Come Here To Me!

Image: Luke Fallon.

The building on the corner of Lord Edward Street and Fishamble Street, today a budget hostel, is an interesting building architecturally, dating back to 1891. Archiseek tells us it was designed by Albert E. Murray, and purpose-built as a hotel for young boys. I’d passed the building often without inspecting it closely, but a few months back a reader (Thanks Steven!) suggested taken a closer look. The magnificent stone engraving of the youngster shown below remains to this day, giving a clue to the buildings former life.

Building stonework today (Luke Fallon)

A history of the Dublin Working Boys Club and Harding Technical School appears on the Irish Deaf History page, where it is noted that a society formed to “afford comfortable and healthy lodgings at cheap rates for boys who were earning their bread” had acquired the building in 1888 for the purpose of establishing a hostel there. That hostel was opened by the Lord Lieutenant in February 1892, providing lodgings to boys below the maximum age of 19. The hostel was open to Protestant boys, and boasted a Gymnasium Club, cricket team and some residents even formed a “bell-ringing club” with Christ Church Cathedral next door! The linked article notes that “in Mount Jerome Cemetery, the Dublin Working Boys’ Home had a plot for the residents, purchased by one of the Governors, Thomas Spunner, in 1885.”

Newspaper reports from the time of the opening note that initially 41 boys were on the books, and that most of these boys were from outside the capital, employed in trades including gun making, printing and coach building. The Irish Times noted that the buildings interior was impressive, with a lecture hall capable of holding 150 boys, a spacious dining hall as well a library containing a piano and reading tables.

I found an advertisement from 1914 for the Home within The Irish Times, and it notes:

The object of the home is to provide a safe and comfortable residence for orphans and other boys (being Protestants, and of good character) who are earning small wages in junior positions, in trades, business and offices, etc., and who have no suitable home in the city. The age of admission is 13 to 16 years, but under special circumstances the limit of age may be extended.

The club closed in 1987, and today the building is home to budget accommodation for tourists, as well as the Copper Alley Bistro.

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An illustration of a 1930’s Dublin newsboy by Luke Fallon (originally for a piece I wrote in Rabble magazine)

Every year, the good folks in Dublin City Library and Archives organise a series of lunch time lectures. Lasting about 40 minutes, and taking place in the unusual setting of City Hall, these lectures have a common theme. This October, there are a series of lectures running on each Tuesday, all falling within the theme of Dublin in the 1930’s.

Next Tuesday, I will be delivering one of these talks, on the subject of the infamous ‘Animal Gangs’ of the 1930’s. The title of the talk is A Social or Political Problem? Dublin’s Animal Gangs in the 1930’s. While there’s been quite a bit of work on the ‘Animals’ over the years, in the form of oral histories in particular, the issue of their political affiliations (if any) is interesting territory to explore. The ‘Animals’ emerged out a newsboys labour dispute in 1934, but the term entered Dublin folklore for many years afterwards. I’ve recently finished a thesis on the gangs, and I suppose this is a chance to share some of that, including a lot of new information.

The talk runs from 1.10 to 1.50. City Hall is certainly an unusual venue for a talk, and you’re all welcome.

Date: Tuesday 9 October 2012
Topic: A Social or Political Problem? Dublin’s Animal Gangs in the 1930’s.
Venue: Council Chamber, City Hall, Dame Street, Dublin 2
Time: 1.10-1.50 p.m.

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Sharing is caring, and I’m very grateful to the Irish Election Literature Blog for sending these fantastic scans our way, thinking they could be of interest. We frequently dip into guide books to Dublin on the site here, and while in some cases it’s the observations about the city which are worth posting, in other cases the advertisements are what grab you attention.

Before looking at some of the advertisements within this guidebook, its restaurant listings are also interesting. How many of these are still with us? The Troika certainly isn’t something we’d associated with fine dining anymore!

Among the advertisements, The Pearl on Fleet Street grabbed my attention. The Pearl was once popular with the writers of Dublin, and I’ve heard it said there was a sort of fight of the literature types at one stage from that establishment to The Palace, also located on Fleet Street!

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Personally, I’ve never believed in ghost stories. In saying that, I do enjoy hearing some of the stories in Dublin, and any city with the history this one has is likely to have a few great tales. Browsing for something else, this November 1955 story from The Irish Times grabbed my attention. It’s a good tale, and it first appeared in the in-house Garda magazine.

Wednesday November 9 1955.

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Myra House,Francis Street (Donal Fallon)

The Legion of Mary was founded in Myra House on Francis Street, in September 1921. This organisation would have a massive effect on the city of Dublin, spearheading the campaign to close the notorious Monto district. Today, the Legion of Mary has over 4 million active members and 10 million auxiliary members, in more than 170 countries across the world. It began its life in Dublin, founded by the quiet civil servant Frank Duff. Born in Dublin in 1889, and described by historian Terry Fagan in his history of Monto as a “sombre-suited civil servant”, Duff’s organisation would become a leading player in Irish life for a time, as a mass movement of Catholic action.

