Come Here To Me!

illustration dated 12 June 1921. (Click to expand)

On 25 May 1921, Dublin’s magnificent Custom House was set ablaze by the 2nd Battalion of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Republican Army. The centre of Local Government for the British administration in Ireland, the building was of enormous political and symbolic importance.

That the IRA succeeded in burning the building isn’t entirely surprising, owing to the level of collusion between the revolutionary forces and Dublin Fire Brigade, well-detailed in The Firemen’s Tale (Available at this link).Not only had the IRA sought advice on how to burn the building from republicans within the DFB, but on entering the burning premises firefighters did what they could to ensure the building was destroyed. DFB historian Las Fallon has written of how the Chief Officer of the Fire Brigade, Captain John Myers, did not seek any external help from other fire services (like those of Rathmines and Pembroke) who could have assisted in bringing the blaze under control, while firemen “made down their hoses with a marked lack of speed or urgency.” One firefighter who entered the building, Michael Rogers, recalled:

We had the building practically at our mercy. And I can tell you now that many parts of it that were not on fire when we entered were blazing nicely in a short while.

Firefighter Joseph Connolly was an active member of the Irish Citizen Army at the time of the burning of the building. Following the act, ICA Captain Michael O’Kelly was actually snuck into the building disguised as a firefighter to recover weapons, remembering that about 35 revolvers were salvaged, and that “we took them out and delivered them in Fairview that night in a Dublin ambulance.”

For the IRA, the ICA and indeed the DFB, it was all in a day’s work.  Five Volunteers were killed that day, and dozens captured, but the images of the destroyed Custom House which would make their way across the world did much to counter the lies that the war in occupied Ireland was little more than unarmed policemen being shot by thugs. The capacity of the revolutionary forces was clearly demonstrated before the world, in a way that was totally at odds with the cinema newsreels of 1921.

Fire was a weapon in the revolutionary period, more often deployed by crown forces. As Las Fallon notes, the burning of co-operative creameries and community services “as a general reprisal against a local population was possibly the most targeted use of incendiarism by the police and British military. In general they struck more widely, burning towns and villages…to strike fear into the locals.”

In France, this imaginative illustration appeared in the pages of Le Pelerin days after the burning of the Custom House. A few things should be noted; perhaps the illustrator was thinking too much of the events of 1916, as the scene is more reminiscent of the GPO than the reality of the Custom House. While men entered the Custom House armed with revolvers, here we see rifles being fired out of the windows. Note also the presence of women, perhaps Cumann na mBan activists, one of whom has had the misfortune of having her dress catch fire!  Looking out one window, we see a Dublin Fire Brigade firefighter hard at work too, pointing his hose inside the inferno. It’s quite funny to think, owing to recent historical research and revelations, that may be the most ludicrous or inaccurate dimension of the work!

The plaque of the Hitschfeld Centre, part of a new exhibition at The Little Museum of Dublin.

On 6 May 1933, Adolf Hitler’s Brownshirts made their way into the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Studies) in Berlin and seized thousands of books and publications they deemed immoral. At the same time, bookshops and lending libraries were raided across the city, denounced as “literary bordellos” by  ignorant thugs.

Thankfully, the founder of the Institute, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, was on a speaking tour of the United States at the time the raiding party arrived. One witness to the raid on the Institute described how for three hours the raiders:

 …emptied inkwells onto carpets and broke, or vandalised, framed paintings and prints…They confiscated books, periodicals, photographs, anatomical models, a famous wall tapestry, and a bust of Hirschfeld. After music, speeches and songs outside at noon they departed but were succeeded at 3pm by SA men, who removed 10,000 books form the institute’s library. A few days later they carried the bust of Hirschfeld on a pole in a torchlight parade before throwing it on the bonfire with the books from the Institute.

A memorial plaque in Berlin’s Tiergarten today marks the location were the Institute stood. Unsurprisingly, Hirschfeld would never return to Germany. A Jewish sexologist stood little chance in Nazi Germany, and Hirschfeld lived out his final days in France. On his 67^th birthday, 14 May 1935, he died of a heart attack in Nice. Once dubbed the “Einstein of Sex”, he was just one of many intellectual leaders who suffered at the hands of Fascism.

Hirschfeld came to be honoured by LGBT activists all over the world, including here in Dublin. A new exhibition in the Little Museum of Dublin, Brand New Retro: Irish Pop Culture 1950-1980, sees the bronze sign from the front of the Hirschfeld Centre in Temple Bar on display to the public. This institution, which opened its doors in March 1979, retains a special place in the gay history of Dublin.  For many, seeing the sign will be a reminder of a different time entirely, both for Dublin and the Irish gay community.

 Temple Bar in 1979:

Writing in 1979, an English journalist said of the Irish capital:

Suddenly, Dublin has become a shabby city – shabby because its centre is peppered with crude concrete structures, flashy mirror-glass facades and other inappropriate schemes which have no connection at all with the spirit of the place.

