Tag Archives: Dublin

North Dublin’s Sandy Shore – 2

Posted on by
4

Memorial Road merges with Amiens Street as we head further north. This is transport city; seafaring ships on the river behind us, the railway curving along the Loopline to our left, while ahead Bus Aras forms a glass and steel embrace for the bus traveller.

Bus Aras is about my vintage. Blinking into the world in the mid fifties, just as I was, not far away in the Rotunda Hospital on Parnell Square. First mooted in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, it took ten years for the project to be realised. Dublin’s first modernist building, it was also emblematic of the modernist rebuilding of Europe after the war.

This significance sat uneasily with conservative Ireland. Bus Aras had to be scaled back from eight storeys to seven, providing a foretaste for Ireland’s perplexing fear of tall buildings. Ultimately, the building features two rectangular blocks of differing heights at right angles, over a circular central foyer, and a semicircular glass frontage jutting onto the concourse. It was designed by Michael Scott and a team of architects including the young Kevin Roche and Robin Walker. LeCorbusier was a major influence, enlivened by more ornate features such as the top floor pavillion and the flowing canopy sweeping along the frontage. This was the work of Ove Arup, structural engineer who would subsequently work on Sydney Opera House in the late fifties.

Through a changing scenario of clients and governments, the project proved expensive. Plans extended past functionality, with restaurants, nightclubs and cinema all planned for a multi purpose complex. High quality materials and various texturings were used: copper, bronze, terrazzo and oak Irish, and a number of expensive meals at Jammet’s thrown in; architects have to eat too.

A small newsreel cinema for waiting passengers ran for a couple of years until replaced by the Eblana theatre. Its small size and situation in the basement, next to the Ladies, led to detractors calling it the only public toilets in Dublin with their own theatre. The Eblana and its company Gemini Productions was founded by Phyllis Ryan and despite its shortcomings, and goings, survived as a theatre until 1995, premiering works by such major playwrights as Brian Friel, Tom Murphy and John B Keane.

Eblana is a name dating back to Claudius Ptolemaeus, or Ptolemy, the Greek astronomer and cartographer whose map of Ireland appeared in his Geographia in the second century AD. It appears south of the Boyne and north of the Avoca of Arklow, and is reckoned to be the first mention of Dublin in historical records. The placing looks right and the name could be a corruption of Dubh Linn, the Black Pool, used centuries later by the Vikings. There is no actual evidence of significant trading settlement hereabouts, way back when. Some scholars think Eblana may refer to areas further north which boast some evidence of Roman trade, with Loughshiny and Portrane as possibilities.

These days Busaras is central to a travel network throughout the city and country. You can even take the bus to London from here, via Holyhead. The Luas red line stops outside, connecting Connolly, next door, with Houston rail station away on the western end of the city. Eastwards, the Luas will continue past Connolly and on through the ultramodern development of the North Wall area as far as the point. There are bars, cafes and restaurants along the way, with Mayor Square providing a good oasis to stop and ponder the modern city.

Meanwhile, back on the banks of Amiens Street, Connolly Station is more than a century older than Busaras. Long known as Amiens Street Station, it was the terminus for the railway connecting Dublin and Belfast. This came into operation in 1844 as the Dublin and Drogheda Line. There was for a while a brief portage at the Boyne while the viaduct awaited construction. This provided the last link in 1853 and made the trip to Belfast a reality. The Dublin terminus was designed by William Deane Butler. It was built of Wicklow Granite and is distinguished by its ornate colonnaded facade and Italianate tower.

Amongst its many virtues over the years was the fact that the station bar worked as a sole oasis for the weary wayfarer. Designated a bona fide premises, that meant it could serve alcohol on days of abstinence, for the bona fide traveller. Armed only with a valid rail ticket, you could claim your reward at the bar, while luckless pedestrians waited outside in the cold and dry. The long Good Friday is no more, only Christmas Day remains as a day of abstinence; well publicly, that is. Matt Talbot would be turning in his grave. Madigans continues to serve food and drink for all who hunger and thirst, day in day out.

The Station faces down one of Dublin’s longest street vistas. The line of Talbot Street continues straight through O’Connell Street, becoming Henry Street, then Mary Street until it hits Capel Street. At 1.3km, it is almost a metric mile from the corner to Slattery’s of Capel Street. Talbot Street has nothing to do with the aforementioned Matt, it is named for Charles Cetwynd Talbot, Ireland’s Lord Lieutenant in 1820. The buildings were laid out in the 1840s at the start of the Victorian era. A certain pall of sleaze has hung in the air from early on. Monto, Dublin’s red light district in gaslight days, was just around the corner. The dreaded loopline came crashing through in 1890. Since then, such premises as the Cinerama, once the Electric Theatre, and Cleary’s pub on Amiens Street, functioned with the added sound effect of trains trundling overhead.

