“What will the Christmas Monster bring? Geological cataclysms? Political Catastrophe? Economic Chaos? New World Order? Great Confusion? Energy Crisis? Atomic War? End of the World?” So reads the rear of an eight page pamphlet distributed outside the GPO in the run up to the Christmas of 1973 by a group calling themselves the “Children of God.”  The leaflet heralded the arrival of the Comet Kohoutek and the group’s belief in the impending apocalypse.

Comet Kohoutek was discovered on March 7th 1973. Astronomers predicted that it would be the brightest “naked eye comet” since Halleys’ passed in 1910. Dubbed the “Comet of the Century” by the media, much like the recent Comet Ison, predictions fell well short of the mark, and rather than the spectacular show the world was promised, Kohoutek proved to be a bit of a let down, with the Wall Street Journal calling it at the time “a disappointment to sky-watchers, if not a fizzle.”

Front page of pamphlet handed out by the Children of God at the GPO, 1974. Scanned and uploaded by CHTM!

The Children of God were a fundamentalist Christian sect founded in 1968 in California by David Brandt Berg. “Moses David” as he was known within the group, declared himself to be “God’s Prophet for this time.” The organisation had an estimated 165 “colonies” in late 1973, with a presence from London to Paris, Florence to Liverpool and from their headquarters in Dallas, Texas to Dublin, Cork and Belfast. In order to show devotion to the organisation, followers were expected to live a communal existence in their “colony,” obey communiques from their leader (known as “Mo Letters”) , adopt Biblical names and refuse to accept secular employment. Marriage was promoted amongst members, but couples were far from monogamous, and rumours of child abuse in the organisation were rife.

According to a Des Hickey article in the Sunday Independent, September 16th 1973,  a Children of God colony was active in Dublin and based themselves out of a two storey house in Rialto. There were ten members of the organisation living in the house, including a 22 year old named Zibeon, his American wife Aphia,  20 year old Parable, and his English wife Magdala. Both Zibeon and Parable were Irish, Zibeon having attended Blackrock College, before going to the North for University, though both men spoke with “indeterminate American accents.”

Back page of same pamphlet. Scanned and uploaded by CHTM!

The month after the article was written, a bus belonging to the group (which had at one stage been used as the London Headquarters of the organisation), caught fire whilst parked on Nutley Lane in Donnybrook. “Gardaí at the time could not tell if the fire was malicious or not.” (Irish Independent, 17^th October, 1973.) Given that the group were looked upon suspiciously by established churches in the country, it’s doubtful arson could be ruled out. Several religious organisations spoke out against the groups “eccentricities and questionable characteristics” (Presbyterian Church notes in the Irish Times, December 6, 1972.). A 1984 meeting in Malahide proclaimed young people were at grave risk from cults operating in Ireland, and included the Children of God (alongside the Mormons and Opus Dei) on their watch list.

Throughout the early half of the Seventies, the organisation grew to approximately one hundred members in Ireland. At one point there were 27 members, both male and female, living in a house in Clontarf. Their main work consisted of distributing/ selling literature and “rehabilitating” drug addicts and alcoholics; “converting” them and asking them to give up their worldly possessions to the organisation. Judging from the fact that the address given on the Kohoutek pamphlet published here was a P.O. Box in Fairview, it’s possible that they were living here by the end of 1973, although the organisation had also based itself in different locations around the city, including Rathmines, Portmarnock and Miltown according to the Sunday Independent, 3^rd December 1978. Moses David never paid the Dublin colony a visit but did, according to the same report, issue them with upwards of 500 letters, “with instructions ranging from how to brush their teeth to what music they should listen to.”

Des Hickey, Sunday Independent, September 16th 1973

The pamphlet handed out at the GPO largely contained gibberish, proclamations and counter proclamations of impending doom or salvation, warnings that the apocalypse will happen either in forty or eighty days, or as seen below, some time in 1986. Some of the more ‘interesting’ quotes:

“According to our own calculations, 1986 should be about the time of the final takeover of One World Government by a world dictator known as the “Anti-Christ” and the beginning of his reign of terror!”

“For the heat of the comet shall be sevenfold, and men shall gnaw their tongues for pain for the travail that shall come upon them when the Lord shall arise to shake terribly the Earth! Thank You for the words Thou hast given their father! In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

The pamphlet also includes these two pages of useful survival tactics, along with instructions to “pray and stay close to the Lord!” The opening paragraph of these pages ends with the following line:

Are you even ready for the riots, the sabotage, the wrecking of utilities, the blowing up of your bank, the cutting off of your electricity and water, the problems of sewage and garbage disposal and food and gasoline rationing and shortages of all kinds is a state of emergency, and the brutality of martial law under the reign of terror of a military dictatorship of a dying nation that has forgotten God? What will YOU do?

Children of God Survival Tactics, click to zoom. Scanned and uploaded by CHTM!

The main focus for the group seems to have surrounded Comet Kohoutek, and reports about the organisation die out after this event, with the trail for the Children of God going cold around 1978. At the beginning of the eighties, there was apparently a small community in Mountjoy Square, but these fled the country to Argentina in 1981 under fear of another impending apocalypse proclaimed by Moses David.  A couple of newspaper reports appear in 1993, of a Dublin man taking his wife to court for custody of their daughter, whom she had taken without his knowledge to live with the Buenes Aires branch, now known as “The Family.”

This Post wouldn’t have been possible were it not for Harry Warren loaning us the pamphlet. Cheers H!

Advertisements like the one above for The Indian Store were quite commonplace in 1930s newspapers, appearing not only in An Phoblacht and the republican media, but also in mainstream publications like the Irish Press. The Indian Store sold a variety of produce inspired by India, or in some cases imported from the country. This advertisement is interesting because it attempts to ride the wave of the ‘Boycott British’ movement at the time, something we’ve looked at on the site before, in a feature on the ‘Boycott Bass’ campaign.

Republican newspapers gave very significant coverage to Indian affairs at the time, with An Phoblacht proclaiming in June 1933 that “the terror of the Tans, hidden from the eyes of the world, is sweeping over India. Indian revolutionaries, jailed for their activities, against British rule, protesting against their treatment by hunger strike, have been killed by forcible feeding.” Sympathy for Indian nationalism had existed in Irish nationalist circles long prior to the 1930s. Helena Molony, in a detailed statement to the Bureau of Military History about her involvement in revolutionary politics, remembered that the women’s group Inghinidhe na hÉireann had flypostered Dublin with posters in honour of Indian nationalist Madan Lal Dhingra, who was executed for assassinating a British official in 1909. From the gallows, Madan Lal Dhingra stated that “I believe that a nation held down by foreign bayonets is in a perpetual state of war.” He was executed at Pentonville Prison, the same prison where Roger Casement was hanged in 1916.

Back to the advertisement. This image of Maud Gonne MacBride was taken around the same time this ad appeared in the media, in the early 1930s. It should be noted that while her placard simply calls on passersby to “Boycott British Goods”, another placard is visible behind her expressing solidarity with India.

Maud Gonne MacBride protesting on O’Connell Bridge in the early 1930s.

The shop appears to have been based on Moore Street for a period in the 1930s, a street that today includes multiple Indian restaurants and international shops. The most interesting reference to the shop I can find in the archives comes from the Irish Press in May 1933, who reported that the owner of the shop was a relative of Gandhi:

By this point of 2013, many people are perhaps suffering from Lockout fatigue.

The so-called ‘Decade of Centenaries’ however is only in its infancy, with the anniversaries of historic moments like World War I, the Easter Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War all still ahead of us. Throw in the fact that next year will mark a thousand years since the Battle of Clontarf, and you can only come to the conclusion that ‘commemoration’ is a word we will all be hearing plenty of for the foreseeable future. For all the controversies in the press around how 2016 should be marked, it must be remembered it is a relatively easy affair for the state to commemorate events that are so distant from us in there here and now.

All of which got me thinking, how was the Easter Rising marked in Dublin in the years immediately after the event? In particular, how was it marked in 1917? A year on from the rebellion, and before the outbreak of the War of Independence, was the event marked at all, or did authorities prevent any marking of the painfully recent past? With much of Sackville Street still in ruins, and some prisoners still in English jails, did the republican movement seize the anniversary as a propaganda opportunity? Looking at newspaper reports, as well as the testimony of some participants in events, they certainly did.

Postcard showing the intense damage to Sackville Street, issued in 1916.

On 6 April 1917, a proclamation was issued by General Sir Brian Mahon, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in Ireland, and posted at the different police barracks in Dublin. It was a clear attempt at preventing any commemorative gatherings in the city during the week marking the anniversary of the uprising. It noted that “between Sunday, the 8th day of April, 1917, and Sunday, the 15th day of April, 1917″ any assembly of persons for the purpose of the holding of meetings would amount to to a breach of the peace and would likely serve to “promote disaffection”. Under the Defence of the Realm Regulations, Mahon’s proclamation made it clear there would be no tolerance for unapproved gatherings, ending with the words ‘God Save the King’.

Easter Sunday 1917 was reportedly very quiet in Dublin, with The Irish Times proclaiming that, if anything, there were fewer people on the streets of the capital than on a regular Sunday. This was not attributed to appalling weather conditions. An exception to the rule was Glasnevin Cemetery, where it was noted an “exceptionally large number of persons” had been attending the graves of some who had died a year previously. The paper noted that remembrance wreaths and flowers had been placed on some of the graves, though it is unclear if these graves were predominantly of republican participants or civilians who had died.