There was a certain air of “tear it down and start again”, which was nowhere more obvious than in Temple Bar. Once a district synonymous with manufacturing and production, the wheels of industry had largely seized turning by the late 1970s, and urban decay was becoming a reality. In 1977, there was  a massive  proposal for the development of a new central Bus station in Temple Bar, which  would span the River Liffey, with development on Ormond Quay designed to complement that across the River. It was planned that a tunnel under the Liffey would join both sites, and it was also planned to incorporate the DART into at all. It would have spelled the end for Temple Bar as Dubliners knew it, and C.I.E (the bus company) were buying up huge chunks of property in the area – but leasing them out on short term leases, accidentally bringing a new energy to a district they wanted to demolish. Paul Knox has written:

Paradoxically, this triggered a process of revitalization. Activities which could afford only low rents on short leases moved into the district. These included artists’ studios, galleries, recording and rehearsal studies, pubs and cafes, second-hand clothes shops, small boutiques, bookshops and record stores, as well as a number of voluntary organisations. Together with the districts architectural character, the youth culture attracted by the districts new commercial tenants brought a neobohemian atmosphere to Temple Bar…

Thankfully never constructed, this was the proposed bus station development of 1977 (Image Credit: Archiseek)

Temple Bar was a district in transition, and which it seemed was up for grabs. Interviewed by Rabble in September 2012 Rabble in September 2012, historian and archivist Tonie Walsh made the point that:

It was on Fownes Street because it was so derelict. It made an ideal place for a gay community centre at a time when homophobia was endemic. It was important to get somewhere that wasn’t too in the public eye, that was a little bit discreet. Because of course you had to run the gamut of gay bashers, or people wanting to torch the place. I mean there were grills on it. A poet friend of mine from Finglas ,John Grundy,  used to refer to it as ‘Fortress Fownes’. It looked like it was totally grilled. Barricaded.

A new social centre:

The driving force behind the centre was the National Gay Federation, today the National LGBT Federation. It housed “meeting spaces, a youth group, a café, a small cinema and film club and it ran discos at the weekend where gay men, lesbian women and transgender people socialised.”In the years before this, it was clear such a premises was needed. In October 1975,  more than three hundred people attended the opening night of the Phoenix Club, HQ of the Irish Gay Rights Movement (IGRM) at 46 Parnell Square, and as the Irish Queer Archive have noted, this proved the “massive need for a dedicated queer social space in Dublin city.”

Fownes Street as it appears today. 10 Fownes Street is now occupied by Tola Vintage, beside Gourmet Burger Kitchen. (Image: Google Maps)

The plaque on the new Temple Bar premises was unveiled by Dr. Noel Browne, a TD who had bravely raised the issue of gay rights inside Leinster House in 1977, and who had clashed with conservatives forces in the past, most famously during the Mother and Child Scheme controversy.  On the day of the unveiling of the plaque, a speech heralded the centre as  “living proof of gay people’s new found pride…testimony to the fact that [we] the gay citizens of Ireland need no longer fear to be openly ourselves.”

The Irish Times reported on the opening of the centre that:

The four-storey building was once a warehouse, but has been renovated and equipped with fire escapes and fire fighting equipment as well as with more “fun” items like the massive disco speakers and imported record collection straight from New York’s most up-to-date record shop, and the brown wood-slatted cafeteria selling Bewley’s coffee.The cinema is already fully functioning.

It was reported that “NGF members will be able to get pink plastic triangles from the centre to wear on their lapels as a sign of membership” In explaining this, David Norris told the press that “Gays were the first to be interned in Nazi camps and also the first to be medically experimented on. And though half a million gays perished in the camps, both German Republics have consistently refused to compensate or even commemorate the fact.” Norris invested heavily in the new centre; indeed The Irish Times reported that it had been “very largely funded by David Norris…with money from selling his home in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, and he is resigned to the fact that he may not get his investment back again.”

As part of the new Brand New Retro exhibition in the Little Museum of Dublin, a number of contemporary handbills from the centre have been reproduced, giving a sense of the wide variety of functions played by the centre. This leaflet notes the disco nights which largely sustained the centre financially, as well as advertising the very important TAF (Tel-A-Friend) service, a “confidential information and counseling service for homosexual Men and Women”:

(Image Credit:Brand New Retro exhibition at the Little Museum of Dublin.)

Similarly, this leaflet advertises the Gay Switchboard:

(Image Credit: Brand New Retro exhibition at The Little Museum of Dublin.

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In January 2012, we had the privilege of sitting down and chatting with Terry Fagan, the driving force behind the North Inner-City Folklore Project. The Project has been responsible for a number of oral history publications, most recently a study of Dublin tenement life. The project have also put up several plaques in the north inner-city in recent years, marking the valuable contribution of the area to the struggle for independence.

