of Na Fianna Éireann)

In many ways, the funeral of Thomas Ashe was a military operation.  As Paddy Kelly remembered in his Witness Statement, City Hall was under British military occupation, a barrier to plans to have the body lying in state, as O’Donovan Rossa had done two years earlier. Kelly recalled:

I was picked as one of the Volunteers who were to take possession of the City Hall for the lying in state… At this time the City Hall was occupied by British soldiers, and to plan as detailed to us was as follows: We were to enter the main hall by the side entrance at Castle Street in small parties without attracting attention, and once in we were going to remain there.

General Sir Brian Mahon, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in Ireland, rather wisely ordered the removal of the British army presence in the rotunda of City Hall, allowing the Volunteers to mount a guard of honour for Ashe. This avoided direct confrontation, and demonstrated Mahon’s ability to read the situation in the country well. He solemnly remarked in internal correspondence that the nationalist movement was now “exhibiting discipline to a degree which is perhaps the most dangerous sign of the times.” Ashe lay in state, with tens of thousands passing his remains. The media made constant comparisons not only to the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa, but the grand spectacle of Parnell’s funeral.

Getting Ashe into City Hall was one task complete, but Paddy Kelly remembered thatthe next job of his party was “the collection of rifles and delivery of them to Harding’s Shop in Christchurch Place.” The rifles were so scarce, Kelly remembered that when the volley of shots was fired in Glasnevin Cemetery, “they were passed back through the crowd and taken away.”

The crowd who made up Ashe’s funeral cortege consisted not only of the uniformed men and women of the Irish Citizen Army,  Irish Volunteers, Cumann na mBán and Na Fianna Éireann, but a wide section of Irish life. There was a large contingent of Dublin Fire Brigade workers, which led Volunteer Joe Good to recall how “I smiled to think that their function was to dampen down fires.” Douglas Goldring, a visiting English writer, was also surprised by the presence of the firemen, remembering how “they went blanking by on their engines, the men in full uniforms with shining brass helmets, all of them wearing Sinn Féin armlets.” To him, it seemed that “every popular organisation in Dublin for men, women or children had sent its representatives”, though in truth they had come from all corners of the island. Trade unionists marched in their thousands, with the largest contingent coming from the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union. Goldring was struck by the sight of Ashe’s coffin, remembering it as being “wrapped in a Republican flag and half buried in an avalanche of flowers.”

Uniformed volunteers fire the volley of shots at Glasnevin Cemetery, 30 September 1917.

At Glasnevin Cemetery, a 27 year old stepped into the role P.H Pearse had played two years previous at the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa. Like at the earlier funeral, the ‘G Men’ of the Dublin Metropolitan Police kept their distance. Michael Collins, unlike Pearse, did not talk of the past, rather he allowed the firing party to say how it was. As the volley of shots rang out, Collins informed those gathered:

“Nothing additional remains to be said. That volley which we have just heard is the only speech which it is proper to make above the grave of a dead Fenian.”

The second printed volume of CHTM! articles has just arrived on the shelves in all good bookshops. The book follows on from our first volume, which was described by The Sunday Times as “one of the most amusing and valid social/cultural/political history books of recent times.” We’ll take that.

Sitting pretty on a bookshelf (with thanks to Donal Higgins)

Volume 2 is another diverse selection of articles, including pieces examining things like the social phenomenon of Heffo’s Army in 1970s Dublin, the history of Bartley Dunne’s and Rice’s public houses, the Hirschfeld Centre, Watkins’ brewery, the chaotic Donnybrook Fair and faction fighting in eighteenth-century Dublin.

Some wonderful characters from the history of the city emerge throughout its chapters, including the housing architect Herbert Simms, wandering French artist Antonin Artaud, the Latvian revolutionary Konrad Peterson, and the visiting English Suffragettes who found themselves on hunger strike in Mountjoy in 1912.

The book is published by New Island Books. In Dublin, it is stocked by Hodges Figgis, The Gutter Bookshop, Chapters, Hodges Figgis, Books Upstairs and many other stores (indeed, if you run a bookshop and are stocking it please get in touch, we’d be delighted to include mention of your business here.)