On Easter Monday itself, all eyes were firmly on Sackville Street. It was reported in the following days newspapers that small crowds had gathered on the street from early in the morning anticipating something, and The Irish Times reported that:

Towards 9 o’clock in the morning excitement and speculation were aroused by the discovery that the Sinn Féin flag had been hoisted surreptitiously on the staff which stood on the south-east corner of the General Post Office before the rebellion, and survived the effects of bombardment on that occasion. The flag floated at half mast.

The flag fell down the pole at one stage, but by twelve noon a larger crowd had gathered on the streets and there was an incident that attracted the attention of all gathered, as a man walked across the parapet of the General Post Office and raised the flag once more. The paper reported that this was a signal “for an outburst of cheering, and various other demonstrations of approval on a wide scale.” The raising of the flag over the General Post Office once more was followed by another highly symbolic act, as republicans raised what was also reported to be a “Sinn Féin flag” from the top of the Nelson Pillar. The monument, erected to one of the heroes of the British public, had long been detested by republicans, and Nelson himself took a bullet or two during the Easter Rising. A police constable removed the flag from the Pillar, but the focus of the crowd shifted to other sites in the city as the day went on, and it was reported that some made their way down Middle Abbey Street towards Liberty Hall, which was still badly damaged as a result of firing from the Helga warship a year earlier.

The viewing platform of the Nelson Pillar, seen from the General Post Office. A repubican flag from flown from here in 1917.

Defiantly, some Dubliners wore symbols of commemoration upon their own clothing. Black bands were reportedly worn by some in the crowd at Sackville Street, while others wore “ribbons of the Sinn Féin colours.”

It was noted that the rubble of the rebellion was used by some youths to attack the police, with stone-throwing on Sackville Street from about 4 o’clock, and an Inspector and Superintendent were reportedly struck. A number of young men, “wearing republican badges”, appealed to youths to desist in throwing stones, but they continued for some time, even smashing the windows of a military guard passing through Abbey Street. This kind of behaviour was condemned by The Irish Times as “the lower element seeking to let itself loose in honour of Easter Week.” As a result of clashes between youths and police, it was reported that eight civilians and four police men were treated for injuries at Jervis Street hospital. The newspaper also reported that “young roughs” had attacked the Methodist Church in Lower Abbey Street in the melee, breaking a number of windows and doing considerable damage.

Helena Molony, a participant in the rebellion, recalled that the production of the flags that were raised in 1917 was carried out by female republicans. She herself, as well as Winfired Carney, secretary to James Connolly a year earlier, were part of a small core group of women at Liberty Hall behind the making of the flags. She recalled that:

We made the flags-three, measuring six feet by four and a half feet. There was a very nice sailor from Glasgow called Morran, who looked at the flagstaff in the G.P.O. and said: “We could get a flag on that. I will do it, and they won’t get it off in a hurry”.

Molony had ambitions of raising similar flags at other locations which had been occupied by rebels, such as the College of Surgeons. It had been taken by members of the Irish Citizen Army during the uprising, in the aftermath of the disastrous decision to occupy Stephen’s Green, which was open to fire from neighbouring tall buildings. Michael Mallin had been in control of the men and women who were positioned there, and the building today still bears very clear damage from the firefight of 1916. She remembered:

Madeleine French Mullen and I went to the college of Surgeons for the purpose of hanging out a flag there. Our difficulty was to carry the flag, without being noticed. Madeleine had a loose tweed coat on her, and, being rather slim, she wrapped it round and round her. I. was rather slim too, but had no loose coat. As we were coming by Clarendon Street, Madeleine thought she felt the flag getting loose. I said: “Hold on. We will go into the Church” – Clarendon Street Church. We went in, and, with a few safety-pins, we made it secure. I think it was a false alarm anyway….We could not get into the College of Surgeons. We went into a lady’s flat in the house opposite, and put the flag out. She was one of our sympathisers, but I forget her name now. We did not take the same precautions with that flag. If we succeeded in putting it out the window, and if it hung for an hour, we felt it would be all right.

The symbolic raising of tricolour flags was not confined to Dublin, as the Freeman’s Journal reported similar scenes in Cork and Mullingar. In Cork, “300 or 400 persons” reportedly marched through the streets of the city, saluting at City Hall where the municipal flag had vanished in favour of the tricolour. The commemoration in Dublin was not restricted to the raising of flags however, as there was also an organised reprinting of the 1916 proclamation. Helena Molony alleges that some of the type print used for the 1916 proclamation was used in a 1917 equivalent, noting:

Having decided to post up the proclamation, we got facsimiles of it made. We got that printed by Walker, the Tower Press man. I did all the ordering for that. When Walker was printing the proclamation, he was a bit short of type, and he came to me. As is well known,the proclamation of 1916 had been printed in Liberty Hall. In the subsequent destruction of Liberty Hall, the type had been all smashed up, and thrown about. Nobody had cleared it up. I said to Walker: “There may be some type in the corner here”. He came down with his son; and he picked up a number of letters that he was short of. They were actually used in the 1917 proclamation.

The 1916 proclamation, which was reprinted in 1917 by republicans.

A very interesting blog post on the website Typefoundry has looked at the 1916 proclamation in some detail, and includes the words of Joseph Bouch, who wrote a study of the proclamation and the printing of it in 1936. Bouch wrote of the 1917 proclamation in some detail, and his story fits with regards to the recollections of Molony:

Mr. Walker (senior) and his son Mr. Frank Walker, employees of Mr. Joseph Stanley, a well-known Dublin printer, were the actual printers of this rare publication, and the order was given, by one of these women, for a re-issue which should bear more than a close resemblance to the original. Here again these two men had to work through the whole of Good Friday and part of Saturday, in the workshop at Upper Liffey Street, to fulfil their promise to carry out the order in time to allow of its distribution and posting. Such type as remained in the workshop at the rere [sic] of the “Co-op.” in Liberty Hall was collected, and it is of undoubted interest to relate that the same old fount was here again used for the second occasion. Naturally all the type sent out by West of Capel Street in the first instance could not be collected, but as much as possible was gathered and handed over to the printers. As results turned out they succeeded very well.

Molony and others posted the proclamation around the city, with flour paste made from glue, jam pots of which were used by teams of willing republicans all over the city. Molony remembered that “one poster in Grafton Street stayed up for six or eight months”

This was a task not limited to female republicans. Edward Dolan, a member of the Hibernian Rifles, recalled taking part in the same act, as well as raising the tricolour flag over the headquarters of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Dublin. The Hibernian Rifles were a small armed group who partook in the rebellion the year previously, affiliated to the A.O.H, a strictly Roman Catholic political association founded in the United States by Irish migrants in the 1830s. Historian Padraig Óg O Ruiarc has correctly noted that the A.O.H, still active today, could be described as a “sectarian, conservative, Catholic and nationalist body.”

Dolan, in a statement to the Bureau of Military History, remembered his role in Easter 1917:

Some time in the latter part of 1916, I joined the remnants of the Hibernian Rifles at the headquarters of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (Clan na Gael), 28 North Frederick Street. On the anniversary of the Rising in Easter 1917, I was mobilised and remained on duty that night in North Frederick Street. I assisted in the posting up of copies of the 1916 Proclamation and the erection of the Tricolour on the roof of No. 28.

Dublin Corporation marked the anniversary of the Rising in its own way, by passing a motion calling for an amnesty for Irish prisoners. Easter Week passed off relatively quietly on the whole, but female activists were to the fore in commemorating the anniversaries of executions in its aftermath, and bringing the issue back to the fore. On 12 May, the anniversary of the execution of James Connolly, a banner was hung across Liberty Hall in commemoration of the Edinburgh socialist.

Once again Helena Molony participated in this act of defiance, joined by Rosie Hackett and others. Hackett, whose name has recently been chosen for the new bridge spanning the River Liffey, remembered this evident in her own statement to the Bureau of Military History:

On the occasion of the first anniversary of Connolly’s death, the Transport people decided that he would be honoured. A big poster was put up on the Hall, with the words: “James Connolly Murdered, May 12th, 1916″.

It was no length of time up on the Hall, when it was taken down by the police, including Johnny Barton and Dunne. We were very vexed over it, as we thought it should have been defended. It was barely an hour or so up, and we wanted everybody to know it was Connolly’s anniversary. Miss Molony called us together- Jinny Shanahan, Brigid Davis and myself. Miss Molony printed another script. Getting up on the roof, she put it high up, across the top parapet. We were on top of the roof for the rest of the time it was there. We barricaded the windows. I remember there was a ton of coal in one place, and it was shoved against the door in cause they would get in. Nails were put in.

Police were mobilised from everywhere, and more than four hundred of them marched across from the Store Street direction and made a square outside Liberty Hall. Thousands of people were watching from the Quay on the far side of the river. It took the police a good hour or more before they got in, and the script was there until six in the evening, before they got it down.

It’s clear from looking at these events in Dublin that the question of just how the Easter Rising should be commemorated is one people were asking themselves even before the first shots of the War of Independence were fired. As politicians gather on O’Connell Street at 2016 to pay lip-service to the events and individuals of a century ago, I think I will take the chance to stand on the Rosie Hackett bridge and think of her actions in 1917.

Enjoying the view from the top of the Pillar.

All help in spreading this post is appreciated.

For the last number of years, I’ve been researching the Pillar and its impact on Dubliners and Dublin life. I’m as interested in the memory of the monument, and the various rows over its replacement, as the Pillar itself. I’m hopeful of doing something with my work in the very near future, but now that it is at the final hurdle, I want to issue an appeal to people for personal images and stories.

