Come Here To Me!

Myself and Dfallon popped down to the Tall Ships Festival on Thursday evening and visited the Paper Quays exhibition at the CHQ building on the North Docks.

Here’s some snaps of the wonderful Cut Paper Instillation by Maeve Clancy which I captured on my camera phone:

Connolly and ICA. Picture – Carax

ICA. Picture – Carax

Overview. Picture – Carax

Collins. Picture – Carax

Destruction of the Four Courts. Picture – Carax

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Occasionally national papers report on incidents of either local residents or striking workers engaged in would be ‘vigilante activity’. Here is a very brief look at some incidents from 1970 – 1984. I’ve purposely omitted stories surrounding the anti-Drugs movement as they really need an articles(s) of their own.

In June 1970, ‘Cement strike vigilantes’ attacked and damaged two loaded lorries in Glasnevin. The strike had reached its 20th week at this stage. As the two drivers stopped to go to the toilet outside Glasnevin Cemetery:

Four men, brandishing hammers an an iron bar, leaped from a car and wrrecked the braking systems of the lorries, smashed parts of the engines and ripped open cement bags.

In October of that year, a grouping calling itself the C.C.P. made its first and last appearance in the national media with the headline ‘Mystery of Dublin Vigilantes’:

Irish Times, Oct 6, 1972

In May 1973 in Benburb Street, tenants formed a committee to agitate the council to get the flats there pulled down and replaced with better housing. They blocked the street to draw attention to their plight and formed a vigilante group to prevent robberies and other anti-social acts in the area.

In March 1974, Dublin bus men threatened to form ‘vigilante groups’ to ‘provide proper protection for bus crews and stop hooliganism on public transport’. The call came after a sharp increase in attacks on Dublin Bus workers.

A mystery group calling itself the ‘Crumlin and Walkinstown Vigilante Group’ claimed responsibility, in October 1982, for a shotgun attack on four men outside a fish and chip shop in Drimnagh. Gardai said that the four men had no connection with the drug business and added they they hadn’t heard of the group.

Bertie Ahern, then Fianna Fail chief chip, was widely criticised in April 1983 after he maintained that crime had dropped significantly in one particular area of his Dublin central constituency after certain ‘known criminals’ had been kneecapped.

Ringing our bells?: Bertie Ahern at St George’s Church in Dublin in July 1983.Photograph: Tom Lawlor. (c) The Irish Times.

Speaking on the RTE radio programme ‘Day by Day’, Ahern told the interviewer John Bowman that groups of residents often came to him to say they were setting up groups and seeking his advice:

I take the Garda line on this – I tell them that that’s very dangerous. At the same same time they come back a few months later and tell me how they’ve succeeded in cutting down crime in the various areas where they have vigilante groups. It’s hard to keep on saying: “Well it’s not a good idea”. In my own area they’ve taken various actions, some of them I’m totally opposed to. But unfortunately John, I must say that they are quite effective. In one particular part of my constituency, very severe action was taken against known criminals and the area has almost cleaned itself since.

His comments were condemned by Ger Doyle of the Association of Garda Sergants and Inspectors.

Padraig Yeates in The Irish Times later that month suggested that vigilante groups of some sort existed in a whole range of areas of Dublin, stretching from Manor Street and O’Devaney Gardens to Rialto, Cabra, Finglas, Ballymun, Darndale and Coolock. Apparently one of the largest of these gangs operated in Coolock and had been in existence for nine months, when Yeates interviewed one of its members. During that time it was involved in several clashes with local teenage gangs, and a man associated with the group was beaten last Easter.

Later that week another journalist at the same papar, Michael Foley, went down to Rialto to interview local people and could find no evidence of organised vigilante activity.

In April 1984, the Campaign Against the Criminal Justice Bill, at a press conference in Dublin, claimed that the Minister for Justice Mr Noonan had

organised one group of vigilantes from South Hill in Limerick and that a Fine Gael TD was doing the same in Crumlin.

