Sunday, August 26, 2012

Waterbabies


Sir John Gray appeared posthumously in O'Connell Street in the same year the Blessed Virgin appeared in his native Mayo. She was later to become associated with the limitless provision of Holy Water to both the natives and visitor/pilgrims at Knock, while he was the force behind the provision of the water supply to the people of Dublin from the Varty Scheme which he vigorously promoted.

This photo of him, or rather of his statue in O'Connell Street, is brought to you with the collaboration of Bus Éireann and the Department of Social Protection who accorded me free entry to the upper deck of the No. 11 bus.

Vartry Lodge on Strand (private) Road in Killiney/Ballybrack was so named by his widow in his honour.

1 comment:

  1. One of the characters in James Joyce's story ‘Grace’ in Dubliners recalls Sir John Gray's son, Edmund Dwyer Gray, ‘blathering away’ at the unveiling of his father’s statue, and another comments that ‘none of the Grays was any good'. Both Grays, father and son, were owners of Dublin's Freeman's Journal newspaper.

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