The circumstances that have brought this position about have been created and deliberately encouraged, by both the State and the administrators of local government in this city. We had here some months ago in this City of Dublin a floating ballroom on the Liffey and on that floating ballroom we had an imported band, brought over from London. There was money spent by our local administrators on that ballroom…
The above is an excerpt from the Poor Relief (Dublin) Bill, 1929. The Bill was put forward in order to help relieve the the impoverished in the greater Dublin area as the Free State, still in its infancy, struggled to deal with societal problems, yet still had money to put a floating ballroom on the Liffey during a Civic Week the same year, importing a band from London and causing much consternation in Dáil Éireann.
The offending barge…
The questions were put to General Mulcahy of the Cumann na nGaedhael led 6th Dáil by a Mr. Eamonn Cooney, who, though a member of Fianna Fáil, made quite an impassioned speech about the haves and the have- nots of Dublin, that can be found here.
Very little about the barge itself can be found, and it resides now, a rusting wreck, on the scrub-lands at Bull Island.
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Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
[…] perceived in the Birmingham Gazette. A look at Dublin Trams from a time long before the Luas, a floating ballroom on the Liffey and a quick look at a Dubliner who may have designed the Academy Award; the theft of […]