The campaign involved tenants associations, the Simon Community, the Dublin Travellers’ Committee and the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation. Also speaking at the press conference was Mick Quinlan of the Gay Collective who complained that gay men were widely being harassed and abused by the Gardai. He said that during the Charels Self murder investigation when gays were detained under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, the Gardai had built up files on 1,500 gay men.

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Jackie Jameson is one of the legendary figures of Irish football, with a banner in his memory proclaiming him to be ‘The Great Man’ a frequent sight at Bohs games in Dalymount Park. Jameson spent a number of years with Saint Patrick’s Athletic too, but it is undoubedly with the Phibsboro club that Jameson is most closely associated. Born in 1957, Jameson passed in 2002.

A Facebook page in his honour has quickly become one of our favourite pages on the social network site, as it has become a great archive of Bohemians and Irish football history. Below are some examples of images on the page.

Glasgow Rangers fans in Dalymount during Bohs 3-2 victory in 1984 (Image via ‘Jackie Jameson: Irish Football Legend’)

Match programme for Bohemians versus Aberdeen (Image via ‘Jackie Jameson: Irish Football Legend’)

Bionic Bohs banner! A time before ultras. (Image via ‘Jackie Jameson: Irish Football Legend’)

Interestingly, the page posted that:

As much as we don’t like to admit it, Bohs were not Jackie Jameson’s only club, he spent 3 years at Richmond Park where he is still fondly remembered, we would love to see some contributions here from Pats fans, if you have any images or articles share from that time.

Any Saints able to help them out?

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This is a very enjoyable video about Oisín Kelly’s sculpture ‘Two Working Men’. Paddy Cahill, responsible for an excellent documentary on Liberty Hall, captured the late Desmond Rea O’Kelly telling the tale of a fine piece of sculpture which was due to the placed outside of the union headquarters but rather oddly ended up in Cork. I’ve long been fascinated by the many lives of Liberty Hall, recently we had a post here on the site about the history of the Northumberland Hotel which occupied the location prior to the purchase of the premises by Jim Larkin on behalf of the union movement.

“Professor Liam O Briain unconsciously reflects the attitude of Oisin Kelly’s sculpture “Study for Liberty Hall” at the opening yesterday of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts exhibition in the National College of Art” (The Irish Times, May 3 1966)

The blurb below comes from Paddy.

A few years ago I made a documentary about the building Liberty Hall (vimeo.com/851474). At the time I regretted not being able to include in the documentary the story of Oisín Kelly’s sculpture ‘Two Working Men’. The sculpture was designed and due to go outside Liberty Hall in Dublin but due to some political interference it ended up outside Cork County Hall where they have since become known as Cha & Miah.

In this video Desmond Rea O’Kelly the Architect of Liberty Hall talks about the sculpture and tells the story of how it ended up in Cork. I did the interview with Desmond in 2006, sadly he died in February 2011.

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Via Youth Group – Amnesty International Ireland

A fantastic and striking image of Countess Markievicz cluctching a balaclava, the symbol of Russian punk act Pussy Riot. Three members of that band have been sentenced to two years imprisonment for performing the song “Mother of God, Put Putin Away” inside the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow.

Trade Union TV recorded this video at a demonstration in support of the band held recently on O’Connell Street.

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Renowned artist Jim Fitzpatrick has at least two huge pop art murals in Captain Americas burger joint on Grafton Street. The Dublin institution first opened its doors in 1971 and the murals were painted in 1982.

Jim Fitzpatrick mural 1. Photo – Jessica Merritt

Jim Fitzpatrick mural 1. Photo – gwarcita

In the early 1970s, the restaurant became the unofficial headquarters for the band Horslips. Philip Chevron, of the Radiators from Space and The Pogues, interviewed the band there for his school magazine Write Up Your Alley and  recalls:

Captain America’s was at the time about the ONLY remotely hip place in Dublin. This despite the fact that the resident singer/songwriter was Chris Davidson, a friend of Horslips [he supported them at their first ever headlining Stadium show in May 1972, my own first ever gig] who later found fame as Chris De Burgh. The Roy Lichtenstein type graphics on the wall, long since obscured by inferior murals, were by Jim Fitzpatrick, who did most of Thin Lizzy’s best graphic work and who claims to have originated that iconic Che Guevara image…

 

I’ve fond memories of being brought here when I was kid. Myself and Dfallon recently availed of a Living Social voucher (buy €60 worth of food & drink for €30). It was my first time eating there in years. The food was lovely, service was great but if hadn’t of had a voucher, I don’t really think we’d have considered it as it remains an expensive place.