It is as diverse as the blog itself, and will be launched on 5 October by historian Lorcan Collins at Cleary’s pub on Amiens Street.

The back of the book.

New commemorative stamp from An Post.

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, shot in Bolivia having been captured leading a small revolutionary force against the Bolivian army.

In Ireland, there has been considerable controversy around the decision of An Post to issue a commemorative stamp to mark this anniversary. That the stamp is very much a celebration of one of the most important pieces of twentieth century Irish art, Jim Fitzpatrick’s Viva Che!, seems to have passed many commentators by.

In an Irish context, Guevara is very much associated with Fitzpatrick’s iconic artwork and the words of his father, who proclaimed following his sons death that “the first thing to note is that in my son’s veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels.” They were powerful words, even finding their way to the painted gable wall of a Derry house in time.

In 1949, General Tom Barry published Guerrilla Days in Ireland, considered by many to be the classic War of Independence memoir. While Ernie O’Malley would poetically capture the spirit of the people in On Another Man’s Wound, Barry’s memoir focused primarily on the IRA’s Flying Columns, the bands of men who terrorised patrolling Auxies and Black and Tans in the Irish countryside.

The IRA of 1919 did not invent guerrilla warfare, in an Irish (Michael Dwyer of the United Irishmen may claim that honour) or international context. In South Africa, the Boers adopted guerrilla army tactics so effectively during the 1899-1902 war, that the widespread internment of Boer women and children in concentration camps was used to break their morale. Zapata had his ‘dynamite boys’, the Italians their ‘Brigands’. What the Irish War of Independence did produce however was a remarkable volume of literature on guerrilla warfare.

In her biography of Barry, historian Meda Ryan discusses the international influence of Barry’s memoir, noting that its influence was significant enough to move many international fighters to contact Barry. One such figure was the Zionist radical (for radicalism is not exclusive to the Left) Menachem Begin, founder of the militant group Irgun and later sixth Prime Minister of Israel. Begin’s appeals to Barry are all but forgotten, but the same cannot be said of Che Guevara.

Guevara’s outreach to Barry was, Ryan notes, unsuccessful. Barry believed that the fight of Irishmen was at home, and though opposed to the Blueshirt threat in 1930s Ireland, had strongly discouraged Irish participation in the Spanish Civil War. It remains an interesting footnote in Irish history.

Maureen O’Hara in Havana, 1959.

While Guevara may not have encountered Tom Barry in the flesh, he did cross paths with many Irish people, including the celebrated Dublin-born actress Maureen O’Hara. Filming Our Man in Havana there in 1959, she was clearly smitten by the Guevara she met, remembering later in her memoir:

When we arrived in Havana on April 15, 1959, Cuba was a country experiencing revolutionary change. Only four months before, Fidel Castro and his supporters had toppled Fulgencio Batista… Che Guevara was often at the Capri Hotel. Che would talk about Ireland and all the guerrilla warfare that had taken place there. He knew every battle in Ireland and all of its history. And I finally asked, “Che, you know so much about Ireland and talk constantly about it. How do you know so much?” He said, “Well, my grandmother’s name was Lynch and I learned everything I know about Ireland at her knee.” He was Che Guevara Lynch! That famous cap he wore was an Irish rebel’s cap. I spent a great deal of time with Che Guevara while I was in Havana. Today he is a symbol for freedom fighters wherever they are in the world and I think he is a good one.

O’Hara found it hard to believe “how young and idealistic Che was…he had already helped to topple a dictator and liberate a nation.”

A first edition copy of Dracula, 1897.

Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!

I was delighted to be asked to curate an event for the forthcoming Bram Stoker Festival, which returns to Dublin from October 27 to 30. It is a fitting time of year to remember the Dubliner who brought the world what is undoubtedly the most celebrated Gothic horror novel.

Stoker was born in Clontarf in 1847, and educated at Trinity College Dublin, before going onto a career as a civil servant in Dublin Castle. Like his contemporary Oscar Wilde (who Stoker proposed for membership of the TCD Philosophical Society), he is  thought of not as an Irish writer, but someone who left Ireland at a young age and was shaped by other places and things. I don’t think this is fair, and this event will aim to put him in the context of the Victorian Dublin he worked in, lived in and knew as home.

