The History Show

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Every Sunday evening, in season, The History Show goes out on RTÉ Radio 1 between 6 and 7pm. The presenter is Myles Dungan (above), a radio veteran and a man well qualified to present a history show.

I was in studio last Sunday with Donal Fallon, who has written a great book on Nelson's Pillar, to which I contributed some photographs. That item will be aired at the start of next Sunday's show (1/6/2014).

Producer Yetti Redmond (above) has her hands full at the moment, not just with the Sunday live shows, but with some pre-recordings for the Bank Holiday weekend, and a series of short one minute WWI inserts to be aired with the ads over the summer. These are generally recollections or stories from people who had relatives in that war. I have done two, but they ran to three minutes each, so getting them down to a minute is just part of what Yetti has to sort before the summer break.

Although the consoles are now all madly computerised, there is still something of the same atmosphere in the cubicle that I remember from the third floor of the GPO before radio moved out to the current Radio Centre in Montrose. I don't quite go back to the days of "2RN" (before I was born) but I do know what limiters are and what a compressor does and that people are now generally more promiscuous in their use than formerly.

Two more images of John Behan's Na Guthanna (2001) celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of 2RN in 1926.

You can hear the item on The Pillar from the History Show of 1 June 2014 here, and see a slightly scattered and non chronological sequence of some of my photos here.

Yr Archdderwydd Christine

Mererid Hopwood

This is an image I will always remember. It was at the Denbigh Eisteddfod in 2001, when, for the first time, the coveted chair was won by a woman. I have described elsewhere the electric atmosphere of that moment.

At the same Eisteddfod, one of the adjudicators, saw fit to comment on an entry for the light englyn competition, the subject for which was "red herring". The englyn is a verse form written in cynghanedd and the light englyn, while observing the rules of this strict metre, would be the nearest thing to the “limerick” of Welsh poetry (though, not to be outdone, the Eisteddfod also has a separate competition for limericks). The entry was from Bwni (Bunny). Entries are always under pen-names in the interest of an unbiased adjudication. Bwni, though not the winner, indulged in this increasingly relevant irrelevancy:

Mewn prifardd a phrifarddes - rhoed inni Orau dyn a dynes, Er hyn oll nid ym fawr nes Heddiw i Archdderwyddes

In poet and poetess laureate, we have the best of man and woman. Nevertheless, we are no nearer, today, to an Archdruidess.

Bwni is referring to the fact that, up to then, no woman had won the chair and very few the crown, the two principal competition winners from which the Archdruid was elected. The adjudicator remarked that with an increasing number of women taking up writing poetry in strict meter, and otherwise, there might be some hope of progress on this front in the future.

Neither were aware at that point of what was about to happen on the stage in Denbigh that year.

Well, it took 12 more years, but we finally have a female Archdruid.

Christine James

The election of Christine James (Bardic name Christine) to this position in 2013 is important for two reasons. She is the first woman to hold the post and she is a learner and not a native speaker. So, a serious shower of shards of breaking glass from two ceilings.

Llongyfarchiadau mawr i hi

The Pillar

This book is a little gem.

Before I go any further I have to declare an interest. Eight of my photos appear in the book, including the one on the cover, and I am absolutely thrilled to be associated with it. Donal has thanked me in the acknowledgements in a manner that will boost my ego for the rest of the year. So, at this stage I'm biased.

However, that doesn't stop me being objectively enthusiastic about the book. I knew my photos were in it before ever I got a copy, but I was apprehensive. This was a first hardcopy outing for precious photos taken in 1966 so I was hoping the book itself would be up to scratch.

I needn't have worried. It is well researched, tightly written and eminently readable. It not only traces the history of the Pillar under a number of chapter headings, but it includes a lot of contextual material with gives the story its depth and breadth.

I have had an interest in the Pillar since I first saw it and have followed its story down the years, but this book has provoked some new thoughts and, from my point of view, confirmed some old convictions (or prejudices if you will).