In recent years, one of my favourite works on Dublin history has been the Hi Tone produced Where Were You, a history of Dublin street style. I liked it because it put people themselves at the heart of the work. Just like the way old photographs have survived of Dubliners in jackets they now maybe wish they never bought (or in some cases, still haven’t taken off!), I know there are hundreds of photographs across the city of people and the Pillar.

I’d be very grateful to anyone who makes contact with
a) Personal images of themselves/relatives at the monument.
b) Other items of interest, such as chunks of the monument in family ownership, or miscenalious bits and pieces like artwork.
c) Proposed alternatives for the site they themselves put forward at competititon level.

You can contact me via donalfallondublin(at)gmail(dot)com. As ever with Come Here To Me and its related projects, thank you to everyone for your support to date.

We are very pleased and excited to announce we will be hosting an evening of music, talk, film and more on 30 December at P.Mac’s pub on Lower Stephen’s Street. It is all part of Visit Dublin’s ‘Dublin Genius’ day of events, and it is totally free to attend.

For anyone wondering just where P.Mac’s is, it is the former Bia Bar, opposite the Hairy Lemon. Our event runs there from 5 to 7pm. A Facebook event for the evening can be viewed here.

We’re still finalising the line-up, but so far we feel we have put together a mix of music, history and more that captures the spirit of CHTM and should make for an interesting two hours.

Firstly, the music line-up:

Pete Holidai (Image Credit: peteholidai.com)

Pete Holidai plays with the Trouble Pilgrims and was a member of the classic Irish punk band The Radiators From Space. We have a lot of love for The Radiators on this website, see for example Sam’s ‘Dublin Punk & New Wave Singles Timeline 1977-1983′.

Lynched. (Image Credit: Irene Siragusa, via Lynched FB)

Lynched describe themselves as ‘local folk miscreants’. Having begun by performing their own folk-punk numbers, in recent years they’ve taken on many Dublin traditional songs and given them a new lease of life. Most recently I saw them perform on the same bill as Barry Gleason, and we’re big fans of what they are doing with Irish folk music.

We have a few interesting speakers lined-up, to give short talks on the subject of Dublin through the ages.

Dead Interesting by Shane MacThomais.

Shane MacThomais is the resident historian of Glasnevin Cemetery, and author of several works on Dublin’s history, most recently Dead Interesting: Stories from the Graveyards of Dublin. He is the son of legendary Dublin historian Éamonn MacThomais, and he’ll be chatting about how Dublin has changed over the years, mostly for the better.

‘Little Ada Cowper visits the Royal Panopticon of Science & Art, Dublin, 1867′ – A post from Jacolette, February 2013.

One of the most rewarding things about Come Here To Me! has been coming into contact with others online who are also doing interesting things with history. Orla Fitzpatrick is a photo historian who runs the Jacolette blog. ‘A gallery of Irish snapshot and vernacular photography’, it features many weird and wonderful pictures of Dublin, and Dubliners, through the ages.

The Destruction of Dublin – Frank McDonald

Few people have championed the cause of Dublin like Frank McDonald, journalist with The Irish Times and author of several works on the city, its architecture and planning. We’ll be chatting to the author of The Destruction of Dublin about how things are since the release of that classic book, and the state of the city today.

Quadrophenia advertisement at Ambassador. Handpainted by Kevin Freeney (Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gentlemanofletters/)

We are also very pleased to announce we’ll be showing the short-film Gentlemen of Letters. This new short film from Colin Brady looks at a longstanding Dublin tradition of signpainting, from the days of Dublin legend Kevin Freeney right up to Maser and modern artists in the city.

The Cabra Grand Cinema once upon a time.

On 17 April 1949, the Cabra Grand Cinema on Quarry Road was formally opened. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, John Breen, opened the 1,600 seat cinema by cutting a tricolour ribbon with a pair of gold scissors. The cinema was designed by Samuel Lyons, and in a move that captured the spirit of the time, the building was blessed by a priest from the nearby Christ the King Church in Cabra. After the formalities, the comedy Sitting Pretty was shown. The first two films listed at the cinema in newspaper advertisements (the below advertisement appeared the day after the opening) both featured Maureen O’Hara, and the cinema boasted that it was “equipped with the latest RCA sound system”, to give cinema goers a top class experience.

Advertisement for the new cinema.

The first manager of the cinemas was Louis Marie, an interesting individual who had seen action during the revolutionary period. Marie had been a member of the Fianna Éireann republican boy scout organisation, and took part in the Easter Rising in 1916. His name appears in a few of the statements given by participants in the Rising to the Bureau of Military History. Gearoid Ua h-Uallachain, who took part in the attack on the Phoenix Park magazine fort at the beginning of the rebellion, noted that “Louis Marie, manager of a picture-house”, was among those involved. One newspaper article from the time of the cinemas opening claimed that Louis had served in both the French Army and the Irish Army.

Just over a year after its opening, there were very ugly scenes at the cinema, which saw shots fired by Gardaí over the heads of a reactionary mob. Two women had to seek refuge in the cinema, after they had attracted the scorn of hundreds of local people. They had been going door to door with a “peace petition” calling for the banning of the atomic bomb, and residents believed them to be members of a communist organisation. The Irish Press reported on 25 July 1950:

GARDAI from many parts of the city were hurriedly picked up by patrol cars and rushed to Quarry Road, Cabra, last night, to disperse a hostile crowd of nearly a thousand people who had surrounded the Cabra Grand Cinema and threatened two women who had taken refuge there. Weapons brandished and thrown included sticks, stones, bricks and bottles. One Garda, as he was pushing through the shouting and jostling mass, was struck by a brick in the back, but was not seriously injured. To force the crowd away from the cinema doors, which had been closed, Gardai had to draw batons and a number of shots were fired over the crowd’s heads…. The incident had its beginning shortly after nine o’clock when the two women concerned were apparently canvassing in the Quarry Road’area for signatures in connection with a “peace petition” to ban the atomic bomb.It appears that as they were going from house to house the impression that they were members of a Communist organisation got around and they were soon surrounded by a hostile crowd.

There was more drama at the cinema in 1953 when it was held up by two men armed with what appeared to be a pistol. At the time of the robbery the cinema was showing The Apparition, a religious film which was being screened as a fundraiser for the African Missions of the Holy Ghost Fathers. £6 10s was taken on that occasion.

By the late 1950s, television was the big fear for the owners of Dublin’s suburban cinemas. The biggest problem for cinema in Ireland, one official warned in 1959, “would be the advent of television on a national basis.” Many of Dublin’s suburban cinemas closed their doors throughout the 1960s and 70s, but others took on a new lease of life as centres of their communities. Jim Keenan notes in his study of Dublin cinemas historically that “by the late 1960s, the Grand has become economically unviable and it closed on 31 January 1970. The last film shown there was The Big Gundown.” The Cabra cinema was purchased by Gael Linn in 1975, and like other suburban Dublin cinemas it became both a bingo hall and a concert venue.

Ticket to the Ramones gig at the Grand. Uploaded to the brilliant Facebook page ‘Classic Dublin Gigs’ by James Aquafredda Sr.

The old Cabra cinema witnessed a number of celebrated, and in some cases infamous, rock concerts. Indeed, the behaviour of some youngsters after one gig led to a Dublin District Court decision that no more rock concerts could be held in the cinema in 1980. In November 1980 it was reported in the Irish Press that “Gardaí told the court that gangs of youths lay in wait to attack patrons of rock concerts at the cinema.” One source blamed the violence on a “Mod and Skinhead element in Cabra who are always fighting among themselves.” Four stabbings were reported after the legendary U.S punk band The Ramones played the venue. Joe Breen, a journalist with The Irish Times, rushed to the defence of the cinema by noting that the trouble had not only taken place after the gig, but had happened far from the venue. “There is enough trouble at gigs without it being invented”, he noted. Going into the gig, the organisers claimed that the 1,000 or so in attendance were frisked and even had their belts taken from them. Of the gig itself, Breen was far from blown away, writing that “the concert in the end was something of an anti-climax. The excitement had more to do with expectation than with experience.” The Ramones were no strangers to Dublin cinemas, haven performed two years earlier in the State Cinema, Phibsboro.

Siouxsie and the Banshees, who performed in Cabra in 1980.

Siouxsie and the Banshees played the same venue soon afterwards in 1980. A comment on this very blog from a reader by the name ‘PJM’ recalled this gig, noting that the band abandoned the stage with no encore owing to the “crowd trying to get on stage and bouncers not stopping them.” 1980 was a good year for gigs at the venue, with Duran Duran also playing the cinema. Fifteen years later, Boyzone took to the stage of the old cinema before a crowd of well over 1,000 young fans, with one reviewer noting that “the bingo machine could be partially seen lying behind the curtain.”

Today, the old cinema remains very much a part of the community around it, with regular bingo nights drawing huge crowds. It, and other once thriving cinemas, are an unusual feature of suburban architecture in Dublin, and hopefully the buildings will be preserved long into the future. Many local people have great memories of films, concerts and more at this venue and we’d love to hear from you in the comments section below if you’ve a story to tell about it.

Below is the predicted running order for today’s event. Be sure to get in early to reserve yourselves a spot!

5.05 – 5.20 – Screening of short film ‘Gentlemen of Letters’

5.20 – 5.35 – Shane MacThomais

5.35 – 5.50 – Orla Fitzpatrick

5.55 – 6.10 – Music from Pete Holidai

6.10 – 6.25 – Patrick Brocklebank & Sinead Moloney

6.25 – 6.40 – Frank McDonald

6.45 – 7.00 – Music from Lynched

For more information, please see our earlier blog post and the Facebook event. It is part of Visit Dublin’s ‘Dublin Genius’ day of events in various locations around the city. P Mac’s pub (previously the Bia Bar) is on Lwr. Stephen’s Street just opposite the Hairy Lemon.