The Legion of Mary began life as the Association of our Lady of Mercy, born in Myra Hall, as an organisation dedicated to visitations and promoting the Catholic faith. Frank Duff’s biographer Fionla Kennedy quotes Duff as stating the first meeting of the group consisted of fifteen people, of which thirteen were women. The group had strong links to the Saint Vincent de Paul society at the time of its foundation, and intended to assist laypeople in serving and advancing the cause of the Catholic Church.

The Legion of Mary would be the forefront of the campaign to close Dublin’s infamous red-light district in the first half of the 1920s. Known in popular Dublin history as Monto, this area took its name from Montgomery Street, located just off Talbot Street. Montgomery Street, Purdon Street, Mecklenburgh Street, Mabbot Street and others were often referred to collectively as Monto, with the area notorious at the beginning of the twentieth-century not only for its shocking levels of poverty but also the levels of prostitution found there.

The reputation of this area would lead to name changes historically, and following the construction of the ill-fated Corporation Buildings in the early twentieth century, Dublin Corporation set about attempting to change the name of Montgomery Street to Corporation Street, as this 1905 proposal from the Paving Committee shows:

We believe the great improvement effected in the street by the Corporation, together with the change of name, will have the desirable effect of obliterating its evil reputation. We therefore request and pray that it may be called Corporation-Street, as the great change for the better has been effected by the Corporation.

In the end, Montgomery Street was rechristened as Foley Street, in honour of John Henry Foley, the sculptor and one of the areas most famous sons. A change of name did little to change the character of the area however, and the misfortunes of those living there.

Between 1923 and 1925, the Legion of Mary made frequent interventions into the heart of Monto. These interventions were motivated by Duff’s familiarity with the suffering of some of Dublin’s prostitutes. Diarmaid Ferriter has quoted Duff’s first recollections of visiting a brothel in his study Occasions of Sin:Sex and Society in Modern Ireland:

For a moment, I did not realise where I was. Then I saw, and I was so intimidated that I actually backed out without uttering a word. My retreat was typical of the attitude to the problem at the time. We were not without constant reminders of the problem and of the menace it afforded.

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As you’d likely gather from dipping into this website, I’m not the kind of person to throw anything out. Over the years I’ve built up a fairly decent collection of magazines and journals from Irish left-wing parties and movements, some of whom existed for decades and others who split before the first Ard Fhéis, so to speak. One thing we’re fascinated by here on the site is visual propaganda in the form of posters, and only yesterday a post looking at some of Jim Fitzpatrick’s work appeared on the site.

I was interested today to see the hullabaloo around this image of Chairman Mao and the men and women of Easter Week. The Irish Times, The Journal and many others have run the piece, focusing on the unusual content of the poster and asking about the origins of the poster. At first, it seemed that there was some sort of belief this poster could have originated in Communist China.

Image credit: http://www.bloomsburyauctions.com

The Irish Times report for example notes:

A CHINESE propaganda poster that celebrates both the 1916 Easter Rising and Chairman Mao’s Communist Party has turned up for sale in London this week.

The Bloomsbury Auctions sale of artefacts from 20th century China includes a vivid red poster featuring a portrait of Mao above a group of armed Irish rebels, with the Tricolour flying alongside the flag of China.

The poster refers to the “54th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising” and the first anniversary of the “Historic Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China”.

Although no date is mentioned, both anniversaries occurred in 1970. It has not yet been possible to establish who produced the poster or where it was used.

The poster is being valued at around £1,000, which is the part of the story I find most interesting. It seems glaringly obvious to me that the poster is most likely the work of the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninst), a Maoist political organisation which emerged from the Internationalists who were based around students at Trinity College Dublin in the late 1960s. Last year we posted an interesting 1969 article on the student left in Ireland which looked at the Internationalists. In that article, written by Carol Coulter, she claimed that:

The ideology of the Internationalists developed along the lines laid down by their origin. They adopted Maoism, particularly the idealistic aspects of it, those that promoted the idea that if people’s thoughts were corrected, all would be well. From this came their line of ‘cultural oppression’, which was based on an analysis of society which said that “the main aspect of the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie was cultural.

The Internationalists came to public attention in 1968 for their opposition to the visit of the Belgian King Baudouin to Trinity College Dublin. Students and Gardaí clashed on that occasion, and the incident made national headlines. The CPI-ML emerged from the Internationalists. Conor McCabe of Dublin Opinion has done excellent work on the Internationalists and the CPI-ML, and his research can be read here.

McCabe includes an image of this fantastic advertisement for their bookshop, Progressive Books, which saved me rooting out a copy of Red Patriot upstairs.

