Interesting photo posted to Facebook, the inevitable fall out with local business for Occupy Dame Street?
Mark O’Brien in his 2001 book De Valera, Fianna Fáil and the Irish Press makes fleeting reference to an Irish Press reporter named Paddy Clare who ‘took sabbatical leave’ [1] in order to join the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.
Immediately, I became fond of this chap who decided to take a ‘leave of absence’ from work, not to go on holiday but to join the International Brigade and his risk his life in the defence of the Second Spanish Republic.
A bit of digging unearthed that Clare was firstly, a life long Irish Republican who fought in both the War of Independence and in the Civil War on the Anti-Treaty side and secondly, an individual who has largely been forgotten.
Born in Dublin into a republican family in 1908, his father Mick was an old Fenian. Joining Na Fianna Éireann in his early teens, he saw action in Dublin during the War of Independence. Following the treaty, he took the Republican side in the Civil War and was a member of the Four Courts garrison in 1922. Subsequently, he was imprisoned in both Kilmainham and Mountjoy where, in the latter, he once went on hunger strike. [2]
Always a keen writer, Clare contributed articles to An Phoblact and The Nation. His work caught the eye of De Valera who asked him to join the fledgling Irish Press in 1931. He would stay with the paper for the next forty-three years, first as diary clerk, then a reporter and finally as ‘night-town man’.
Still committed to Irish Republican Socialist politics, he made the decision to take a period of leave from the newspaper to join the International Brigade.
Unfortunately that is all I know about his involvement in the SCW. I’ve emailed Ciaran Crossey (from the Irish SCW website) to see if he has any more information
Returning to Dublin and to The Irish Press, he was appointed as the paper’s ‘night-town’ reporter, a post in which he’d keep until 1973. A tough job, Clare would man the office throughout the night and chase any leads or stories that occurred during the hours of darkness.
Clare passed away in 1983 at the age of seventy-five. Tim-Pat Coogan wrote at the time:
Gravely voiced, indefatigably cheerful, with the yellow pallor of the night worker, which he was for scores of years, Paddy Clare to generations of young Irish Press journalists, epitomised the ideal of the hard-shelled, heart-of-gold professional reporter.
An IRA veteran of at least two wars (possibly three) and a respected journalist of over forty years, Clare lived a full life.
–
1 Mark O’Brien, De Valera, Fianna Fáil and the Irish Press (Dublin, 2001), 68
2 Unknown, Death of Paddy Clare, Irish Press, Mar 1, 1983
Posted in Dublin History | 1 Comment »
The most popular posting in the history of Come Here To Me?
It was the story of Broombridge train station, the sheer state of the place, and the campaign for Broombridge to win the Irish Rail station of the year. There was just something incredibly Irish about Irish Rail even asking ‘hey, which of our stations do you think is the best?’ as opposed to ‘which stations really need a lick of paint?’
At the time we wrote:
Anyone who has been through Broombridge station will know it is beyond the words ‘awful kip’, a station neglected while those around her have been modernised, she continues to crumble, the very station sign telling you where you are difficult to read.
Brrombridge winning the ‘Best Station’ award would draw some attention to the sheer state of the place, and be the best coup for a public vote campaign since the BBC had to award the Wolfe Tones the best song of the last century
It emerged out of a Facebook campaign which caught our attention, and the story seemed to grow legs from there, with our original story posted by Broadsheet.ie and Colm O’Rourke, the man behind the Facebook campaign, interviewed by the Irish Daily Mail.
Thousands of you read the piece, but more importantly a very sizable chunk of you went on to visit the Irish Rail website and vote for Broombridge, something you can still do and should still do by clicking here.
Today I came home to an e-mail from Come Here To Me reader Ado with some great news regarding Iarnród Éireann:
Iarnrod Eireann today started cleaning up the Broombridge train station, new paintwork, signs, markings etc.., Nothing major but they are reacting to the email voting campaign. Well done to all involved.
He went on to note below:
The fact is we, the local Community Council, were informed by IE management in December that no upgrade was planned for Broombridge due to vandalism. A pathetic reason for abandoning our station. It’s IE’s duty to secure their property and maintain it to the same standards of every other station.