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This caught my eye on Facebook and is more than deserving of featuring here. As part of the upcoming Tall Ships Festival, there will be a cut-paper installation depicting Dublin’s quayside from the Four Courts to the Customs House. e 25 metre long installation will be viewable in the CHQ Building on the North Dock, and is the work of Maeve Clancy.

This image of the Ha’penny Bridge being prepared for the exhibition, taken from its event page on Facebook, is excellent and gives a good taster:

(photo credit: Craig Cox @ ShootToKill)

I’m looking forward to seeing how some buildings along the iconic quays are presented. The Four Courts and the Custom House for example, two of our iconic James Gandon buildings, are beautiful architectural achievements with tragic pasts.

Custom House, 1867 (British Library)

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Prior to the establishment of a city municipal fire service, citizens who wished for their premises to be secure in the event of fire had to seek protection from insurance companies in Dublin. Buildings which were covered by insurance were marked by a small ‘fire mark’. Recently, we featured a post on one of the few remaining fire marks in Dublin, which is above a fine pub in Kilmainham.

Fire mark above The Patriots Inn, Kilmainham. Thanks to David Power for the excellent image.

In his history of the Cork fire service, For Whom The Bells Tolled, Pat Poland noted that:

The firemark served a number of purposes: it marked the property so it was obvious to all that the building was covered by insurance, it acted as an advertisement for the insurance company, and it let firemen responding to a call in no doubt as to which particular building was insured with their office.

The below is an example of fire policy itself, which would be given to the insured party as proof of payment. I thought it worth scanning up. The illustration is fantastic, with the company ‘The Patriotic Assurance Company’, availing of strong Irish symbolism, for example the harp. Notice the old Irish Parliament building features behind. Of course, this was long in the ownership of the Bank of Ireland by the time this insurance policy form was printed.

‘The Patriotic Assurance Company’ (1897) (L Fallon Collection)

Inside, the same great illustration appears.

Inside the insurance policy

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The statue of Saint Andrew, at the back of Saint Andrew’s Church in Dublin city centre

Passing St.Andrew’s Church recently, which today is home to the Dublin Tourism Centre, a statue in the car park grabbed my eye. Going in for a look, a badly weathered statue stood in the very corner of the church car park, forgotten by time. I took a few photographs and decided I’d investigate it at a later date.

The badly weathered statue is of Saint Andrew himself, and is all the remains of an older version of the church. Saint Andrew’s has a long and interesting history, once serving as the parish church for the Irish Parliament, an institution so rotten it succeeded in abolishing itself in very dubious circumstances in 1800. Since 1996, the building has been home to the Dublin Tourism Centre.

Next to the Irish Parliament on College Green, Daly’s Club thrived in the eighteenth century. Daly’s was a private members club with a notorious reputation which had first been housed at numbers 1-3 Dame Street, before making the move to 3 College Green in the 1790s. It was said to be named after Denis Daly, a Galway politician, wealthy landowner and friend of Henry Grattan.

Denis Daly (1748 – 10 October 1791)

An 1815 text, The Travellers New Guide Through Ireland, contains an entry on the club and notes that:

On the northside of College Green stands Daly’s Club House, a very neat building, constructed of hewn mountain stone. It is appropriated for the accommodation and entertainment of noblemen and gentlemen, composing this fashionable and expensive club.

