James Spain was a 22-year-old Dubliner and member of the anti-Treaty IRA when he was shot dead by the Free State Army in November 1922. The killing took place in the area then known as Tenters Field off Donore Avenue, only minutes away from where Spain grew up. There is no plaque or monument to mark the spot of this incident. We have previously covered Noel Lemass and William Graham.

James was born in December 1900 to Francis and Christina Spain, both originally from Dublin.

James ‘Jim’ Spain. Image credit – John Spain (grandnephew)

The 1901 census shows that the family were living at 63 Harty Place off Clanbrassil Street Lower. Francis (30) was a boot maker while his wife Christinia (24) looked after their three sons – Joseph (4) Francis Jr. (2) and James (4 months). All were Roman Catholic.

1901 census return for the Spain family

Ten years later the family had moved to 9 Geraldine Square off Donore Avenue. The 1911 census tells us that Francis (41), still a boot maker, and his wife Christina (35) were now living with their six sons and one daughter. These being Joseph (14), Francis Jr. (12), James (10), Annie (7) who were all at school along with Michael (5), John (3) and Patrick (1). Francis had Christina had been married for fifteen years.

1911 census return for the Spain family

At the time of his death in 1922, James Spain was listed as a upholster living at 9 Geraldine Square which corresponds with the census records. Relatives told the subsequent inquest that he had escaped from a military prison three weeks previously. His grave states that he was 1st lieutenant of A Company, 1st Batt. of the Dublin Brigade IRA.

Spain was a part of a 20-30 strong IRA team who launched a major military attack on Wellington Barracks (now Griffith Barracks) on the night of 8 November 1922. The principal attack was delivered at the rear of the barracks while shots were also fired from house-tops in the South Circular Road area.

The Irish Times, the following day, reported that the neighborhood was the:

” scene of a miniature battle. Thompson and Lewis guns answered each other with equal vigour, the sounds of the firing being heard all over the city … For nearly an hour ambulances were busy taking the wounded to hospital.

A total of 18 soldiers were hit. One was killed instantly and 17 were badly injured.

Wellington Barracks on the South Circular Road c. 1900. Credit – National Archives of Ireland

Republicans like Spain tried their best to flea the area and escape arrest. John Dorney writing in The Irish Story summarised that:

The Republicans made their escape across country, through the villages of Kimmage and Crumlin, pursued by Free State troops. They were seen carrying two badly wounded men of their own.

Spain ran north, possibly out of instinct, towards the Donore Avenue area and his home. Witnesses claim that he was dragged out of a house by soldiers and shot in Tenter Fields while the Army’s official version of events claim that he was shot in the Fields after he refused an order to stop running.

The Irish Times of 10 November 1922 reported on the events leading up to his death. Two hours after the attack on the barracks, Spain ran up to 22 Donore Road. Here a woman, Mrs. Doleman, was feeding her birds in the yard. He shouted “for god’s sake, let me in” and fell just as he got inside the gate but managed to make it the kitchen where he collapsed onto a sofa.  According to Dolenan, he was only there for a few minutes before a group of Free State soldiers ran into the house and grabbed Spain. Mrs. Doleman heard shots a few minutes after.

Map showing Geraldine Sq. in the top left hand corner (where Spain was grew up), Tenters Field (where Spain was shot) and Susan Terrace beside it (where his body was found)

As often in these cases, this is where the story diverges slightly.

At the inquest, an unnamed member of the Free State Army reported that himself and five riflemen in a Lancia car came across one of the attackers (Spain) in Tenter Fields and “called on him to halt four or five times”. After this request was denied, they shot him and the man fell.

Either way, the body of this young 22 year old local was found at No. 7Susan Terrace at the edge of Tenter Fields. He had been shot five times.

Susan Terrace today. (Google Street View)

The Irish Independent on 11 November 1922 wrote:

The remains of Mr. James Spain … were last night removed from the Meath Hospital to the Carmelite Church, Whitefriar St. A man who was introduced at a previous protest meeting as Mr. O’Shea of Tipperary mounted the ruins in O’Connell St. last night and addressing those about him, asked that the meeting of protest against the treatment of prisoners be adjourned as a mark respect to the late Mr. Spain.

Two days later, the same newspaper reported on the funeral:

A number of the Cumann na mBan marched behind the hearse and there was a large cortege. The remains were received in the mortuary chapel by Rev. J. Fitzgibbon. A large numbers of wreaths were placed on the grave and three volleys from firearms were fired over the grave. The chief mourners were – Mr. F. Spain (father), Mrs. Spain (mother), Joe, Frank, Mickie, Jack, Paddy and Peadar (brothers), Annie, Molly and Crissie (sisters), Maggie and Mickie Spain (cousins), Annie and Mary Spain (aunts) and Jack Spain (uncle)

Spain was buried in the family plot in Glasnevin. Thanks to Shane Mac Thomais (of the Glasnevin Museum) for getting in touch and sending me the image of the grave.

James ‘Jim’ Spain grave, Glasnevin Cemetery. Credit – Shane Mac Thomais

James Spain was just one of dozens of young anti-Treaty IRA men who were killed by the Free State in Dublin from August 1922 to August 1923. Of the 26 murders as far as I can work out, 16 are marked by small monuments where the bodies were found.

If you have anymore information about James Spain, please get in touch by leaving a comment or emailing me at matchgrams(at)gmail.com

All roads lead to Dalymount Park in Phibsboro this Sunday for the Africa Cup of Nations Final which will be shown on TV screens in the Phoenix Bar. This will be the third time local residents and Bohs fans have organised an evening of “football, food and music at the Home of Irish Football” for the final of the cup.

ACN poster 2013

Doors open at 5pm with kick off between Nigeria and Burkina Faso at 6:30pm.

Delicious food will be provided by the excellent Madina Desi Curry Co. who fed everyone last year. Food is free but donations are encouraged. Drink deals will also be available on the night.

After the game, DJs  Carax (Punky Reggae Party), Tommy Rash (ex. Freebooters/Ska Reggae at Sin E) and Sparky (White Collar Boy) will be playing an eclectic mix of reggae, ska, soul and electronic tunes to keep the party going till late.

Connect with the Facebook event here.

October 1900 saw William Henry Pick, occupation listed as a “gentleman”, up before the Dublin Police Court. Pick, who resided at 21 Kenilworth Square in Rathgar, was charged with being a “dangerous lunatic” and committed to Richmond Asylum.