Quite frankly, what Terry and the NICFP have gathered over time is one of the most important collections of artifacts of working class life and struggle on the island of Ireland.  For several years now, the material has been kept in a vacant flat at St. Mary’s Mansions on Railway Street. In recent days, the collection had a very lucky escape:

(Image Credit: Terry Fagan)

(Image Credit: Terry Fagan)

Terry notes that:

The residents of St Marys Mansions of Railway Street including local teenagers have watched over it for nearly two years to make sure nothing happened to it as it lay in the boarded up Dublin City Council flat. Only for the Council over the many years they have always helped me with a place to store the archive which keeps on growing as more artifacts are giving to me by some local people. The flat complex is not being pulled down, it is to be redesigned with the start of the art housing is to be in place for the residents when the return after moving out temporally.

The Halloween event is not too far away and the young children were out and about collecting all sorts of wood for the Halloween bonfire, they had it stored near where the archive is housed on the ground floor flat. They would tell me as I was going in and of the flat “We will make sure nothing will happen to it.”

I had them all in looking at the old black and white photographs, and some were pointing out their grandmothers and grandfathers. They were amazed looking at the old tenement artifacts; old gas lamps and oil lamps old valve radios, the old money and artifacts I found in the underground tunnels of what was old Monto.

During the night a group from another part of the area came in and set fire to the wood they had spent days collecting in preparation for Halloween. Thanks to Dublin Fire Brigade who where on the scene quickly and put out the fire which almost spread next-door to where the archive is housed. I don’t think they knew was stored next door to where the fire was, but they saved the history of the area. I thank them.

(Image Credit: Terry Fagan)

(Image Credit: Terry Fagan)

In recent years, there has been a tremendous resurgence of interest in the work of Harry Clarke (1889-1931). Ireland’s most renowned stained-glass artist, the work of Harry Clarke and his studio team is to be found all over the capital and beyond.  HarryClarke.net provides an archive of his windows from Ireland and beyond, and The History Press have published Strangest Genius: The stained glass of Harry Clarke, a beautifully illustrated book that brings together the entire Clarke collection. For creative revisionists , there’s even a colouring book!

Mary Clerkin Higgins, a stained-glass artist and conservator, maintains that:

A complex window is like an orchestra playing a symphony. The colours must work as an ensemble; whether the artist intends them to hum a rich, beautiful melody or be a rambunctious chorus of hues, there has to be a basic structure, order and harmony….Harry Clarke was, above all else, a truly great colourist, one who could deftly combine a rich palette of colours to achieve dazzling results.

Personally, I have always hand a great fondness for Clarke’s book illustrations, in particular the rather haunting ‘The Last Hour of the Night’, which served as frontispiece to Patrick Abercrombie’s Dublin of the Future: The New Town Plan (1922). Published at a time when the city was emerging from the violence of the revolutionary period, the piece shows destroyed Dublin landmarks alongside the great shame of the city – its unsanitary and deathtrap tenement blocks:

‘The Last Hour of the Night’ (Harry Clarke, 1922)

A recent fundraiser for vital renovation and conservation works on a Clarke window in Ringsend reminded me of a damaged but ultimately salvaged Clarke piece on display today in The Little Museum of Dublin. Depicting Saint Brendan, this piece was rescued from a skip by architectural historian (and one of the real champions of Dublin history) Peter Pearson. As Pól Ó Conghaile has noted, ” Peter kept the panel’s shape by fitting it into an old bread tray. The tray remains as its frame today, with two words printed on its top side: Irish Pride.”

The odds of finding a Harry Clarke in a skip, damaged or otherwise, are slim to none today. The Little Museum of Dublin, who currently display the rescued piece, are hoping to expand their museum in the years ahead, which will allow them to display more artifacts like this one.

I was delighted to be asked to give a brief talk last night in Drumcondra Library on the life of Seán Connolly, the first rebel fatality of the 1916 Rising in Dublin. This talk was part of the Dublin Festival of History, which is a Dublin City Council initiative that grows with each year. While there are large events in the Printworks venue at Dublin Castle, there is also a full calendar of talks in DCC libraries.

Seán Connolly (1882-1916) was a trade unionist and cultural nationalist who was heavily involved in the language, theatre and sporting movements of the early twentieth century. Gary Holohan, a leading member of the republican scout movement Na Fianna, recalled that “the Connolly’s were the first Irish-Ireland family I ever knew.” Seán O’Casey, who also entered radical politics through the cultural movements around it, remembered the first time he met Connolly, as “in the lapel of the coat he wore a button badge, having on it a Celtic cross with the words The Gaelic League over it.”

From a family of committed Larkinites, some of Sean’s siblings were later central to the reorganising of the Citizen Army after Easter Week, with his brother Joseph holding the rank of Captain in the ICA until 1923.

