BLOOMSDAY 2017

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It's that time of the year again and on last Friday (16/6/2017) Dublin erupted into a thousand Bloomsday events. But none were as special as that held at the Martello Tower on Killiney Hill Road. No, this is not "Joyce's Tower" albeit in sight of the same snot green sea.

This is the magnificent restoration of Martello Tower No.7. Dublin South, by Niall O'Donoghue, a feat recognised as special by the Europa Nostra jury in 2014.

Sandycove is welcome to its annual splash, initiated by Myles na gCopaleen and a few others in 1954. Commemoration of James Joyce on Bloomsday there has now become a habit. But this is only the second Bloomsday commemoration at the Killiney Tower. It was initiated by the late David Hedigan in 2014 and it is a most exclusive affair - invitation only.

As you can see above, this year's celebration was novel in its conception. Felix M Larkin was giving us a miscellany of thoughts on Joyce with particular reference to the Freeman's Journal in Ulysses. Darren Mooney was recreating the drawing room atmosphere which is the background to some of Joyce's work, not forgetting that Joyce himself was no mean tenor and had written a series of love songs under the title Chamber Music.

Felix M Larkin

Felix, who is a former director of the prestigious Parnell Summer School, kicked off by reminding us of Joyce's attitude to Parnell. He puts Joyce firmly the Irish constitutional tradition and makes it clear he rejected any form of militant republicanism and narrow cultural nationalism.

I am a desperate one for connections, however tenuous. Felix tells us that Joyce's republican character, Michael Davin, in the Portrait of the Artist is based on George Clancy, who went on to become Sinn Féin mayor of Limerick and was murdered by crown forces on 6 March 1921, shortly after his election as mayor.

And the connection? Niall O'Donoghue's grandfather had been with Clancy just before his murder and you can read that true story here.

Felix goes on to illustrate the extent to which Ulysses is rooted in actuality by considering the opening sequence of the ‘Aeolus’ episode which is set in the offices of the Freeman’s Journal newspaper in North Prince’s street, Dublin – beside the GPO. But in setting the scene, and remembering that Felix is himself a historian, he reminds us, bluntly it has to be said, that the historian should be a kind of ‘bullshit detector’, with zero tolerance – and that is the spirit in which Joyce approaches his material.

It is at this point that Felix really gets into his stride. He is the historian of the Freeman's Journal and it is a recurring theme in his writings. Woe betide the audience that lets its mind wander and its attention flag at this point.

Preparations have been made to ensure strict attention and wakefulness and if the smaller cannon proves an insufficient threat to the inattentive ...

... then the eighteen pounder on the crown of the tower can be readied in forty-five minutes, somewhat along the lines of Saddam Hussein's rockets as recounted in the Dodgy Dossier. Just for the avoidance of doubt among the uninitiated, that work of fiction was not from the pen of Mr. Joyce.

But if Joyce sets the Aeolus chapter of Ulysses in the offices of the Freeman's Journal it is not out of respect for that newspaper. In fact Joyce held the Freeman and its staff in some disdain. Moreover, he seems to have held most, if not all, journalists in the same disdain, describing them as as ‘weathercocks’ – he writes: ‘One story good till you hear the next’.

We are told that Joyce’s final sneer at the Freeman in Ulysses occurs in the ‘Circe’ episode, set in Dublin’s nighttown: the title of the newspaper and that of its weekly compendium edition, the Weekly Freeman, are transmogrified into the ‘Freeman’s Urinal and Weekly Arsewiper’.

I have to interject here for the benefit of my younger readers who may be familiar with toilet tissue or even toilet rolls for doing the needful. These are a product of what to me is the modern age. They were preceded by medicated toilet paper whose properties led more to the spreading than the absorption of the remnants of No.2.

But before all that it was the practice, at least among the working classes, to cut the previous day's newspaper into small squares, pierce one corner, thread them with twine, and hang them on the lavatory wall. So many a paper in my day would have qualified for the title arsewiper not out of disrespet but out of necessity.

In our house that honour went to the Irish Press.

In his peroration Felix points out that Mr Bloom did not carry Joyce's disdain for the Freeman to its logical conclusion. When he visits the privy behind his home in Eccles Street, he did not use the Freeman to wipe himself clean but instead relied on the popular English magazine, Titbits.