Nenagh Guardian, 17 October 1900

It transpired that the previous Saturday Pick had stabbed a policeman, a local man and made an attempt to attack another police officer with a sword.

Patrick Strahan, a car driver living in nearby 22 Charlemont Place, was at his car-stand when he saw Pick running up South Richmond Street. With a sword drawn, and with no apparent provocation, he made for a Constable Whitney and stabbed him in the left arm.

Strahan had made an attempt to stop Pick, apparently asking him “what he was going to do” with his weapon. Pick responded by stabbing Strahan in the hip with the sword, inflicting a wound of an inch and half deep. Pick then made a run for it, down South Richmond Street and towards the city centre.

Nearby Constable John Walsh chased Pick, jumping on a passing tram car to catch up with him. He managed to knock him down from behind but not before Pick “made a thrust of his sword” at Walsh. Luckily, the blade only grazed his tunic.

Portobello Bridge with South Richmond Street to the left. Credit – http://www.property.ie

Strahan and Whitney, the two wounded men, were treated for their injuries in the Adelaide Hospital but both survived.

William Henry Pick was declared insane and committed to the Richmond Lunatic Asylum. It is not known whether he was ever released.

-

In 1901, there were only 11 people with the surname Pick living in Ireland – none in Dublin. However, that year in Kenilworth Square there was a family by the name of ‘Pic’ living in number 214. Here is their census form.

George Vesian Pic (De Nogart), aged 29 was living in the house with his younger sisters Marie Gertrude and Jessie Adelaide. All were Church of Ireland and had been born in Offaly. The family employed a domestic servant from Carlow by the name of Lizzie Curry. George listed his profession as a Lieutenant in the ’4th Royal Irish’ Regiment.

It can be safely assumed that William Henry Pick (sic) was the sibling of George, Marie and Jessie of Kenilworth Square.

The Irish Times of 23 February 1901 announced that ‘Lieut Vesian de Nogart’, an invalid officer from the West African Regiment, arrived in Dublin on board the ship Biafra from Ashanti, a “pre-colonial West African state in what is now Ghana”. The same paper, the following March, reveals that he leaves the city from Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire). George was later attached to the The Prince of Wales’s North Staffordshire Regiment according to The National Archives and then the India Audit Office in the 1920s according to The London Gazzette.

Refs: The Irish Times 15 October 1900; Nenagh Guardian 17 October 1900

Thomas O’Leary was a 22-year-old Dubliner and member of the anti-Treaty IRA when he was shot dead by the Free State Army in March 1923. There is a worn out monument, erected in 1933, to mark the spot where his body was found. We have previously covered the following Republicans who were killed during the final year of the Civil War –  Noel Lemass, William Graham and James Spain.

With the 90th anniversary of his death around the corner, we thought it would be fitting to look at the short life of Thomas O’Leary, a an IRA man attached to the 4th Battalion in Dublin. Thomas, or Tommy as he was known to his comrades, was found riddled with 22 bullets – one for every year he lived. There is a small, extremely worn Celtic Cross to mark the spot where his body is found in Rathmines. Perhaps this would be a good time to restore it.

Thomas was born in December 1900 to Thomas O’Leary Sr. from Dublin and his wife Jane from  Kildare. The 1901 census shows that the family were living at 372 Darley Street in Harold’s Cross. Thomas (30) was a glass cutter while his wife Jane (30) looked after their infant son. All were Roman Catholic.

1901 census return for the O’Leary family

Ten years later the family had moved around the corner to 17 Armstrong Street. The 1911 census tells us that Thomas Sr. (40), still a glass cutter, and his wife Jane (40) were now living with their three sons. These being Thomas (10), John (8) and William (6). All three were at school.

1911 census return for the O’Leary family

Stephen Keys, a member of the IRA in Dublin from 1918 – 1924 mentions O’Leary in his Witness Statement :

Any time Tommy O’Leary, 0/C 4th Battalion Column, had a job, he would ask me to give him a hand with. it. We went out to Thomas St. for an ambush. There was a Free State private car coming up at the Church, with two or three officers in it. I was with O’Leary. The others fired at the car. I did not fire  a shot. – BHM WS 1209

At the time of his death in 1922, Thomas O’Leary was listed as living at 17 Armstrong Street which corresponds with the census records. In the subsequent inquest, he was described as a “most respectable  young man, a fine specimen of manhood, who, in the days of the ‘Black and Tans’, was a member of the IRA and did his duty to his country”. His brother testified that he had remained a member of the Republican Army after the split and was on active service in the months leading up to his murder. His mother revealed that he hadn’t been living at home since July 1922 and that he left his job as tram conductor on the Clonskeagh line in early 1923.

Deirdre Kelly in her book ‘Four roads to Dublin: the history of Rathmines, Ranelagh and Leeson Street’ points to O’Leary as the man who killed Free State politician Seamus O’Dwyer in his Rathmines shop in January 1923. However, Ulick O’Connor stresses in his biography of Oliver St. Gogarty that “member of the anti-Treaty group deny that O’Leary was associated with the O’Dwyer shooting”.

In the weeks leading up to the incident, the O’Leary home in Harold’s Cross was raided at least three times. His mother testified that during a search on the Sunday before, the soldiers told her that Thomas had until “Wednesday to give himself up, and, if they did not, she would fund him in Clondalkin or Bluebell shot; the next time he would be brought to her in a wooden box”. This is exactly what happened.

On the day of his death, his IRA comrade Stephen Kelly remember thats:

O’Leary was after dyeing his hair red. We left the house and went over to the gardener’s tool house in St. Patrick’s Park which was used to store clothes before being sent down to the I.R.A. in the country. The man in charge of the tool house was sympathetic to the cause. O’Leary went back to Harper’s that evening and the Free State came along to raid it. They knocked at the door. One of the women was sick in bed. One of the Harpers called O’Leary and said “Go and get into the bed”. He got into the bed beside her. She was so stout, and he was  so small and thin that he he was covered up in the bed beside her. He got away that time.

It was that night that the Free State finally caught up with him. On the 23rd March 1923, three lorry loads of Free State soldiers raided a house on Upper Rathmines and found O’Leary. This house was either number 82 or 86 as a woman at number 84 was reported as hearing knocking and a commotion “two doors away”.

From reading all the contemporary newspaper reports, it can be accepted that O’Leary made a run for it and was caught by Free State soldiers. His body was found the following morning on the Upper Rathmines Road at the gates of the Tranquilla Convent.