I want to express my thanks to those who traveled to the talk last night with this unique banner, loaned by Catriona and John Malone. From 1918, the banner was produced for a local Cumann of the Sinn Féin party in Naas. It was made by Elizabeth Garry (nee Cahill) of Poplar Square in Naas, and looks remarkably well after 98 years:

1918 banner for Naas Cumann of Sinn Féin, dedicated to the memory of Sean Connolly. (Drumcondra Library,29 September 2016)

While the Connolly family home was on Gloucester Street (now Seán MacDermott Street) in Dublin’s north inner-city, the roots of the family were in Kildare, which may well explain the decision to name a Sinn Féin Cumann there in his honour. The family had a tradition in radical politics that stretched back to the days of the Land League, when the family were evicted from their land at Straffan. Seán’s grandmother, Eileen Connolly, was evicted for subscribing to the Land League funds, something that the landlord took exception to.

Produced just two short years after the Rising, the banner shows that some of those who died in the fighting in Dublin were already taking on enormous symbolic importance. Seeing such a piece of history up close also makes you wonder how many gems like it are hiding in attics!

Introduction

Konrad Peterson/Konrāds Pētersons (1888-1981) was a Latvian-born revolutionary, socialist and civil engineer who lived for most of his life in his adopted home of Ireland.

Konrad in Dublin, ca. late 1910s. Credit : Brady Collection via Sandra Bondarevska.

At the age of only 17, he participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905. Forced to flee to Dublin in its aftermath, he was active in socialist and Irish Republican politics in Dublin during his time living in the city from 1906 to 1919. Returning home to a newly declared independent Latvia, he was witness to the Nazi and Russian invasions of his home city during the Second World War. He returned to Ireland in the mid-1940s to work with Bord na Móna and lived in Athy, County Kildare where he died in his 90s.

Peterson’s story is a fascinating one that has largely been forgotten. Especially in labour history and republican circles in Dublin. Sandra Bondarevska within the Latvian community and local Athy historian Frank Taaffe has done much to help ensure his memory hasn’t been totally neglected.

Note: his first name is sometimes spelt ‘Conrad’ and his surname ‘Petersen’. For the purpose of continuity, I will spell it as Konrad Peterson which is the most commonly used form and the spelling which is on his grave.

Early life (1888-1905):

Peterson was born in Riga in the Russian Empire (now Latvia) on 15th October 1888. He studied at Tilo (Tilava) primary school and then at the Mangali Maritime school from which he was expelled for refusing to speak only Russian.

According to nekropole.info, his father ran a tavern in the suburb of Zasulauks outside Riga city.

Sandra Bondarevska in an unpublished history article states that Konrad had been been a member of Revolutionary movement in Latvia from a young age and had “had close ties with the famous social democrat and renowned poet Rainis, who had emigrated to Switzerland with his wife Aspazija after the events of 1905.”

During the 1905 Russian Revolution, it is believed that Konrad participated in two major events in Riga. The first was the 10,000 strong workers demonstration on 13th January in protest at the Bloody Sunday massacre. Three days earlier in St Petersburg, Russia, over 1,000 unarmed demonstrators were shot dead by soldiers of the Imperial Guard as they marched towards the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

In September 1905, Peterson was involved in the daring raid of Riga Central prison which involved the rescue of two imprisoned comrades. His involvement is in the revolutionary movement is covered in Fēlikss Cielēns memoir ‘Laikmetu main̦ā’.

John Langins (History of Science professor, University of Toronto) met Peterson in later life and retold in his memoirs how:

Conrad took part in the bloody demonstration in January. Jumping over the wall, one Kazaks tried to spear him (in the) the bottom but (the) spear (went through his) thick coat out the back.. (Konrad was) later was an active combatant in Riga and in the countryside. These revolutionary instincts remained with Conrad (his whole) lifetime.

In wake of the brutal repression following the revolution, Peterson was smuggled out of Riga in December in a cargo ship and traveled to Ireland via Scotland where he had family.

Langins memoirs elaborates how:

Konrad fled from the terror of the Tsar. (He) hid (in a) ship that traveled to Scotland with a few comrades. Some were concealed (amongst) potatoes and some Linos. Those (in) potatoes (were) found, and right there on the ship (were) shot, but those who had Linos, was moved to one (friendly) small cabin, where they spent several days and nights in meetings, motionless on one bed … When (they) jumped down from the board in Scotland, they almost could not walk and was accepted as heroes of the English trade unions.

Dublin (1906-1919):

Arriving in Dublin about 1906, he moved in with his uncle Charles Peterson, of the well-known pipe firm Kapp & Peterson, who lived on Leinster Road, Rathmines.

He was enrolled at Padraig Pearse’s famous school St. Enda’s in Rathfarnham. In the year 1908-1909, he is listed as being a pupil in Fourth Class, Division II.

Peterson would have been about 20 years of age in 1908 (!) but as he had only been in Ireland for two years, with presumably little or no English, it makes sense that he would be in a class for much younger children.

His english much have improved greatly as on 3rd May 1910, he is listed as taking part in a debate between the Irish Women’s Franchise League and the Socialist Party of Ireland.  The resolution was “That an adult Suffragist should support a Bill immediately enfranchising women on the same terms of men”. Speaking in favour were Mrs. Cousins, Mrs. Bac, Miss B. Bannister and Mr. Pike of The Nation newspaper. Speaking against were Mr. Ryan Loughran and ‘Konrad Petersen’. Presumably both were representing the Socialist Party of Ireland.