The author is very careful to present the full picture and he doesn't take sides in any of the many controversies around the Pillar. He has enough respect for his readers to bring them the facts and let them make up their own mind.

And he brings an amazing amount of material together, summarising it with all the skill of the committed historian in a way that reads a bit like a thriller.

Like many another Dubliner I didn't really have any strong views on the Pillar while it was there, except for the usual wondering of why we had to have an Englishman, to whom we owed nothing, dominating the main street of our capital city.

Unlike many another Dubliner, I had actually been up the thing, and taken photos from it. That would not have happened had I not been showing a visitor to Ireland around the town.

This is the bowsie, while he was still up there, taken from the viewing platform through the wire mesh. There used to be a simple railings around the platform but a combination of suicides and a general fear for the safety of the less careful led to the whole platform being completely caged in.

It was only after he was blown off his pedestal and after the rest of the pillar had been demolished and the street tidied up that two things struck me.

With the dominance of the Pillar gone, the GPO took its rightful place as the most important building in the street, and this for the first time ever as the Pillar was already in place when the GPO was built.

With the vaunted verticality of the Pillar now gone, the street looked twice as wide and you could, for the first time since it was erected, appreciate the work of the 18th century Wide Streets Commission.

So here was an opportunity not to mess it up again. Nothing higher than the statues between O'Connell and Parnell should have been erected. Then we would still be able to experience the exhilaration of the day when all this dawned on me.


Now, you should remember that, at the beginning of the 19th century, the original Pillar was erected in a fit of exuberance at Nelson's victories and his success in protecting the Empire of which we were then part.

At the end of the 20th century we opted for a replacement in keeping with the hubris of the Celtic Tiger. A tower reaching up to the heavens, without any regard for its surroundings, something between the Tower of Babel and the Golden Calf. The people we had become looked on it and were pleased. God help us.

When my son first saw the picture above, he made some comment about Onan. And he was right. The erection of this monstrosity was an act of self gratification to the exclusion of our cultural and built heritage. It was a spit (and a right gullier) in the face of history and aesthetics by a crowd of troglodytes who were seduced by the prospect of immediate gratification and incapable of leaving well enough alone.

And to be fair to Donal, I should say that the last two paragraphs above are my own, and my own alone. Others, no doubt, will have different views. The great thing about the book is that we can now argue them out in an informed way and what more could you ask for?

Two final remarks.

The book effectively rebuts and lays to rest forever an almost half century slur on the Irish army who did a fine job demolishing the remains of the column and provided the citizens of Dublin with an unforgettable night's entertainment into the bargain.

The book is dedicated to Shane Mac Thomáis, "a gifted historian and a true Dubliner", who died tragically earlier in the year. The best compliment I can pay the book is to say that he would have been honoured by the dedication and enjoyed reading it no end. RIP.

Get it and read it. You won't be sorry.

A page of links relevant to the book.

Move along now

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The latest piece of effrontery is a report by channelonline.tv (basically ITV Jersey) to the effect that Bishop Dakin has informed Jersey's Governor that he intends publishing the Steel Report but is considering how best to do so without harming the woman involved.

Channelonline have translated this into a headline which reads:
Bishop concerned report will “harm” alleged victim.

What Dakin is reported as saying is bad enough, but the headline adds another layer to it, incorporating the tv station's own interpretation of the whole saga.

To my way of thinking, putting harm in quotes suggests that the victim will not be harmed but that the Bishop has to take account of the possibility for PC reasons or to cover his holy arse.

Of course the victim will be harmed by the report which is a biased report by a friend of the establishment who didn't even interview her and who has nevertheless already expressed very negative views on her in a non-public interview for which she now refuses to supply a promised transcript. How the Bishop thinks he can get round this one without literally crucifying the woman is beyond me.

The victim, who was abused by a churchwarden with form, whose complaint was ignored, who was then victimised twice over, to whom the Dean, Bishop and Archbishop have made lame apologies, has now become the alleged victim. Maybe nothing ever happened at all?

How any self-respecting media, or minister of religion, can peddle this shite is beyond me.

