Come Here To Me!

The Viking. (‘A guide to some of Dublin’s pubs and restaurants’, 1970)

The Viking Inn, at 75 Dame Street, predated The George as being Dublin’s first ‘exclusively gay bar’. Situated just beside The Olympia Theatre, the pub was taken over and renamed Brogan’s Bar in the early 1990s.

The earliest (newspaper) records show that 75 Dame Street operated first as a surgery for a ‘mechanical dentist’ by the name of John Egar in the 1850s. Remodeled as a public house it was known as O’Brien Bros. (1920s), Kerins (1940s), McCabes (1950s), Leonards (1960s/1970s), The Crampton Court (late 1970s), The Viking Inn (1979 – 1987), The City Hall Inn (1989 – 1993) and finally Brogan’s Bar (1993 – present).

The Viking was the first bar in the city to be owned by a gay proprietor and to be opened specifically as a gay bar. It closed in 1987, shortly after The Parliament (now the Turks Head) opened and a full two years after The George first set up shop.

The Viking Inn for sale. The Irish Times, 11 Aug 1987.

Poster John K. on gaire.com remembers:

Because it was beside the Olympia there were many amusing incidents when straight people, especially from the country, went in and quickly began to feel very uncomfortable … The Viking was a great spot. I first went in there around 1980 (and) I have no recollection of any Garda harassment.

Fourcort recalls plucking up the courage to visit the place for the first time:

One night in the early eighties, I walked the entire length of Dame St. about 20 times trying to get up the courage to push in through the door of the Viking. A couple of drag queens cottoned on to me at one stage and started laughing at me. Eventually, I just forced myself in, got a pint (I never drink pints, I just thought I could make it last, and not have to move again), and went and hid down the back.

There are lots of aspects to Dublin’s LGBT culture that I’d like to cover in the future including the four-storey gay Hirschfeld Centre (1979 – 1987) in Temple Bar, Sides D.C. (now The Mercantile) on Dame Lane, the legendary acid house nightclub which started out as a gay club and the tragic events  surrounding the 1982 murder of Declan Flynn, a 31-year old gay man, in Fairview Park by a gang of thugs.

The Hirschfeld Centre opens. The Irish Times, 25 Apr 1979.

Veteran  campaigner and DJ Tonie Walsh has done fantastic work in trying to record the history of the LGBT community in Ireland, his long standing work cumulated  in the Irish Queer Archive which was donated to the National Library in 2008. The archive contains, amongst other things, ‘over 250,000 news clippings dating from the late 1960s and covering all the national print media, all lesbian/gay print media published in Ireland since 1974 and rrivate papers, journals and diaries (the earliest dating from 1947)’.

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I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute a story to Storymap, which is a great project aiming to capture Dublin through its stories. Previously, we featured Shane MacThomais’ excellent contribution on the UVF man buried in Glasnevin for example, and there are stories on everything from street characters like Bang Bang to the ghosts that inhabit the Jervis Centre.

For me, there was only one story to tell, and that is the story of Vonolel, the loyal charger and friend of Field Marshall Earl Roberts. A small white arab pony, of Indian stock, he is buried in Dublin today. We first featured the story of Vonolel back in June 2010, and since then several people have got in touch to say they’ve paid him a visit. Next time you’re in the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham, why not do the same?

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Elizabeth McLaughlin’s statue to the Countess Markievicz was slammed in The Irish Times of October 21 2000 by Robert O’Byrne. In a piece looking at five ‘statues to forget’, it was noted that the statue “bears almost no resemblence to the rebel Countess, it is coarsely executed, a giftshop item enlarged”. Ouch. Still, the writer also thought that John Henry Foley’s masterpiece, the O’Connell memorial, was “vulgar, overblown and overbearing”, and even praised ‘Perpetual Motion’, that weird looking thing out by Naas.

The statue of Countess Markievicz is relatively new, dating back to 1998. It was commissioned by Treasury Holdings. The Countess has a number of statues and monuments in her honour, including at Leinster House and Stephens Green, along with a very impressive statue in her native Sligo, depicting her in the uniform of the Irish Citizen Army. What is unusual about the statue opposite Tara Street fire station and next to The Irish Times, is that it shows Marckievicz in a more informal manner, alongside her beloved dog Poppet.

Sean O’Faoláin wrote of the dog in his biography of the Countess, noting that:

Madame had a dog, Poppet, which some of them disliked intensely and regarded only as ‘an ould dog you’d love to root’, and behind her back Poppet did get an occasional ‘root’

The dog also appears in the memoirs of Margaret Skinnider, the only female wounded on the republican side during a Easter Rising, and a republican from Coatbridge,Scotland.

One day the countess took several of us, including her dog Poppet, out beyond Dundrum. Upon our return we could call this expedition “a little shooting party.” And it would be the truth, for Poppet, being an Irish cocker, more interested in hunting than in revolts, joined himself to two men who were intent on getting birds. He was of so great assistance that these men, in recognition of his services, gave us a few of the birds he brought in. We took them home as trophies.

Constance’s stepson Stanislas with Poppet.