Whether Peterson actually believed in that viewpoint or was speaking against for argument’s sake is unknown.

Newspaper ‘Votes For Women’, 6 May 1910.

In the 1911 census, the Peterson family were living at 114 Leinster Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6. Konrad, aged 21, was listed as a scholar. He listed his religion as a “Free Thinker” as did his uncles Charles (60) and John (45), both pipe-makers. Charle’s wife was a Dublin-born Catholic called Annie Peterson (nee Forde).

Peterson family. 1911 census return, 144 Leinster Road. Via census.nationalarchives.ie

The Peterson family home was just a few minutes walk from ‘Surrey House’ at 49b Leinster Road, Rathmines. This was the home of Constance Markievicz and a hotbed of revolutionary activity. Markievicz became friendly with Konrad and his uncle Charles.

Around this time, he enrolled as a Engineering student at the Royal College of Science for Ireland (RCScI). This college later absorbed into University College Dublin (UCD) as the faculty of Science and Engineering.

Peterson continued his activity with the Socialist Party of Ireland and the milleu surround it. In 1911 he offered his advice and help to Irish Republicans organising protests against the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Dublin. In her Witness Statement (No. 909) to the Bureau of Military History, Sidney Czira (aka ‘John Brennan’) recalled:

It was suggested to us by Conrad Peterson who was a student in the College of Science and who had some experience of shock tactics in Czarist Russia – he was from Riga – that we should adopt the methods used by demonstrators in Russia i.e. fold all the leaflets in two and catching them by the corner, fling them into air if we saw the police approaching. They would fan about the crowd and be picked up.

Sidney Czira (nee Gifford) was an officer of Cumann na mBan in Dublin and sister of Grace Gifford, the widow of Joseph M. Plunkett who was executed after the Rising.

He was certainly active in labour politics in Dublin in 1913 but it is not known to what extent he participated in the turbulent events of the Lockout.

In this wonderful picture from around 1913 published in Fearghal McGarry’s book ‘The Abbey Rebels of 1916: A Lost Revolution‘ you can see Konrad Peterson, Constance Markievicz, Helena Molony, Michael Gorman and George Doran dressed in costume for a performance or fancy dress party.

Peterson pictured in c. 1913. Fearghal McGarry, The Abbey Rebels of 1916: A Lost Revolution (Gill & Macmillan, 2015)

C.S. Andrews wrote that during this time Peterson:

formed close links with many of the literary and theatrical figures of Dublin … including, in particular, the famous Daisy Bannard and the man who she afterwards married, the Republican journalist Fred Cogley (‘Man of No Property, p. 188).

Peterson graduated in 1913 with an Engineering degree from the College of Scienc . Afterwards, as retold in CS Andrew’s book ‘Man of No Property’ (p. 188), he worked on a number of engineering projects. These included a survey, carried out by a group of private entrepreneurs before the First World War, into the possibility of harnessing the Shannon for Electricity Production. The project came to nothing and the idea remained dormant until revived by Dr. TA. McLaughlin in the 1920s.

On May 4th 1915, he was granted naturalisation by the British government. He was listed as ‘Konrad Peterson, from Russia. Resident in Rathmines, Co. Dublin’.

Around this time he married Helen Yeates from Dublin. From the process of elimination, I believe this is our Helen Yeates, born 9th February 1893 to Joseph and Bridget Yeates living at 10 Beresford Place. By 1911, eighteen-year old Helen was living at 107.1 Amiens Street.

Peterson was living and working in Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising and was friends with many of its leading personalities including Connolly and Marchievicz. According to The Irish Press (24 May 1951), Peterson “helped in the organisation of communications for the Rising”. But there is no more reliable sources or references to back up claims he took an active part during Easter Week.

Many will know the story of the Finn and Swede who fought in the GPO making references to Russian and British imperialism. Interestingly, there is also some evidence to suggest that a handful of Russian revolutionaries may have visited Dublin in the immediate aftermath of the Rising.

In February 1918, Peterson was present at large meeting that took place at the Mansion House to celebrate the Russian Revolution. The Irish Times (9th February 1918), reported that those present wished “to congratulate the Russian people on the triumph they have won for democratic principles“. During the proceedings, “The Red Flag” was sung and red and republican flags were waved.

Flyer for another 1918 event in the Mansion House. Credit – http://www.whytes.ie/.

The Irish Independent (5th February 1918) wrote:

Mr. Conrad Peterson who announced himself as a Russian Social Democrat spoke strongly in support of “the great struggle for peace, liberty and bread”.

Those present also included Cathal O’Shannon, Dr. Kathleen Lynn, Countess Marchievicz and Mrs. (Maud) Gonne-McBride.

In June 1919, Peterson was listed as a committee member of the ‘James Connolly Birthday Celebration’ in the Mansion House. Tickets were one shilling and all proceeds were to be devoted to the establishment of a ‘Connolly Memorial Worker’s College’.

