Commemorating 1916

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This talk is one in a series under the 1916 banner. This particular one is actually dealing with how 1916 itself has been commemorated in the Republic down the years and it is the last in the series of 1916 talks. It was given in the Dublin Library and Archive on 23 June 2016.

Tara Doyle

The speaker was introduced by Tara Doyle who is one of the librarians working on the 1916 Commemorations for Dublin City Council.

Donal Fallon shuffling his notes.

This talk is being given by Donal Fallon who is a social historian with a great familiarity with this area. Donal is one of the team of three who produce the Dublin blog Come Here To Me! and he has written a great book on that other event which overshadowed the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Rising, the blowing up of Nelson's Pillar in March 1966.

Liberty Hall Banner 1917
"James Connolly Murdered May 12th 1916"

Straight into the first anniversary of the Rising in 1917. The Rising itself was commemorated at Easter, which in that year fell on 8th April (Sunday). The authorities were expecting trouble and banned public assemblies. Nevertheless, lots of people turned out to commemorate the Rising.

Later, on 12 May 1917, a banner made by Helena Moloney and some other ladies was put up on Liberty Hall reminding people of the murder of James Connolly the previous year. This was taken down by the police, an action which incensed the ladies who promptly made up a replacement banner. This was attached to the building higher up than the first one and remained there long enough to remind a good few passers by of the previous year's execution.

Eater Lily, introduced in 1926

The next big event was the tenth anniversary in 1926. This saw the introduction of the Easter Lily in opposition to the WWI poppy which was still widely worn on Armistice Day. The Lily got off to a slow start and tended to be worn by members of the then current republican movement as opposed to those who participated in the Rising.

Remembrance Sunday, Wellington Monument, Phoenix Park, 1926

By my day, there was little talk of commemorating WWI and even less about those who fought for the British Army. In fact, they did not "come down from the attic" until the 1990s and subsequently, in no small part due to the efforts of the two Marys (Robinson & McAleese) to restore those who fought, and those who died, to their rightful place in the memory of the nation. However, in earlier years, as the above photo shows, there were fairly massive turnouts on Remembrance Sunday.

Mrs Kathleen Clarke

The year 1926 also saw the formation of the National Graves Association, whose aim was to maintain the graves of republicans and erect appropriate plaques and headstones where these were lacking. This was a very widely based organisation, with, for example, Kathleen Clarke, widow of Tom Clarke and a founder member of Fianna Fáil, as its treasurer.

There was a certain amount of violence associated with commemorations through the 1920s and 1930s. While the earlier period saw conflicts based on Irish/British identities, those in the later period were more left versus right with the Catholics rooting out the Commies.

A last glimpse of Nelson from the viewing platform before the fall

The next major commemoration was the 50th anniversary in 1966. This saw an outpouring of patriotic fervour but was dominated by two events.

First the screening of the television series, Insurrection, which re-enacted the Rising. This was hugely popular and was populated with well known actors of the day.

But the event which stole the show was the toppling of Nelson from his pillar beside the GPO just as major preparations were under way for the big national march past at this iconic site.

Donal had good things to say about the current centenary commemorations which have attracted participation by a wide spectrum of factions and elements across society.

He ended with the hope that this community spirit carries on into the upcoming commemorations of the War of Independence, and more particularly the Civil War.

Hard to say, when the dead from that latter period still have their guns out of their holsters.

Tom Kehoe

You can hear Donal's talk here in full.

SCOIL SCAIRTE

Hedge School onstage [l-r]: Tommy Graham, Dennis Kennedy,
Donal Fallon, Fergus Whelan, Carole Holohan.
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I had never been to a Hedge School. Far from it: Belgrove, St. Louis Rathmines, Coláiste Mhuire. But interestingly enough, the one thing that was never questioned in any of these places, certainly not in my classes, was adherence to the physical force tradition.This was the womb of 1966, the long gestation (1950-63) of the triumphalism that was to burst onto the scene in the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the 1916 Rising.

There was, of course, an ironic undercurrent to all this as we modernised like mad during the 1960s and threw out babies, embryos and old farts along with the kitchen sink (or trough as we used to call it) and the old wooden pub interiors.

In ways, the coming of the plastic era was a fitting background to the last unquestioning celebration of the Rising. Then came Frs. Shaw and Martin putting their heads above the parapet with some deeper moral questions, and the likes of Ruth Dudley Edwards, arch-revisionist, daring to write anything other than an unqualified panegyrical biography of Pádraig Pearse, dear saint of our isle.

Then the troubles in the North called us all out. We suddenly started to listen to the words of the rebel songs we had been gaily singing for years, not excluding the national anthem itself, and some of us turned down the volume quite a bit.

