Published for the club’s centenary in 1990, Phil Howlin’s history of Bohemian Football Club refers briefly to a carnival held at Dalymount in 1938 and 1940 organised by the wonderfully named “Ways & Means Committee”. Themselves initially formed in 1933 as a mechanism for fund raising, the Committee ran the carnivals in part to benefit the club, but also to provide for the improvement of schools in nearby Cabra. The 1940 iteration of the carnival also contributed a full day’s takings to a benevolent fund organised by veterans of the 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade IRA.
The first reference in the Irish newspaper archives to the as-named ‘Bohemia Carnival’ however goes back to June 1st, 1910 in the Freeman’s Journal where
The “Bohemia” open-air carnival, which has been organised on behalf of the Bohemian Football Club was continued yesterday at Dalymount Park… The round of sports and amusements was, as on the previous day, one of strong attractiveness.
Entertainment on Thursday June 2nd was provided by “Ireland’s Own Band” alongside an appearance from “the massed bands of the 5th Dragoon Guards, the Rifle Brigade and the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.” In addition to the music the military bands provided, there was “a military torchlight tattoo, and a display of fireworks which illustrated the fall of Port Arthur”, concerts, dancing, merry-go-rounds, swing boats and shooting galleries. Saturday June 4th saw a performance from the band of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, as the carnival was concluded for the evening.
Post 1910, there appears no mention in the archives until 1923- no doubt due to those turbulent years in Dublin, where there is a brief reference to the “Now Famous Bohemia Carnival” held in the Kosy Café ballroom on Talbot Street. By the time it re-appears in 1938, the Carnival seems to have morphed into something much larger. Advertisements begin to appear from January 1938 in the Irish Press, the Irish Independent and the Evening Herald promoting a month-long Bohemia Carnival at Dalymount Park, from May 7th to June 12th that year.
By April, Bohemia Carnival events begin to take place around the city, including a Gala Midnight Matinee in the Bohemian Picture Theatre and a Whist Drive in St. Peter’s Hall alongside material promoting “The Greatest Thrill in the World- Stratosphere Girl. Acrobatics 120 Feet in the Air”, fireworks and Barry’s Amusements including the fantastically named Flying Pigs, dodgem cars, chairoplanes, a ghost train and various side shows.
As well as the amusements, the Carnival was to include two speedways, a Wall of Death display (performed by Cyclone Chris and Dare Devil Ena according to Howlin,) and two large marquees with especially laid floors for a cèilidh and ‘old time waltzes’. According to reports at the time, due to their huge popularity these marquees were extended and became the largest raised dancefloors in the country at the time. The aforementioned fireworks displays by the famous Brock’s Company, a comedy competition and a seven-mile road race also entertained the crowds.
Several cycling races were organized by the C.R.E. to start and finish at Dalymount. The Evening Herald on May 9th said, “It is for the messenger boys- on a scale something similar to the world-famous Paris event of its kind.” The race, over five miles and on carrier bicycles was won by K.V. Duff (Duff Bros., Santry) with J. Burke (Pearse Bros., Marino) in second and K. Bradley (Shiels, Cabra) in third.
Opened by Bohemian’s president, Mr. Archbold said that the club ‘would celebrate its golden jubilee in 1940.’ Members of it, he added, had ‘acquitted themselves honorably in art, culture and battle throughout the world.’ 25,000 people attended the opening night.
The undoubted attraction of the carnival was the so-called Stratosphere Girl, promoted widely (and daily) as the main draw. The Stratosphere Girl was Camilla Mayer, born Lotte Witte in 1918 in Stettin, Germany- today Szczecin, Poland. Part of the famous Camilio Mayer high wire troupe, her act consisted of her performing daring acts such as handstands, headstands, and balancing on one toe on a platform just a couple of inches wide atop a 138-foot-tall pole. She was in fact so galled by one Dublin newspaper promoting the Carnival which claimed the performance would take place at 120 feet as referred to earlier in this piece, that she complained and forced them into a retraction. (See accompanying ‘Apology to a lady’ image.)
