Come Here To Me!

I asked over on our Facebook page about these posters, and was directed towards a Sunday World article you can read in full here:

Dublin is bracing itself for another loyalist invasion. Hundreds of Love Ulster demonstrators plan to hold a controversial parade on southern soil.

Fierce rioting followed their last attempt to march as more than 1,000 republican protestors took to the streets.

The city centre was brought to a standstill as republican youth fought running battles with gardai who were attacked with rocks, bottles and fireworks.

Businesses were smashed and cars set on fire in an orgy of violence which cost €10million.

The Love Ulster organisers’ latest plans will raise republican fury even further. They want to parade past the GPO at Easter, a hallowed date in the nationalist calendar.

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Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary, spoke with a Dublin accent. Well, according to Roddy Connolly, son of James, who said in a 1976 Irish Times feature that Lenin, more specifically, had a “Rathmines accent”. This was due to the fact apparently that Leinin was taught English in London (c. 1902) by an “Irish tutor, who had lived in Leinster Road”. [1]

Lenin, 1895.

After this was repeated in An Irishman’s Diary by Frank McNally early last year, a letter was sent into the paper by Dalton O’Ceallaigh. In it he discussed attending, in the late 1970s, a Dublin meeting organised by the Ireland-USSR Society at which Roddy Connolly spoke about his visit to the infant Soviet Union in the early 1920s. After the speech,  there was a short silent film in which Roddy was shown walking across the square in front of the Winter Palace in what was then Petrograd and conversing with Lenin.

O’Ceallaigh made the point in his letter that “there was no interpreter, so they were obviously speaking in a mutually comprehensible language”.  After the film, Roddy himself stated that

After Lenin’s death, the Russians, on researching his life, believed that when he was in London (he) had placed an advertisement in the London Times to the effect of “if you help teach me English, I’ll help teach you Russian”, the person who replied being a “Mac” somebody or other was thus a Scot. But Roddy said that, on the contrary, it must have been an Irishman. [2]

The memoirs of Lenin’s wife Nadezhda Krupskaya offer some indirect support for Connolly’s claim:

“When we arrived in London we found we could not understand a thing, nor could anybody understand us […] It amused Vladimir Ilyich, but at the same time put him on his mettle. He tackled English in earnest. We started going to all kinds of meetings, getting as close as we could to the speaker and carefully watching his mouth. We went fairly often to Hyde Park at the beginning. Speakers there harangue the strolling crowds on all kinds of subjects […] We particularly liked one such speaker – he had an Irish accent, which we were better able to understand.” [3]

On a side note, what exactly is a Rathmines accent?

Frank McNally suggests it was forerunner to the Dart accent which came to public attention first in the early 1990s. The earliest reference to such a thing that I could find is 1908. D.J. O’Donoghue, in a recollection piece about George Bernard Shaw, spoke about how Shaw had “possessed a ‘Rathmines accent’ which he never entirely lost”. [4]

A jokes corner from The Irish Press in 1936 had this to say:

The Irish Press. Sep 11, 1936.

The Radio Correspondent of The Irish Times in 1946 suggested that the “broad or moderately broad ‘a’ sound (is) a defect characterestic of that mincing, effeminate speech known in Dublin as the Rathmines accent and in Belfast as the Malone Road accent”. [5]

Two years later, another explanation on the accent was given:

Many of the Radio Eireann announcers are guilty of frequent lapses into the genteel, mincing manner of speaking known as the Rathmines accent. One announcer keeps referring to Pakistan as ‘Pawkistan’, several of them talk about ‘fawther’, [for ‘father’] ‘curless’ for ‘careless’, and worst of all ‘infearm’ for ‘infirm'”. [6]

It would seem people tried to use the ‘Rathmines accent’ to get into pubs. As illustrated by this 1942 news story:

The Irish Times. 18 Nov 1942.

Finally, John O’Doherty in a letter to The Irish Times early last year said that the “genteel Rathmines accent was still common when I lived there in the 1960s […] it was also known as an “ORE and ORE” accent, as it was widely spoken in both Rathmines and Rathgar”. [7]

–

[1] Michael McInerney, Roddy Connolly – 60 years of political activity, The Irish Times, 08 Sep 1976.
[2] Dalton O’Ceallaigh, Letter to Editor, The Irish Times, Feb 15, 2011
[3] Nadezhda Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin (London, 1930), 65
[4] D.J. O’Donoghue, George Bernard Shaw – Some Recollections, The Irish Independent, 17 Feb 1908
[5] Radio Correspondent, Irritating mispronunciation on Radio Eireann, The Irish Times, 24 Jan 1946
[6] Anon, An Irishman’s Diary, The Irish Times, 13 Apr 1949
[7] John O’Doherty, Letter to Editor, The Irish Times, Feb 14, 2011

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(Note: Pub Crawl, December 2012 (84 – 88) is on the way. hXci’s notes were stolen by a seagull)

With a little bit of rain being our only obstacle, an eager group of ten of us set off from Windy Arbour Luas stop at 4:30pm Sunday last for the 20th CHTM! pub crawl and the first of 2012.