Map showing the location of Tranquila Convent where the body was found

Dr. Murphy, House Surgeon of Meath Hospital said they found “22 circular wounds” in his body. These included:

Three … in the head … one in the region of the ear … four bullets under the skin … three wounds in the thigh … one on the right side of the chest

Near the body, they found eight spent automatic revolver cases, four large spent revolver cases and three small ones.

The Freeman’s Journal. 24 March 1923.

The jury at the subsequent inquiry came to the conclusion that O’Leary was “murdered by persons unknown … by armed forces, and that the military did not give us sufficient assistance to investigate the case.”. They ended by offering their “sympathy to the relatives of the deceased”.

In quite an interesting turn of events, poet and politician Oliver St. John Gogarty named O’Leary as the leader of the IRA men who kidnapped him on 20th January 1923. While having a bath after a long day’s work Gogarty, then a Free State senator, was taken away by six armed men. His biographer Ulick O’Connor wrote:

As he got into the car, the revolver was pressed hard into his back. ‘Isn’t it a good thing to die in a flash, Senator’ one of the gunman, said, as they sped out along the Chapeliziod road.

Gogarty was held in an empty house on the banks of the Liffey, near the Salmon Weir. On the pretext of an urgent call of nature, he was asked to be taken outside where he then made the quite daring decision to jump into the River Liffey. Shots were fired at him as he swam away. He eventually made it to the police barracks in the Phoenix Park.

His exploits were celebrated in a popular ballad of the day, written by William Dawson, which ended as followed:

Cried Oliver St. John Gogarty, ‘A Senator am I’
The rebels I’ve treicked, the river I’ve swum, and sorra the word’s a lie’.
As they clad and fed the hero bold, said the sergeant with a wink:
‘Faith then, Oliver St. John Gogarty, ye’ve too much bounce to sink’

While he got the dates slightly mixed up (O’Leary was killed a couple of months, not a couple of days) after his kidnapping, Gogarty is obviously referring to him in his autobiography:

“My kidnaping would not have been believed had the government boys not found my coat. A few days later a man called with a bullet, evidently from a .38, its nose somewhat bent. It was dug out of the spine of the ringleader who had raided my house and carried me off. O’Leary was his name. He was a tram conductor on the Clonskea line. He had died to a flash shrieking inappropriately under the wall of the Tranquilla Convent in Upper Rathmines.”

In March 1933, approximately ten years later, IRA quartermaster general Sean Russell unveiled a small marker at the spot where his body was found in Rathmines.

Today, this marker is completely eroded.

The memorial, unveiled in 1933, to Thomas O’Leary at the gates of Tranquila Convent, Upper Rathmines Road. (Picture – Ciaran Murray)

With the 90th anniversary of his death next month, the National Graves Association might think about restoring it.

Close up of the memorial, unveiled in 1933, to Thomas O’Leary at the gates of Tranquila Convent, Upper Rathmines Road. (Picture – Ciaran Murray)

Sir Patrick Abercrombie, the British architect and town planner who redesigned London after the Blitz, was long connected to Dublin city.

He was the winner of the 1916 Civics Institute of Ireland competition on town planning for Dublin which gained him £500 and recognition. Later, he was responsible for the sketch development plan of Dublin produced in 1922 produced on the basis of his competitive designs and a revised report produced in 1941. You can read more about him on Archiseek here.

Here are some sketches from his 1922 report ‘Dublin of the Future’ showing Abercrombie’s sketch of upper O’Connell Street area:

Credit – Dublin: through space and time (2001).

His view on what Capel Street and the new Cathedral could have looked like:

Credit – unz.org

A sketch of the towering 500 ft. campanile that would have been placed behind the new Cathedral on Capel Street.

Credit – http://www.unz.org

For more, you can view the full pamphlet here.

Meath Street – 1984 – Photo Anthony Dempsey from the Growing Up In The Liberties page (via Where Were You?)

I encourage everyone to listen this four-part Phantom FM series on Irish youth subcultures.

Episode 1 looks at the birth of the youth cult in Ireland and focuses on teddy boys, rockers, mods and hippies.

Episode 2 focuses on the 1970s chronicling the rise of skinheads, punks and the rockabilly revival.

Episode 3 takes up the baton in the 1980s with the mod revival, psychobillies, goths, metallers, new romantics and b-boys.

Episode 4 brings the story up to present with ravers, grungers, emo kids and hipsters.

Contributors to the series include Eamon Carr (who can join the dots from Horslips to Hotwire), Garry O’Neill (author of the awesome Where Were You?), Alison O’Donnell (Mellow Candle), Dara Higgins (The Jimmy Cake), Stompin’ George, Mim Scala (author of Diary Of A Teddy Boy), Laura Lee-Conboy, Daragh O’Halloran (author of Green Beat), Irish Jack Lyons (the legendary mod) and many more.

—> You can listen to all four episodes here.

Mods on O’Connell Street – Mid 80s – Photo from Dublin Opinion. (via Where Were You?)

The epic tale of a floppy-haired Pope, wearing dark sunglasses, who picks up a copy of the new Look Left outside Youth Defence’s HQ on Capel Street and is possessed to read the thing, cover to cover, with James Connolly, Jim Larkin, an old white Mercedes and some trees. Overcome by the excellent hard-hitting articles and well-designed graphic content, he is struck with an epiphany at the Papal Cross (42 seconds) and comes running down the hill. No doubt he has seen the error of his ways

Available for €2 in Easons and other newsagents, this 48 paged issue includes articles on:

- The history of the 1913 lockout by Brian Hanley

- The state of the Northern Irish Left by Paul Dillon

- Emigration by Dara McHugh

- Abortion Rights Campaign by Siobhan Mitchell

- Interview with Owen Jones (columist and author ‘Chavs’) by Kevin Squires

- Belfast Punk band Stiff Litttle Fingers by Sam McGrath

- Luther Blissett’s Derry City and his later anarchist ‘career’ – Pope Kevin Branigan I

LL14 (Credit – LL FB page)

Here’s some screen grabs from a home video made by two Jewish brothers of their trip to Dublin City in 1956. It’s just over ten minutes long and has only received 16 views (at the time of writing) since January.

Introduction to the video.

Intro

The view looking up O’Connell Street.

O’Connell St (1956)

A glimpse of the Busáras bus station, opened only the year before.

(1956)

Teaser for the night time escapades.

Blurb

The two brothers on O’Connell Street, about to climb Nelson’s Pillar.

O’Connell St looking up to the Pillar (1956)

In March of last year, we covered the epic 1983 tale of Stein Opticians on Harcourt Road who fought bitterly to save their beautiful shop from the developer’s bulldozer.