Talbot Street was one of three places in the capital hit by the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in1974. Fourteen of the thirty three victims died here, most of them women and including children and a full term, unborn child. The car bombs were planted by the UVF and exploded at Friday rush hour. The act was part of the Loyalist campaign against the Sunningdale Agreement which proposed a power sharing executive for Northern Ireland. Elements in British security forces, hostile to the British Labour Government, colluded. Peace would come however, twenty years later, with the Good Friday Agreement; Sunningdale for slow learners. A memorial to the victims was unveiled in 1997 and stands at the top of Talbot Street, across from Connolly.

The song Raised by Wolves from U2’s album Songs of Innocence references the event, describing the car and its registration. It features on their 2014 album, Songs of Innocence.

Boy sees his father crushed under the weight
of a cross in a passion where the passion is hate
Blue mink Ford, I’m gonna detonate and you’re dead
Blood in the house, blood on the street
The worst things in the world are justified by belief
Registration 1385-WZ

North Dublin’s Sandy Shore – 1

Posted on by
2

In contrast to the hilly southside, Dublin’s north shore is quite flat, other than the hill of Howth jutting into the bay. The coast makes an opening for the central plain, extending past Drogheda and on to Dundalk where the Cooley Mountains rise above Carlingford Lough at the Border.
It was an ancient power highway, connecting the Liffey to the Boyne and the centre of Irish power radiating from Tara. And it was a doorstep for invasion too. The Vikings established their first power bases along this coast in the ninth century, originally settling in Dundalk. The emergence of a strong high king, Niall Blacknee, forced them south to establish Dublin in around 845 AD. Originally the settlement was sporadic, but was secure by the end of the millennium, and remained so for two centuries until the Norman invasion.

Dublin was originally built on the higher ground south of the river. The north bank was farmland. The Ostmen were Danish speaking and their territory became known as Oxmantown. Further north the denizens were known as the Fingal, the fair foreigners. The fair foreigner is said to denote the Norwegian Vikings, while Baldoyle, further north, is the town of the dark foreigner, which is said to refer to the Danes. It seems unlikely that this signified distinct, contrasting complexion or even hair colour, the Vikings were generally fair in both. It may have been a note on character. In which case it was surely relative, Vikings were not usually renowned for peace, love and understanding. These days, beyond the city boundary, north county Dublin is called Fingal.

You’ll notice how the Liffey is already widening into its estuary east of O’Connell Bridge. The flow of water is tidal, with its inherent smell and rowdy host of seagulls. The land hereabouts has much been reclaimed from the shallow sea of Dublin Bay. Since the late eighteenth century, Dublin Port has developed along constructed quaysides with the silting estuary being cleared at last by the huge engineering feat of the North and South Bull Walls. While the South Bull is a direct extension of the south quays, the North Bull is farther away and out of sight, a finger extending into the bay from the distant suburb of Dollymount. The North Quays terminate at the Point and the East Link Bridge; Dublin’s modern port and docks extending further east for a bit.

As a starting point for our safari along North Dublin’s Sandy Shore, we can walk either bank down past Butt Bridge, under the Loop Line and on to the Talbot Memorial Bridge. The bridge was built in 1978 becoming then the easternmost crossing of the Liffey. It is named for Matt Talbot, poster boy of Irish temperance, with his statue standing on the southern end.

Matt Talbot was born in 1856 in North Strand and worked as an unskilled labourer. A fierce drinker from his early teens, he abandoned the demon drink at the age of twenty eight. His obsession with alcohol was replaced with an extreme, though benign, religious fervour. On his death in 1925, he was discovered to have practiced self mortification with several chains wrapped around his body beneath his clothing. He was renowned as an admirable worker and, while poor, was a dapper dresser. Some characterised him as a strike breaker in 1913, though there’s no evidence of this. Apparently he refused strike pay, donating it instead to comrades with families to support.

Photograph by Paula Nolan, a contemporary of mine at NCAD, George’s Quay. A fine photographer, she has exhibited at the RHA.