While the statue dates to 1998, monuments to the Countess have stood in the city for decades. It was 1932 for example when the bust in Stephens’ Green was unveiled at a huge ceremony involving veterans of the Rising, President de Valera, and an ex-speaker of the Indian Parliament in the form of Mr.Patel, who received a rousing reception. Early in 1945, someone took a disliking to the bust and a hammer was used upon it, causing considerable damage.

Damage shown in The Irish Press

Constance Georgine Markievicz is today buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, having died at the age of 59, on 15 July 1927. She, and her sister Eva, a radical in her own right and a trade unionist and suffragist, are remembered in W.B Yeats’ beautiful poem In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz.

The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.

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Leo Broe, himself a member of the Irish Volunteers, is best remembered today for his various monuments to Irish republicans throughout the country. His memorial sculpture opposite Phibsborough Library on the North Circular Road is one of my favourite statues in Dublin, dating back to 1939.

The statue serves as a monument to the men of the Old ‘C’ Co.1st Batt, Dublin Brigade. Made of Irish limestone, and standing an impressive sixteen foot, it was unveiled on February 19 1939. Interestingly, the statue takes the form of a drinking fountain. The statue shows a man in Volunteer uniform clutching a rifle. On the day it was unveiled, Capt. Sean Prendergast unveiled the monument while Seamus Byrne delivered the oration.

The memorial contains three plaques, showing historic moments in Irish history. The landing of the Milesians, Cu Chullan and the death of Brian Boru at Clontarf are shown. As The Irish Press report at the time of the unveiling noted “over the fountains are two brass plaques of celtic design, and the surrounding area is in the form of a celtic cross.”

The Irish Times estimated that three thousand people had attended the unveiling of Broe’s statue.

Vandalised in the 1970’s, and the Volunteer stood for many years with no rifle in his hand, until his restoration in the early 1990s. The image below comes from an issue of inDublin magazine dated August 6th 1981, and first uploaded to the excellent dxarchive.com site, a tribute to Irish pirate radio stations, as Dublin’s first pirate television station ‘Channel D’ operated out of the old ‘State Cinema’ building in Phibsborough, just next to this monument.

Leo Broe, of Harolds Cross, was responsible for some excellent monuments nationwide. This cutting from The Irish Independent shows him at work on a monument which would end up in Bruff, Limerick. His monuments are to be found across the four provinces.

Leo Broe’s profile on the Dublin City Galery page notes that “much of Broe’s time was taken up with ecclesiastical work for Dublin churches, along with IRA memorials in provincial districts.” He died in 1966, with his son Desmond Broe going on to become noted in the field himself.

Just around the corner, and featured on Come Here To Me in the past, is a small plaque to Sean Healy, the youngest republican casualty of the 1916 rising.

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Scanned from Lennox Robinson's 'Pictures In A Theatre'

The Abbey has a long and fascinating history. Some stories, like the riots which surrounded both The Playboy of the Western World and The Plough and the Stars have gone on to enter popular Dublin ‘lore and history. Yet there is a great hidden history to the Abbey, and below are five facts about the theatre that may surprise some of you.

1) Yeats could have made it a part-time cinema!

In his excellent history of the “theatre that refused to die”, Sean McCann wrote of the financial crisis that gripped the Abbey in the early 1920s. On the day Sean O’Casey’s classic ‘The Shadow Of A Gunman’ was first performed at the theatre in April of 1923, banks advised the directors of the Abbey that their cheques could no longer be cashed. As McCann notes in his history “by August of that year the letting of the theatre as a cinema was considered, with the warm approval of Yeats, and only the possibility of a Government subsidy gave any hope of keeping it alive.”

2) The Dublin Fire Brigade saved the pram from O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars.

L.Fallon collection. Posted previously to 'Come Here To Me'.

On July 18 1951 a fire ripped the home of the Abbey apart. Tom Geraghty and Trevor Whitehead noted in their history of the Dublin Fire Brigade that in was the busiest night of the year for the Brigade, with nine crews fighting the blaze.

What had been the former Mechanic’s Institute and City Morgue was just a gaunt dangerous skeleton festooned with The Plough and the Stars posters, and the ghost of Yeats was left to haunt an eerie smoke-filled chamber.

The incredible image above shows Fireman Frank Brennan salvaging the pram, which featured even in the excellent 2010 production. The frame is original, its casing isn’t.

3) It boasts a fine 1916 connection, though its monument has changed.

Historically, a plaque was located in one of the pillars outside The Abbey, listing seven names. These are individuals who participated in the Easter Rising, and who held a variety of roles at the theatre. The first casualty of the republican side in Easter Week of course was an Abbey actor by the name of Sean Connolly, but alongside him are six other names, all of whom survived the uprising. Máire Mic Shibhlaigh, Helena Molony, Ellen Bushell, Arthur Shields, Barney Murphy and Peadar Kearney were all listed on the plaque.

Today, their names are on the 1916 memorial inside of the theatre, rather than a plaque outside it:

In an excellent contribution to Dublin Historical Record, the publication of the Old Dublin Society, James Wren correctly noted that the theatres connections to the insurrection went much deeper.