Event poster

After nearly seventy years of business, independent family-owned Stein Opticians has closed its doors for the last time. Operating in the Harcourt/Camden Street area since 1944, the shop was opened by Dublin-born Mendel Stein who was born in 1915 and passed away in 2000.

Like many of Dublin’s first large wave of Jewish emigrants, Mendel’s family settled in the ‘Little Jerusalem’ area of Portobello/South Circular Road. By 1911, the family were living in 15 Victoria Street. Harry (29), a draper, and his wife Mary (29) lived with their two young children and Harry’s brother Isaac (35), also a draper. The Mendel’s employed a 55-year-old female servant named Mary-Anne McCormack.

Mendel, who was born four years after the census was taken, became heavily involved in sports and the scouting movement as a young man. In 1945, he established the Apollo gym with Paddy Whelan. Their membership spanned a cross-section of Irish society. He was also active with the Dublin Maccabi Sports Club, Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club and used to train daily right up until he was well into his 80s.

As featured on this blog last year, Mendel’s ophthalmic optician practice at 36 Harcourt Road became one of the most popular opticians in the city. Customers included Michael MacLiammoir, Hilton Edwards, Harry Kernoff and others at the heart of the Dublin art and theatre scene.

An epic David vs. Goliath fight broke out in 1983 when developers wanted to demolish his practice to make way for a new office block. From the earlier article it was noted that :

While other property owners and lessees of buildings due for demolition accepted the substantial compensation, Mendel decided that he wasn’t going to give in so easily. He said that he would not leave until they gave him a new shop in the immediate vicinity and a guarantee that his (beautiful) shopfront would be preserved.

Articles on the campaign from the time period can be viewed here.

Original architectural drawing for Stein’s new shop on Camden Market. Credit – Amelia Stein

Spurred on by local support, Mendel held out and eventually received a guarantee that the shop would be taken down intact and re-erected at a new location in nearby Grantham Street off Camden Street. It traded here for the next thirty years.

Stein Opticians, 1983. Flickr User – David Denny.

This shop eventually closed its doors for the last time on Christmas week 2013. Mendel’s daughter Amelia, who worked with her dad for many years and ran the business since his passing in 2000, now plans to concentrate on her photography. She told me that she would be referring her customers to Fitzpatricks opticians in Terenure. One of the few last remaining independent opticians in the city.

I went down on Thursday 19th December to take some pictures and to mark what is an end to an era.

Front of shop. Credit – Sam McGrath (CHTM!)

Interior. Credit – Sam McGrath (CHTM!)

Second interior shot. Credit – Sam McGrath (CHTM!)

Original eye chart. Credit – Sam McGrath (CHTM!)

Optical instrument. Credit – Sam McGrath (CHTM!)

Sign from first floor. Credit – Sam McGrath (CHTM!)

Original Eye now in storage. Credit – Sam McGrath (CHTM!)

Advertisements from various restaurants around the city included in the guide for the 1983 Dublin Theatre Festival.

Front cover showing a member of the Henan Acrobatic Troupe in their show ‘Barrell Game’:

Front cover. Scanned – Sam (CHTM!)

Solomon Grundy’s at 21 Suffolk Street opened in 1978 and closed in 1986. It offered middle-of-the-range American food fare like burgers and pizza. The premises later hosted Nude and now Tolteca (Mexican style grill).

Solomon Grundy’s. Scanned – Sam (CHTM!)

Blazes at 11/12 Lower Exchange Street in Temple Bar was a late night wine bar and restaurant. It opened (I think) in the early 1980s and closed in 1993. The building was demolished and the site today remains empty.

Blazes. Scanned by Sam (CHTM!).

18th Precinct at 18 Suffolk Street opened its doors in 1981 and closed in 1993. The building now hosts an Pacinos and their website notes that the restaurant:

…was developed and launched by then owner Sylvester Costello. Syl as he was better known planned and developed an all American themed restaurant serving steak, burgers, and salads like ranging in prices from 50p to £10. The 18th Precinct was twined and themed with a New York Police Department where all the waitresses and waiters dressed in police uniform and even had gun holsters on their person. It is rumoured that Syl even ran into trouble in JFK airport when he decided to bring lots of New York Police Memorabilia back from the states to Ireland including replica guns, nightsticks and handcuffs when stopped at customs. A plaque from the 18th Precinct New York Police department, having since been restored can be found on the wall in Pacino’s as recognition of that time.

18th Precinct. Scanned by Sam (CHTM!)

Bananas at 15 Upper Stephen’s Street was a self-service vegetarian restaurant opened by Muriel Goodwin and friends in late 1982. (More on the history of vegetarian restaurants in Dublin here). It now hosts the Restaurant Royale/The Snug Guesthouse which we reviewed a few years back.

Bananas. Scanned by Sam (CHTM!).

Captain America’s on Grafton Street is the only restaurant out of this list which is still open. Opened in 1971, it is still going strong after a staggering 43 years. We’ve featured Jim Fitzpatrick’s 1982 murals on the blog before.

Captain America’s. Scanned by Sam (CHTM!).

The Granary at 34-37 East Essex Street opened in the late 1970s and was then turned into Bad Bob’s in 1984. In 2006 it was bought over as the Purty Kitchen but was renamed Bad Bobs in March 2013. More on the building and Bad Bob’s recent claim that it is the oldest pub in Temple Bar can be found here.

The Granary. Scanned by Sam (CHTM!).

Le Parigot, a French restaurant, at 52 Lower o’Connell Street was based in the basement of Pizzaland. Little information is available online. It was certainly open by 1981 and I assume closed sometime in the mid to late 1980s. Eddie Rockets is now based in the premises.

Le Parigot. Scanned by Sam (CHTM!).

Finally, I thought it be worth sharing this list of theatres that were taking part in the festival.

Theatre list. Scanned by Sam (CHTM!).

For anyone in the city yesterday, the sight of the Liffey spilling out onto the streets of the capital was something to behold. It reminded me to go digging for one of my favourite images of the capital historically, in the form of this great 1807 illustration of a view of the River Liffey. The standout feature of the image of course is the ruins of the bridge. The Ormond Bridge, as it was known to Dubliners, was totally destroyed by flooding in 1802.

‘A South View on the River Liffey, Dublin, 1807′(Credit: British Library, http://www.bl.uk)

In G.N Wright’s An Historical Guide to the City of Dublin, there is a story told of how “A gentleman from the neighbourhood of Chapelizod was riding over at the time, and just as he arrived at a distance of ten or twelve feet from the quay, the arch before and the whole of the part he had passed gave way, when his horse with one spring cleared the chasm before him, and bore him to the opposite bank in safety.”

One interesting feature with the illustration is the manner in which day to day life is depicted, and two men can be seen relaxing against the remains of the destroyed quay wall! The bridge was eventually replaced, with the construction of the Richmond Bridge, erected between 1813 and 1816.

(All help with promoting this class is appreciated. I can be contacted via donalfallondublin@gmail.com)

Last year, myself and Dr. Irial Glynn put together a course with the Adult Education Department of U.C.D, looking at the hidden history of Dublin, and focused on social history and forgotten people from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It looked at issues like working class childhood in the city, Dublin’s history of prostitution, labour agitation in the capital and the tenement city.

It was a great experience, and we talked about it on RTE Radio One’s The History Show with Myles Dungan last year. You can listen to that feature here:

Irial has since moved on to academic pastures new, but I’m happy and excited to say the course is going ahead this February. Half the course is in class, and the other half is on the streets, with four walking tours of the city and suburbs.

It runs for four Tuesdays and four Saturdays, kicking off February 11th. Tuesday is an evening class, and Saturday is a walk from 11am to 1pm.

Please note that the listing below is a week off, and the class begins the following week, but here is the blurb:

Those interested in booking the class can do so by contacting the UCD Adult Education Department. I would be very grateful to anyone who shares this post with others they think may be interested in the class, in particular those who aren’t online.

Inspector John Mills became the first crown forces fatality since the Easter Rising after he was struck with a hurley by a member of Na Fianna Éireann outside the burnt out shell of Liberty Hall on 10 June 1917.

A photograph of the protest meeting at Beresford Place, and the arrest of Count Plunkett. June 1917. Credit – Keogh Photographic Collection, NLI.

Born in 1866, Millis from Dysart, Co. Westmeath, joined the Dublin Metropolitan Police at the age of 20. He was promoted to Sergeant in 1901 to Station Sergeant in 1908 and finally to Inspector in 1916.

In 1911, the family were living at 47 Leinster Street just off the Phibsboro Road as you come to Cross Guns Bridge (formerly Westmoreland Bridge). John and his Kilkenny-born wife Margaret lived with their three children – Florence (13), Ralph (8) and Hilda (6) – who were all in school. Teresa Gangan (22), a Book Keeper from Meath, and Donnchadh O’Duighneáin (29), a Civil Servant from Cork, were boarders in the Mills home. (It is interesting to note that this Protestant DMP Inspector was happy to let a boarder stay in his house who was a fluent Irish speaker and who spelt his name in Gaelic)

On 10 June 1917, Cathal Brugha and Count Plunkett led a group of around 2,000 Sinn Féin supporters into Beresford Place for a meeting called to protest against the detention and treatment of Easter Rising volunteers in Lewes Jail in East Essex, England. As Brugha began to address the crowd, Inspector John Mills and a detail of officers approached and declared the meeting illegal. Brugha and Plunkett ignored the order and scuffles broke out. The police attacked the crowd with batons and the two speakers were arrested.