What I’ve done is gathered together a team of writers, for the purpose of going on a bit of a ramble through Stoker’s Dublin, but we won’t be leaving our seats. It is a sort of ‘Psycho-Geography’ in the Little Museum of Dublin, using old photos and other sources to open up a discussion. Le Blurb:

Without even leaving your seat, take an imaginary trip through the streets and alleyways of the Dublin of Bram Stoker and his literary contemporaries, Lafcadio Hearn and Sheridan le Fanu.

Vivid conversations with striking visual images describe the lit erary, social and political scenes of Victorian Dublin.

Stones of Dublin (Collins Press)

Lisa Marie Griffith was a natural fit for any such panel, owing to her excellent study Stones of Dublin: A History of Dublin in Ten Buildings. Beautifully illustrated, the book examines places like Trinity College, Dublin Castle and the Old Irish Parliament and looked at their importance in shaping the city. She knows the bricks and mortar of the city so well, but also the important contexts (political, cultural, social) of the times in which these buildings were constructed. It’s a great read,and just part of her excellent output on Dublin in recent years.

Frankie Gaffney (Liberties Press)

Frankie Gaffney’s debut novel, Dublin Seven, was described as being akin to “Love/Hate meets Ulysses.” Set very much in the here and now, there’s a reason I asked Frankie onto this panel. His knowledge of the written word through time, and his obsession with the evolution of the novel (see this Tedx talk), is part of his great love for literature and the journey it has come on. He is completing a PhD in Stoker’s Alma mater, not to mention teaching there. He is an important voice on Dublin today, but I look forward to hearing his views on Stoker’s place in the literary canon.

A Fantastic Journey (University of Michigan)

Finally, Paul Murray was not only a natural addition to this panel, he was an essential part of it. An expert on not only Bram Stoker, he has also examined the more forgotten Lafcadio Hearn, another important horror writer of the nineteenth century. That study won the 1995 Koizumi Yakumo Literary Prize in Japan, and was awarded the Lord Mayor of Dublin’s Prize too. Stoker is just one of the horror writers Ireland has produced, so let us briefly examine the others.

This is a chance to learn more about Dracula, yes, but also Dublin. How did Dublin shape Stoker? Come along and find out!

Time 3pm
Date October 28th
Location The Little Museum of Dublin, 15 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2

TICKETS FROM BRAM STOKER FESTIVAL.

The Winter Garden Palace was situated on the corner of 106 St. Stephen’s Green West and 24 Cuffe Street for over 200 years.

From the newspaper archives, it seems that the business was in operation from at least 1866. Described as the ‘Winter Garden’s Gin Palace’, its first proprietor was James Brady.

The Winter Garden Palace, The Irish Times (31 March 1866).

It received a glorious review in The Irish Times in April 1866. The unnamed writer wanted to put on record that a  Gin Palace was just for the “idle, the drunkard or the spendthrift”. The Winter Garden Gin Palace  on St. Stephen’s Green could boast of a “public bar, a large saloon and smoking room”. Its walls were decorated with beautiful scenic canvas drawings and in one corner there was a model of “one of the Gothic windows of Muckross Abbey”.

The Winter Garden Palace, The Irish Times (6 April 1866).

Philip Little, who first began his publican career in Dublin in 1863, appears to have re-opened the Winter Garden Palace under his own patronage in August 1877.

The Winter Garden Palace, The Irish Times (20 Aug 1877).

In the 1880s, the pub was referred to as a favourite meeting spot for the Invincibles (Fenian-splinter group)

The 1901 census shows that Phillip Little (65), a “Grocer and Spirt Merchant” from County Cavan, lived in the property with his wife Bridget Little (62) from County Kildare and their four children. On the night of the census, a visitor Mary Molloy and her son were in the house. Little employed a domestic servant (housekeeper) and six young male grocers assistants. Five of whom were from his home county of Cavan.

Proprietor Philip Little was a Dublin Corporation councillor from 1884 and seeked re-election in the 1905 election. He described himself as a Home Rule Irish Nationalist, a friend of the Labouring Classes, a supporter of social housing and in favour of more public libraries and expanding Technical Education.