Peterson listed second row in the middle. Republished in ‘Songs of Freedom: The James Connolly Songbook’ (PM Press, 2013), page 33.

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A 1985 edition of Inner City Magazine containing two advertisements, one photograph and two reviews of Dublin pubs.

Front cover of Inner City Magazine (Vol. 3 / No. 19, 1985)

The first advertisement is for The Sunset House at 1 Summerhill Parade in Ballybough. It shows two older woman named Ellen and Carmel enjoying a glass of Guinness. The pub was the scene of a fatal shooting in April 2016 and closed down. It was recently taken over by Paul Gannon, the brother of Social Democrats councillor Gary, and re-opened as The Brendan Behan.

Advertisement for The Sunset House

The second advertisement is for the Hill 16 bar at 28 Gardiner Street.  Offering “best drinks – pub grub”, it shows a barman pulling pints behind the counter.

Advertisement for the Hill 16 Bar

A photograph in the magazine shows a burnt out property immediately next door to the Hill 16.

Photograph of Hill 16 beside burn out property.

The issue also includes reviews by Tony Ivory of Patrick Conway’s at 70 Parnell Street, closed since February 2008, and J. J. Whelan’s at 69 Summerhill, which is currently known as ‘Cuchulainn’s at Croke Park‘.

Ivory described Conway’s as one of the “best known and most popular haunts” in the city centre. There is no television and the Guinness (£1.33 pint) is “usually good”. However, the writer did complain that the toilets were not sufficient for the amount of punters and the cigarette machine didn’t stock his favoured brands.

The review of J. J. Whelan’s focused on the high standard of the Guinness (£1.27 pint) which Ivory called “one of the best that can be had anywhere in Dublin”.

Reviews of Conways, Parnell Street and J. J. Whelan’s in Summerhill

My thanks to @bigmonsterlove on Twitter for sending something my way recently, in the form of some brilliant archival footage just posted online by the Irish Film Institute.

A hugely important and much-loved institution in Temple Bar, the IFI are now bringing some of their archival holdings to the general public online with their new IFI Player. To start with, we have 1,200 minutes of material from the vaults (thankfully only about a minute of this involves Bob Geldof), including some footage from Gael Linn’s Amharc Éireann series.

Amharc Éireann: Eagrán 126, Dublin Students Protest, available to view here, captures a 1961 anti-nuclear protest in Dublin city centre, led by students from Trinity College Dublin. The demonstration is small, but the footage is telling of its time, in terms of politics and fashion! Some students carry the now-iconic peace symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which had been born in 1958 in England, while others carry placards which reference the tragedy of Hiroshima. One student carries the image of Yuri Gugarin, a hero of the Soviet Union and the first man in space.

The march was a bit of a disaster, with The Irish Times reporting the next day that:

A peace march by some 200 placard-carrying members of the Irish students’ Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Dublin yesterday turned out to be anything but peaceful. The “ban the bomb” marchers were heckled by a rival group of students shouting “we want the bomb!”. Scuffles broke out between rival students and  were broken up by civic guards, and over-ripe tomatoes and bags of flour were showered on students and guards alike.

Still from footage: Science For Peace, placard shows Yuri Gagarin.

Still from footage: Students march at Stephen’s Green, carrying the CND symbol.

Still from footage: Passing over the O’Connell Bridge, the Nelson Pillar in background.

The CND logo, so prominent in the footage, was designed  in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist. In explaining what the symbol means, Holtom recalled:

I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it.

As the CND themselves note, “the symbol continues to be used as shorthand for peace”.

The 1930s anti-jazz movement has been well-documented in recent years, with Cathal Brennan’s 2011 Irish Story article a particularly good read. The movement against jazz was by no means merely a Dublin phenomenon, indeed it was often strongest in rural Ireland. Brennan’s article notes:

On New Year’s Day 1934 over three thousand people from South Leitrim and surrounding areas marched through Mohill to begin the Anti – Jazz campaign. The procession was accompanied by five bands and the demonstrators carried banners inscribed with slogans such as ‘Down with Jazz’ and ‘Out with Paganism.’

Only in the last few weeks, the Evening Herald has joined the long list of newspapers digitsed by the excellent and very important Irish Newspaper Archives. Being a tabloid publication, it is of a very difficult style to many of the previously digitised broadsheet newspapers, and throws up some real gems on cultural issues and moral panics. While there is much condemnation of jazz music and the danger of the dance halls, there are also some wonderful advertisements for jazz bands, including ‘The Yankee Jazz Maniacs’, described on more than one occasion as the “hottest band in Ireland.”From time to time, these advertisements could appear on or opposite pages denouncing jazz music!

