If any of you attended the History Ireland Hedge School on the Animal Gangs at the National Library recently, you’ll remember that as well as the 1930s the following decade was discussed at some length, and particularly youth violence and criminality in early 1940s Dublin. The so caled ‘battles’ of Baldoyle and Tolka Park would of course feature in such a discussion.
In his biography of Garda James C. Branigan, or Lugs as he is known to generations of Dubliners, Bernard Neary would note that the 1940s saw the Gardaí and indeed the state adopt a much tougher approach to Dublin gangs. Two particular outbreaks of violence at Baldoyle and Tolka Park saw a very serious crackdown from the state against ‘gang culture’ in the city at the time, with the first showdown at Baldoyle in May of 1940 displacing the second World War from the top of the national media and whipping up hysteria in the capital that the ‘Animal Gangs’ were still alive and well.
That battle is a story for another study and another day, and in this post I intend to look at a particular day of violence in early 1940s Dublin, when Dublin’s youth gang culture would raise its head at Drumcondra Soccer Grounds during a match, grabbing the attention of the national media and indeed state forces. It was an event which would see the national media reporting on March 26th of nine youths being charged with attempted murder.
‘Dublin Football Venue Onslaught!’ read the headlines of The Irish Times on March 24th, reporting on bizarre scenes of violence in the capital. Two days previous, during a clash between Mountain View and St.Stephen’s United in the Junior Combination Cup, blood had been spilled on the terraces of a Dublin football ground.
The clashes had occurred between two rival gangs, the ‘Stafford Street Gang’ on one hand and the ‘Ash Street Gang’ on the other. In popular Dublin memory, such gangs are now often referred to as ‘Animal Gangs’. The term ‘Animal Gang’ had entered the national media in 1934, a reference to a particular inner-city gang centered around the Corporation Buildings who had emerged out of the printers strike of that year and were primarily newsvendors by occupation. Following a series of court-cases involving this gang, in time the term would ‘Animal Gang’ would be applied broadly in the media and indeed courts to all sorts of youth criminality, and self-styled gangs would emerge across the city with a wide variety of titles and backgrounds.
How did two Dublin gangs come to find themselves inside Tolka Park during the clash? Newspaper reports would note that one gang had, rather incredibly, gained access by travelling down the River Tolka. As Neary noted in his study of Lugs Branigan, it was believed this gang ‘had gained access by travelling down the Tolka River, heavily armed, on a makeshift raft, and scaled the walls’. The Irish Press newspaper would note that the gang climbed the partition from the riverside.The other gang had entered the ground as a result of a turnstile man leaving his stile, permitting easy access to the ground.
It was ten minutes into the second half of play when the rival gangs would clash. The Irish Press reported a spectator at the game as noting it was ‘like Hell let loose’, and the paper noted that the violence occurred for something in the region of fifteen minutes, leading to 200 spectators fleeing from the ground in panic.Arthur Smith, a linesman on the day, would note to the papers that he saw a man running with a sword and heard spectators in the crowd shout Ash Street and Stafford Street. He also remarked that one man, bleeding from the head, was carried away from the violence behind the Drumcondra end goal and onto the field of play by players. The ref on the day, Michael Corcoran, would note that he immediately stopped the game upon seeing the panic in the stands and that the injured man carried onto the field of play was then taken to a dressing room. Around thirty youths were involved in the disturbances.
The nine young men brought before the courts days after this violence ranged in age from 16 to 23. In June, five men would be convicted for their role in the violence. In the June court sittings, new information on the violence would come to light. In one report it was noted that the men in the dock were members of the Stafford Street Gang, and indeed the papers of the day noted that not a single member of either gang had paid for admission to Tolka Park on the day, as if that fact were in doubt! It was noted that the Stafford Street gang had been the aggressors, but that the violence had led to serious injuries on both sides, and almost resulted in death.
The sentences handed down to the men from both gangs were severe, but designed to send a clear message. Four members of the Ash Gang for example found themselves imprisoned for eighteen months each as a result of their role in the fracas.
Gangs of working class youths, divided on geographical lines, were a feature of Dublin life at the time of course. Yet as a result of physical clashes like those at Baldoyle and Tolka Park, the state would attempt to clamp down on such gangs through the courts and indeed through a more hands-on type of policing.
Doesn’t it all put Bohs and Rovers in perspective!?
The BSC would still have any of them!
Brilliant – a raft down the Tolka…great stuff Donal
Is Ash St. the one in the Coombe? and Stafford St was what is now Wolfe Tone St? What was the beef between two gangs pretty widely separated?
Great article. Would have loved to have attented the hedge school. Reading about the animal gangs always conjures up pictures for me of the ‘Gangs of New York’ film. They really make the hardmen of my generation look like softies! Does anyone know anything about a ‘Corbally Gang’ that existed in the 40s/50s on the Dublin docks? They were either accused of being communists or were accused of fighting with them, cant quite remember but I did read about them in an old Irish Times article.
Unbelievable stuff. On a side issue, have always thought that the aggro at Rovers-Bohs was grossly exagerrated.
i remember being told about an infamous gang in bray called the black and whites in the 40’s and 50’s who were well known for knifings and gang attacks so i doubt if it was confined to inner city dublin.wasnt there a gang called the trads from walkinstown in the 80’s or 90’s oner of whom murdered a young lad?there was also the red wall gang,i think blanchardstown based.
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