Philip Little, election address. Evening Herald, 3 Dec 1904

The 1911 census shows that Phillip Little (75) lived in the house with his wife Bridget Little (70), a son, a daughter and two grandsons. The employed a coach-man, cook and maid. While five male groces assistants worked in the Little’s Winter Garden Palace.

During the 1916, Easter Rising, a number of building’s overlooking St. Stephen’s Green were commandeered by rebel forces. These included Little’s public house (Winter Garden Palace) at the corner of Cuffe Street and the Royal College of Surgeons at the corner of York Street. The pub was occupied by an eight-man team, a mix of Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army, under the command of James Kelly. Most of them had retreated from Davy’s pub at Portobello and from Leeson Street bridge.

Philip Little put in a claim into the Property Losses (Ireland) Committee, 1916 for £189 5s 8d. This was a result of damage to his business from rifle fire, the looting of goods and the use of his property for barricades. A payment of £158 was recommended by Committee. Among the list of goods that Little claimed for included one feather mattress, 42 pieces of “best china”, six silver spoons and one gents suit.

The Winter Garden Palace was put up for sale in 1919 and sold in 1920 to a Daniel O’Neill.

The Winter Garden Palace, The Irish Times (04 Dec 1919).

Here is a wonderful photograph from RTE’s Archive of the exterior of pub from around 1920:

A British soldier stands outside the Winter Garden Palace pub, owned by Philip Little circa 1920. Credit – RTE

In the 1920s and 1930s, the pub was under the ownership of Matthew Redmond. In 1935, a Belfast-man was found in the business during holy-hours. The individual after arrest claimed in the District Court that he had been punched in the right eye by a policeman and was “left in a cold cell naked for half-an-hour”.

The Winter Palace Garden, The Irish Times (07 Nov 1935)

The following year, publican Matthew Redmond was fined for allowing alcohol to be consumed in his pub from 11pm to 12 midnight.

The Winter Garden Palace, Evening Herald (4 Feb 1936)

By the early 1940s, the pub had been taken over by Peter Cullen. He ran it until his death in 1957.

A view of The Winter Palace Garden, owned by Peter Cullen, in 1952. Credit -bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie

Another view of The Winter Palace Garden, this time from St. Stephen’s Green looking up to Harcourt Street. The pub’s sign is visible at the end of the street on the right-hand side.

The Winter Garden Palace, 1952. Credit –
bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie

Peter Cullen’s widow Monica ‘Mona’ Cullen (d. 1998) managed the business until it was acquired together with other properties in the area by a Compulsory Purchase Order in 1966

The pubs demise was lamented by many newspapers of the time.

The Winter Garden Palace, Evening Herald 27 April 1967.

The building lay derelict for nearly 10 years.

A view of The Winter Palace Garden from Cuffe Street, 1969. Credit – Wiltshire Photographic Collection / NLI

It was proved to be a long-lasting eyesore, slowly wasting away.

The Winter Garden Palace, Sunday Independent (31 March 1974)

The building was finally demolished in 1975 and residential Cuffe Street was re-developed into a a six -lane dual carriageway. The historic Bricklayers’ Hall was also pulled down for the same reason. A gaping hole on Cuffe Street still remains to this day.

The derelict Winter Palace Garden, c. late 1960s/early 1970s.

Youth culture in Dublin is a reoccurring theme on the blog, from the Beat Clubs to the Teddy Boys.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of The Grove Social Club, an important local disco with a difference on Dublin’s northside which ran for an incredible three decades. A proudly alternative disco, this Raheny night achieved something of a legendary status, with the Northside People noting that it was “a safe haven for Northside teens; a melting pot where rockers could hang with Mods, Goths, geeks, hippies and Cureheads.” The club has inspired a dedicated website which tells its story, not to mention television documentaries and radio features. The club was such a part of the northside that one journalist was moved to write in the early 90s that “anyone between the ages of 15 and 40 living north of the Liffey has its name emblazoned on their souls.”

Evening Herald, December 1993.