A photograph of the protest meeting at Beresford Place, and the arrest of Count Plunkett. Credit – Keogh Photographic Collection, NLI.

As Mills was escorting Brugha and Plunket to nearby Store Street Police Station, sections of the crowd tried to break the men free. In the struggle, Mills was hit over the head with a hurley. This one blow proved fatal and he later died from his wounds in hospital.

A number of Bureau of Military History (BMH) Witness Statements (WS) refer to the assailant as a member of Na Fianna Éireann and of the so-called Surrey House clique. This was the term given to a number of Fianna boys who used to meet regularly at Countess Markievicz’s house in Leinster Road, Rathmines.

Seamus Pounch of Na Fianna Éireann who fought in Jacobs Biscuit Factory during the Easter Rising and was later Brigade Adjutant of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA was there on that day in Beresford Place. He wrote in his Witness Statement (no. 294) that:

The escape of the striker was covered by a companion who had an automatic to keep the police at a safe distance; one policeman who was gaining on them in Abbey Street would have met a serious accident only he fell at the sight of the gun and it had jammed.

The bloody conflict of the 1913 lockout that occurred only four years previously was still on people’s mind at the time as it was still on the mind of Seamus Pounch when he wrote his account in the late 1940s:

This (action) avenged the death of our comrade killed by by a blow of a police baton in the 1913 strike riots. This lad was kept in hiding amongst the clique and defied all attempts of arrest, and even big police rewards posted around the country had no results.

A number of female Republicans were asked to help the hide the boy from the authorities. Maeve Cavanagh of the Irish Citizen Army recalls in her Witness Statement (no. 258) that she was

asked to take charge of a wanted man, and bring him to another house. We did all we could do to alter his appearance and I brought him safely to the house. He was never got. Of course murder was never intended at all. It was a blow struck in the heat of a fight.

Others recalled that the boy’s blow was not meant to kill. Rose McNamara of Cumann na mBan in Witness Statement (no. 482) said:

We knew the lad who dealt the blow. He had no intention of killing the Inspector and we prayed hard that he would not be caught and he was not.

Another woman who helped the boy get safely to America was Aine Ceant (widow of Eamon) of Sinn Fein and Cumann na mBan. She wrote in her Witness Statement (no. 264) that her:

… sister Lily arrived home and told me about the incident. She had scarcely taken her tea when a message came that she was wanted to take charge of the Fianna boy who did this deed, and that she was to bring him to a place of safety. Lily O’Brennan went, took charge of the Fianna boy, linked him along and discovered to her horror that she was well acquainted with him, which would have put her in an awkward position, had she been called to give evidence of the incident. The boy was subsequently got away to America.

Garry Holohan (WS no. 336) names the boy who struck Inspector Mills as ‘Eamon Murray’. I though initially that this was the same person known as ‘Ernie Murray’, listed as Company Commander of No. 3 Company (Inchicore area) of Na Fianna in the August 1915 to April 1916 period, but I don’t think this is the case now. See below for more details.

Seamus Reader (IRB and Na Fianna Glasgow) recalled in his Witness Statement (no. 627) that Eamon Murray came over to Scotland with a number of Dublin Na Fianna boys in late 1915 to help their counterparts over there organise some a raid. In January 1916, Murray and Seamus Reader (no. 1767) traveled to Glasgow on a gun-running trip. They returned to Dublin via Belfast with 10 revolvers, 100 rounds of ammuntion 100 detonators, 20 feet of fuse and 7 lbs. of explosives.

During the Easter Rising, Murray was one of 30-40 people who took part in the Magazine Fort attack.

After the killing of Mills in June 1917 and before he was sent to America, Murray was hid briefly in Countess Markievicz’s house in Leinster Road, Rathmines.

Undated photograph of Fianna Eireann scouts with Countess Markievicz and little girl. Credit – Keogh Photographic Collection, NLI

When she was arrested, he was taken into the care of Miss Dulcibella Barton (no. 936) at her house in Annamoe, County Wicklow. Here, he slept in “a summer house in the Garden as the house was full”. However he got appendicitis but recovered to full health and then was able to make his way to America.

Murray was sheltered in America until the Truce in 1921 . He then returned to Ireland and fought with the anti-Treaty IRA during the Civil War. Garry Holohan states that he then joined the “Civic Guards” (Garda Síochána) which seems odd as only a few years had passed since he had killed a police officer. I assume a number of Inspector Mill’s colleague’s would been in the ranks of the Garda Síochána at this stage which would have certainly made things awkward.

Murray then “lost his reason” according to Holohan and at the time of writing his statement in 1950, he noted that Murray was currently a patient of Grangegorman Hospital. This is where the trail ends.

During my research, I did come across a journalist named Ernie Murray who was involved in the Na Fianna and died in 1973. See obituary below:

Ernie Murray (IT, 27 Jan 1973)

This doesn’t sound like a man who suffered some sort of mental brekadown sometime in the 1930s or 1940s and was an inmate of  St. Brendan’s psychiatric hospital in Grangegorman. by 1950. So it looks likely in fact that Eamon Murray and Ernie Murray were both separate volunteers with Na Fianna in Dublin in the same period.

If you have anymore information on Eamon Murray or photographs of either himself or Inspector John Mills, please get in touch.

Willie Bermingham (Image: Dublin City Public Libraries)

Dublin City Council yesterday made a decision to rename Tara St. Fire Station after the late Willie Bermingham, founder of the ALONE charity and a Dublin firefighter during his lifetime. I have huge admiration for Willie as a figure in Dublin history who championed the cause of the poor, elderly and marginalized. When we ran our first CHTM charity walking tours, we donated the money to ALONE. To mark the occasion of the renaming of the fire station in some way, we’re posting this brilliant archive footage of Willie at work, which was uploaded by ALONE to YouTube and deserves more attention:

Willie wrote his own obituary, something we have posted on the site before but which is worth re-posting again. I’ve always enjoyed the line about teaching bureaucrats a little manners.

Willie Bermingham landed at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin 29th March, five years before the big snow of 1942.

One of a family of seven with a father -a farmer, merchant, dealer, turf cutter, scrap man or just a hard worker, and a mother- a great woman to milk cows, feed pigs, cut turf or feed the nation.

Educated at Goldenbridge, St Michael’s Inchicore, on the streets, in the bog and at the university of life itself. Married with 5 children from 17-5 years. Hobbies include hoarding junk and curios and foreign travel.

Joined the Dublin Fire Brigade in 1964 and spent a long time pushing for the pension. Favourite food, good old irish stew and lots of fish. For breakfast several mugs of tea at work. Also loves to eat lots of red tape to teach the bureaucrats a little manners.

The best way to remember Willie is to continue to look out for the old and the needy. You can donate to ALONE here.

It’s not every day that the events of almost a century ago make the front page of The Irish Times, but today a participant in the Easter Rising had the honour. Margaret Skinnider, an Irish Citizen Army participant in the rebellion, featured in the paper today as she was denied a pension in the years following the rebellion, on the basis that as a woman she could not qualify as a ‘soldier’, as the term was “applicable to soldiers as generally understood in the masculine sense”. The pension applications of participants in the revolutionary period have only just been released online, and are truly a treasure trove of information you can expect to hear a lot more about here over the coming months!

Image of Margaret Skinnider taken from ‘Doing My Bit For Ireland’ (New York,1917)

‘Doing My Bit For Ireland’, published in New York, 1917.

In her introduction, written in the United States, she noted:

When the revolt of a people that feels itself oppressed is successful, it is written down in history as a “revolution” as in this country in 1776. When it fails, it is called an “insurrection” as in Ireland in 1916. Those who conquer usually write the history of the conquest. For that reason the story of the “Dublin Insurrection” may become legendary in Ireland, where it passes from mouth to mouth, and may remain quite unknown throughout the rest of the world, unless those of us who were in it and yet escaped execution, imprisonment, or deportation, write truthfully of our personal part in the rising of Easter week.

Perhaps Skinnider’s memoirs, as a historical source of merit, are due a modern reprint.

The Daily Capital (Oregon) reports on the involvement of followers of Jim Larkin in 1916 rebellion.

It’s almost a century since the Easter Rising broke out on the streets of the capital. Today, news travels quickly throughout the world with an international press and ever evolving technology, but how was the 1916 reported internationally at the time? The U.S Library of Congress website gives us a good idea, with thousands of editions of U.S newspapers from the period digitised.

Breaking the news of rebellion in Ireland.

The first news Americans would have heard of rebellion in Ireland was published on 25 April, the day after the uprising in Dublin had commenced. Depending on the newspaper they were reading though, they may have believed the rebellion had been stopped in its planning stages. Reporting on the capture of Roger Casement and the sinking of a German arms shipment of the southern coast, The Sun in New York told readers that “An attempt to stir up a ‘revolution’ in Ireland was nipped in the bud when a German auxiliary cruiser, carrying a strong load of German sailors and loaded with stores of rifles and ammunition, was sunk off the coast of Ireland by British patrol warcraft.”

Claims that the rebellion had been “nipped in the bud” were totally at odds with the front pages of evening newspapers however, with The Evening World in New York announcing that ‘Irish in Dublin rise in revolt!’. The paper reported that the Post Office had been seized by Irish revolutionaries, but was “recaptured by troops.” The information of the paper, and other U.S outlets, was largely second-hand information from London. The rebellion was spoken of in the past tense, coming across as more of a riot than a political uprising. To The Evening World “A revolution in Ireland, planned by the German Government, brought about a terrific riot in Dublin yesterday in which twelve citizens were killed by British soldiers and four or five soldiers were killed by the rioters.”