Now there were some knowing giggles among the audience at this last bit. But this reveals a certain temporal problem in the cursory reading of Joyce.

In my day, Titbits was a soft porn magazine, a sort of titillator. In Joyce's time it presented a diverse range of tit-bits of information in an easy-to-read format. It didn't get its first pin-up until 1939.

If you're interested in the serious scholarly version of all this you can read Felix's full paper which he has generously put up on his website.

Darren Mooney

Now it's on to the second phase of the day's event, the music.

Joyce himself was musical. He had a fine tenor voice and, from memory, I think he won a few Feis prizes. There was also music around him. Moore's melodies, for example, were popular at social functions of the day. So Moore's melodies from tenor Darren Mooney were entirely appropriate to this particular commemoration.

Darren is from just down the road in Newtownmountkennedy in Co. Wicklow - somewhat beyond the range of the tower's cannon, but never mind. He charmed the audience so there will be no firing today. A singer whose abode is very much in range of the cannon is Bono, but that's for another day.

Darren's performance led us very nicely into that aspect of Joyce's life that we hear so little of. In fact Moore's melodies had gone somewhat out of vogue in the face of the great trad musical revival of the 1970s.

But, as Darren reminded us, they were the pop songs of their day. And they have some beautiful melodies along with decent lyrics. Even if the melodies were stolen, or recycled, Moore must be given credit for spreading them around and keeping them alive.

Darren had put together a nice selection and there was something very appealing in listening to a tenor out in the open and without electronic amplification half way up Killiney Hill.

If you're curious you can hear Darren sing Mio Caro Ben on his website. Not a Moore's melody but one with strong Irish connections if its claimed authorship is to be believed.

Jillian Saunders

A special mention for Jill.

There are two sorts of accompanists: true accompanists and soloists. Too many of the latter try to pass themselves off as also the former. but you cannot be both at the same time.

Not so Jill - a discreet empathic accompanist and a wonderful complement to the singer's performance. A great pleasure.

We ended up with an unexpected sing along version of Molly Malone when, ignoring the day's script and presumably somewhat over-enthused by the occasion, a Molly presented herself from among the audience and Darren was suitably gallant in his response.

Photo: Maeve Breen

An unexpected duet from Patricia Dolan and Darren Mooney to tie up the musical phase in style.

Family solidarity, Niall's sisters Maeve & Emer
Photo: Sovay Murray

Susan Hedigan

In the course of his performance as a wandering minstrel among the audience, Darren presented Susan with a bloom. This was Susan's birthday and the first time she had been back at the tower since her late husband's great performance here on Bloomsday 2014.

Ingrid & Rob Goodbody, Niall O'Donoghue

Niall had a bad fall a short while before and he was not completely recovered. He is one of those people who does not understand the word convalescence and, despite the possibility of having broken, or at least seriously damaged, some ribs he was out on site at 4am lugging stuff around.

But enough is enough and he was running out of steam. So he deputed Rob Goodbody to convey his appreciation to the participants and to thank the audience for coming, not to mention the caterers, whose catering we were about to sample. Some individuals had actually brought food to share, including lavender biscuits and succulent blueberry muffins.

Maghera Point from the Tower on the Day

I then laid aside the camera and proceeded to wind up the formal presentations by outlining the strong French connections between Killiney and France, carefully avoiding mentioning my own experience as an au pair boy.

The towers were built in 1804/5 to repel an expected French seaborne invasion. Thy owed much of their actual positioning in the Bay to the French Major La Chaussée who surveyed its military vulnerability in 1797. In the event, Napoleon never turned up, though the French appeared briefly elsewhere on the island.

Maghera Point, above, was the largest of the nine defensive emplacements in the Bay. It consisted of a tower and two batteries. It eventually fell victim to coastal erosion but was by then well beyond its use by date. Unlike Ozymandias, whose bits are still being discovered, it is gone forever.

You can also see in the picture where Edward Ball, having murdered his mother with a hatchet in Booterstown. dumped her body in the sea. But that too is a story for another day.