Recently Amelia, an award-winning photographer who still runs the family optician business today from 4 Camden Market, Grantham Street, sent me along a number of old press cuttings.

Here’s a before and after picture:

The Irish Press, 12 October 1983

An article from the Evening Herald on the controversial move:

Evening Herald, 30 May 1983

A fantastic image showing how the shop remained intact after everything else around it was demolished:

In Dublin, 13 May 1983

Finally, a rare original architect’s drawing of the new shop that that they agreed to move to:

Grantham St premises design

The Notorious Boo Boys, the independent fan group of Bohemian F.C., are organising a very special fundraiser tomorrow night.

Facebook event here.

NBB Poster. Design – Kev Squires

Headlining is the one and only Liam Dollard, the ‘Godfather of Dublin House Music’. Liam has been rocking raves and clubs for over 20 years.

Liam with raised hands at The Shamen gig , UCD Rag Ball in March 1991 – Photo Paul O’Sullivan. via Where Were You?

His first serious gig in Dublin was a warehouse party near Thomas Street on a Friday night in the Summer of 1990. That night the infamous SIDES club was empty with Dublin’s small party faithful going up to check out was going on at the Thomas St. all-nighter. The following week Liam was asked to become SIDES Friday night resident, a role he played for the next four years.

Check out this amazing live mix from 1993.

In 1994 he released alongside Vintin a remix of Mad Sound Disease’s ‘Moonboon’ which became a Dublin House classic.

Liam followed with residencies in the Ormond Multi-Media Centre, Temple of Sound, PoD and the Kitchen. In the late 1990s, his last major residency was downstairs in The Temple Theatre. In March 1999, he teamed up with Billy Scurry and played San Francisco, Los Angelas and Hawaii all in the same week. Liam subsequently went into semi-retirement but these days comes out every now and again to rock out special gigs.

Liam Dollard in action. Picture – bushphotografik.com

Heavy support comes from…

White Collar Boy who with a monthly residence at Pygmalion and recent support slots with Com Truise, Factory Floor, Creep, Not Squares, Keep Shelly, Soul Clap have taken the scene by storm. Described by leading Irish music critic Nialler9 as making songs that “emphasise hypnotic atmospheric arrangements and wistful lyrics with a persistent but gentle rhythm”, the duo released their debut 12″ ‘Kinsale’ in May 2012 to widespread acclaim.

White Collar Boy

Ciaran Fitz who has been playing and organising events in Dublin for the past three years. Most notably he is the man behind weekly club night Housewerk, which has been showcasing some of Ireland’s best up and coming talent as well bringing over some of House musics best international DJ’s including the likes of Axel Boman, San Soda, Delano Smith, Brawther and Jeremy Underground Paris to name a few. Expect everything from Deep House to Acid from him on the night

Ciaran Fitz (Housewerk)

Andrew Hosey who though only in his 20s has been DJing for six years and has built up quite a name for himself. Tech House and Deep House are his staples and you can catch him playing in venues like The Kitchen on any given weekend. In November 2012, he released his debut EP ‘Let’s Groove’ with Milton Music records

Andrew Hosey

The Dublin Maccabi Assoication has been uploading some fantastic photos onto their new Facebook page.

Founded as the Carlisle Cricket Club in 1908, they changed their name to the Carlisle Athletic Union before becoming the Dublin Maccabi Association in 1942.

In 1954 they opened a new state of the art sportsground at Kimmage Road West, Dublin 12. At the time it was said that the ground was “only equalled around Dublin by Croke Park, Lansdowne Road, Belfield and College Park.

The ground was in use until 1998. Declining membership of Dublin’s Jewish community was cited as the main reason for the decision to sell.

In March 1960, the first amateur performance in Ireland of “The Diary of Anne Frank” was held at the Club. In April 1963, over a thousand people packed the hall at the sports ground for a service to commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Dr. Isaac Cohen, spoke of their heroic sacrifice but warned:

the sacrifices of the thousands who died did not suffice. Today, 20 years afterwards, we must continue our vigilance against the constant menace and threat to the peace and tranquility of mankind

Here are some pictures from the association’s Facebook page:

Dublin Maccabi Soccer Team, 1977

Dublin Maccabi Soccer Team, 1960

Dublin Jewish Boxing Club, 1937/38.

Over the last month, a further two stories from Come Here To Me! have been aired on RTE’s The History Show. These stories have tied-in with content on the programme, or have been aired to coincide with historic anniversaries.

The first story was aired on 24 February and dealt with the controversy surrounding Dublin Corporation’s original decision to place a statue of Prince Albert, and not Henry Grattan, at College Green in the 1860s. Grattan took his spot and is still there today. Prince Albert’s statue sits hidden in the grounds of Leinster House beside the Natural History Museum. The story, read by David Herlihy, can be played here.

Henry Grattan statue. nd.

On 24 March, the story of John McGrath (Ireland’s only prisoner of Dachau concentration camp) was read on the progamme. This week marked the 80th Anniversary of establishment of Dachau Concentration Camp. McGrath, a World War One veteran and manager of the Theatre Royal cinema on Hawkins Street, fought against the Nazis and was imprisoned in four different German camps. Never fully recovering from the physical and psychological trauma of his imprisonment, McGrath passed away in Dublin in November 1946.   The story, read by Dave Sherry, can be played here.

John McGrath. The Irish Times, 29 Nov 1946.

Stalin Ate My Homework – Alexi Sayle (2010)

I’ve just finished ‘Stalin Ate My Homework’ by Liverpudlian alternative stand-up Alexei Sayle. It’s a very funny and well-written memoir of his childhood and teenage years. The only son of two Atheist Jewish members of the Communist Party, it offers a fascinating glimpse of 1950s-1960s Left politics in England. Alex’s father worked on the railways so the family were able to avail of free travel and visited the “workers paradises” of Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Hungary during the late 1960s.

From a social history perspective, it is interesting to hear of the radical groups and pubs of 1960s Liverpool:

Fortunately via the Marxist-Leninists I had finally got know the world of Liverpool’s radicals pubs. All the bohemians, the artists, the poets and the left-wingers drank in three or four boozers on the edge of the town centre … We drank in the Philharmonic Hotel, a monument of Victorian exuberance with dark wood-panelled walls, copper reliefs, Art Deco lights, a mosaic-covered floor and a bar with a huge golden eagle watching over the drinkers. Alternatively we met up in the Crack, which was the pub favoured by the arts students and consisted of lots of little rooms each with weird paintings on the walls.

