Come Here To Me!

The image above is one of my favourite Dublin images, capturing a mix of famous faces at a rather unusual ceremony, which took place at the Trinity College Boat Club at Islandbridge in 1924. W.B Yeats, William Cosgrave and Oliver St.John Gogarty are all visible, as Gogarty ‘gifts’ two swans to the River Liffey. If the image is interesting, the story behind it is equally so….

Oliver St.John Gogarty is a remarkable figure in Dublin history. A one-time Bohemian F.C player, he was a doctor, author, well-known raconteur and an Irish nationalist, not to mention a vocal anti-Semite on occasion and even the inspiration for the Buck Mulligan character in Ulysses. Born in Rutland Square (now Parnell Square) in 1878, Gogarty was shaped by the city he lived and wrote in, and counted Arthur Griffith and William Butler Yeats among personal friends, with Yeats describing him as ‘one of the great lyric poets of the age.’ Gogarty was active in the Sinn Féin movement from its very inception, indeed he even spoke at the inaugural meeting of the organisation, and in his Dictionary of Irish Biography profile it is noted that “Gogarty took the Sinn Féin headquarters’ files into his house when the party was banned in 1919, and sheltered men on the run”, including a certain Michael Collins.

Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Gogarty sided with the emerging state, and became a Senator to the Free State. This brought him into conflict with the Anti-Treaty IRA, who singled out Free State senators for attacks and intimidation. In February 1923 alone, the IRA attacked 37 properties belonging to Free State senators, and others were targeted for kidnapping and attempted assassination. On January 1923, armed republicans came to the home of Oliver St.John Gogarty to kidnap him. The story of this incident is told well in Ulick O’Connor’s biography of Gogarty, where he notes that

Gogarty was having a bath in his house after his day’s work, when he felt a revolver pressed into his ribs. Using a woman as a decoy, by pretending that she was a patient, armed men had gained entry into the house. They demanded that he should accompany them. As he was dressing, he glanced towards the chest of drawers where a revolver lay concealed, but calculated that the chances of getting it out in time before his captors shot him were negligible…..AS he got into the car, the revolver was pressed hard into his back. ‘Isn’t it a good thing to die in a flash, Senator?’ one of the gunmen said, as they sped out along the Chapelizod Road.

Gogarty was taken to a safe house on the banks of the Liffey, near to the Salmon Weir, and convinced his captors that, in O’Connor’s words, “his bowels were loosening with fright”. Gogarty was said to use this opportunity outside to throw his coat over the head of a captor and jump into the freezing Liffey, swimming to safety, before stumbling shocked into the police barracks of the nearby Phoenix Park. This account is somewhat at odds with one given by Gogarty himself, when he claimed (see the comment below, which is what I’m quoting) “to have asked before they shot him if he could say some prayers and they agreed. He knelt at the side of the river apparently praying and then suddenly dived into the river, swam under the water and reached the other side.”

Gogarty, according to his biographer, made a vow “while immersed in the swirling torrent, that he would present two swans to the Goddess of the River, in thanksgiving, if he reached the bank in safety.” Gogarty relocated himself to London for a period following this kidnapping and further intimidation against him by the IRA, but in 1924 he fulfilled his promise to the Liffey.

Oliver St. John Gogarty and W.B Yeats photographed after releasing the swans, 1924.© RTÉ Stills Library 0511/008

What of the men who kidnapped Gogarty? One of the men has been covered before on the site here, Thomas O’Leary of Harolds Cross. He was later to die at the hands of Free State soldiers, and a small memorial on the Upper Rathmines Road at the gates of the Tranquilla Convent marks the location where his body was found. Gogarty was said to remark of his passing that “The fellow who had led the raid on me was found riddled with bullets outside the Tranquilla Convent in Rathmines; at appropriate place for a quietus.”

Back to the image, don’t the swans appear a little unusual?

An excerpt from Ireland of the Welcomes (1988) posted here gives an idea of why:

Apparently the swans didn’t come willingly out of their container, and when they were finally persuaded to do so with a good kick to the box, they took off at top speed up river. The tranquil swans in the background of the photo are pretty obviously introduced by an artist’s hand.