Image credit: DublinOpinion.com

The poster having its origins with a small Irish Communist grouping may not be quite as sexy a story as a Chinese propaganda team finding influence in Irish nationalist history, but it certainly seems the much more credible theory and story. Is it worth £1,000? I’d seriously doubt it. If it is, there’s a whole load of lefties across the city who’ll be cashing in on the boxes in the attic. Jokes about Michael Collins bringing the man to Ireland are being made already of course.

A 1968 Irish Times report on the opening of Dublin’s Maoist bookshop, Progressive Books.

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In June 1946, Norman Burman, a Jewish antique dealer and jeweler, of South Circular road, Dublin was found guilty in the Special Criminal Court of buying a sovereign and a half-sovereign from German born Franz Alpers in Bandon, and was fined £25 or two months’ imprisonment in default.

Alpers, in evidence, said that he was manager of Hillsers Bros. jewellers, Bandon in Cork. A man named Burman, who gave him his address as South Circular road, called to this shop two or three times in 1944 asking for sovereigns. Later that year, Burmann ended up selling him a sovereign and a half for £2 5s each.

Burman, in evidence, denied that he ever bought sovereigns from Alpers or from another individual called Jackson. He bought rings and jewellery from Alpers but that was all he said. Alpers had displayed in his shop a notice that old gold and sovereigns could be bought. He called Alpers’ attention to this and and Alpers said that he had bought 20 sovereigns and sent them to his head office in court.

“Alpers was a raging anti-Semite” said Burman in court “He conveyed that by his words and by his abrupt manners, he said the same thing will happen here as happened in Germany”.

Burman was convinced that he had been set up by Alpers and this individual Jackson.

Alpers’ anti-Semitism certainly comes through in the court proceedings:

The Irish Times, 18 June 1946.

Burman appealed his sentence later in the year but his application was refused. We can assume that he served the full sentence.

Refs: The Irish Times; 18 June 1946. The Irish Independent; Jun 18, 1946 & Nov 19, 1946.

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Jim Fitzpatrick’s timeless image of Che Guevara.

Jim Fitzpatrick, one of Dublin’s most celebrated artists of modern times, will forever be associated with his iconic image of Ernesto Che Guevara. Fitzpatrick’s image of Che is back in the public eye in recent times, as a planned memorial to Guevara in Galway managed to invoke the wrath of Declan Ganley and other conservative voices. There was nothing new about Che’s images provoking controversy, and Jim has spoken before of the response to that iconic image in 1968 when it was completed, noting for example that:

Every shop that stocked the poster was threatened or harassed: in the very fashionable Brown Thomas of Grafton Street, which sold cards and posters in those faraway days, a well-turned out lady bought the entire stock, tore them all to pieces in front of the astonished staff and walked out!

Fitzpatrick’s public announcement in 2011 that he was seeking to obtain copyright on the Guevara image was a noble one, as his grievance was the “crass commercial” usage of the image. Fitzpatrick has sought to give the rights to the image and its use to the Guevara family.

Recently I was directed towards these images, which show some very unusual Fitzpatrick political pieces from the 1970’s. They have come to light recently through the fantastic ‘Official Republican/WP Archive’, which is uploading posters and images relating to the Workers Party and the ‘Official’ Republican movement historically.

This poster showing young Kevin Barry is incredibly striking. Barry, who has been sung of by all including Paul Robeson and Leonard Cohen, is undoubtedly one of the romantic heroes of Irish history, and Fitzpatrick’s image captures his youthful idealism perfectly.

Via Official Republican / WP Archive

Another Fitzpatrick image I had no familiarity with was this one of James McCormack and Peter Barnes. These two men were hanged in Winson Green Prison, Birmingham in 1940, found guilty of involvement in a bombing in Coventry. As Tim Pat Coogan has noted, the hanging of these men “aroused a wave of bitterness against England in Ireland.”

What strikes me about this image is its similarities with some of Fitzpatrick’s work for the legendary band Thin Lizzy.

Via Official Republican / WP Archive

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Arthur’s Day made sense two years ago, to mark the 250th anniversary of an institution. Now, I’m not quite buying it. If anything should be celebrated it is the rise of small Irish breweries, as opposed to Diageo’s stranglehold over the Irish market.

Read this history of Dublin breweries historically and weep.

A city that was once host to over 30 breweries was now reduced to one. Guinness was so dominant in Ireland, that when it started its first advertising campaign in England in 1929 it felt it was a complete waste of money to spend anything in Ireland. Consumers either drank its beer or gave up drinking. According to the “History of Guinness Advertising” it spent an average of £10,000 per year on marketing in Ireland between 1929 and 1959. Part of the Guinness strategy was whenever a small brewery closed or was bought out by it, its sales representatives were sent out to buy up all the memorabilia/posters etc. from the pubs that were previously supplied by that brewery. In that way it could remove the history of that company from the popular imagination.

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