Edward Keegan for instance was a 1916 volunteer who had a long history with the theatre, and his name is sadly omitted from the memorial. He had been a member of the National Players, and even appeared in the first productions of Yeats’ On Baille’s Strand and Lady Gregory’s Spreading The News.

Keegan worked with The Irish Times newspaper as a clerk, but found himself sacked following the rebellion for ‘disloyalty’!

4)It took a decade to pull it down after the inferno of 1951, but in the meantime it made a handy office for one infamous Dubliner.

Ernest Blythe recalled for me the first time he met Brendan Behan was when he went to one of the old rooms a long time after the fire and there he found a man installed. ‘It turned out he was using it for an office. He had all his papers spread out and he had made it his town office. Apparently, someone had told him where the key was kept and he had been using the place for months.

(Sean McCann: The Story of the Abbey Theatre (New English Library Limited, 1967) p.65)

5) Michael Scott, who designed the Abbey we all know today, once trod the boards of the old Abbey.

Michael Scott, the architect responsible for the Abbey which opened to the public in 1966, had a long personal history with the theatre. He joined the Abbey School of Acting under Sara Allgood, while also undertaking a architectural apprenticeship. He would recall in a recollection for The Irish Times that soon after going into private practice, he was given the call-up for a part in an Abbey play, on a London stage. He would also go on to appear at the theatre in Dublin..

Now in private practice in an office on the top floor of a building in O’Connell Street, and working on plans for the Gate Theatre in the Rotunda, and other projects, I was asked to go to London to play in Shaftesbury Avenue. The part offered was the Gossoon,in the Abbey Play The New Gossoon.

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The Unlock NAMA occupation today has really grabbed peoples imagination, and I thought it was a great touch that alongside the information on NAMA and the properties under its ownership, the group behind the occupation included a history of the building to show what it was in past lives.

One picture stood out instantly, taken from here at Come Here To Me. 66-67 Great Strand Street were occupied today, but right next door at 64 occurred one of the most unusual events of the 1930s in Dublin, in the form of the storming of Connolly House following a rather heated mass at the Pro Cathedral.

Bob Doyle, who went on to fight fascism in Spain, was ironically enough among the crowd who stormed Great Strand Street. He wrote in his memoirs years later:

I had attended the evening mission on Monday 27 March 1933 at the Pro-Cathedral, during the period of Lent where the preacher was a Jesuit. The cathedral was full. He was standing in the pulpit talking about the state of the country, I remember him saying – which scared me – “Here in this holy Catholic city of Dublin, these voile creatures of Communism are within our midst.” Immediately after the sermon everybody then began leaving singing and gathered in a crowd outside, we must have been a thousand singing “To Jesus Heart All Burning” and “Faith of our Fathers, Holy Faith”. We marched down towards Great Strand Street, to the headquarters of the socialist and anti-Fascist groups in Connolly House. I was inspired, of you could use that expression, by the message of the Jesuit. There was no attempt by the police to stop us.

We’ve already looked at the event in some detail before, over here, but with the day that is in it I thought I’d repost the image as it appeared in the Unlock NAMA history today. Below is a rare image showing two police officers alongside the petrol cans used during the burning of Connolly House. It came into my possession as a gift, and I’m chuffed to share it.

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DFallon’s great piece on Ettie Steinberg yesterday got me thinking about another unusual tale regarding the Irish and the Second World War. That is the story of John McGrath of Roscommon who became the only Irishman to be imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp.

If you stand in the Schubraum section of the Museum Building in Dachau, you will see a large map of Europe on the wall. Over each country is a number,  indicating how many of their citizens were imprisoned in the camp. The number ‘1’ is marked over Ireland.

John McGrath (c1893 – Nov 27 1946), was born in Elphin, Roscommon and educated at the Christian Brothers’ Schools in Carrick-On-Shannon. Joining the British Army, he saw action in France in World War One.

John McGrath. Sunday Independent, Apr 17, 1932.

Returning home safely he worked, as an administrative staff assistant, with the Gordon Hotel in London and then was involved with the organising of the Grand Prix Motor Race in the Phoenix Park and the Military Tattoo in Landsdowne Road in the late 1920s

He became the first House Manager of the new Savoy Cinema in Dublin in 1929, staying there for two years. When the Savoy Cinema in Cork was opened, he was sent down to manage it and worked there for a further two years. Returning to Dublin, in 1935, to manage the Theatre Royal on Hawkins Street, McGrath was recalled up to the British Army, as major, at the outbreak of war in 1939.

Theatre Royal, Hakins St. nd. (Picture credit -Damntheweather)

Landing with the Allies in Dunkirk in May 1940, McGrath was one of the ‘small Allied band’ who fought in France after the evacuation. He was wounded twice in battle near Rouen, Normandy before finally being captured by the Nazis. McGrath, now a Colonel, along with other captured POWs were then forced to march over four hundred miles to Germany. At least two hundred of the captured men died of exhaustion en route.

(more…)

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