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Dublin Pubs (Mid 1980s)
I picked up this book for $5 in the amazing Powell’s bookshop in Portland, Oregon during the summer. It features 60 full-colour photographs of pubs across Ireland taken by Liam Blake with accompanying...
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Goodbye to Jer O’Leary, actor and Larkinite
Jer O’Leary as Jim Larkin (Image by Donal Higgins) Playing Larkin is a pleasure and an honour. Some parts are just performance tasks, but Larkin was one of the finest specimens of humanity; a wonderful...
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Grogans, gay rights and good times: advertisements from In Dublin magazine...
My thanks to my friend Dorje for passing on a heap of old copies of In Dublin recently. An invaluable publication in the days before social media, it gave some sense of what was happening in the city....
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Early Houses of Dublin (2019)
In February 2015, I published an article listing the remaining 14 or so ‘early house’ pubs in Dublin city centre along with some brief historical background about why these bars have special licenses...
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“Never was the past so near, or the present so brave, or the future so full...
Thomas Johnson, Secretary of the Irish Labour Party and drafter of the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil. The meeting of the First Dáil in Dublin’s Mansion House on 21 January 1919 was the...
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The birth of the Censorship Reform Society, December 1966.
In 1965, BBC journalist John Morgan was sent to Dublin to gather some idea of the attitudes of the Irish public to censorship. Standing outside a Dublin bookshop, he began his report by commenting on...
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When dockers and railwaymen said no: the 1920 munitions strike
Freeman’s Journal, 21 May 1920. In May 1920, East London dockers refused to load the SS Jolly George, a ship intended to carry arms to be used against the new Bolshevik state. Reflecting on the event...
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London and Dublin on College Green
Dublin, at her core, is a Georgian city. Despite this, she is home to a number of very impressive Victorian structures which we tend to take for granted. Personal favourites include the Georges Street...
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“Trumpet player, bandleader and gentleman”
Earl Gill plaque, Neary’s. Dublin’s Palm Court Ballroom had it all, or certainly it had enough to terrify Cornelius Gallagher, one of those who reported to the Vigilance Committee and Archbishop John...
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Original Pirate Material: O’Connell Bridge and bootleg tapes
Evening Herald, February 1987. Last weekend, I had the honour of leading a walking tour for the MusicTown festival, exploring the musical heritage of Dublin’s northside. The tour brought us from George...
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Multiracial bands in Irish music history (1963-1980)
Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s was a very homogeneous and white society but there were a handful of groundbreaking bands that included both black and white musicians. This a work in progress. In late...
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An exciting night on Great Brunswick Street remembered
Plaque on Pearse Street Garda Station In recent weeks, a new plaque was unveiled on Pearse Street Garda Station, remembering a night of espionage a century ago this very month. Working away from their...
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Feeding the people: when the Irish Volunteers commandeered pigs on the...
Freeman’s Journal, 22 February 1918. Reading the Bureau of Military History Witness Statements, it is striking just how much of an impact the popular memory of the ‘Great Hunger’ had on Ireland’s...
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Red flags in the breeze: May Day 1919
May Day 1919 poster. From John Cunningham’s Mayday! Galway and the origins of International Labour Day. “Dublin, like three-fourths of Ireland, has spent an absolutely idle day” was one account of May...
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T.D Sullivan and Lord Edward Street
Cork Hill is, to my mind, pretty much unrivaled when it comes to architectural views in Dublin. On one side of it, Thomas Cooley’s City Hall (once the Royal Exchange) has stood proudly since 1779,...
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Ní uasal aon uasal ach sinne bheith íseal.
The President of Ireland, Dr. Patrick J. Hillery, unveiling the monument of Jim Larkin, June 1979 (Image Credit: Dublin City Public Libraries Digital Depository) There is something magic about the...
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Happy Birthday Séamus Ennis
Jean Ritchie recording Séamus Ennis Today is the centenary of the birth of the magnificent piper Séamus Ennis. This anniversary has been marked with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque in Finglas,...
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Póg Mo Goal Nua
Pearse Street Play Centre kick about, at Pearse Square. Dublin City Public Libraries (for more footballing images from the city collections see here) Soccer was Sheriff Street – that’s all we played...
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From Vietnam to Blanchardstown
A little Vietnamese boy, his sallow face pinched with exhaustion, led a plane-load of boat people ashore to their new life, as the first group of refugees arrived in Ireland yesterday. So wrote the...
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The white horse in the fanlight
Upper Grand Canal Street, 1967 (National Library of Ireland) Having spent a lot of time in recent months in Belfast, I became accustomed to the iconography that celebrates King William III’s victory at...
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