Also in 1978, George’s Quay became temporary home to the National College of Art and Design. I was one of the inbetweeners studying graphic design there as the college moved from its base in Kildare Street, between Leinster House National Library, to its current campus at Powers Distillery on Thomas Street. The surrounding area crumbled while awaiting the redemption of development. The theme song to the rubble and crumbling chimney stacks provided by U2 at Windmill Lane nearby. Today, the crystalline towers of the Ulster Bank form a significant landmark for the modern city. Begun in 1997 and completed five years later, the complex is distinguished by seven pyramid crowned glass towers and is now known as George’s Quay Plaza.

Another photograph by Paula Nolan, from the tv seat of a bus heading south on Memorial Road

Across the Bridge, the Custom House floats serenely above the waters of the Liffey. Initiated by Ireland’s first Revenue Commissioner John Beresford in 1780, it was designed by James Gandon and after completion in 1791 would be regarded as his masterpiece. The project had been much derided at the start, being built on a swamp and seen as remote from the city centre. The Corporation, enraged traders and the High Sheriff himself, sharked up mobs to disrupt construction, but Beresford prevailed. Now it’s a definitive symbol of Dublin, and stands away to the west of the extensive docklands.

Not that it hasn’t suffered its fair share of depredations in the meantime. It was burned by rebels during the War of Independence with the aim of destroying tax records. Unfortunately, the interior, the dome and irreplaceable historical records were also destroyed. The new government of independent Ireland moved quickly to restore the building. The renovation is apparent with the darker stone used for the reconstruction of the central tower. Meanwhile, Memorial Road was named in honour of those from the Dublin Brigade who died in this, and other engagements in the war.

Downriver, the International Financial Services Centre, is an undistinguished grouping of medium rise glass blocks from the late twentieth century. Beyond, lies the modern, geometric heart of the new commercial capital. Upriver, the Loop Line Bridge occludes the Fair City. This wrought iron bridge and carriageway of 1890 has attracted the ire of the aesthetically sensitive ever since.
The Loop Line linked Ireland’s South Eastern railway system, affectionately known as the Slow and Easy, with the Great Northern Railway, linking the capital to Belfast. Pragmatic trumped aesthetic, with the project crashing through the facade of the South Eastern’s Westland Row HQ, before masking off the view of the Custom House and much else to each side.

However it was functionally a boon, completing the East Coast railway axis and crucially linking the Mailboat service from Kingstown. Even more so today, providing direct access for freight and commuters between Dublin and Belfast, and all around the bay and beyond to the towns and cities of the South and East. Besides, it is a visual delight to sit aboard a train twixt Tara and Connolly and finding yourself at the centre of the joyful panorama of Dublin and its sublime River Liffey. Better yet, it is a vista unmarked by the intrusion of the Loop Line itself.

I referred to the song What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding earlier on. Written in 1974 by Nick Lowe, it became a hit for Elvis Costello in 1978 and was tacked on to the American release of the album Armed Forces. It forms a neat counterpoint to the theme of conflict implicit, if vaguely, in the songs and album title. Oliver’s Army directly references British military campaigns in Ireland right back to Oliver Cromwell. Costello was born Declan McManus in London and is of Irish descent. His songs are rich in wordplay, snappy phrases, and catchy too. He didn’t write this, but he could have. It’s a song of other times, one that fits with our times, and one for all time.

As I walk through this wicked world
Searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity
I ask myself, is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?
And each time I feel like this inside
There’s one thing I wanna know
What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding? Oh
What’s so funny ’bout peace love and understanding?

Setanta Centre

Posted on by
7

Built in 1976 and designed by Brian Hogan, the Setanta Centre is a five storey office block that looks over the lawns of Trinity College from its perch on cold, cold Nassau Street. The ground floor frontage is most famously occupied by the Kilkenny Design shop and Read’s Design and Print. It functioned as a short cut on my way to Art College in the late seventies, through an entrance off Nassau Street, which opened onto an internal square leading to the rere of the building and on to Kildare Street. I had quit my job in the Dept. of Posts and Telegraphs that summer. Their HQ, Telephone House, at the top of Marlboro Street, was also designed by Hogan. Setanta seemed to occupy a space on which the sun never shone but this was alleviated by a good mural of the Tain Bo Cuailgne by Desmond Kinney to the right of that inner space.