Finally, the Bishop reiterates that no disciplinary action will be taken (against the Dean) on foot of the report. We know the reason is that the Bishop does not have jurisdiction. When he thought he had, he actually suspended the Dean, but the Dean's constitutional position in Jersey's established church and within Jersey's civic administration puts him beyond the Bishop's reach. However, every time the Bishop states that there will be no disciplinary action, without stating the reason why not, he strengthens the impression that the Dean has no case to answer.

So, in a nutshell, the above reveals a sleazy cleric (or two, or three) who just want shut of this problem at any cost in order to protect the interests of their church and with a total disregard for the actual victim.

Jesus wept. Again.

---

You can hear Matthew Price's interview with Bob Hill (18/5/2014) below:


with thanks to BBC Jersey

Rosie's Bridge

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Today saw the launch of a booklet setting out the background to the naming of the Rosie Hackett Bridge. It includes an original essay on Rosie and some biographical details on the other four shortlisted contenders.

The launch was by Dublin Lord Mayor, Oisin Quinn, who not only paid tribute to Rosie but reminded us of the other unsuccessful but very worthy shortlisted contenders.

Councillor Dermot Lacey, who chaired the City Council's Naming Committee, explained how the final decision was made. There were 85 nominations and over 18,000 people made submissions in one way or another. Voting was by the Borda count method which operates on the basis of stated preferences and produces a single winner representing the maximum of consensus among the voters. Dermot claimed that this was a first for a public authority and he is nearly right as perusal of the Wikipedia link above will show.

Dermot is a great speaker, providing substance with entertainment, or is it entertainment with substance, and if ever the toastmasters run out of members, then Dermot is your man.

And he doesn't confine himself to mere speech. He played us the first public performance of a new ballad he has written for Rosie and her bridge and promised to donate the millions it would generate to Alone, an organisation looking after the elderly set up by Willie Bermingham, a Dublin firefighter who also figured on the bridge's shortlist.

And the worthy runners up will not be forgotten. The intention is to honour them, one way or another, in the future. But, as Dermot reminded us, you have to be very careful about this. Take Bram Stoker for instance. The East Link Bridge, which is about to revert to the control of the Council from the current private operator, could come up for renaming. As the Council, at this stage, intends retaining the toll on the bridge, calling it after Bram Stoker could give Dublin wits a field day, starting with "The Bloodsucker Bridge".

Clearly, the Lord Mayor is impressed with the new ballad and who knows, we might find him giving his own rendition at a future function - the opening of the bridge perhaps.

And these are the girls, whose vociferous and relentless campaign across the social media got the bridge for Rosie.

The Lord Mayor hears May O'Brien's reminiscences of Rosie. May was a stalwarth in trade union circles fighting for workers', and particularly women workers', rights. You can read one of these reminiscences in the booklet.

James Curry (right) who researched and wrote the piece about Rosie in the booklet, with brother and sister Bill and May O'Brien (centre) both of whom are well known for their trade union advocacy and leadership on behalf of workers, and Laura Paul (left) a friend of May's.

You can access the Dublin City Libraries' press release online including the PDF of the booklet itself. The booklet is a lovely production, as we have come to expect from Dublin City Council. I am lost in admiration for the cover photo/montage which succeeds in obscuring the hideous Liberty Hall, no doubt in deference to Rosie who was strongly opposed to the destruction of the original building.

The bridge will be opened on 20 May 2014 and James will be giving a talk on Rosie in Liberty Hall on 19 May 2014.

2RN

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John Behan's sculpture, Na Guthanna, stands in the grounds of RTÉ in Montrose. It was unveiled in 2001 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the inauguration of the Irish national radio service then known as 2RN.

The service started in Little Denmark St. (off Henry St.), coincidentally the street where I bought the parts for my first, and only, crystal set (which never worked).

In 1928 the service moved to the GPO from where it continued to broadcast until its move to the Radio Centre in Montrose in 1973. I have fond memories of the many hours I spent in the small cubicles in the GPO sitting in on some of Brian Reynolds's programmes and of the radio people I met in the corridors.

