Come Here To Me!

Obedientia Civium Felicitas Urbis, Happy is the city where citizens obey.

You can see the city motto on most lampposts in the capital. Walking into the library of NUI Maynooth with my hawk-eyed da, he spotted two Dublin city corporation lampost on the campus.

More Dubliners lost to North Kildare then!

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Queen’s visit ‘very positive for Ireland’: Tourism boss Gibbons

Pints in the Cobblestone? A stroll through Stephens Green?

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My thanks to Dara McH for getting onto my Facebook page quick as a flash after the last post on the IFI screening of the Battleship Potemkin. Dara linked me to an interview with the oldest surviving member of the Potemkin, a famous adopted Dubliner by the name of Beshoff. “Dublin is missling a plaque” he wrote .Too right.

Sam has previously done some digging on the oldest restaurants in the capital, but the story of Ivan Beshoff is something in a similar field I hope one of us can get stuck into in future. I think he’s mentioned doing it before in passing, and it’s a fascinating tale worth the research.

Check this out, it’s “..an interview between Ivan Beshoff and international journalist Enzo Farinella produced for the Italian News Agency (ANSA) in 1987 and published in several Italian newspapers.”

In Ireland Ivan Beshoff made many friends. “I knew Eamon De Valera, Countress Markievicz, George Shannon and many others. All my life I had to suffer a lot. Immediately after the Civil War of 1922 I was arrested by the Fine Gael Government as a spy. George Shannon had me imprisoned for a month while my friend De Valera had me arrested in Galway in 1932, holding me at the prison in Limerick”.

“I worked at this time with oil products from Russia. At the beginning of the second world war the oil company had stopped working in Ireland. It was then that I opened my first fish and chip shop in North Strand Road that unfortunately was bombed by the Germans. From there I transferred to another place that now I have passed on to my son Anthony. For this reason we know the Italian community in Dublin well.”

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I snapped this earlier on today, the clock over The Stags Head. I always notice it when exiting The Dame Tavern. That’s not to say I don’t like The Stags, but no way I’m fighting for a seat.

This ad from the Indo (Jun 11, 1958) seems to explain it all:

The clocks of the capital is something I’m meaning to get around to.

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…and I don’t like any of them.

I’ve always been fascinated by Gogarty. Sure, you all know him as the ‘Deputy Stagg guy’ and the ‘I make loads of money but can’t afford a babysitter guy’ , but I’m from Palmerstown. So is Paul originally. We get more Paul for our buck out west.

In 2007, Paul promised me lots of nice things on the door around various issues such as our national resources, but in the end turned out to be like pretty much every government T.D to date. The beauty of this particular government T.D however is that he’s always seemed to think he’s in both government and opposition.

Earlier on Twitter I saw Paul talking about his contribution to education, and he mentioned “stopping tuition fees” as one of his/the Greens contributions to education in this country. Now, last time I checked, we have fees. €2,000 due next September to be precise.

To which Paul responded:

Cheers for that Paul.

Ultimately, though Paul won’t like to admit it, his political legacy to many young people will be emigration, increased costs and barriers to education and a shameful reduction in the minimum wage. I hope you can edit your Twitter username, because that “TD” won’t be there much longer Paul.

Come Here To Me is offering a pint to the first Palmerstown resident who is willing to publically come forward and say they’re voting for Paul on February 25, giving one good reason for doing so. Being related to Paul is not a good reason to vote for him.

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