During this period, Alexi was a member of the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) which upset his purist parents. Him and his mates pub of choice was Kavanagh’s while druggies favoured O’Connors:

O’Connors was the druggiest pub. A former chapel with doors at each end, it allowed dealers to run out one door when the police came through the other. And finally there was the one favoured by the Marxist-Leninists, named the Grapes but called Kavanagh’s by everyone. (We) drank in what was effectively a corridor, though there were two snugs, with old murals on the walls and unusual round tables supposedly taken from a sister ship of the Titanic and fire-places which blazed warmth in winter…

What caught my eye was this little anecdote of an Irish republican bank robber on the run:

All of these pubs, especially Kavanagh’s, were full of ‘characters’… There was one Irish guy who hung around with us. In Ireland this man had been a member of … Saor Eire and he was now on the run after being involved in several fund-raising bank raids. He was trying to keep his identity secret but everybody called him Irish John or alternatively ‘Irish John Who’s Been Involved In All Those Bank Raids In Ireland’. He tried to pay for his drinks with hundred pound Irish banknotes, then was quickly arrested and shipped back to Dublin. His real name was Simon.

Back in October 2010, Donal touched briefly on an old Dublin legend about a solder who met a grim fate in the crypt of Christchurch. The story was recounted in Padraic O’ Farrell’s 1983 book The Ernie O’ Malley Story:

“Ernie received a note written by Rory O’ Connor in Mountjoy on 12 September. It told him of a tunnel leading to the Four Courts which could be used if they had left any important documents behind. One piece of folklore attached to that area of the city concerned a tunnel from there to Christchurch, built in the thirteenth century when a Dominican friary of St. Saviour occupied the Four Courts site.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, an army officer was accidentally locked in the tunnel which was used for storing ceremonial paraphernalia. He was soon documented as ‘missing, presumed dead’ until the next occasion demanding the opening of the tunnel. Near its entrance was discovered the skeleton of the officer and in the bones of his right hand was his sword. Lying about were the broken bone fragments of up to 250 rats that had attacked and had been beaten off by the mans sword before he himself was overcome.”

From looking at a number of different sources, it seems likely that there is some truth to this macarbe story.

Christ Church crypt. Credit – http://kieranmccarthy.ie

The earliest substantial reference I can find is from 1907. Samuel A. Ossory Fitzpatrick’s book Dublin: A Historical and Topographical Account of the City describes the

…tragic interest attached to the tablet to Sir Samuel Auchmuty, G.C.B., who died in 1822 while in command of forces in Ireland. It is said that at his funeral an officer lost his way in the crypt, was accidentally locked in, and was there devoured by rats, which probably swarmed from the great sewer which led from the cathedral to the Liffey. His skeleton is said to have been afterwards found still grasping his sword,  and surrounded by the bones of numbers of rats which he had slain before being overcome.

I believe this story was taken from page 33 of the 1901 book The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Dublin by William Butler but unfortunately the full book is not available to view online.

An article published in The Irish Times on 8 September 1926 repeats the story and names the poor soldier as ‘Lieutenant Mercier’.

The story was recounted, without a name for the dead soldier, in an 1940 article by P. J. McCall entitled ‘In the Shadow of Christ Church’ in the Dublin Historical Record journal.

Sir Samuel Auchmuty certainly died in 1822 and his funeral was held in Christchurch so the story’s backdrop does match up.

Samuel Auchmuty funeral arrangements. The Freemans Journal, 20 August 1822

Elgy Gillispie writing in the The Irish Times on 19 June 1975 fleshed out the story considerably. The journalist was given a tour of the vaults of the Cathedral by guide Joe Coady who recounts the tale of the ‘Tragic Demise of Lieutenant Blacker”:

In August 1822, this young officer of the 78th Regiment of Foot came down with fellow mourners into the crypt to attend the funeral of his colonel, a Sir Samuel Auchmuty … In the gloom of the crypt Blacker lost his sense of direction and inadvertently wandered into the underground passage … He was attacked by a species of large river rats that populated the tunnels … His skeleton was found, picked clean to the bone, beside his broken sword by a search party two days later. After that the tunnel was filled.

Tour guide Joe Coady said that the sword was still in the possession of the Cathedral but not kept on display.

Like most old tales, there’s a couple of versions. Kevin Fitzsimons told an Irish Press journalist, in a 6 July 1967 article, that it was a “dragoon officer” who was got lost in the passageways with his dog. He was found months later eaten by rats while his dog had been accidently decapitated in the fight for survival.

More recently, a Dublin haunted ghost tour company are telling tourists this story but in their version, the soldier is killed after being locked into one of crypts by accident after a drinking session.

Next week, I will focus on the stories about the tunnel that allegedly ran from the crypt of Christchurch Cathederal, under the Liffey, to St Saviours Priory (site of the present Four Courts).

My last article looked at the morbid tale of the soldier who got lost in the crypts of Christchurch and was eaten alive by rats. This story is often told in connection with the alleged tunnel that ran from Christchurch to the area where the Four Courts is today.

In 1224 the Dominicans (the Black Friars) established St Saviour’s Priory by the present location of Inns Quay on the Northside of the Liffey. They took over possession a small chapel which had been built four years previously. The priory’s extensive grounds reached to the corner of Cuckoo Lane and George’s Hill.

Dublin, c. 1300. Saint Saviour’s Priory can be seen clearly on the map. From ‘Dublin to 1610: Irish Historic Towns Atlas’

They built a bigger, more suitable church in 1238 but this fell victim in 1304 to one of Dublin’s periodic fires.

The priory buildings were taken over in 1539 under Henry VIII for use at first as courts of law, and then as a hostel for lawyers under the title of “King’s Inns”. The lawyers retained a chapel within the former priory for their private use. In later years, apart from its brief restoration to the friars in the time of James II, the priory was used in turn as a barracks, a theatre, a publishing centre.

In 1786 the present Four Courts building was erected on the site.

In 1860 it was reported in an article, ‘On the Wells in or near Dublin, Attributed to or Named after St. Patrick’, published in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1836-69) that:

It was in Mr Bailie’s Timber Yard, corner of George’s Hill and Cuckoo-Lane, in a vault, approached by a great flight of stairs, also leading to a vaulted chamber which appears to have been an ancient church.

The local tradition leads to the conclusion that these vaults extend to a great distance, south to the Liffey, and westwards to Thief’s Hole, near the Park Gate, which was opened about thirty years ago, when it was examined by the police, in consequence of a report that the body of a murdered female had been hid therin.