I was out in the Radio Centre last week which is when I took the photo above. I was recording two small WWI inserts for the History Programme on my uncle John and Richard Brewster, both of whom died on the Somme. I also did a short piece on Edward Ball, who was born in the same house as myself, and who, some years before my own birth, put a hatchet in his mother's head.

I had no idea what the thing was until I got home and checked it out.

Incidentally, the name 2RN ceased to apply to the service from 1933, but I was interested to see that it is now back (in lower case) as the name of the company which provides transmission services to the various RTÉ radio stations and Today FM and also site hosting for mobile telephone operators, the emergency services, wireless broadband and other private mobile communications service providers.

Jesus loves Jersey

This is Justin Welby. He is the Church of England Archbishop of Canterbury and he has just given the most pathetic, insipid and duplicitous interview I have ever heard.

The interviewer was Matthew Price, of BBC Jersey, and, to give him his due, he didn't do a bad job, asking most of the necessary questions.

The Bishop, on the other hand, sounded like he hadn't a clue, more like a bureaucrat caught in the headlights and trying to defend the indefensible than a bishop giving leadership to his flock. If God's love is as insipid as that quoted by the Bishop then lots of Christians are in deep shit.

You will be familiar with the story of the Dean and the vulnerable lady if you have read the earlier post on Jersey. Well, the Bishop, who was being interviewed explicitly on the fallout from this sorry saga, didn't seem to know anything much about it, or, if he did, he hid it very well.

In summary, a churchwarden in Jersey abused a vulnerable young lady. When she complained to the Dean he effectively ignored her complaint and when she made a fuss he had her arrested. She was then deported from Jersey and dumped penniless on the mainland where she was mainly homeless for the following three years. The then Bishop (Scott-Joynt) was a waste of space but when the new bishop (Dakin) came in he suspended the Dean. His feelings in the matter are no doubt to his credit. However, as he was badly advised and exceeded his powers, he had to reinstate the Dean who immediately, and falsely, claimed that he had been exonerated of the bad behaviour of which he had been accused. Relations between the Bishop and the Dean deteriorated to the point that the Bishop (Dakin) dumped the Dean on another Bishop (Willmott) who is now supposed to "supervise" him.

Meanwhile, the young lady, whom Jesus no doubt loves as much as he might love any of the other players, has been living in distress and near destitution all the while.

Bishop Dakin - out of his depth

Jersey Dean - as sleazy as they come

Bishop Willmott - the Dean's new mammy

Now, Archbishop Welby thinks Bishop Dakin is a wonderful fellow. He also sees no reason why he should not have confidence in the Dean, whom he has only met once, and whose behaviour he ducked commenting on in the interview. He also thinks Bishop Willmott is a wonderful fellow and hasn't he spent the most of the last while in Jersey, doing God only knows what. They're all very nice fellows really.

Welby, in my view, makes it quite clear that he puts the reputation of the institutional church above the wellbeing of its individual members. And he doesn't want to upset anybody. His job, according to himself, is to ensure that his officers all get along happily together. Now, while Jesus was supposed to have come to save the world he was not above knocking heads together and I'll wager that none of this lot would have survived his anger in the temple for long.

So, while all these cretins are busy playing at happy families and dispensing God's love to all and sundry, the young lady is living damaged and in mortal fear of the Church of England and the police who have been harrassing her in the meantime. She has repeatedly asked them to leave her alone and to stop making statements and threatening reports that would, by their publication or even the expectation of it, further ruin her physical health and mental wellbeing.

As I don't believe in Heaven, I'm not supposed to believe in Hell, but I'm working on it.

Pete St John

I had the good fortune to meet Pete St. John recently at the launch of his March for Brian Boru at Colm Lennon's talk on historical perspectives of the Battle of Clontarf.

Although he has written many songs, including the familiar Fields of Athenry, the one that always gets to me is Dublin in the Rare Oul Times. I used to sing it round the place and it was always an open question whether I would get to the end or not.