Much of the discourse in the Ireland of the time around music, dance halls and jazz was shaped by the Public Dance Halls Act of 1935, introduced under the first Fianna Fáil government. That Act can only be viewed in the context of the moral panic against dance halls of the time, which was encouraged by the Catholic Hierarchy, cultural nationalists and some in the press. The Act sought to make provision for the licensing, control, and supervision of places used for public dancing. It was bad news for dance halls in the cities, but also for communal traditions like crossroads dances in rural Ireland. It could only have been introduced in a country where it was acceptable to peddle the kind of nonsense that “one of the immediate and chief causes of the immorality of recent times, involving particularly the unmarried mother, is the commercialised dance halls.”

The fear of jazz ‘infiltrating’ the dance halls of Dublin was present even at meetings of Dublin Corporation, with Lord Mayor Alfie Byrne on record in February 1934 as stating:

The Citizens of Dublin are not following the dances of negroes. I challenge you to go into any hotel or ballroom in the city and point out anything that could be described as following the negroes or indecent.It is a slander on the people of Dublin to say they are following the negroes, and nobody has any right to make that charge.

It was clear those condemning jazz and jazz dancing knew nothing about it, with the claim that the music was “borrowed from Central Africa by a gang of wealthy international Bolshevists in America, their aim being to strike at Christian civilisation throughout the world” even making its way into the papers.

The raiding of dance halls under the terms of the ludicrous 1935 Act took up plenty of column inches; the Herald reported of a raid in January 1936 which resulted in the closing down of a dance involving 150 young men and women. Unsurprisingly, young people were more than willing to violate the terms of the Act and to seek something other than rigidly controlled social spaces:

Evening Herald, 27 January 1936.

A rare moment of sense in the debate around dance halls came from a letter writer to the paper in October 1940:

As a parent, may I be permitted to give my views on the dance problem? Dancing is one of the oldest of human pleasures…and telling young people that dancing is wrong is just inviting trouble. If you go further and prevent them from attending dances, you have only yourself to blame if they kick over the traces. I have never opposed my children going to dances. I trust to their good sense and it works out alright.

If you’re attending this years Electric Picnic festival, which runs from tomorrow to Sunday, consider dropping into the Mindfield area on Saturday at 1pm (if you can get yourself out of the tent) where I’m taking part in a History Ireland Hedge School discussion on the history of the Irish festival. We’ll be looking at O’Connell’s Monster Rallies (‘REPEAL’ was the slogan then too), the chaos of the Donnybrook Fair and the youthful enthusiasm of Carnsore Point among other talking points.

1964 press on the Fleadh Cheoil.

The discussion is, as ever, chaired by History Ireland editor Tommy Graham. The other panelists are Tonie Walsh (of the Irish Queer Archive), Naoise Nunn (the man behind the always interesting Mindfield area of EP), Carole Holohan (author of a forthcoming study of youth in 1960s Ireland) and musician and broadcaster Philip King.

It also seems fitting to highlight the fact several friends of the blog are performing at this years festival. Lynched, Skipper’s Alley, Costello and Stephen James Smith,  all of whom have performed at CHTM nights in The Sugar Club and elsewhere, will be performing across the weekend. Be sure to see some local talent along with the global superstars!

I’m currently reading John Cooney’s  biography of John Charles McQuaid, a figure who loomed large over every aspect of Irish life in his time. The much-feared Archbishop of Dublin intervened in everything from Association Football to issues of cinema, but one of the strangest tales in the book concerns the visit of Orson Welles to Dublin in December 1951, when placards denounced him as “Stalin’s Star” on the pavement outside the Gate Theatre.

Orson Welles (1915-1985)

Orson Welles was no stranger to the Gate Theatre. As previously examined on this blog, he made his professional theatrical debut there at the age of sixteen. Irish theatre legend Micheál Mac Liammóir recalled that he put on “an astonishing performance, wrong from beginning to end but with all the qualities of fine acting tearing their way through a chaos of inexperience.”

By the early 1950s, Welles was an international sensation. He had directed, co-wrote, produced and performed the lead role in the critically acclaimed Citizen Kane (1941), following it up with a number of other successful pictures, including 1942’s The Magnificent Ambersons. Despite his remarkable talents in all aspects of broadcasting, acting and performance, he was a controversial figure in the United States owing to his progressive political inclinations, enough to ensure his condemnation in the damning 1950 report Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television.  The work has been described as the “Bible of the Blacklist” which swept 1950s Hollywood. The dossier identified Welles as a dinner sponsor for the ‘Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee’ and a contributor towards the Daily Worker newspaper, as well as a benefit patron for the Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy. Support for the Spanish Republic, which had been overthrown by Franco’s Fascist Junta with the help of Hitler and Mussolini, was enough to secure the inclusion of many celebrities in the list of suspected ‘Reds’.

Unwanted publicity: Detail from the front of Red Channels.