Oklahoma City Times, 29 April 1916.

There was a general report today in circles that have been interested in Irish Nationalistic propaganda that the Dublin insurrection had been almost completely successful, and that the Irish Volunteers had captured and held as hostage Lord Wimborne, Lord Lieutenant for Ireland, and other high English officials.

The question of blame.

Almost instantly in the American press, as in Britain, the blame for the Dublin violence was firmly placed on the shoulders of Imperial Germany. The rumour of heavy German involvement in orchestrating the violence remained rife throughout the week long rebellion. The Democratic Banner, on 28 April 1916 led with a front page story that ‘Irish Waters are Swarming with German Submarines’, going on to claim “The entire Irish sea and the Atlantic waters to the west and south of Ireland are swarming with German submarines, whose sole task is to sink every troop transport destined for Ireland to quell the rebellion.”

Some very German looking ‘Irish Patriots’ on the front of the Washington Herald, 1 May 1916.

Not content with German submarines in the Irish seas, some news sources began to make claims that German bodies were being discovered in the rubble of Dublin. On 1 May, the New York Tribune noted that “‘bodies of two German leaders reported found in Dublin.” According to the paper there were rumours that German bodies had been found in the rubble of Sackville Street. This was likely misinformation coming from London outlets, but it was often taken at face value.

Interestingly, Jim Larkin also took quite a lot of blame for the events in Dublin. Larkin had left Dublin for America in 1914, following the defeat of the Dublin workers. In America he had thrown himself into radical politics in New York, becoming involved with the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World trade union. One newspaper, The Daily Capital from Oregon, noted that:

Just how deep James Larkin, the turbulent Irish labour leader, and his followers are involved in the Irish revolt is not known, but it is not to be doubted that the man who preached firey opposition to government in 1913 will take advantage of the disturbances in Ireland.

The strength of Larkin’s followers in Ireland was grossly exaggerated, with the El Paso Herald for example claiming on 29 April 1916 that the “rebel forces numbered about 12,000, of which 2,000 were Larkinites and 10,000 were Sinn Féiners.” In reality, there were about 1,500 rebels out in Dublin, and the Irish Citizen Army could only dream of 2,000 armed members in revolt!

Key personalities of interest to the American media.

There was huge interest in the story of Countess Markievicz among the American press, with her ‘riches to rags’ story grabbing the public imagination. It was alleged by The Evening World in New York that she had shot six rebels who refused to follow orders, and they noted that “in mans clothing and flashing a brace of revolvers” she had led an attack on the Shelbourne Hotel.

Allegations against the Countess repeated in a New York newspaper.

A name which appeared again and again the American press was that of James Mark Sullivan. Sullivan was an Irish-American lawyer and former Minister to Santa Domingo, not to mention a film director who had established the Film Company of Ireland in March 1916, only months before the insurrection, and ironically the offices of the Film Company went up in flames during the uprising. Sullivan was arrested in Dublin, and of course the arrest of a former American diplomat was a huge story in the states. Sullivan spent some time imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, but was ultimately released. America was at this point ‘neutral’ in the First World War, and so the detention of a high profile U.S figure was perhaps something the British authorities were eager to avoid. Sullivan returned to the U.S, but he pops up again in the War of Independence period in Dublin. Eamon Broy, who worked as an agent for Michael Collins inside Dublin Castle remembered a party at Sullivan’s house in Dublin during the War of Independence in his Witness Statement many years later:

Apples and oranges were laid on a table to make the letters “I.R.A.” and we all enjoyed ourselves for that evening as if we owned Dublin. Tom Cullen spoke there and said that we would all die forMick Collins, “not because of Mick Collins, but because of what he stands for”. Mick was persuaded to recite “The Lisht”, which he did with his own inimitable accent. When he was finished, there was a rush for him by everybody in the place to seize him.

In later years Sullivan retired to Florida in the United States, but upon his death his body was taken to Dublin and buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. He is certainly a forgotten figure of the revolutionary period, and you have to wonder how with that kind of story!

The leadership figures caused some confusion for the press, with claims Connolly had died during the rebellion, and Patrick Pearse widely named ‘Peter’. The Day Book,a popular Chicago newspaper noted that “The backbone of the rebellion was broken when James Connolly, ‘General of the Irish Army, was fatally wounded at Liberty Hall. When Peter Pearce, leader of the rebels, was wounded in the leg most of his followers surrendered.”

The response of Irish America to events in Dublin.

The Kentucky Irish American makes its feelings known, May 1916.

In New York, it was reported that a meeting of the United Irish League of America condemned the rebellion, but that it was interrupted by several men and women, while ‘outside of the hall’ scores cheered Sir Roger Casement and Germany and “loudly denounced John Redmond, leader of the Irish nationalists in the British parliament.” A meeting was held in New York in support of the aims of the rebellion, with a reported attendance of 1,500 in many newspapers. Deutschland Uber Alles, the Wearing of the Green and the American national anthem were all performed by a band, and leading figures of the Irish American community such as the exiled radical John Devoy spoke.

The Kentucky Irish American made its feelings on executions perfectly clear on 6 May 1916, 6 days before James Connolly would be shot tied to a chair in Dublin: “If the sequel to the fighting at Dublin is wholesome hanging and shooting of Irishmen by English officials, there is no doubt of the outcome. Under such circumstances a war of revolution is a foregone conclusion.”

Last year, a small group of us went on two rambles up the Dublin Mountains. The first was to the historic and spooky Hellfire Club.

CHTM! at Hellfire Club, Jan 2013.

Here is a lovely aerial shot of the ruined hunting lodge that has been a source for all sorts of sordid tales for hundreds of years:

Hellfire Club. Credit – source.southdublinlibraries.ie.

The second trip (in tough snowy conditions) was to the spot where the mutilated body of Captain Noel Lemass (anti-Treaty IRA) was found in October 1923.

CHTM! and friends at Noel Lemass memorial plaque, January 2013.

We went on our first ramble of the year this month. Our journey took us from Rathfarnham up to the small plaque to mark where the body of Honor Bright was found in 1925, to Lamb Doyles in Sandyford at the foot of then Dublin Mountains and finally to The Blue Light in Barnacullia.

Our group of five met in Rathfarnham on what turned out to be a beautiful Saturday afternoon. One of the sunniest days of the month so far. We walked up through Kingston housing estate, crossed the M50 motorway and onto the Blackglen Road. Taking a sharp right onto Ticknock Road, we located the small plaque marking the place where the body of Honor Bright (real name Lily O’Neill), shot through the heart, was found on June 9th 1925.

Small plaque. Photograph – Sam (CHTM!)

Lily, originally from County Clare, lived at 48 Newmarket in the Liberties and worked as a prostitute in the vicinity of the Shelbourne Hotel on Stephen’s Green. A mother of a young child, it was rumoured that she was forced to turn to prostitution after she was fired from her job for having a child out of wedlock. On the night of her murder, she was seen outside the Shelbourne talking to two men in a grey sports car. These were later identified as Dr. Patrick Purcell from Blessington, Co. Wicklow and a former Garda Superintendent, Leo Dillon from Dunlavin, Co. Wicklow. It was reported in the press that Dillon had served with both the British Army and Free State army.

That night, Dr. Purcell claimed to a number of people that he had been robbed earlier of £11 by a prostitute and that he was out looking for her. It was repeated in the newspapers that he told a cab driver that “‘if he got her he would put a gun through her mouth … (and) if he did not get her, some other girl would fall a victim”. One of the last people to see Lily alive was a taxi driver Ernest Woodroffe who came forward and said that he had dropped her to Leonard’s Corner, about ten minutes walk from her house, just after 2:30am. As the cab driver headed back towards the Green, he saw the distinct grey sports car drive past him, towards where he had just left the girl.

From Sunday Independent, 7th July 1925.

Her body was found in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains at 7am. In an era when cars were scarce, the sports car was quickly traced to Dr Purcell who admitted being in the city on the evening Lily  was murdered with Leo Dillon. The latter of which eventually admitted that he had ‘been with her’ that night but said he had last seen her getting into a taxi at St Stephen’s Green and driving off.

Although the taxi driver testified that he had seen Purcell’s car in the vicinity of Leonard’s Corner after dropping Lily and a Garda said he saw Purcell and Dillon with Lily speaking beside the grey sports car in Harold’s Cross later that night, the jury believed that there were a lack of sufficient evidence and acquitted the two men in just three minutes.

From Sunday Independent, 30th July 1925.

Folk singer Peter Yeates wrote and recorded a song in memory of ‘Honor Bright’ in the early 1980s.

In December 2006, the following post was left by ‘Markao’ on a folk music lyrics site:

Honor Bright … left behind a son (Kevin Barry aged 5). The son was not mentioned in the police investigation or the trial. He left Eire aged 19, fought in the war, married a German girl in Wales, had 9 children of whom I’m number 5.

What became of the two accused? A poster (‘PLH’) on Boards.ie who said that she was also a granddaughter of Lily O’Neill wrote in July 2009 that:

Various stories have been offered about (Dillon’s) later life, for example, some say he traveled to the USA and committed suicide or was killed on disembarking. Others say he committed suicide in Ireland.

Partick Purcell was ostracised in Blessington after the trial and local shops refused to serve his wife. He found work as a doctor in Kent, England. Later his son of the same name also became a doctor, and he is now retired.