Myself reading from Joyce's Chamber Music
Photo: Sovay Murray

Back to La Chaussée, who went on to better things and became a financial intermediary between the British Government and the French Royalist rebels attempting to restore the monarchy and get rid of Napoleon. La Chaussée was involved in financing an unsuccessful attempt on Napoleon's life by the rebels, for which the perpetrators where duly executed.

So in this way, Killiney had connections with the highest level of the Government of France in the Napoleonic era.

Philippe Milloux

And there's more.

In attendance on the day was Philippe Milloux, Director of the Dublin Alliance Française. I didn't know it when I spoke, but the previous evening Philippe had been knighted by the French Government and was now a Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Mérite.

Short of an appearance of the full complement of the Knights of the Round Table, what more could be wished for to nicely cap the day.

Mark and Diana Richardson had earlier arrived in true vintage style in their 1918 Model T Ford. They were great to let guests have their photos taken in this precious relic of a bygone era. Lovely people.

Des Fahey
Photo: Sovay Murray

Niall's grandsons Matthew & Simon
Photo: Sovay Murray

After the refreshments and loads of chat, time came for us all to wend our weary way homeward. But for some the day was not yet over and Mark and Diana were leaving to participate in the rival ceremonials in Sandycove.

A real Model T Ford, in any colour you like as long as it's black, but complete with hooter.

RTFM

Data card copied from Hayes Catalogue
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When I was researching the local history of Ballybrack/Killiney, County Dublin, I trawled the Hayes Catalogue, Manuscript Sources for the History of Irish Civilization. The catalogue was laid out like a series of card indexes and, over a number of volumes. In the volume sorted by place and under the heading Killiney, I found a reference to a survey of Killiney Bay from 1797, the manuscript of which was in the British Museum. I carefully copied down the information for my card index and you can see the card above.

All of this was in the pre-internet era, 1973 to be precise, so I wrote a letter to the British Museum looking for a copy. After some further correspondence I got my copy and ascertained what use I was allowed to make of it, and some other sundry details. I should add that it turned out to be in French. Anyway it all worked out very well and I even published an article on it in The Irish Sword, Ireland's journal of military history.

Then one day, in more recent times, I was perusing the now online version of the Hayes Catalogue when I came across the same reference. Only this time there was something new. The National Library of Ireland now had a microfilm copy of the manuscript.

I wondered what this might be exactly. When I got the copy of the manuscript from the British Museum in 1973 I typed it up and then translated it into English. Apart from the use I made of this myself, I sent a copy of the original, the typescript, and the translation, to Catríona Crowe in the Public Records Office (now the National Archive) in case they were interested.

I now wondered if this might be what was on microfilm in the National Library and yesterday I went in to see. However, it turned out to be only a simple copy of what I had originally got from the British Museum. Apparently the National Library purchased a lot of this stuff from the British Museum on microfilm sometime in the past. I wondered when that might have been as I had not been aware of its existence when I found the original reference.

So with the help of Justin, and a further consultation of the original (1965) Hayes Catalogue, we ascertained that the microfilm had been in the Library since before 1965. In fact the microfilm itself recorded its having been photographed in 1951.

How could I have missed knowing this in my original 1973 consultation of the Catalogue. Sure enough the National Library call number for the microfilm was there in front of my eyes. Why had I not noted it down in 1973. I was kicking myself and scurried home to fish out my original data card.

And there it was. Clear as day. I had actually written down the call number without realising its significance. There had been no need to write to the British Museum in the first place.

Well, now that I have got over the shock, I realise that I probably would have had to write to the British Museum anyway for permission to use and reproduce the document. They also told me that the document did not have a bibliography. In other words nobody, at least as far as they were aware, had published it or written about it. I was the first. And they only charged me 2/6d for what was a better copy than the microfilm version. So, at the end of the day I'm happy enough.

You can read an extended version of the affair and its content here.

So why am I bothering to do this post.

RTFM - look it up.

The Dalkey Islands

You mean Dalkey Island, don't you?

Well I do, because I'm only interested in the military installations, the Martello Tower and the Battery. But the conservation plan goes beyond this narrow interest to include flora and fauna and more besides. And it covers more than Dalkey Island itself. The islands also include Lamb Island and Maiden's Rock, but not The Muglins.

The Conservation Plan was launched in Dalkey Castle Heritage Centre on 3/6/2014.