Nothing major indeed, but it is a start. Historically overlooked, even during times of renovation, it’s great that thousands of people have taken the time to register their protest with Irish Rail over the sheer state of Broombridge. For many Dubliners, Broombridge is the local train station remember. It’s just not up to scratch.
Posted in Events | 5 Comments »
A bit later than normal getting this up, but just to flag that the new Look Left is in stores now…
LookLeft 9 – only €2 – includes;
Reports on student protests, Occupy Dame Street, turf wars in Kildare, AFA action against Nick Griffin, defending health services, the community fight against drugs, Occupy Wall Street, the sex industry, doctors in El Salvador, Ship to Gaza, turmoil in Egypt, the Greek Communist Party , Belfast’s Fresh Claim Café, WP Northern Ireland conference
Interviews with PUP leader Billy Hutchinson, America Radical Fred Magdoff, Rapper Captain Moonlight
Main Feature; Ireland’ addiction to low corporation tax and Corporate Imperialism
Features; Occupy – where to now, Revolution in Cork City FC, Friedrich Engels on Ireland, Irish Graphic Novels, book reviews, the Jemmy Hope Column and Around the Left (news from progressive organisations)
Views; WP President Mick Finnegan on Budget 2012, Socialist Party MEP Paul Murphy on the need for an EU referendum
Posted in Events, Miscellaneous, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Great stuff from Maser, this is painted onto the side of the Dublin Simon Community shop on Camden Street in Dublin 2, and like the prior featured piece from ADW, is a part of the First Fortnight mental health awareness project.
Maser has been bringing good vibes to the city for years now, from the They Are Us collaboration with Damien Dempsey to his projected show on the side of the convention centre, a love letter to the city almost. He also dabbles on occasion in more traditional acts like signwriting. The shopfront writing of Kevin Freeney and the like is a Come Here To Me feature which will have to be done down the line of course, but for now we’re always happy to post the latest from the contemporary artists of the city. Nice one Maser.
Posted in Street Art | 1 Comment »
Twitter really is awful when you’ve work to do. Surreal stuff all the same. “Something only we three would know”
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
My thanks to Paula Geraghty of Trade Union TV for these images from Liffey Valley Shopping Centre. Workers from the Grafton Street, Henry Street and Dundrum branches have joined workers at the Liffey Valley branch. Staff who have found themselves out of work have, according to The Irish Times report on the sit-in, not even received P45’s to allow them to seek social welfare payments.
It goes without saying we wish the workers every success. The Facebook page in support of the workers can be found here.
It seems fitting to highlight the fact too that Vita Cortex workers, also staging a sit-in at their place of work, will be staging a demonstration at the Dáil this Thursday from 1pm.
Posted in Photography | Leave a Comment »
Well, this has potential to be quite the debate. The latest Hedge School from History Ireland takes place this Wednesday at the National Library, it’s likely to fill-up and places are first come first served. Here on the site you can find audio from previous Hedge Schools, on topics such as Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf and also a previous Hedge School in the National Library at which I spoke around the Animal Gang.
We’re now into the ‘decade of centenaries’ of course, but just what we’re commemorating is going to be the subject of great debate. It’s a debate we should all involve ourselves in.
History Ireland Hedge School in association with The National Library, Kildare St., Dublin @Wednesday 11 January 2012, 7pm
The War of Independence: ‘four glorous years’ or squalid sectarian conflict? Was historic objectivity the real victim?
The War of Independence 1918-1921 will be commemorated later this decade. Was it ‘Four Glorious Years’, as one protagonist called it (Frank Gallagher, the deputy director of the first Dáil’s Department of Publicity). Or was it a sectarian conflict darkened by ethnic cleansing, as historian Peter Hart has asserted (The IRA and its Enemies. 1998)?
Speakers: Historians John M. Regan (University of Dundee), David Fitzpatrick (TCD), Eve Morrison (TCD) and John Borgonovo (UCC).
