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.

BREWSTER & HIS MARTELLOS

Detail from header in "Irish Cyclist & Motorcyclist" May 1918
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The Martello Tower theme occurs a few times in Gordon Brewster's work. While it may be ornamental in the work, Gordon was well aware of the towers and their function and explained it fully to his children.

He could not be unaware of them. From his garden at Strandville on the Balscadden Road in Howth he could see the abandoned tower (No.3) on Ireland's Eye. On his walks from Strandville down to the village he had a view which included No.2 (nowadays the Hurdy Gurdy Radio Museum). And from Dollymount Strand he could see the Sutton Tower (No.1) which he included in his cartoon set on the strand.

Martello No.2 Dublin North from Balscadden Rd.

I suspect it may have been this view which lay behind the tower in the cyclist illustration. There were only two towers on high ground in the vicinity of Dublin Bay in Gordon's day. This was one of them and the other was in the deep south, in Killiney Bay (No.7 Dublin South), and that one was not on a cliff but well inland half way up the Killiney Hill Road.

While Gordon did not move into Strandville until the early 1920s, he would have had this view when visiting his friend and co-artist Jack B Yeats in the Yeats family house just down the road from Strandville.

Or maybe he just conjured up the tower in the cyclist header from his imagination at the time.

Full header from the "Irish Cyclist & Motorcyclist"

The full header on the cyclist magazine turned out to have a wider family significance. I don't know how long before publication that it was drawn but it was published during a harrowing period in the family's life.

Gordon's brother Richard was serving on the western front in WWI. He went missing on 28 March 1918 and the family did not finally confirm his death until months later in September. So when the header, contrasting the peaceful pastoral home front with the hostile western front, was published, the family was in a state of tension and turmoil trying to establish whether Richard was dead or alive. For me, this background makes it a very poignant illustration.

View from Strandville

In any event, the view above is the one Gordon would have had from his house with the Martello on the western tip of Ireland's Eye.

Martello No.3 on western tip of Ireland's Eye
Photo: Vivion Mulcahy

And if he checked it out through his binoculars, this is what he'd see.

Cartoon set on Dollymount Strand

And then there is the Sutton tower, an inconspicuous detail in this political cartoon.

Detail: Tower No.1 from previous cartoon

But Gordon's attention to detail allows us to inspect it more closely. My own view is that this detail view would constitute a picture in its own right which anyone should be proud to hang on their wall.

UK Party Leaders in Martello Lockup, October 1931

Gordon has brought a martello to the fore in this political cartoon illustrating the cacophony of promises from party leaders to the UK electorate at this 1931 general election.

However, even Homer nods, and Gordon has forgotten that the door on martellos is always one floor above ground level, except in the case of the Dalkey Island tower, but that's another story.

No1 Tower from Kilbarrack Cemetery

Gordon is buried in Kilbarrack Cemetery from where you get the most impressive view of the Sutton (No.1) tower.

He'd have enjoyed that.

VIVE LA CORSE!

By a strange coincidence, the Dublin Martello Towers and Napoleon himself, against whom they were to defend us, both had their origins in Corsica, and that gave me an appropriate title for my recent talk in the Alliance Française in Dublin town.

Napoleon, with the remains of the original "Martello Tower"
at Punta Mortella in Corsica

I had previously given a talk in English on the restoration of Martello Tower No.7 in Killiney, and it struck me that in this year of the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, the Alliance might be interested in a talk in French giving the background to the towers in Killiney Bay and the history of Tower No.7 up to its recent magnificent restoration.

I had done a few talks on local and family history and on Gordon Brewster, the artist and cartoonist, but these had all been in English. To do one in French would be a real challenge and either the opportunity or my resolve would pass if I didn't take it up now.

So I went in off the street and offered the talk.

The offer was taken up like a shot and the only thing left was to fix a date. It clearly couldn't be too soon as I had a mountain of work to do beforehand.

The interactive Google map I used in the talk. Here it
summarises relevant aspects of La Chaussée's report and
shows: the 200ft contour; the three coastal weaknesses;
the placement of primary and secondary defences; overlapping
fields of fire; and the Loughlinstown military camp where up to
four thousand troops could be sourced to defend the bay.

While I had the bones of a presentation in English, this one would be a bit different. Apart from it being in French I intended expanding on those angles which would be of interest to the francophone/phile community. A large part of this would be fleshing out Major La Chaussée, the man, and his contribution to the eventual defence network of towers and batteries.

This required some further research and I hit the lode when I found out that, apart from drawing up the initial plans for the defence of Killiney Bay, he had also been a British government paymaster and financed a failed attempt on Napoleon's life which ended with the would be assassins being captured and executed.

Albert Folens, militant Fleming, excellent French teacher,
and educational book publisher

And before I forget to mention him, I dedicated the talk to my first French teacher, Albert Folens. Albert was not only flemish, he was a militant fleming, and he had worked for the Germans during WWII. His story is full of ironies. His collaboration with the Germans was based on their promise of a measure of autonomy for his homeland, Flanders, if they won the war. Irish people should understand this as, over time, we have called on the French and Germans for help, the latter in the middle of a war in which we, as part of the British Empire, were on the other side. I lost an uncle on the Somme in that one (WWI).

Anyway, after WWII, Albert had to leave Belgium and eventually got refuge with the Christian Brothers teaching French. How that must have hurt, as the struggles of the Flemish people had been against the French speaking Walloons who dominated Belgian life at their expense.

Tower No.6, vandalised by Victor Enoch

At the other end of the scale, I got an opportunity to give a derogatory mention to Victor Enoch, who, while professing to be an afficionado of Martello Towers, bought one and ruined it. So much so that he hadn't the nerve to put his own tower on the cover of a pamphlet he published on the Martello Towers.

Joseph Murphy's gravestone
Photo: Niall O'Donoghue
Stone found by David Kirker

And there were little quirks turning up right up to the last minute. We knew that a tenant of the gunner's cottage on the site of No.7 had been Joseph Murphy, the local public lamplighter, who only died in 1960. But, lo and behold, what turns up but this fabulous tombstone in the cemetery in Kiltiernan.

Announcement on the Alliance Française's website

Anyway, as I said, my offer of a talk was accepted with alacrity, and despite some problems as the day drew nearer I think everything turned out right on the night and without a broken leg in site.

I have to say I admire the faith of the Alliance in my ability to deliver. They had never heard me speak a word of French until the night and that occasion was the first time I had ever spoken French in public. So from my point of view it was truly a Café Historique.

The finished product

I got a few gasps from the audience, but none so striking as when I showed the final product of the restored tower. Those present were left in no doubt about the appalling condition of the site when Niall O'Donoghue bought it and they clearly appreciated the miracle he had wrought in the restoration.

And, to cap it all, I rounded off with a video of the inaugural firing of the cannon on the top of the tower to a background of a full rendition, cannon and all, of the 1812 overture.

The marvelous model

During the interval, the audience was able to inspect the fabulous model of the site and tower made by Terry Murray, Niall's son in law, and get the lowdown on both the model and the actual tower from Niall.

If you're interested in following up further on any of this, I have a website on the tower and some related items. There is also a background page to the talk in the Alliance with links to the Powerpoint presentation and my script. There is also a link on that page to a vast range of material assembled for the earlier talk in English on the background page to that talk.

And if you want to go out with a bang, here is a link to the final video referred to above. Best viewed full screen with the sound turned 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.