I'm not entirely sure why, but for me it is a tremendously evocative song that involves my own growing up, my parents, and more recently resonances from the wider family as I delve into my family history.

I have four generations of coopers and relations on the stage of the Theatre Royal apart altogether from my own memories of it. I photographed the Pillar before, during and after its demise. My mother's people were from the Liberties (just about) and the march of the grey unyielding concrete has continued apace.

So I'll just leave that song to speak for itself.

-1-
Raised on songs and stories,
Heroes of renown,
The passing tales and glories
That once was Dublin Town.
The hallowed halls and houses,
The haunting childrens rhymes
That once was Dublin City
In the rare ould times.

Chorus
Ring a ring a rosey
As the light declines
I remember Dublin City
In the rare ould times.

-2-
My name it is Sean Dempsey,
As Dublin as can be
Born hard and late in Pimlico,
In a house that ceased to be.
By trade I was a cooper,
Lost out to redundancy.
Like my house that fell to progress,
My trade’s a memory.
And I courted Peggy Dignan,
As pretty as you please,
A rogue and child of Mary,
From the rebel Liberties.
I lost her to a student chap,
With skin as black as coal.
When he took her off to Birmingham,
She took away my soul.

Chorus

-3-
The years have made me bitter,
The gargle’s dimmed me brain,
‘Cause Dublin keeps on changing,
And nothing seems the same.
The Pillar and the Met. have gone,
The Royal long since pulled down,
As the grey unyielding concrete,
Makes a city of my town.

Chorus

-4-
Fare thee well sweet Anna Liffey,
I can no longer stay,
And watch the new glass cages,
That spring up along the Quay.
My mind’s too full of memories,
Too old to hear new chimes,
I’m part of what was Dublin,
In the rare ould times.

Chorus

Typocast

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I can't claim the high moral ground when it comes to proofreading. I'm still finding typos in stuff I wrote many years ago and had proofread more than once since.

Today, with so much stuff just online, you can correct your typos as though they never existed. Hardcopy is another matter. And another matter still is when they are cast in stone, or just plain cast.

The picture above is from the 1964 film "A Home of Your Own" and it shows Bernard Cribbins sculpting an inscription on a monument in a new housing estate to be opened by the mayor the following morning. The unveiling of the monument brings gasps from the crowd as the finished inscription is suddently revealed as "The money for this erection was raised by pubic subscription". Your worst nightmare. I've never forgotten it.

And when you end up doing legislation, where whole new legistlation is required to be passed to correct any typos you've missed, I can tell you that sharpens up your proofreading skills.

Still, no one is perfect, not even in 1850, when this gate for Brian Boru's well at Castle Avenue Clontarf was cast. You'd need to be wide awake to spot it: the H should follow the M in Brian's name. The cló rómhánach here denies us the luxury of the floating buailte (see below)

An author, who is an authority on matters relating to Clontarf, attempted to persuade me that this was a legitimate variation in the name, but when I looked up his own book on the matter I found he had actually corrected it himself in his text.

And in case you think I'm having a go at Dublin and its suburbs, I'll take you as far west as my granny's birthplace in Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo, where BOHOLA has dropped an O in the casting. [Update - 11/2/2015: Carol Maddock has just pointed out that I missed the apostrophe in "area's" and I've now spotted another one in "1950's". Clearly proofreading is a never ending task.]

[Update - 5/4/2016: "Bohola" has now been corrected but it looks as if the other two typos have been reproduced in this new plaque.]

Or to my father's birthplace, Ballyhaunis, in the same county, where the MILLENNIUM has dropped an N in the same process.

Not so nice when your typos are cast and would require a complete recast to remedy them.

There are some fine cast signs which currently suffer from typos but where the typo is not in the casting but in the subsequent tarting up. These are easily remedied. But, of course, you have to spot them first.

The above sign, from the Cornmarket in Wexford town, is perfectly cast. However when it came to tarting it up subsequently there was a problem. Tarting up meant painting the whole thing gray and then painting the surround and the script white. And they did a lovely job. But nobody told them that those little irregularites over the d and the b were in fact part of the script - Irish buailtes or séimhiús which mutate the consonants concerned.