Seeing as the best of the city centre pubs have been visited as well as the outlying South Dublin neighborhoods (Beggars Bush, Baggot St, Leeson St, Portobello, Ranelagh, Rathmines and Harolds Cross), it was with great pleasure that I was able to bring people out even further and to areas (and pubs) that were unknown to them.

The areas of Windy Arbour and Dundrum made perfect sense as they were easily accessible (due to the Luas) and, more importantly, had five pubs close enough to each other for walking distance.

With everyone more than happy to escape the continuous rain, our first stop of call was The Corner House (aka Kynes).

The Corner House (aka Kynes), Windy Arbour. (Google Street View)

Our group of ten immediately doubled the number of patrons in the place. Turning into the pub, you’re faced with a long bar on the left and a row of stools and seats on your right.

At the back, there was a TV showing the Aston Villa – Arsenal game (not too loud thankfully) and in the back left hand corner was a Darts board.  A small group of local lads played with one eye on the game. (The web tells me that the pub runs a dart team, probably one of a dying breed?)

If you had come through the main door and went straight, instead of right, you would got to the bar area which was empty on this Sunday and presumably only used for busy nights and functions.

A sign advertised a weekly Thursday poker night and it was also nice to see a small row of books at the entrance of the bar for people to read (and perhaps swap).

The lovely pint of stout came in at a very reasonable €4.20. The second cheapest of the day.

The Corner House, formerly known as The Nine Arches (and apparently before that J.D.’s Corner House, and The Millrace), is a pub right in the heart of traditional Shamrock Rovers territory. Their former Milltown stadium is just over five minutes walk away and this pub has not forgotten the fact. On the walls were a couple of Rovers & Glenmalure Park framed pictures. With a Dublin GAA flag on the wall as well, this was a definite football (with a dose of GAA) pub. In many ways, a whole world way from the more rugby orientated pubs that are only down the road.

Leaving after an hour, with everyone seemingly content with both the pint and the general atmosphere of the place, we moved down a few yards to Ryans Arbour House.

Ryans Arbour House, Windy Arbour. (Flickr – infomatique)

We decided to go into the lounge and not the bar. Perhaps a mistake. The lounge area was big, kitsch and soulless. On arrival, a group of lads in their early 30s in the corner turned and stared. One said across to us – “Hey, are you foreigners? – Wanna see my dick?” Charming.

A few others, of a similar age, were dotted around the (massive) lounge. The walls were full of various sized framed pictures, ranging from Shamrock Rovers match programmes to random drawings of horses and everything else in between. A jukebox beside the bar was being used to play the most random collection of dodgy Euro-techno, Country n Western and Soul ballads.

The pint, poured by a very friendly young barman, came in at €4.35 and was perfectly drinkable.

Ryans Arbour House (formerly Windy Arbour House and before that Cosgraves) made the papers a couple of times in the early twentieth century.

Firstly, for selling liquor to ‘non-bona-fide travelers’ in 1915:

July 14, 1915. Irish Independent.

Secondly, for being put up for sale later that year:

27 Nov 1915. The Irish Times.

With no real positive feelings about the place (this could have easily changed perhaps though if we had ventured into the bar), we left and made the five-minute walk to Uncle Toms Cabin.

Uncle Toms Cabin, Dundrum. (Flickr – infomatique)

A very unusually named premises (see 1852 anti-Slavery novel), this large pub dating back to 1878, was the favourite for most people I reckon. First impressions were very encouraging when a middle-aged man, who was sitting in the corner reading a newspaper, gave up his seat so that we could all fit in.

The interior of the place made the most lasting impression. It benefited from very high ceilings, lovely seats and an array of interesting (non tacky) items in glass cases around the pub. For example, I spotted a receipt from a Middle Abbey St. grocers from 1912 tucked in beside some old bottles and books.

The overwhelmingly older patrons (60+) were all smiles and did not seem to mind the sudden arrival of our gang – our numbers now swelled to twelve. The pints came out €4.40, the most expensive of the night but many people thought they were the best. So much so that we all stayed for another one.

James Collins (1860 – 1940), described by The Irish Times as “one of the best-known members of the licensed trade in Dublin”, ran Uncle Toms Cabins for most of the early twentieth century. His name can still be seen written on one of the windows pubs facing the front (see above).

The pub made the news in 1928 when a gas explosion blew out the windows of the building.

22 Dec 1928. The Irish Times.

I’m nearly certain that the Collins’ family still run the pub today.

(more…)

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