Posted in Events | 13 Comments »
Today, stand-up comedy is a multi-million Euro business. Comics like Dara O’Briain and Tommy Tiernan regularly do stints of ten or more nights in Vicar Street, Michael McIntyre can sell out The 02 twice over, dozens of comedians release DVDs for the Christmas market and a whole range of venues like The Laughter Lounge on Eden Quay, The Comedy Cellar at The International, Stand Up at Bankers pub and The Ha’Penny Bridge Inn offer people seven nights a week of comedy.
This wasn’t always the case.
From the late 1970s to the late 1980s comics struggled to establish comedy nights in the upstairs of pubs, backrooms of hotels and theatres in the city. The history of stand-up comedy in Ireland is quite an overlooked subject (we do use that phrase a lot on this blog) and besides Deirde Falvey and Stephon Dixon’s fantastic Gift of the Gag: The Explosion in Irish Comedy (1999) nothing has really been written on the topic.
Particularly interesting and forgotten is the development of Irish stand-up from the birth of ‘alternative comedy’ in the late 1970s to the establishment of the The Comedy Cellar in The International Bar on Wicklow Street in 1988. The groundwork that a small number of people did in these early years helped to nurture and progress the scene to what it is now today.
It has been said that Dublin’s first ever stand-up comedy club was set up in Harcourt Street in the late 1970s by a Scottish performance artist called Oscar McLennan.
The 1970s were, in many ways, dark times for comedy in this country. The first so-called Festival of Humour took place in May 1978 in Virginia, Co. Cavan. Things can be summed up by the fact that the chairman of the festival committee was the local priest Fr. Pat Morris.
These were the days of Hal Roach at the Jury’s Irish Cabaret and Jimmy O’Dea.
Coinciding with this brand of boring, ‘king of blarney’ Irish comedy a new generation of jokers were beginning to assert themselves, particularly in the Dram Socs and Rag Weeks of the island’s colleges. In the early 1970s in UCD Billy McGrath/Magra, Paddy Murray and Brendan Martin formed a sketch group called The Spike Milligan Comedy Machine known simply as The Machine. Dermot Morgan (of Father Ted fame) wasn’t too far behind and later performed as Big Gom and The Imbeciles in Theatre L.
Spurred on by the explosion (a revolution even?) of intelligent, often anarchic, progressive stand-up (coined by Tony Allen as ‘Alternative Comedy’) in London’s Comedy Store by comics such as Alexi Sayle, Andy de la Tour and Pauline Melville and in The Comic Strip which soon followed by comics such as Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson, Nigel Planer and French & Saunders – stand up comics in Dublin began testing the water and starting up their own nights.
In January 1981, Peter O’Connor launched the Comedy Store at the Holyrood Hotel, Harcourt Street. It seems to have lasted only a few months.
Billy McGrath (Billy Magra) stated up Club Comedy in the Sportman’s Inn in Mount Merrion in February 1982. There were further gigs in The Project Arts Centre on East Essex Street, McGonagle’s on South Anne Street, The Mansion House on Dawson Street featuring the likes of Michael Redmond, Kevin McAleer, Ian MacPherson, Mannix Flynn, ‘new wave’ poet Roisin Sheeran, Helen Morrissey, Owen Roe (aka Ronald Raygun), Peter Howick, Garrett Keogh, The Robots (David Rogers and Gerry Sammon), mime group Friends Electric and impressionist Gerry Lavelle.
Sharing the same venues and many of the same values, this exciting new brand of ‘alternative comedy’ ruffled the feathers of the established comedy scene as much as Punk did to music.
In 1984, the Comedy Store (Dublin) ambitiously released their own live LP.
The 13 track LP was recorded live at the Project Arts Centre by Eerie Music Mobile, engineered by Johnny Byrne and Peter Eades, mixed and edited by Slimmer Twins and produced by Stand Treasual (aka Billy McGrath). The executive producer was MCD’s Dennis Desmond.
Slowly but surely modern ‘alternative’ stand-up comedy began to be assert itself, influence a whole new generation and gain credibility. By the late 1980s, this opened up the path for Mr. Trellis (Ardal O’Hanlon, Barry Murphy & Kevin Gildea) and The Quack Squad (Joe Rooney & Paul Tylak) to open up The Comedy Cellar in The International Bar.
Thus starting the next chapter of Dublin’s stand-up history…
Posted in Dublin History | 6 Comments »