Come Here To Me!

Come Here To Me! turns three years old today, having begun in November 2009. The last year has been a good one for us, with the blog building a Facebook following recently just passing the 3,000 mark and bringing a ‘Best Of’ the website to the public thanks to New Island Books.

Far from running out of content as we may have once feared, the city and its history has continued to throw up subjects and ideas!

‘Emancipate Yourself’ (Image first posted on CHTM! in November 2012)

Today, the blog has received over 5,000 comments from readers, and published in excess of 1,720 articles, on everything from the back lanes of Dublin to the history of football in the capital. We’ve continued some long running series’ such as the pub crawls of Dublin (albeit with less regularity!) and had new series’ on subjects like the 1911 census returns.

On Wednesday December 12th our book will be launched by Professor Diarmaid Ferriter, and we’d love to see you there.

Below, each of the three writers have chosen some of their articles from the last year. All published since November 29th 2011, this is a taster of what’s been produced. Some of these stories feature in the forthcoming book, and others remain exclusive to the website.

Thanks for all your comments, input and support. Here’s to another year!

A cycle to Howth (Image first posted on CHTM! in September 2012)

Ci: An eventful start to the year, with Unlock Nama’s Occupation, finding out that Soviet Russia mapped Dublin in Cyrillic, a continuation of the “A Few Quick Snaps” series, as I tried my shot at photography here, here, here and here. In addition to the random snaps, I took a trip to Howth with the camera and started a new series on those “semi-legal” spots in this city where Dublin’s street artists to their thing; the Tivoli Carpark, Richmond Villas, Liberty Lane and Windmill Lane. A look at the history of Dalymount Park’s Floodlights, a beautiful plaque dedicated to the Irish Volunteers in Wynn’s Hotel, and a look at how they were 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 the Irish Crown Jewels, a student Anti-Fascist meeting in 1934 attended by some well known characters,  remembering the Manchester United Store on Westmoreland Street and probably my favourite bit, a look at where the term “Donnybrook Fair” comes from!

Donal:

The story of ‘Fascist warships in Dublin Bay’ in 1938, the story of Constable Sheahan, the idea of moving Nelson’s Pillar to the Hill of Howth, the infamous ‘Animal Gangs’ of the 1930s, Liberty Hall before Liberty Hall, the story of the ‘African Boy’ John Mulgrave, a crazy trip to Sudan for UCD AFC, foreign media coverage of the Irish Civil War, when Dublin Fire Brigade rushed north during World War II, the earliest sex shops in Dublin, the Behan family and Siberia, the infamous ‘Pinking Dindies’, the Dublin Working Boys Home, Wood Quay vandalism, the first man to parachute over the capital, the Marian statues of Dublin, a chat with Maser, an easy to miss firemark in Kilmainham , some political art from Jim Fitzpatrick, the story of pirate television in the capital, Illustrated London News coverage of the War of Independence, when Hopalong Cassidy came to town, the GAA ‘Vigilance Committee’ of old, Bertie and Brendan, Dubliners with statues beyond these shores, ‘The Heart Of The City’, our first traffic lights and King Billy on his high horse.

Sam:

Trying to figure out what Dublin’s oldest hotel was, the Dublin strike that lasted fourteen years, Phoenix Park’s Free Peace Festivals in the late 1970s, early days of Stand Up comedy in Dublin, depressing snaps of Sandyford post-Celtic Tiger, the Dublin cinema manager who was imprisoned in Dachau during WW2, Vladimir Lenin’s apparent Rathmines accent, Dublin’s first gay bar, figuring out what the shortest street was in the city, another feature on the The Blades, the David vs Goliath battle between Stein Opticians and the developers, Nazi spy funeral in Deansgrange, Philip Chevron interview, breaking the story about the friendship between Bob Marley and Johnny Giles, Kildare Street Club monkeys debate, Stop Making Sense in 1980s Dublin, Dublin New Wave band Sacre Bleu, the City’s first Drugs cases, mysterious Karl Schumann, the much missed Mena Cribben of Santry, origins of the word Quiz, Maynooth’s spooky room, Dublin’s first Chinese restaurants, Una Bean Mhic Mhathuna‘s illustrious political career, Colloquial areas of the city,  1970s Triad violence, the late night cafe The Manhattan, Foreign Nationals in 1911, Atheists and Agnostics in 1901 and 1911,  unusual religions in the 1911 census, daylight robbery – Hugh Lane paintings and The Hill – Rathmine’s working class enclave.

The signage of what was once Dublin’s oldest shop, Thomas Read’s. (Image first posted to CHTM! in May 2012)