I remember floating buailtes from school. Quite often, given the complexity of Irish grammar, you were not sure whether to apply one or not. So we always made sure there were a few floating ones above each line of script to be pressed into service as required.

And don't get me started on street name signs in Irish where the follies are a compound of typos and plain pig ignorance. My web page on this comes with a health warning - keep the blood pressure pills handy. Enjoy.

Where is it ? No. 27

Solution

Rockville House on Sydney Parade Avenue. That one might have been a bit unfair but if you'd been in the habit of walking from Sydney Parade DART station to either RTÉ or UCD Belfield you couldn't have missed it.

To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

To see all the unsolved quiz items click on the "unsolved" tag below.

Where is it ? No. 26

Update 20/1/2016

Some movement at last. Maith thú Eoin. But you've known that for a long time. Thanks for the restraint meanwhile.


To see all the quiz items click on the "Where?" tag below.

Dublin

Brendan Teeling
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The occasion was the launching of the book Dublin - The Making of a Capital City by David Dickson, Professor of Modern History at TCD. The book is a magnum opus and draws heavily on the work of those who went before. It covers a thousand years of the Capital's history, from the Viking era to the Spire, of which more later.

The master of ceremonies was Deputy City Librarian, Brendan Teeling, last seen on my website at Raheny library's fortieth anniversary celebration.

He teed it up nicely for Dermot Lacey who was launching the book on behalf of the Lord Mayor.

Dermot Lacey

Dermot is a member of Dublin City Council and a himself former Lord Mayor. Not only does he have a great love for Dublin city, but, unlike many another launcher, he had actually read the book he was launching, all 700 pages of it.

In the course of an erudite and humorous speech, he called on the Bank of Ireland to return its building on College Green to the State for use as a museum of Dublin. It is now bailout call in time. Not only was Dublin, until today, lacking this sort of overview survey history, it still lacks a proper museum of Dublin. It was made clear that this was not meant as any reflection on the wonderful Little Museum of Dublin on St. Stephen's Green.

Dermot also confessed to having mixed feelings about the Spire. He said that when asked what he thought of it he would throw the question back at the questioner. If they didn't like it he would tell them he voted against it at the time. If they did like it he would tell them that, as Lord Mayor, he inaugurated it.

Mary Daly

Mary Daly, Professor of History at UCD and currently the first woman president of the Royal Irish Academy in its 229 year history, paid tribute to the book, the first to cover such a period in the Capital's history in such a scholarly and readable manner. She felt that only David Dickson could have produced such a work.

David Dickson

David Dickson made the point that the book could not have been produced without the access to sources provided by the digital age, and without the work that went before him on which he drew massively.

I note that he remarks, on page 562, regarding the Spire, that "Certainly its scale served to diminish the verticality of O'Connell Street". That gave me great encouragement as it is a point I have been making about both the Spire and its predecessor, the Pillar, for many a year. I can still remember being amazed at how majestic a building the GPO was revealed as in the immediate aftermath of the demolition of Nelson's Pillar in 1966, and how much wider O'Connell Street looked in its absence. It might have been a fitting gesture, in this 1916 centenary year, to have demolished the Spire, a monument to Celtic Tiger hubris and an insult to the leaders of the Rising, and to have restored the GPO to its rightful prominence. Those last bits are me talking and I have no idea whether they might be shared by David Dickson. Must ask him sometime.

The launch took place, appropriately enough, in the Dublin City Library and Archive in Pearse St. This venue has been developed over the years and is not only a research library, but it houses much of the City's archive and, in recent years, has acquired a fine lecture hall and exhibition space.

Needless to say, the speakers paid a handsome and well deserved tribute to what Dermot called "the two Marys", Máire Kennedy in charge on the library side and Mary Clarke on the archives. There's hardly a work of note relating to the city of Dublin, including the present book, which does not figure one or both of these generous scholars in the acknowledgements section.