Tommy Graham

Now, this may seem a long and wandering introduction to a simple post on a simple event, a hedge school on Nelson's Pillar in the National Library last evening (14/3/2016), but believe you me, muted as it may have been, all this stuff surfaced there. A great vindication of Tommy Graham who has been running these themed hedge schools with high class participation for a good while now.

The format is simple. Assemble a panel of good and controversial speakers. Take them through the subject in a structured Q&A sort of way. If they start a fight let them at it. Then bring in some audience participation to pour petrol or water on the flames, as the case may be. And QED, you have a hedge school, where everyone, including the Master, learns a little.

A thoroughly enjoyable and educational event for all concerned. And it would want to have been. I forewent (if I may be allowed the lapse into pedantry) an event across the road in Dawson Street to be there. Kevin Myers was putting Ruth Dudley Edwards through her paces on her new book, Seven Lives, assessing the seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation.

I know, not exactly the Battle of the Boyne, but nevertheless.

Dennis Kennedy

Of all the panellists, Dennis Kennedy, was probably the most controversial, particularly against the background of the 1916 celebrations outside the front door. Dennis, like fellow panellist Donal Fallon, has written a book on The Pillar (Dublin's Fallen Hero, 2013) but I think these two would be coming at it from slightly different angles, to say the least. Dennis would be seen by many as simply a Northern Unionist, though he would see himself in somewhat broader and more complex terms.

Dennis has a long background in journalism, north and south and elsewhere, he has been the head of the EU Commission's Northern Ireland office and an academic in QUB.

He was the only panel member to be interrupted by a shout of "rubbish" from a member of an otherwise civilised audience.

I got the impression he was a bit nostalgic after the Pillar, although not necessarily entirely happy at its precise location. One of the basic questions he raised was how we should deal with memorials from history which were often judged not relevant to the present day or incompatible with the current ethos. Nelson was a case in point, but there were, of course, others.

[l-r] Fergus Whelan, Carole Holohan

Fergus Whelan is an author and trade unionist of long standing and as well as contributing to the history and lore of The Pillar he gave us fine renderings of two of the well known ballads about Nelson (after the fall, I'm not sure if there were any before it).

Carole Holohan, historian of the 1960s, gave us all a fright when she mentioned those who were injured on the night of the first Nelson explosion. I had understood that nobody had been injured and that the only person in the vicinity when the explosion occurred at 1.32am was a passing taxi driver whose taxi was struck by falling masonry but who escaped injury himself.

Turned out Carole was only teasing us and the injuries she referred to did occur on the night, but at Dublin Airport in the crush of fans welcoming Dickie Rock home after his coming fourth in the Eurovision song contest with "Come back to stay".

Carole also filled in some of the background to the newly emerging economic progress of the 1960s.

Donal Fallon

Donal Fallon had the look of a man who'd been bowled a googly, but, at the end of the day, he's well able to bat them.

He regaled us with examples of other monuments which had been gotten rid of through force of arms and even of previous attempts on the boul Nelson, including one vetoed by the British Army during the Rising. He tempted fate by quoting one of the ruder lines from an already rude ballad about General Gough's statue, but he got away with it.

He was asked an apparently innocent question from the audience about the relative damage done by the original Pillar explosion and the subsequent army one. He disposed of that one quickly enough but you still had a feeling that the more entertaining urban myth had taken such deep roots in Dubliners' subconscious that it would never be scotched were the Pope himself to denounce it.

The Morning After

In the end, a great night was had by all and, for those who would prefer a more balanced and comprehensive account of the proceedings,the podcast is now available here.

I have link to a whack of Nelson stuff here.

Pillar - a very close call

Liam Sutcliffe
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I have long had an interest in The Pillar, not least because I observed and photographed its dismantling after Nelson was blown off it in 1966. However, I never really took very much notice of who was supposed to have blown it up. The all encompassing term "The IRA" served the purpose very well.

It was only in very recent times, with the publication of Donal Fallon's new book, The Pillar, that I realised the IRA had condemned the explosion on the grounds that this sort of thing distracted attention from their main mission which was to change the system itself and not just its cosmetic aspects.

The only person so far to have come forward, in 2000, and claim/admit to having been involved is Liam Sutcliffe. He was at the launch of Donal's book the other evening and I went Googling for a caption to a photo I was blogging when I came across an hour long interview with him on Youtube, some ten minutes of which were devoted to the Pillar operation.

Believe you me, it was scary, really scary.

According to his account he took his three and a half year old child up the Pillar with him when he was helping out the man setting the explosives. As if that wasn't enough, the man setting the explosives was clearly an incompetent idiot who could easily have blown them all to kingdom come.

