Come Here To Me!

‘In Flags or Flitters – Pictures of Dublin’ was made to celebrate Dublin’s year as European City of Culture in 1991. The phrase “in flags or flitters” is taken from ‘Finnegans Wake’ by James Joyce, Dublin’s greatest writer, and a rare recording of his voice is used in the film. It is made from archive footage shot in the thirty years between approximately 1960 until around 1990, now preserved in the collections of the Irish Film Archive/Irish Film Institute and RTE. The documentary, which is not chronological and has no narrator, deals with the look and the built environment of the city (and county) of Dublin as well as its influence on art and artists.

My uncle John uploaded this great documentary about Dublin onto Youtube today. It features, amongst others, Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan, Austin Clarke and Christy Brown.

Read Full Post »

From ‘The Road Before Me (Began Behind)’ by J. Sean Callan (2005)

The neon Bovril advertisement which once stood high upon a building at the corner of Lower Grafton Street and College Green us fondly remembered by a generation of Dubliners. Apparently young kids, city visitors and tipplers after a night out often went out of their way to head down by Trinity to view this extraordinary wonder as it was unique in that each of its letters lit up in a different colour.

Samuel Beckett’s collection of short prose More Pricks Than Kicks (1934) depicts protagonist Belacqua Shuah’s perception of the misty neon streetscape of College Green outside of Trinity College Dublin:

Bright and cheery above the strom of the Green, as though coached by the Star of Bethlehem, the Bovril sign danced and danced through its seven phases.

The TCD Miscellany made the following humorous observation in a short poem entitled Epitaph in 1951:

Éamonn Mac Thomáis in his classic memoir Me jewel and darlin’ Dublin (1983) wrote that

The first illuminated sign I remember seeing in Dublin was the Bovril sign high over College Green. What a spectacle it provided as it burst into a rainbow of colours.

Does anyone know when the sign was taken down? If you have memories or pictures of the old Bovril sign, let us know.

Old Dublin tram preserved in Collins Barracks, Dublin. (Photo credit - hoffopolis)

Read Full Post »

Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda (? – 1675) thought so much of himself that he used the six words of his title when naming six streets in Dublin’s North Inner city – “Henry Street”, “Moore Street”, “Earl Street” “Of Lane” (now Henry Place) and “Drogheda Street” (now O’Connell Street)

Henry Street was purchased by Moore in 1614 from James Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond, to whom it had been granted when St. Mary’s Abbey was dismantled. It was later sold to Luke Gardiner (c.1690 – 1775) in the early 18th century as was Earl Street. Drogheda Street originally extended only from present day Parnell Street to Abbey Street. Luke Gardiner also purchased it in the mid 1770s, he demolished the houses on the west side and created a street 1,050 feet long and 150 feet wide. This was laid out with a central mall, fifty feet wide, decorated with obelisks and trees. (Information gathered from Paul Clerkin’s Dublin Street Names)

I certainly think Henry Moore certainly wins the prize of having the most street names in Dublin named after one person?

Drogheda St. c. 1750 (Picture Credit - GrahamH)

Read Full Post »