CULTURE NIGHT 2019

Click on any image for a larger version

On Culture Night Dublin City explodes. This year, on 20/9/2019, there were well over 200 venues in the city alone hosting events. The mere thought of it would exhaust you.

So, this year, I decided to go for just one event - a French language walking tour of French/Irish links with Sylvie Kleinman.

The tour was scheduled to start at 6.30pm, and as you can see above I turned up on the early side. As a result I have three events to report on. But I won't allow myself to be distracted and will start with Sylvie's tour.

Sylvie is currently a research fellow at TCD, and her interests tend to centre on 1798 and the Napoleonic era. That is fortunate for me as it adds a dimension to my own interest in the period.

My interest comes from having lived in Ballybrack for some twenty years where I developed an interest in the local history. A significant part of this history involves a fear of a French seaborne invasion in the period 1795-1815.

My interest is directed towards the British side of the conflict, involving the construction of the Martello Towers and efforts to overthrow the French government of the day, including using the services of expat French Royalists and the Chouan rebels in north-west France.

Sylvie, on the other hand, has tended to concentrate on the French government side of the conflict and their use of the rebel United Irishmen to subvert the British state by the backdoor.

So our interests are complementary.

It was no surprise then that we started outside Dublin Castle.

In the upper courtyard we had much of the background to the core period explained with all the while the emphasis on the French connection. We had French spies, French soldiers, and United Irishmen traveling back and forth to France.

And the all pervasive influence of the French Revolution making the British administration very nervous. It was not only the challenge to the general power structure and the monarchy but the idea of secularisation embraced by the new French régime.

Secularisation did not mean the end of religion but its separation from the functioning of the state. Certain events aside, the French state tolerated many, if not all, religions but in their place.

There had been The Terror, which scared the shit out of everybody. But this had only lasted for a limited period and there were many positive lessons to be learned from the follow up to the Revolution.

The Castle evoked the memory of Wolfe Tone, who had met with and lobbied Napoleon but who ended up incarcerated and dying here, and of General Humbert and his officers who had been detained here. Many of today's buildings are different from those of that time and have different uses today but Sylvie pointed out the various locations to us.

And in more modern times the visit of Charles de Gaulle to Ireland in 1969. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of that visit. We all remember him in Kerry, but Sylvie pointed out that Jack Lynch entertained him in the Castle. On that occasion five silk replica flags of the Irish Brigades, which France had presented to Ireland a decade earlier, were brought in for de Gaulle to admire.

Sylvie reminded us that less than two years before the visit, de Gaulle had vetoed the UK's application to join the Common Market. At that point I was provoked into interjecting that he had been dead right. I think Sylvie was a little taken aback by this sudden voice from the crowd but I did not detect any serious challenge from the assembly.

We took off through Temple Bar, heading for Trinity College, stopping on the way to dwell on the fencing school where the United Irishmen used to meet and noting the pathetic plaque on the wall of the building where the Society of the United Irishmen of Dublin was founded in 1791. Then it had been the Eagle Tavern of which nothing now remains.

Outside the Mansion House, site of the jumbo meeting of the First Dáil, Sylvie reminded us of more modern French connections.

The Dáil's declaration had been translated into very good French with an eye to international publicity and the post-war Paris Conference where the Irish hoped to get a hearing. She pointed out that Irish "delegate" Seán T O'Kelly's wife, seen by his side in an iconic photo in a Paris street, was actually an assistant professor of modern languages at the National University.

Shannon, Sylvie & Brian

We then checked out the Huguenot Cemetery (1693) at the north-west corner of Stephen's Green where Sylvie filled in yet more Dublin French connections, pointing out also that the site was outside what were then city limits.

I drew attention to the unusual spelling over the entrance (Hughenot) but by that time I think I'd shot my bolt and the party moved across the road to its final site, the statue of Wolfe Tone described by Sylvie as "moche".

I wanted to take the photo above because, along with Sylvie's most entertaining and educational tour, both Shannon and Brian made an enormous contribution to the success of the tour.

Shannon flew the flag as we moved from one spot to another and you could spot her a mile away. Brian came up in the rear corralling potential strays and making sure, at the various stops, that we all stayed out of the way of passing cars attempting to navigate the narrow side streets.

Without this pair, Sylvie's audience would have halved by the end of the tour.

Merci Sylvie.

---

Let's now go back in time, not too far, to me arriving in the area at 5 o'clock. I was both hungry and thirsty, having been solidly on the go from 11am.

I was sitting in a little Italian café with a Cappuccino and a wee chicken pie when there was a loud knock on the window beside me.

It was Donal Fallon, turning up early for his own walking tour - A Musical History of Dublin, starting shortly. So I decided to join his tour for a while and then cut across to Sylvie.

Now, Donal is what the French would call an "animateur" in the sense of "élément dynamique". He has a great love of, and enthusiasm for, his subject. On this occasion he had brought a piece of paper from which to read some quotations at appropriate moments, but also, I suspect, to stop him losing the run of himself.

He gave his audience a brief introduction to the subject and sketched out his intended route.

And then we were off to Fishamble Street for the first ever performance of Handel's Messiah in the Great Music Hall, which alas is no more.

On the night, in February 1742, there was such a crowd to be packed into the Hall that gentlemen were asked to leave their swords at home and ladies not to wear hoops.

Then on to the site of the Project Theatre which played such a part in the cultural revival of Temple Bar. Donal was all the while filling in the wider background to individual aspects of the tour and, at this point, I was glad to see the Pike Theatre getting a mention.

On then to Rory Gallagher Corner at Meeting House Square where Donal's enthusiasm knew no bounds. Rory was the greatest. Even Jimmy Hendricks thought so.

Donal reminded us that Rory was one of the few musicians who played in Northern Ireland during the height of The Troubles when other artists shunned the North.

As we moved along to the next venue I told Donal that I too had performed in Belfast, in the Ardoyne, at the height of the troubles. Nóra and myself had traveled north with Donnchadh Ó Dúlaing's "toy train" to entertain the children of internees. Many southern performers had signed up for the trip but precious few of them turned up at Amiens Street Station (now Connolly) on the day.

I literally brought the house down, tripping over a Christmas tree as I went on stage, bringing down the tree, lights and all. The kids loved it.

I then went on to tell them they could clap along and tap their feet, and before I had a chance to play the first chord there burst out a thunderous wave of stamping feet that it took the stewards minutes to quieten down. Clearly I had a lot to learn about Northern audiences, particularly when it came to the children of internees.

Next stop was the site of the Hirschfeld Centre, described as "Ireland's First Gay Social and Community Space". Set up in 1979, it lasted until it was burned down in 1987. It should be remembered that this period pre-dated the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland in 1993.

The plaque above was unveiled just last June (2019) to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the centre.

So what was all this queer stuff doing in what was supposed to be a music tour?

Well, the centre had a first class disco called Flikkers, and Donal quoted David Norris bemoaning the fact, or maybe boasting, that all these heterosexuals used to come and crowd out the place "just for the music".

This is where I left Donal to head off for Sylvie's tour.

---

I said I had three events to report on and this is the third.

When myself and Donal emerged from the café, we were immediately confronted with this street performance of Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

The script calls for two actors but there were briefly three as a passing pedestrian decided to engage with the performers. Pure Dublin.

The guys were great though I couldn't find this street performance in the programme.

Anyway, enjoy the rest of the performance.