In the first place, the explosive device was a complete mess - miswired and with an unreliable type of battery. In the second place, the timing device (an alarm clock - very popular in those days) had been set to go off at four in the morning, except it was now around half two in the afternoon and this was a traditional twelve hour alarm clock.

When the trio came down from the Pillar, Liam and his son went to see "the funnies" in a picture house in Grafton St. The other man went back to report success in laying the charge to Joe Christle, the nominal boss of the operation. When Christle pointed out that the bomb would not go off at four in the morning, when presumably there would be nobody around, but at four in the afternoon, in about an hour's time when town would be packed, the man who laid the charge wanted to call the Special Branch to get in the army to dismantle it. Christle would hear none of it and decreed that it be left to go off as set.

As Liam later said, when he learned of this, "there would have been mayhem".

Fortunately, the bomb did not go off and it would be another week before the real explosion blew at half one in the morning. In the course of that week Liam had redesigned the package and it didn't let them down second time round.

Really scary.

Have a listen.

Pillar launch 2

Donal Fallon
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It felt very odd to be at one of these things, with my camera along, but not taking photos. I have done a substantive post on the occasion and am grateful to New Island Books, publishers of The Pillar, for these photos. You can see more on their facebook page. The photo above is of Donal speaking to the book and in the course of which he paid tribute to Shane.

Pól Ó Duibhir

This is me at my formal best. New Island says that I launched The Pillar "with a hilarious speech replete with anecdotes." So someone out there was listening.

Manus O'Riordan

Manus clearly can't get enough of it. No wonder the books are leaping off the shelves and a second edition may be needed soon.

Donal Fallon and Tom Stokes

I don't know how many books Donal signed. Must have run into the millions. I had a long chat with Tom myself outside The Duke afterwards.

Liam Sutcliffe and Las Fallon

Liam is still the only man to have publicly admitted involvement in blowing up Nelson and Las is Donal's father and a great supporter.

Donal Fallon and partner Aoife

Donal and Aoife had a well deserved evening basking in the limelight.

Ciarán, Donal and Sam

The team behind the iconic Dublin blog Come Here to Me!

Pól Ó Duibhir and Eoin Purcell

Myself and the publisher just about to start discussions on my own forthcoming book.

Pillar launch

Photo: Lisa-Marie Griffith
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There I was, thinking I looked very impressive in my collar and tie.

Then, today, I saw Lisa-Marie's photo taken from the viewpoint of the audience and I realised that I looked more like a wonky version of the second coming.

The occasion was the formal launch of Donal Fallon's book on The Pillar on which I have already posted.

Donal had originally invited me to come along and say a few words, "just the two of us". Then a few days before the launch I got the formal invite, in which I was listed as the Guest Speaker and described as a Photographer. Very flattering but a bit scary.

Anyway I turned up, in collar and tie in keeping with my newly found self importance, and delivered my bit which I think people found interesting. At least that's what they said afterwards. Which was fine.

Then people came up to me asking me to sign their copy of the book, which, thankfully had already been signed by Donal, and in some cases, also by Liam Sutcliffe, who is credited in the book with having taken part in the dispatch of Nelson from his perch. Never signed a book before unless I was giving it to someone as a present. Weird feeling. But at least it's not like people screaming for your autograph. That could quickly lead to you losing the run of yourself.

I was reflecting on why people would have anyone other than the author sign their book when I recollected my own behaviour at the launch of Tim Carey's book, Hanged for Murder, where I not only got Tim to sign my copy, but persuaded Marie Cassidy, the State Pathologist, to sign as well.

And on this occasion I also got Liam's signature on my own copy of The Pillar.

It was an appropriate occasion to pay tribute to Shane Mac Thomáis to whom the book is dedicated and who, but for his tragic death earlier in the year, would have been launching the book in my place. Donal quoted the final verse from Donagh MacDonagh's poem Dublin Made Me:

I disclaim all fertile meadows, all tilled land
The evil that grows from it and the good,
But the Dublin of old statutes, this arrogant city
Stirs proudly and secretly in my blood.

While I had a few of my own plants in the audience (thank you lads and lady) I detected a sort of general air of "who is this guy" which made me feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle waking up out of a 1966 sleep."

But it was a great night. I met some old, and lots of new, people, and was even treated to a dissertation on aliens in The Duke afterwards. Saying that I knew a lady from Roswell, however, did not seem to impress my interlocuter who was more interested in persuading me of the planned role of The Spire in the next round of alien contacts.

I had done up a background web page for the launch, which I forgot to mention on the night, and which you can see here. Its main purpose is to bring together some few links relating to the book and beyond.

You can also see some photos from the New Island collection here and my "Guest Speech" here. As far as the latter is concerned, younger readers may need a little light cast on Des Fennell.

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.

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.