Poster ‘PLH’ also revealed some interesting information about the plaque that is located on a wall outside “Capilano” house on Ticknock Road.  Rumour has it that the plaque installation was commissioned by the previous occupier of the house who had lived there since the murder. Prior to the plaque there was a small cross carved in to the wall stone sometime after the event. That stone was replaced by a ‘clean’ one and again shortly afterwards a further cross was carved.

The 5 Lamps Dublin Brewery brought out an ale called ‘Honour Bright’ last year. Picture – untappd.com.

We then walked up to the short distance to Lamb Doyle’s pub. Opened in 1832 (according to one source), this large pub on the Blackglen Road, Sandyford was opened by a man with, as you can probably guess, the surname Doyle. As this was such a common name in the area, he needed a nickname. Described as a big man with a white beard, he had a very gentle demeanor – ‘as gentle as a lamb’ and so was called Lamb Doyle. The name stuck.

If you’re interested, other nicknames for Doyles in the Barnacullia area included:

Big Joe’s, Butler, Club, Cricket, Daddy, Dancer, Darby, Dooce or Douche, Dresser, Drummer, Fay, Feck or Fecker, Flier, Fogey, Fugs, Fussey, Gigger, Gipser, Gombo, Good Chap, Hearseman, Kipper, Luby, Mare, Matt, Nailer, Obetha, Power, Sandy, Shop, Slaney, Spiro, Straight, Sweeney, Tango, Tipper, Tosser, Turk, Wave, Willy.

Speaking of lambs, publican Dessie Hynes told author Bill Barich (‘A Pint of Plain’, 2010) that Lamb Doyles used to be popular with sheep ranchers and he often saw one particular farmer in the pub order a baby brandy and apply a “splash of it to the lips of any lamb in distress”.

Irish painter William Orpen, who used to frequent the pub often with his friend Oliver St. Gogarty, wrote in about 1911:

The view from the Lamb Doyle’s pub on a Summer’s morning as you sit in the shade on a bench outside the house and look back over the bay with Dublin on the left and Howth, Ireland’s Eye and Lambay behind, on the right, Kingstown, Dalkey and Bray Head, all of them in the blaze of the midday sun! The sweet smell of the country in your nostrils, a cigarette in your mouth, and your glass behind you. Truly you could feel life in all its’ glory.

From this period until the 1960s, the pub was a traditional country pub. The bar also served as the local grocery shop. Its floor was covered with sawdust and in winter there was a blazing fire of gorse.

Throughout this time, at weekends parties drove out from the city in horse drawn traps, sidecars, charabancs and then private cars to enjoy the mountain scenery and make use of the bonafide facilities. A bona fide house utilised a legal loophole, dating back to early coaching days, that allowed a genuine bonafide traveler three miles (five in Dublin) from his place of residence to drink alcohol outside normal hours. As Lamb Doyle’s is about eight miles outside the city, it was a popular place for revelers to travel to when the regular pubs in the city closed at 11pm.

It became something of a ‘hip’ spot in the 1960s. Spurred on obviously by an increase in private car ownership and people’s access to disposable income. In a column entitled ‘Dublin by Night’ in Trinity News (10 November 1966), the unnamed writer said that “winey nights for the really well-heeled are best enjoyed at Lamb Doyle’s or the Wicklow Hills hotel”.

Lamb Doyle’s, 1969. Credit – Brand New Retro

A 1969 advertisement in ‘Publin  – a selective guide to the pubs of Dublin’ promoted its:

de-luxe restaurant restaurant upstairs (booking essential in the season) with a dancefloor downstairs and down below comfortable bars with discreet comfortable television

After being taken over by Crosspan Properties in 1979, a £100,000 redevelopment followed. It was bought by the owner of Scruffy Murphy’s in 1992 for £750,000. A 2006 plan to demolish the premises and rebuild 41 apartments, two shops and a new pub on the site was rejected An Bord Pleanála. This was the second attempt by the Morton family to gain planning permission to build a scheme of a similar size.

Lamb Doyles today. Credit – yelp.ie

Without trying to sound too harsh, I think it is fair to say that Lamb Doyle’s heyday was in the 1960s and 1970s. The decor doesn’t seem to have changed much though and that is certainly not a compliment. The yellow walls had a incoherent display of Asian imagery, second-rate paintings of flowers and advertisements offering 3 pints of Tuborg for a bargain €10. Never usually a good sign.

The over-priced food was unexceptional, the clueless staff got one simple food order mixed up and the bland Guinness was not cheap at €4.70. While reading up that the present owners tried to demolish the place twice back in 2006, it’s not surprising perhaps that they aren’t as interested in the current set-up as they might have used to be.

We then made our way up the hill through the small, scattered village of Barnacullia to the Blue Light pub. Éamonn Mac Thomáis in his book ‘Janey Mack Me Shirt Is Black’ (1982) reckoned that in early part of the 20th century, there were “at least three hundred stone workers” in the village. Their craftmanship can be still seen in the masonry of cottages, walls and gate piers in the area. The quarry at Barnacullia, famous for its County Dublin granite, was used for many landmark buildings including Mullingar Cathederal, Cavan Cathedral and the Department of Industry & Commerce and the Department of Transport on Kildare Street.

In 1917, Irish Volunteer 1st Lieutenant Andrew McDonell (BMH WS 1768) was sent to organise the areas of “Ticknock, Barancullia and Glencullen”. He describes how Ticknock had to be “treated as a separate unit” as there was a feud going back over 50 years between the villages of Ticknock and Barancullia. Initially, as he was a ‘City man’, he was not trusted by some of the mountain men but one specific event changed all that:

Andrew McDonell BMH WS 1768, p. 28

On our way to the Blue Light, we had a brief look for the ruins of Countess Markievicz’s cottage but could not find it.

Countess Markievicz’s cottage. From Patrick Healy’s ‘Rathfarnham Roads’ (2005)

Patrick Healy wrote in his brilliant ‘Rathfarnham Roads’ (2005):

A short distance to the east and approached by a narrow lane is the remains of the house which was occupied by Countess Markievicz up to the time of the 1916 Rising. This cottage was taken by Countess Markievicz about 1907 and was visited by many whose names were later to become by-words in the national movement. During Easter Week 1916, the wife and children of James Connolly stayed here. The cottage was occupied down to about 1945 when the last tenant was moved to a council house. It was then condemned and the roof removed. A committee was later formed to restore the cottage as a memorial to the Countess but when they were informed that they would be required to rebuild the walls, the project was abandoned.

We then followed the road up to The Blue Light which stands 1,700 feet above sea level.

View from Blue Light, January 2013. Credit – Sam (CHTM!)

Opened in c. 1870, the pub was formerly used as a private ‘lighthouse’ for Dublin Bay smugglers. Signals from the pub, including their blue window blinds, were visible miles out to sea and formed an important part of the elaborate intelligence network of martime smugglers who smuggled cargoes of brandy, wine, laces and fine silk past the Revenue-cutters of the Crown. Another story suggests that when the duty officials in Dunlaoghaire Harbour clocked off, a light signal would be sent to this premises.  A signal would then be sent back out to the bay using an old blue ships lantern to let sea smugglers know that the ‘coast was clear’.

Bought for £300 in 1915 by a Mr. Walsh, he passed the pub onto his brother (known as the The Blue Light Man) and then onto his nephew Dick Walsh who put it up for auction in the late 1970s.

The Blue Light, 1979. Credit – The Irish Times (13 July 1979)

On a side not, apparently it’s the last pub in Dublin that still sells turf!

For our first visit, we had a couple of pints in the lounge area at the back. When you come to the entrance, you take a right go into a room with a lovely fire and then it’s to your left. The service was great and the pints of Guinness at €4.20 were gorgeous. You could tell the place hasn’t changed in years, in a good way, and the decor was like a mini Aladdin’s Cave. Reminded us a little bit of the Hacienda and Frank Ryan’s.

We then headed for a ramble that brought us up the Dublin Mountains where there were spectacular views of the city.

Overlooking Dublin. Photo from transmitter, Three Rock. Jan 2013. Credit – Sam (CHTM!)

It was dark by the time we got back to the Blue Light. We decided to try out the bar this time around. Its entrance is straight ahead when you walk up the steps to the pub. This was dominated by locals and there were fascinating pictures on the walls of Barnacullia tug-of-war games and social events dating back to the 1910s. It felt like someone’s living room and the roaring fire soon warmed everyone up.

Highlighting once again that Dublin is such a small place, we bumped into Tommy Graham (History Ireland), his nephew and his nephew’s friend in the pub. After a couple more lovely pints (with Tommy selflessly abstaining), he kindly dropped us all back into the city centre.

Another great day out and we’re looking forward already to our next Ramble in a couple of months time.

As reported by our good friends across at Rabble, the Charlemont Street flats started to come down this week. Tuesday saw demolition begin on Ffrench- Mullen House, designed by Michael Scott, one of the most renowned Irish architects responsible for amongst others, Busaras and the Abbey Theatre. I dropped by on my way home from work, as the day was drawing to a close and workers were beginning to down tools. Will try get along tomorrow to see how far along they’ve gotten.

I was hanging around the site for half an hour or so. In that time, dozens of people walked around, took a look at the flats, a couple of pictures and headed off. Most of them knew each other so I’m guessing they were from the area. These lads stayed here throughout, as did the women below, who looked like they were being interviewed. One of them called a workman over and asked for a bit of the rubble, just managed to get a shot off in time.

The last picture is of the front wall of Ffrench- Mullen House, mentioned in the intro. The poster is of course, by the good man Maser, whose work adorns the walls of the Bernard Shaw not far away.

Anyways, as I said, I’ll try get over tomorrow for another look.