Another source (The Annals of Dublin, 1987) suggests that it was in 1890 that workmen found the 150 feet long tunnel heading for the Liffey. This was alleged to have been the ancient passage which ran under the river to connect with the crypt of Christ Church.

Cuckoo Lane where at the corner of George’s Hill, the entrance to the tunnel was found. Credit – ‘infomatique’

In the fantastic Life in old Dublin, historical associations of Cook street (1913), James Collins wrote:

The building of the Four Courts … has removed all traces of the Dominican Priory … save (those) still under ground, several of which are known to exist in the locality starting from North King Street towards the river.

One of the most interesting was up to some years ago in a good state of preservation, after a lapse of 700 years. It consisted of a series of lofty semi-circular and round arches, built on massive piers, which are approached by a descent of large steps built in what was, up to a short time ago, known as Bailey’s timber yard, George’s Hill.

Opposite to the steps and in the first vault is a deeply arched recess in which there is a well of the purest water, said to be dedicated to St. Anne, from whom the adjoining street derives its name. On the left of the entrance vault is a built-up opening, which closes a vaulted passage, and tradition tells us that this passage extended to Christ Church, being tunneled under the river, and used at a remote period by the monks for the purpose of attending the ceremonials of the Cathedral.

Here’s where the story converges:

It is said that fifty years ago a workman procured a large ball of twine and some candles, and proceeded to explore the passage. He tied the end of the twine at the entrance, unwinding it as he went along, until he reached, as he considered, as far as Ormond Quay, when he was obliged to return, being driven back by foul air. The entrance was closed up in consequence of this exploit.

So, while the dates are varying, there are three sources pointing to a tunnel being found at the corner of Cuckoo Lane and George’s Hill sometime between 1830 and 1890.

Map pinpointing location of tunnel. Source – Unknown. (If anyone knows where this map was first printed, please let us know)

Interestingly, there is a similar story about an underground tunnel from St. Mary’s Abbey to Christ Church. Richard Robert Madden, historian of the United Irishmen, wrote in 1843 about vaults in St. Mary’s Abbey where:

…there is some traditional record of their leading by a tunnel passage under the Liffey, to the vaults of Christ Church, a tradition which I believe was the subject of some inquiry about two years ago on the part of Earl de Grey.

In The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy (1855) the “well-known tradition of an ancient communication between (the) Abbey and Christ Church” was mentioned in pasing

However, there is certainly a bit more evidence to suggest there certainly was a tunnel found in the grounds of St Saviour’s Priory (Four Cours area). Whether it ran all the way up to Christ Church is another matter.

Fatalities at political demonstrations in Dublin are extremely rare. Bloody Sunday during the 1913 lockout being an obvious exception where two striking workers James Nolan (33) and John Byrne (50) were beaten to death by police. There have also been some notable incidents of British soldiers shooting dead civilians such at Bachelors Walk, after the Howth Gun Running, in July 1914 or at Bloody Sunday in Croke Park in November 1920 after the IRA’s operation against the Cairo Gang.

One incident that bypassed me until recently was the death of 78-year-old Anna-Maria Fitzsimons in June 1897 at an anti-Jubilee event in Rutland (Parnell) Square.

On 19 June, James Connolly and his Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP) organised an anti-Jubilee meeting, under the slogan ‘Down with the Monarchy: long live the Republic, in Foster Place which was addressed by Maud Gonne. She told the crowd that the queen’s reign “had brought more ruin, misery and death” than any other period. Students from Trinity attacked the meeting singing ‘God Save The Queen’ but were repelled by the crowd.

The following evening, the day of the Jubilee itself, Connolly and Gonne organised a funeral procession through the streets of the city as the United Labourers’ Union band played the Dead March. They carried a coffin marked ‘British Empire and a black flag inscriptions giving the numbers who had perished in the Famine and the numbers who had emigrated and been evicted during Victoria’s reign.

A convention of the ’98 Commemoration Committee was being held in City at the same time and the chairman, veteran Fenian John O’Leary, suspended the meeting so delegates could watch the procession. Some of them, including WB Yeates, joined in.

Maud Gonne and WB Yeates, nd (Credit – coreopsis.org)

By this stage, several hundred people were following the procession and there was a small confrontation with police at College Green, where the statue of William III was wrapped with a green flag.

Mounted police reinforcements arrived from Dublin Castle and the DMP tried to disperse the crowd. Afraid that it would be taken by the police, Connolly ordered the coffin to be cast into the Liffey, shouting: “Here goes the coffin of the British Empire. To hell with the British Empire!”. At one stage, Trinity students tried to grab the crowd’s black flag but, as reported in the New York left-wing Daily People, ‘the proletariat drove the bourgeoisie home in disorder’. Connolly was arrested and taken to the Bridewell.

Afterwards, Gonne conducted an open air-slide show of scenes of evictions from a window in the National Club, Rutland Square onto a specially erected large screen opposite.

The Royal Procession passing through Rutland (Parnell) Square, 14 years later. Credit – NAI

A large group of women and children watched the show. Maud Gonne wrote in her memoirs, A Servant of the Queen:

We were having tea [in the club] when suddenly we heard outside and cries of the ‘The police!’. I rushed to the window. Some twenty policemen with batons drawn a few people, mostly women and children, were running in all directions; a woman lay on the ground quite still; a girl was bending over her; someone called out ‘The police have killed her’.

The dead woman was Anna-Maria Fitzsimons from Cabra Road.

At the City Coroner in Jervis Street Hospital the following Saturday, her daughter told the inquest that herself and her mother came into town to see the ‘illuminations’ at Rutland Square. They walked up from Nelson’s Pillar, crossed at Cavendish Row and up to Rutland Square. They saw a number of people carrying flags and coming up from the direction of Sackville Street. The police baton charged the crowd and Anna-Maria was knocked down in the disorder that followed. She died later in hospital.

Does anyone know of any other deaths at political demonstrations in the 19th or 20th centuries in Dublin?

Refs:
The Irish Times (3 July 1897)
Donal Nevin, James Connolly A Full Life (Dublin, 2005)
James H Murphy, Abject loyalty: nationalism and monarchy in Ireland during the reign of Queen Victoria (Cork, 2001)

In Mairtin O’Cathain’s book ‘With a bent elbow and a clenched fist: A Brief History of the Glasgow Anarchists’, there is a short but fascinating mention of James Connolly.