Opposition to Welles in Dublin was organised by the Catholic Cinema and Theatre Patron’s Association, who had been distributing a pamphlet entitled ‘Red Star over Hollywood’ in Dublin. Michael O Tuathaill, the Hon. Secretary of the Association, was quoted as saying the body were interested in keeping the cinema “pure.” Throughout the 1930s, the cinema had been routinely denounced in Lenten Pastorals and religious publications as a corrupting influence, yet by the 1950s it was evidently clear the cinema was here to say. Welles was collected at the airport by Hilton Edwards of the Gate Theatre, who drove him to the theatre, and was furious at the sight of demonstrators; he told journalists that “my only consolation is that I believe this to be a manifestation of irresponsibility backed up by fanaticism and I refuse to believe it represents the opinion of the Irish race. If I might quote W. B Yeats, this crowd has disgraced itself again.” Welles recalled that the protestors were led by “some insane priest”, though he would have seen very little of them as he was rushed into the theatre.

Welles was not performing on the night, but was an audience member to Tolka Row, a play by Maura Laverty. The actors had to contend with repeated heckling from the small band of demonstrators. A crowd of the generally curious began to assemble, with newspapers reporting something in the region of a thousand people were ultimately outside the theatre. Some carried placards, with slogans including telling Welles to visit Moscow and not Dublin, and condemning him as “Stalin’s Star”. From the stage, the famous visitor denounced the crowd outside for interrupting such a fine work, to tremendous applause from the audience. Welles made his exit via a side-door of the Gate, but it was certainly not a night he would remember as fondly as his performance upon the stage of the same venue as a younger man.

The Gate Theatre. This was not the first anti-communist demonstration witnessed outside its premises, as the raising of a red flag over the premises by protestors in 1922 had also incited protest.

Following the events, a war of words played out in the press. O Tuathaill attempted to justify the demonstration in the letters pages of The Irish Times, maintaining that Welles was a supporter of the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (the American contingent of the International Brigades who fought in Spain)  among other bodies. Others condemned the “wholly unthinking rabble of witch-hunters”, believing the demonstration had brought shame on the city.

In the aftermath of the protests, Edwards approached Archbishop McQuaid directly to complain, though McQuaid did nothing, informing him that the Association was an adult group, “responsible for its own activities.” John Cooney argues in his biography of McQuaid that it was something of a “puzzling aspect of McQuaid’s civic record…that he did not denounce the excesses of the Maria Duce-sponsored Catholic Cinema and Theatre Patrons’ Association”. It, and organisations like it, brought little but negative press.

The great Orson Welles was destined to return to Dublin later in the 1950s, though thankfully without scenes of protest.

In recent months, the faces of the 1916 Generation have been starring down on Dubliners from above The Ivy  on the corner of Parliament Street in a glorious Andy Warhol style, along with the Starry Plough of the Citizen Army flying from the premises. It is visually striking, and thankfully has remained up after the main centenary celebrations have passed. Readers may remember these same faces gazing down from what was then Thomas Read’s in 2006. The work is that of the artist and councillor Mannix Flynn, entitled ‘Something To Live For’.

While this fine piece of art is one reminder of the Rising, the building opposite it carries its own reminders, albeit not as immediately obvious. The next time you’re passing, have a close look at the old Evening Mail offices.

The old Evening Mail offices, on the corner of Parliament Street and Lord Edward Street. Photographed from City Hall.

Repair work to the Evening Mail offices.

The first shots of the Rising in Dublin were fired in the vicinity of Dublin Castle, where a small band of Citizen Army men and women were deployed under the command of Seán Connolly, a talented Abbey Theatre actor from a family deeply rooted in the trade union movement. His brother Matthew remembered that as they marched up Dame Street, a voice from the footpath called out “Here’s the Citizen Army with their pop guns!”, while another joked “there goes Ireland’s only hope!”. Connolly remembered that “they laughed at their own jokes. Little did they know!” Seán ordered the men and women under his command to seize a number of outposts in the vicinity, including the Mail offices.

Shots rang out at the gates of the Castle on Cork Hill early in the Rising, resulting in the death of DMP Constable James O’Brien. O’Brien had attempted to close the Castle gates, leading Seán Connolly to shoot him. While the ICA succeeded in taking the guard room of the Castle, the closure of the second set of gates prevented them from seizing the Castle outright. This was not the first Irish insurrection to fail in its ambition of seizing Dublin Castle.

Having seized the nearby City Hall and surrounding buildings, the rebels came under intense fire from within the Castle. A sniper in the Bedford Tower caused great difficulty for ICA members on the rooftop of City Hall, and it was here that Seán was fatally shot. His brother recalled the view from the rooftop of City Hall, looking across at other occupied buildings:

 From this elevated position, I had a commanding view over a good portion of the city; the air was clear, and the visibility good. Across the street from where I was, men were taking up positions on the roof of the Henry and James’ building.at the corner of Parliament Street, and on the roof of the  Evening Mail offices. These were members of our own company.

Evening Mail offices today.

In the aftermath of the Rising, sections of the city were damaged beyond repair. In other places, there were quick-fix solutions to the damage. At the Mail offices, bullet marks were filled with crushed brick and mortar. The years have weathered this finish, and today the filled sections can be clearly seen.

Thanks to Las Fallon for these images. Las is the curator of an exhibition on Dublin Fire Brigade and the 1916 Rising, currently running in City Hall.