The connection between Daly’s and the neighbouring Parliament was firm. As Christine Casey has noted, it was even reputed that Parliaments division bells would ring in the club house. J.T Gilbert described the club in good detail in his A History of the City of Dublin, noting that:

the new edifice, designed by Francis Johnston, extending from the corner of Anglesey-Street to Foster Place, was opened, for the first time, with a grand dinner, on the 16th of February 1791.The house was furnished in a superb manner, with grand lustres, inlaid tables, and marble chimney-pieces; the chairs and sofas were white and gold, covered by the richest “Aurora silk”.

Gilbert went on to note that the club was not alone the “chief resort of the aristocracy and Members of Parliament”, but was indeed connected to Parliament, via a footpath across Foster Place which led from “the Western Portico of the Parliament House to a door, since converted into a window, on the eastern side of the Club-house.”

The proximity of the eastern side of the club at Foster Place to the Irish Parliament is clear from this fantastic image in the National Library of Ireland collection.

Foster Place, Dublin (National Library of Ireland)

So, what connects this one time Buswell’s Hotel (I couldn’t resist!) to the statue of Saint Andrew? A Dublin legend, which could be fact or fiction, has it that the statue was used for target practice by members of the infamous establishment. Frank Hopkins in his classic Hidden Dublin recounts how “there were even tales of club members using the statue of St. Andrew in St. Andrew’s Church for target practice”, while the tourism centre themselves make a similar claim,noting in their history of the church that “now eroded due to the ravages of time, and as a result of its use as a pistol practice target by the members of Daly’s Social Club”.

The statue today.

How much of the legend of Saint Andrew being fired upon by the drinking, gambling politicians of Daly’s Club is fact and how much is fiction? It’s a great Dublin story regardless, and the badly weathered statue on the edge of the car park is something worth taking the time to check out if you’re in that part of town.

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Dublin enjoys dozens of colloquial terms for neighborhoods and areas in the city, many of whom have now been assimilated into everyday language.

I’ve tried to compile a list of ones that I can think of. Others may be more ‘true’ than others. Have I forgotten any?

Colloquial areas:

Perrystown, “a small south Dublin suburb located between Terenure, Greenhills, Templeogue and Crumlin” which was probably named after a former family of landowners in the area, the Perrys. While technically not an “unofficial area”. It would probably be better described as a small suburb within a larger one? Wikipedia says it is known as “The Secret Suburb” by its residents.

Cowtown, an area in Dublin 7 beside Stoneybatter where there was once sprawling cattle markets. Street names like Oxo, Nialler, Murtagh, Beneeder, the Norrier leave a reminder of the area’s past.

Informal group of Bohs supporters who live or grew up in the area.

Maryland, a name for a small area just off Cork St.

Broadstone, an area of the North inner city bounded roughly by Phibsborough Road and Constitution Hill to the West, North Circular Road to the north, and Dorset Street and Bolton Street to the south-east.

Harmonstown, is a small suburban locality straddling the boundary between modern-day Artane and Raheny. The locality is bounded by the railway cutting, the Springdale Road Linear Park and Brookwood Avenue. It also borders Killester and Clontarf.

Summerhill, an area of the North Inner City. Anyone suggest what area actually constitutes Summerhill i.e. what boundries etc.?

Historical areas that have dissapeared or have changed their name:

Hell, a popular term in the 17th century for the area around Christ Church Yard.

A description of ‘Hell’ from The Irish Times (10 Mar 1923)

The Monto, nickname for a one-time notorious red light district bounded by Talbot Street, Amiens Street, Gardiner Street and Seán McDermott Street (formerly Gloucester Street).

Mud Island/Friend’s Field/French Field, previous names for Ballybough.

Doyle’s Town, previous name for Baldoyle.

Annadale, previous name for Fairview

Ballyboother, previous name for Booterstown.

Scald Hill, previous name for Sandymount

Cullenswood, a previous name for the area around Ranelagh and Rathmines

Nicknames:

Raytown is a nickname for Ringsend, reflecting its history as a fishing village.

The Blades’ 1985 singles compilation, ‘Raytown Revisted’. The band all grew up in the area.

Nine Arches, previous nick name for the area around Milltown

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