According to Phil Howlin, these escapades were performed in Dalymount nightly at 22:00 without the aid of a safety net. Wildly popular, she saw her run at the Carnival extended past her initial two weeks and was granted a tour of Dublin on Friday May 20th, visiting the Irish Press building, the Jacob’s factory, the Guinness Brewery and the Savoy restaurant.
Mayer was certainly a star in her own right, performing at the famous Butlins camp throughout the 1930’s. Subject to what can only be assumed was anti-German sentiment, she was twice victim to sabotage (and indeed attempted murder), as it was discovered in pre-performance inspections that the support cables for her pole had been tampered with.
Her bravado at such great heights would ultimately lead to her death on January 20th, 1940 at the Deutschland Halle in Berlin when a 60-foot-tall pole she was performing atop snapped, causing her to plummet to her death. The name Camilla Mayer was taken by numerous high wire performers after her death in order to honour her memory.
Brock’s vast fireworks displays enthralled the crowds each weekend, as one contemporary news report describes:
The Bohemia Carnival at Dalymount Park attracted huge crowds during the weekend, despite the break in the weather. The fireworks displays which were given on Saturday and Sunday nights were most attractive and entertaining. The ‘House on Fire’ was a most ingenious display. A house was lit up, and then ‘went on fire.’ An illuminated ‘Fire Brigade’ then rushed to the scene. The ‘firemen’ and ‘equipment’ were also illuminated; and sprayed ‘water’ on the conflagration and succeeded in getting the ‘fire’ under control. It was a most spectacular and colorful display, and the performance won rounds of applause from the huge crowd present.
The 1938 Carnival also played host to The Munroe Troupe of High-Wire Artists, billed as the Gothian Four. According to promotional material, one of the four was a boy of twelve years of age, who received special permission from ‘the Ministry of Labour’ to become a high-wire artist at such an early age.
“Gotha, the leader of the troupe, is the heaviest high-wire artist in the world weighing 21 stone. He will cycle across the wire, which is and will offer to carry any lady or man on his back while doing so. He will also carry a stove along the wire and will cook pancakes, which he throws to the crowd beneath him. One of the ladies of the troupe will perform balancing feats with a chair, and the other lady will walk across the wire while enveloped in a sack and blindfolded.”
The 1940 iteration of the Carnival went for a similarly daring act- the Lindberghs. Stan and Tom Lindbergh were a High Dive act, climbing a rickety tower of ‘tremendous height’ and diving into a tank containing just five foot of water, a feat dangerous enough in itself, but even more so that their ‘Sensational Death Dive’ when it was done whilst on flames and blindfolded.
Another tragedy would beset a veteran of the Bohemia Carnival, as Stan would meet his death in an accident years later, misjudging a dive and colliding with the side of his tank. (I struggled to find much written on the Lindbergh’s, but similarly to high wire artists taking the name Mayer, it seems to be a stage name for ‘high fire divers’ with a Don Lindbergh performing at carnivals around the UK up to the ’80s at least- great picture here.)
An interesting happenstance also occurred at the 1940 Carnival. Long before Liam Brady made his debut against the Soviet Union at Dalymount Park in 1974, his brother Ray was winning trophies there. Not in his capacity as a footballer, though he would earn six Irish caps in 1963/1964 while and feature at Dalymount in that spell, but in the 1940 Bohemia Carnival Bonny Baby Competition, beating hundreds of other children to the top spot.
While the carnivals obviously raised much needed funds for the club, it can only be imagined how badly effected the playing surface must have been with the large footfall, racetracks, amusements, death dives, high wires, dancehalls and the rest- and how much work it would take to return this to a playable condition before the start of the following season. Partly for this reason, Howlin explained that
From the funds however it was decided to install an artesian well at a depth of 220 feet, which could yield up to 1,000 gallons of water per hour. The cost was £466. For many years thereafter Dalymount Park’s groundsmen have been blessed with a supply of water and have not had to rely on the vagaries of our summer weather, when the grass was in need of water at short notice before each season.
That well of course, along with the old tramway terrace shall be no more in the coming years.
– Ciaran Murray
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