Introductory remarks were from Tim Carey, DLR Heritage Officer, who outlined the complexity of the islands' environment and complimented the broadly based and interdisciplinary committee which had drawn up the plan in a spirit of benevolent cooperation.

Tim has been actively overseeing the county's heritage for a good while now. He has been impressed by, and very supportive of, restored Martello Tower No.7, much of the research behind which made a substantial contribution to the Council's excellent exhibition on Dublin's Martellos in DLR County Hall in 2011 and to the resulting book.

Tim has a background in the prison service and recently published a book on those hanged by the Irish State since its foundation.

The actual launch was done by the outgoing Cathaoirleach of the Council, Carrie Smyth, in what was one of her last official functions. Carrie paid tribute to all those involved in drawing up the plan, including the many members of County Council staff. She represents the Ballybrack Ward and has been re-elected to the new (2014) Council.

She is seen here with Niall O'Donoghue, whose restored Martello Tower in Killiney she has yet to visit. Niall reassures her that she will be just as welcome after returning her chain of office.

This is Jason Bolton who provided the Council with conservation advice and produced the text of the current plan.

Jason has been associated with the DLR Martello Project since he was commissioned to research the Martello background for the Council. His report was published by Fingal County Council in 2008 and includes much of the material originally researched by Niall O'Donoghue for the restoration of Martello Tower No.7. A major contribution of his report was to draw the Council's attention to the remains of Battery No.5 on the Shanganagh Cliffs, which the Council had lost sight of over the years.

I was pleased to see this site restored to its rightful place in the public sector consciousness. The site was always known locally as "The Battery". I had played there as a child in the 1950s and was fully aware of its significance since the 1970s when I was researching the local history of Killiney Bay.

County Councils seem prone to losing things. Battery No.5 apart, Jason's research project, originally published online by Fingal County Council, now seems to have done a runner and there is no explanation or redirection at the original link. Netiquette how are you.

Anyway, what is the Dalkey Islands Conservation Plan 2014-2024 going to do for the Napoleonic remains on Dalkey Island. Well, as far as these military installations are concerned, the plan is for DLR, OPW and Dept. of Heritage to repair, conserve, make safe, and ensure access to the Martello Tower and the Battery.

You can visit these by proxy through my report on a visit there in July 2012.

Forty Footsie

Bathing club at Forty Foot
swims against tide by
retaining ban on women

The above statement was a headline in this morning's Irish Times, which reported that the Sandycove Bathers’ Association, formed in about 1880, voted 24 to 17 not to allow women to join. That's a turnout of less than 20% of the membership, by the way.

The Forty Foot is a bathing place beside the Martello Tower which figures in the opening lines of James Joyce's Ulysses and in which he stayed for a brief few days.

The relatively secluded bathing place had traditionally been for men only and few, if any, wore togs. But then as women began to assert their rights to all sort of things, bathing became mixed and the only remaining relic of oul decency is the changing facilities owned by the club and available only to members.

So, as things stand, women, at least those who came by public transport, will have to change in the cold outdoors and risk having their gear nicked while they are in swimming.

The photo above is taken from the Battery (fort) which was an integral part of the Tower fortification. As they go, this battery was particularly large and, being situated on a small headland, its field of fire covered a very wide range, from Dún Laoghaire itself right round to Dalkey.

In the overlaid satellite image below, the yellow/green area is the Battery, the red area the Tower, and the blue area the bathing place. The orange area is the house built, and once owned, by the architect Michael Scott. One side of the house is curved in sympathy with the shape of the Tower.

Satellite overlay of fortification today
The military plan below shows the layout of the fortification when in use. You can click on it for a larger image and then click on that larger image again to enlarge to full size, which is the minimum readable size.

Military Plan of fortification 1862
And if you have an interest in these fortifications, don't forget to visit Martello Tower No. 7 on Killiney Hill Road, which fortification is unique in its situation and design, and which has been fully restored to its original state.


Update 14/3/2014
The club have now reversed their policy and voted to admit women as full members. The Irish Times this morning humorously put up on their Facebook page a photo taken in the past by one of their photographers, Paddy Whelan (RIP), and Facebook immediately took down the paper's page. When their Communities Editor, David Cochrane, produced a Times Togs Overlay, the page was restored. You can view the original photo here, but don't tell anyone.