Connolly’s paper, The Workers Republic, was suppressed by the authorities in December 1914 and O’Cathain writes that it was the “Glasgow Anarchist Group that took over the printing of the paper … and smuggled it into Ireland”. Apparently, the police in Britain raided several anarchist printing presses, including London’s Freedom Press, but never caught the Glasgow group.

Picture of the Glasgow Anarchist Group in 1915. Credit – ibcom.org

In Donal Nevin’s fantastic biography of Connolly, ‘A Full Life’, there is a mention of Glasgow comrades taking over the printing of The Workers Republic. However, Nevin points to Connolly’s old colleagues in the Socialist Labour Party.  More specifically, Arthur MacManus who was the one who did the setting, composing, printing and then smuggled the copies to Dublin using the pseudonym ‘Glass’. (Belfast-born MacManus, son of an Irish fenian, later became the first chairman of the Communist Party of Great Britain and was buried in Red Square, Moscow after his death in 1927.)

As Nevin backs up his claim with a reference to C.Desond Greave’s book ‘The Life and Times of James Connolly’, the evidence stacks in his favour.

Speaking of Connolly, I’ve always liked the story of Antrim-born Anarchist and Irish Citizen Army founder Jack White traveling to the Rhondda and Aberdare valleys in South Wales to try bring the miners out on strike to save his life.

Jack White in ICA uniform, 1914.

On 25 May, thirteen days after Connolly’s execution, White was charged with trying to ‘sow the seeds of sedition in an area which had nothing to do with the grievances of Ireland either real or imaginary’ and at a time when ‘a peaceful settlement was being arrived at’. He was sentenced to two sentences of three months.

Note 1: Previously we’ve looked at the city’s oldest restaurants, the first Chinese restaurants, the first Italian restaurants and the first pizzerias.
Note 2: Michael Kennedy’s excellent article ‘Indian restaurants in Dublin since 1908′ published in History Ireland in January 2010 was an invaluable resource.

The first Indian restaurant was opened in Dublin in August 1908. This enterprise, which seemed to have only lasted a few months, predated by three years the first restaurant of its kind to open in London, the ‘Salut e Hind’. ‘The India Restaurant and Tea Rooms’ was opened by Karim Khan at 20 Upper Sackville Street and offered ‘real Indian curries’ served by ‘native waiters in costume’.

Dublin’s first Indian restaurant. The Irish Times, 17 August 1908.

It would be another 31 years until Dubliners and the Indian community could sample food like this again in a restaurant. Michael Kennedy points to the ‘India Restaurant’ (later ‘Mahomets’) opening in 1939 at 50 Lower Baggot Street. It closed its doors in 1943. It is safe to say that this must be the restaurant referred to this An Irishman’s Diary in September 1939.

Reference to a Indian restaurant being opened in Dublin. The Irish Times, 02 September 1939.

A year later, the same column, offered a fascinating (but brief) insight into the shape of ethnic restaurants (i.e. Indian) in Dublin at the time. The writer wrote that he had seen ‘several white students from Trinity ‘ dining while he was there.

The Irish Times, 17 August 1940.

1956 was the next big milestone in the Indian restaurant timeline with the opening of the ‘Goldien Orient’ at 27 Lower Leeson Street. This was the brainchild of Mohammed ‘Mike’ Butt, a Kenyan of Kashmiri descent and his Dublin-born wife Terry, a graduate of Cathal Brugha Street College of Catering. It served generations of journalists, students and Indians until 1984.  (A biography of the pioneering Butt can be read here)

Mike Butt pictured outside the Golden Orient. The Irish Times, 21 March 1986.

In 1966, the ‘Taj Mahal’ restaurant was opened by Mohinder Singh Gill (aka Mark Gill) at the corner of Lincoln Place and Clare Street. Gill, originally from the Jalandhar district in the Punjab, came to Ireland after spending a couple of years in Britain. In business to the mid-1990s, the ‘Taj Mahal’ became one of Dublin’s longest-lived Indian restaurants.

The Taj Mahal (Lincoln Place side) in 1979. Credit – Dublin City Photographic Collection

While the Irish Sikh and Hindu community now numbers a few thousand, many of the  first were brought over by Gill to work in the Taj Mahal in the early 1970s. A total of 10 families, some Hindu and some Sikh but all from the same Jalandhar region, made the move to Ireland in 1972 to work as chefs in Gill’s ‘Taj Mahal’ and another restaurant of his in Cork.

In the late 1980s,the restaurant gained fame through Larry Gogan’s ‘Just a minute’ quiz on RTE Radio 2. When asked ‘Where’s the Taj Mahal?’, a contestant famously replied ‘opposite the Dental Hospital’.

The Taj Mahal (Clare Street side) in 1979. Credit – Dublin City Photographic Collection

The ‘Taj Mahal’ was taken over by Sikander Khan, a retired major in the Pakistani army, in 1987. It closed its doors in the mid 1990s. Khan’s son Nasir opened the ‘Royal Tandoori’ on South King Street in 1991 and in 1997 moved out to Donnybrook where he established the ‘Khan’s Balti House’ which is still popular today.

Thom’s Directory for 1973 shows nine Indian restaurants in Dublin, including a cluster from South Richmond Street to Camden Street, including ‘Bombay Grill’ (South Richmond Street), ‘Calcutta’ (Camden Street), ‘New Delhi’ (Lower Camden Street) and ‘Punjab One’ (Upper Camden Street).

Punjab One Indian Take Away. St. Stephen’s Green, 1972. Dublin City Photographic Collection

As Michael Kennedy has written:

By the late-1980s Irish tastes in food had become more adventurous. Foreign travel, emigration, the rising popularity of vegetarianism, increased disposable income, urbanisation and reasonably priced ethnic restaurants all explained the development.

The opening of ‘Saagar’ (Harcourt Street, 1995) and ‘Jaipur’ (South Great Georges Street, 1998) was seen as the new dawn of top end, Indian restaurants in the city.

Dubliners love of Indian food and curries has continued to grow and we now have an abundant supply of top-class restaurants, take aways and late night eateries.

What was your first experience of eating Indian food in Dublin? Where do you rate in the city today?

Our bi-monthly update letting our readers know about the publication of the latest issue of Look Left. Available for €2 in Easons and other newsagents, issue 15 includes articles on:

- Precious few heroes: With his politically charged songs Dick Gaughan has inspired generations of Left activists, Kevin Brannigan caught up with the veteran Scottish folk singer during his spring tour of Ireland

- - Calling the bigots bluff: Do anti-choicers want follow through the with the logic of their argument and imprison women, asks Katie Garrett.