I was down on Charlemont Street yesterday to take some pictures of the going’s on down there, namely the tearing down of the flats, as well as Ffrench- Mullen House, named after Madeline Ffrench Mullen, the republican activist and feminist, and driving force behind the construction of nearby St. Ultan’s Hospital for Women and Infants in 1919. Ffrench- Mullen House has yet to be touched by the jaws of the machine below, but has been stripped back to a shell and it’s only a matter of time.

The demolition of the buildings is a controversial one, for while there was a planning application submitted for a regeneration and redevelopment project incorporating housing, offices and commercial units, permission has yet to be gained for all aspects of the plans.

Proximity to a main road, nearby homes and offices means the demolition is slow work, with the machine slowly munching it’s way through the roof and brickwork as seen in the images below.  Unlike yesterday, there weren’t many around watching the work, apart from a few women watching from balconies nearby.

Work, weather and interest permitting, I’ll try get down each evening until they’re gone.

While Ireland’s first reggae band was without doubt Zebra (1979-80), a number of pop and rock bands recorded songs with ska and reggae influences in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Some were absolutely awful, others mediocre, while a handful were just about listenable. This is an attempt to compile an accurate list of those records.

1969 was the year of the skinhead reggae explosion in England. Desmond Dekker & The Aces’s single ‘Israelites‘ reached the UK No. 1 spot in April. Other significant singles released that year included ‘Monkey Man‘ by Toots & The Maytals and Symarip’s ‘Skinhead Moonstomp‘ which was aimed specifically at the British reggae-loving skinhead audience.

That same year an Irish showband called The Fairways from Edenderry, Co. Offaly, on the go since 1966, released a novelty ska-influenced single “sung in a cod West Indies accent”. Titled ‘Yoko Ono’, after the Japanese artist who married John Lennon that year, the lyrics concern a man’s attempt to to find transport to bring him to a plantation where Yoko is waiting for him. The song opens with:

Mister, can you help me?
Can I get to Skaville?
Anyone going? My way
Anyone leaving? Today

In Dublin in the early 1970s, as revealed by Garry O’Neill in his book Where Were You?, skinheads danced to reggae in clubs called Bartons and Mothers, both on Parnell Street, and Two Ages on Burgh Quay. The scene also opened its own short-lived club, the Boot Inn, in a basement on Middle Abbey Street.

London-based Jamaican reggae band The Cimarons became the first international reggae act to play Ireland, playing their first Irish gig in the Exam Hall in Trinity College in April 1978. This was followed by the Macroom Festival in Cork in June of that year and further dates around the country in 1979. Journalist Kieran Flynn wrote in Magill magazine that:

Reggae has never been a particularly popular form of music in Ireland, but the Macroom audience response suggests that the Cimarons will be back here soon.

Eamonn over at Irishrock.org describes that Belfast-band Dirtywork (pre-Katmandu) released a “reggae version” of the ‘Rose of Tralee’ in 1976. You’ll have to make up your own mind about that.

Early 1979 saw the release of the debut album ‘Infammable Material‘ from Belfast punks Stiff Little Fingers. It included a punky reggae cover of Bob Marley’s ‘Johnny Was‘:

The Bogey Boys, pub-rock band from Dublin/Meath, released their debut album ‘Friday Night’ in October 1979. One song ‘Gunslinger’ was vaguely reggae-influenced.

1979 also saw the release of Ireland’s first real single. ‘Repression’ by Zebra which was brought out by Terri Hooley’s Belfast-based ‘Good Vibrations‘ label.

Con O’Leary ran the reggae Operator Sound System from 1979-83, playing venues like the TV Club and McGonagles. If you have anymore information, please get in touch.

A genuine Dublin-based Two-Tone band ‘The Mod-Ls‘ were on the go from 1979-80 but never recorded anything. Same with the Fast Skirts (1980-81), who played straight punk and straight reggae, whose personnel included two former Mod-L’s members.

The Mod-Ls (Irishrock.org)

The first incarnation (c.1980) of Dun Laoghaire group ‘Nine Out Of Ten Cats‘ was heavily reggae/funk influenced and they supported many visiting reggae acts to Dublin including Matumbi and Prince Far I. Their recorded material (1983 onwards) however was all post-punk.

In 1980, Dublin band The Resistors released a catchy new-wave Two-Tone influenced single called ‘Jeanie’ on their debut EP.

That same year The Boomtown Rats released ‘Banana Republic’ which had a tight ska-reggae hook and lyrically rallied against the ills of nationalist, conservative Ireland:

And I wonder do you wonder while you’re sleeping with your whore?
Sharing beds with history is like licking runnin’ sores
Forty shades of green yeah, sixty shades of red
Heroes going cheap these days, price a bullet in the head
Banana Republic, Septic Isle Sufferin’ in the screamin’ sea, sounds like dyin’
Everywhere I go, yeah everywhere I see
The black and blue uniforms, Police and Priests

The album version (below) is over a minute and a half longer than the single itself.

Bob Marley played Dalymount Park, Dublin in July 1980, bringing reggae to the Irish masses.

Irish showband The Magic Band (1974-81) from Galway released ‘I Am A Cannibal’ in 1981 which was described by Neil from rockroots.wordpress.com as a “pretty decent and annoyingly catchy reggae-pop tune with some nice musicianship”.

The same year Irish showband Sunshine released the single ‘Double Dealin, described by Eamonn at Irishrock.org as “pop with reggae/ska overtones”.

Also in 1981, Rascal released ‘Scrambled Reggae’ on EMI Records. Described as a “one off ska/2tone novelty single”, there is some audio available here but I haven’t heard the full version.

Galway pop group The Conquerors brought out a reggae-influenced b-side called ‘Getting Out’ in 1981.

Decisions Decisions from Dublin brought out their one and only pop-reggae single the same year. This is the b-side.

Cork’s Jimmy Crowley & The Electric Band recorded a reggae version of ‘Boys of Fair Hill’ which spent some time in the charts in 1981.

The Outfit, new-wave reggae from Limerick, released the first of their two singles in 1981. A-Side ‘El Salvador’ was a topical song about the Salvadoran Civil War.

The first single ‘Surprise Surprise’ by Belfast punk band Big Self was heavily reggae-influenced. This was also released in 1981.

1982 saw the formation of pop-reggae group Alien Comfort from Finglas who recorded a demo which hasn’t seen the light of day yet.  They were active until 1984. Reggae-funksters Belsonic Sound from Cork started their careers in 1982 and ploughed on till 1993 releasing a string of singles from 1988 onwards.

Thurles pop-rock band Tweed (1972-84) released a reggae-influenced b-side ‘Horse’s Collar’ in 1983.

Street Talk from Dublin released their first single ’1-2-3′ in 1983. It spent 10 weeks in the Irish charts. Eamon from Irishrock.org described the band as “new-wave pop-rock with reggae styling and a strong lead singer”.

1983 also saw the release of Limerick band’s The Outfit’s second single (Toytown/ A Sharp). If anyone has a MP3 of this, please drop me a mail.

Comedian Jon Kenny, former bassist and lead singer with Limerick group Gimik, released a surprisingly catchy reggae version of ‘Spancil Hill’ in 1984.

Though not an Irish group, Century Steel Band from Coventry recorded a reggae version of ‘The Fields of Athenry’ in 1985 which charted over here in the summer of 1986. They also toured Ireland extensively. The band recorded with Dublin group The Wilf Brothers in 1990.

The Blades, new wave soul from Dublin, dabbled with a reggae sound with ‘Talk About Listening’ from their 1985 album ‘The Last Man In Europe’.

Too Much For The Whiteman, from Tuam, started performing in 1985 and released three singles from 1989-90. None of which are online yet. The same year Keltic Posse formed and toured extensively until around 1994.

Postscript:

The late 1980s/early 1990s saw a major ska and skinhead revival with Irish bands Trenchtown (estd. 1988), The Jackmans aka Frères Jackman & the International Elevators (estd. 1989), The Gangsters (estd. 1992), The Service from Cork (estd. 1993) and others like The Umbrellas and The Officials.

There were also bands reggae bands ‘Kingsativa’ (1995 – 2005), ‘New Roots’, ‘Zero’, ‘Burning Illusion’ around this time as well but for most of them, there’s little or no information available online.

We look further into the above bands in part two of the piece.

If I’ve missed anyone, please get in touch.

I came across two reviews of pubs in the city from magazine ‘In Dublin’. Both from 1977. This issue (no. 34, Aug 1977) reviewed:

- Mulligans, Poolbeg Street
- Davy Byrne’s, Duke Street
- Kehoe’s, South Anne Street
- Grogan’s, South William Street
- Dohney and Nesbitt, Baggot Street
- Toner’s, Lower Baggot Street

Pub review. In Dublin 1977. (Credit – David Denny2008)

Later in the year, issue (no. 40, Nov 1977) reviewed:

- Bruxelles, Harry Street
- The International Bar, South William Street

Pub review 2. In Dublin 1977. (Credit – David Denny2008)

Nearly forty years later and all those pubs are still there. Most of them probably haven’t changed that much. Except for the price of course.

I also stumbled upon this lovely photo of O’Connell’s on South Richmond Street in Portobello. One of my favourite pubs in the city. At a guess, I’d say it was taken in the 1960s.

J. O’Connells, Sth. Richmond St. (Credit – whiskiesgalore.blogspot.ie)

Also this snap of Doyles, then called The College Inn with The Fleet attached, on College Green opposite Trinity. It’s a great shot with red car flying past and yer man in the sheepskin jacket waiting to cross.

The College Inn (now Doyles) in 1978, College Green. (Credit – dublincitypubliclibraries.com)