The Grove club owed its very existence to Cecil Nolan, who the writer Tara Delaney would honour as “the man whose disco-spinning nursed generations through spots, break-ups and exam stress”. Emerging out of members of the Belgrove Football Club, Cecil was a natural DJ fit for the new local endeavor, already known locally as ‘The Music Man’ for his eclectic collection of records. He later recalled that “I played whatever I wanted because I knew there was a market out there for it and if it failed,well I didn’t care, at least I was enjoying myself.”

Beginning life at the Belgrove Football Club on Mount Prospect Avenue in 1967, it immediately acquired a reputation as a night with a difference. Attendees of the club remember the unique music it offered, from Led Zeppelin to Deep Purple, and from Elmore James’ Dust My Broom to Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale. Much like DJ Paul Webb would recall Dublin’s Hirschfeld Centre as a break from “the same twenty clubs up on Leeson or Harcourt St all playing the same twenty songs” in the 1980s, The Grove introduced young suburban Dubliners in the 1960s to entirely new music, far removed from that in the charts. Following a fire at Belgrove, it moved to St Paul’s school in Raheny in the mid 1970s, though it retained its original name through subsequent decades. A recent video marking the fiftieth anniversary of the club shows its St Paul’s hall, with Cecil recalling his memories of the place:

Moral panic around youth discos in the 1960s was very real; readers of one newspaper were warned in 1967 that “a young boy or girl put on the way to becoming regular drinkers can only finish up as moral wrecks.” Plenty of column inches were lost on purple hearts and marijuana. Yet while plenty of newspaper ink went on that, there were also advertisements from young men and women looking to rent spaces across the city for discos.  In an affectionate remembrance piece on the youth discos of 1970s Dublin, the journalist Niall Bourke recalled how “your arse wouldn’t touch the ground until you hit the tarmac of the car park outside if you were found in possession of any dodgy substances.” It would be foolish to suggest drink wasn’t a factor in it all – Jason Duffy recalled “finishing off a few drinks in St. Anne’s Park before making our way into St. Paul’s” – but anyone who thought it the main attraction of a night out missed the point.

Whenever a journalist did darken the door of a youth disco, they found them to be places of community and enjoyment, and well-needed escapism from school and the stresses of life. The Grove in particular had a transformative effect for many, with broadcaster Marty Whelan (who met his wife at the club) recalling:

Every time I hear certain songs I’m right back there remembering the Grove. There was just a vibe. I think a place like that is special because someone like Cecil,who was from another generation, came up and related to every teenager who went over a thirty year period.

Hard rock took over for a period, but as Bourke noted, Cecil “knew how to work a crowd…during his career he presented the different genres of metal, punk, gothic and grunge to the ever-enthusiastic punters who lapped it all up with absolute relish.” A discussion on a forum dedicated to the club gives a sense of its 1980s playlist. The Damned and Motorhead competed for time against The Smiths, XTC and 10cc. Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne is recalled too, presumably a ‘slow dance and snog’ type of number. The last song played at The Grove in 1997 was Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, a classic teenage angst anthem which includes the line “Here we are now, entertain us.” For thirty years, The Grove entertained without disappointment.

In 2006, RTÉ produced a True Lives feature special entitled The Grove: More Than A Feeling. Including contributions from RTÉ’s own Eileen Dunne, Marty Whelan and the comedian Brendan Bourke, it was a nostalgic but important piece of social history. It captured the sense of community which existed – and continues to exist – around the club. Reunion nights, instigated by former Grover Andy Colbert and featuring the original club DJ Cecil Nolan, have ensured that the community remains today.

A Grove Reunion Poster.

As well as inspiring documentary features and reunion nights, The Grove has even made its way into fiction. In the trailer for the award winning 2007 feature film 32A, the story of teenage years in the suburban Dublin of the late 70s and early 80s, the all-important question “are you going to The Grove tonight?” is asked:

We salute all involved on fifty years of a club culture in Dublin, and may their reunions continue long into the future!

For a membership card from The Grove, see this recent addition to The National Treasures project. My thanks to Dr. Linda King, with whom I am working on National Treasures, for putting the idea for this article into my head!