- Requiem for a Tory: Brian Hanley’s reflections on Margret Thatcher

- Debate: Immigration – concern or opportunity? Stephen Nolan/Gavan Titley

- Gonna shoot you down: Sam McGrath looks at the politics behind Madchester band The Stone Roses

- What foot does he kick with?: Kevin Brannigan examines the role players from the Republic had in the modern history of one of Loyalism’s footballing bastions.

It’s well worth a look.

Look Left 15 cover. Design – Claire Davey.

(In terms of food history, we’ve previously looked at the city’s oldest restaurants, the first Chinese restaurants, the first Italian restaurants, the first pizzerias and the first Indian restaurants)

Vegetarian Restaurants in Dublin date back to the late 19th century while groups of Vegetarians have been organising events in the city since at least the 1860s.

In September 1866, a public meeting on Vegetarianism in the Exhibition Rooms, Rotunda Hospital was heckled by several members of the public. The meeting was held ‘for the purpose of affording an opportunity to several prominent vegetarians (to) explain … the principles and practices of the Vegetarian Society’.

The Freemans Journal of 28 September 1866 noted that:

There was a large attendance of respectably dressed persons, but there were many amongst the audience who evidently attended the meeting more for the purpose of disturbing the proceedings and amusing themselves in a very disorderly manner.

Amongst those speaking were Carlow-born social reformer and temperance activist James Haughton (who had become Vegetarian in 1846); Rev. James Clarke of Salford (who had helped establish the American Vegetarian Society in 1850); ‘acknowledged statistician of the British temperance movement’ William Hoyle from Bury and writer and campaigner James A Mowatt from Dublin.

The newspaper concluded:

The last question put was directed to the Rev. Mr. Clarke, who was asked, amid much laughter what he should do at the North Pole, where there were no vegetables. The reverend gentleman said he should not go there at all. The proceedings then terminated.

The first Vegetarian restaurant in Dublin, the ‘Sunshine Vegetarian Dining Rooms‘, was located at 48 Grafton Street (now Vodafone) and was opened in March 1891 by the Dublin Vegetarian Society.

The Irish Times, 28 August 1891

Consisting of a ‘pair of the most elegantly-decorated and tastefully-fitted apartments’, the restaurant served ‘toothsome food, free from the slightest suspicion of animal matter … at a surprisingly moderate rate’.

The same article from The Irish Times noted that the ‘question of vegetarianism has not to any great extent excited public discussion in Dublin’ but the journalist wondered if this might change as the ‘restaurant has been extremely patrionised’ since opening. It is unclear how long the restaurant was in business. I would guess for for a few months or maybe a year at most.

In July 1899, the ‘The College Vegetarian Restaurant‘ was established at 3-4 College Street by Antrim man Leonard McCaughey. This hotel and restaurant is the present location of The Westin (as far as I can work out).

The Irish Times, 11 September 1900

DIT food historian Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire, in his excellent ‘Searching for Chefs, Waiters and Restaurateurs in Edwardian Dublin’, has written that McCaughey:

…had built a chain of successful vegetarian restaurants in Glasgow, Leeds, Belfast and in Dublin … (and that he) owned the Ivanhoe Hotel in Harcourt Street, Dublin, and the Princess Restaurant on Grafton Street.

The 1911 census lists Leonard Mccaughey as a 70-year-old hotel proprietor from Antrim living in 72.1 Harcourt Street with a wife, three children, a cook and two servants.

An advertisement in The Irish Times on 2 February 1900 proclaimed that ‘Vegetarian food is the coming diet’ and suggested that ‘every man and woman that has suffered from influenza should dine at the College Restaurant as the use of a pure diet is the simplest and surest cure for this woeful disease’ and another on 27 April of the same year noted that ‘The College Vegetarian Restaurant is the seat of learning in the science of food. In it all can learn how to get the best food in the easiest digestible form, at the lowest cost’.

The Irish Times (11 May 1912) reported that a foreign chef at the restaurant on College Street, Leon Cromblin, was discovered in the cellar of the premises with his throat badly cut and a razor by his side. He was taken to Jervis Street hospital where he was said to have been in a critical condition. It is not known if he survived.

The Freemans Journal, 07 March 1913

The restaurant at College Street is mentioned a number of times in the Bureau of Military Witness Statements.

Dr. Seamus O’Ceallaugh (BMH WS471) notes that just before the Easter Rising he was invited to a meeting in the Vegetarian Restaurant by Fenian Rory O’Connor where there was discussion about the upcoming rebellion and attempts made to decode the forged ‘Castle Document’. At least four such meetings took place. In addition to O’Ceallaigh and O’Connor, those present included republican solicitor PJ Little, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, writer Andrew E. Malone (LP Byrne), IRB poet Charles Kickham and playwright Dr. Seamus O’Kelly.

Dublin Brigade IRA member Michael Lynch (BMH WS511) speaks about a waiter in the restaurant who had overheard a group of Trinity College students talking about plans to set fire to the headquarters of Sinn Fein at no. 6 Harcourt Street on Armistice Night 1918. This waiter informed Sean MacMahon, Vice Commandment of the 3rd Brigade IRA, who managed to mobilise republicans at the last minute to defend it and other buildings. In the end, a motley group of ‘British soldiers, British ex. soldiers … young men of the tramp class and a proportion of students of Trinity College’ did launch some minor attacks on the Sinn Fein HQ, the Mansion House, St. Teresa’s Hall on Clarendon Street and Liberty Hall but thanks to the waiter in the Vegetarian Restaurant, local republicans were able to call up men to help fight off these attackers.

Irish writer James Cousins and wife Mary Cousins (co-founder of the Irish Women’s Franchise League and All India Women’s Conference) in their joint autobiography, We Two Together (1950), described the restaurant on College Street as a:

rendezvous for the literary set, of whom AE was the leader. We frequently joined these idealists for lunch, and later met a number of Hindu vegetarians who had come to Dublin

George William Russell (AE). Credit – cultured.com

Similarly poet and editor of The Dublin Magazine Seamus O’Sullivan wrote (IT, 16 Oct 1943) about being brought to this ‘famous and well-conducted vegetarian restaurant’ by his father in 1901 where they used to see ‘the bearded and spectacled features of A.E. and with him, Harry Norman, Paul Gregan … and others of that small, but distinguished, group of workers and writers connected with the Irish Agricultural Organisation’.