The Tain is the major story of the Ulster Cycle of mythology, set in the centuries immediately before Irish written history. Hero of the saga is Cuchulainn, whose given name was Setanta. The Tain tells the story of the cattle raid of Cooley, leading to a war between the kingdoms of Ulster and Connaught. Since Connaught wasn’t established that early, drawing its name from Con Cead Catha (Con of the Hundred Battles) some centuries later, we can see that the area covered is a bit elastic. Ulster dynasties at various times annexed Louth, Meath and Dublin. Setanta probably hailed from Dublin. Given his prowess at hurling it could hardly have been Louth, Meath or Ulster.

As a boy, traveling from Dublin to Armagh, he came upon the house of Culann, smithy to the Ulster King, Conor McNeasa. Culann’s hound leapt at the young hero, slavering jaws agape. Setanta, drawing his hurley, thwacked the sliotar down the hound’s throat, killing him. Culann, who one would think should have tethered the brute, was not well pleased. So our hero had to take the post of guard dog to the smithy until a replacement guard dog could be trained. Hence the name, Cu Chulainn, Culann’s Hound.

Cuchulainn at last reached the school for warriors at Navan Fort (Armagh) where he could beat the men of Ulster, combined, at hurling (not hard, mind) and came to be their hero. When Queen Maeve of Connaught launched her audacious raid to capture Ulster’s prize bull, the Men of Ulster were asleep and it was up to Cuchulainn to defend the kingdom single handed. He did this by demanding single combat at a succession of fords until Ulster’s King could muster his forces.

Fighting Cuchulainn was a fearsome prospect. Amongst his special powers, most awesome was his warp spasm. His body would reverse within its skin, his eyes would oscillate, his hair transform into fearsome metallic spikes, and his warrior’s light, shining from his forehead, become a column of boiling blood to the height of a pine tree. If you were flatsharing with Cuchulainn, it was best not to leave the cap off the toothpaste.

Horslips second album was a rock opera based on the saga. They first performed it in concert at the National Stadium in 1973. Standout track is Cuchulainn’s first person eulogy, Dearg Doom. Horslips weird and compelling hybrid of rock and traditional Irish music is probably at its best here. It starts with a to-die-for riff, based on a traditional tune, O’Neill’s March. It became a hit single in Ireland and Germany. Dearg is the Irish word for red, while Doom refers to the legend that he was shadowed by the vision of his death foretold. Combined, the title evokes the red mist emanating from Cuchulainn as he entered warp spasm. It was adapted as the song of the Irish soccer team, the first ever to qualify for a world cup finals tournament in 1990 when they reached the quarter finals. Put Them Under Pressure featured a rare example of Yorkshire Rap from team manager Jack Charlton. Larry Mullen of U2 composed the montage, including the ethereal voice of Maire Brennan of Clannad and a rousing team chorus of Ole Ole Ole.

You speak in whispers of the devils I have slain
By the fire of my silver Devil’s Blade,
And still you dare to flaunt yourself at me.
I don’t want you, I don’t need you,
I don’t love you, can’t you see
I’m Dearg Doom

This painting describes a wet day entering Setanta’s concourse from Nassau Street. There is an echo of the painting The Wanderer, by German gothic romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. Friedrich’s tableau depicts a silhouette poised before the aching beauty of nature. My wanderer carries an umbrella before her like a shield. But cities in the rain, even in their plainest raiment, are jewels to behold, whether rough diamonds or polished just so.

And a Happy Christmas to yous all.

Good Day in Blackrock

Posted on by
6

Blackrock has been, since Early Modern times, the first settlement you hit south of Dublin city. It perches above the rocky shore along the rocky road to Dublin. Whack fol dol de day. From where we pass Blackrock College the town begins to emerge. The main road, which for long wound through the old village, was rerouted along the western fork at Blackrock Shopping Centre in the 1980s. This new route, Frescati Road, takes traffic towards Dun Laoghaire and the N11. Veer left and downhill for the town centre.

In olden days, the entrance to Blackrock was presided over by Frescati House. This was a grand Georgian mansion built in 1739 as Dublin’s upper classes sought property outside the teeming city. The FitzGeralds, Ireland’s largest landowners, acquired it as their summer residence from Leinster House and Carton House, Kildare. It became the home of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a leader of the 1798 rebellion.

Lord Edward had been a veteran of the American War of Independence (fighting for the British), but later took inspiration from the French Revolution and lived in France in 1792, where he repudiated his own title and was dismissed from the army. Returning to Ireland, Fitzgerald hosted meetings of the United Irishmen at Frescati, entertaining the likes of Tom Paine, writer of the Rights of Man, and Lord Cloncurry, a neighbouring landowner. However, the movement was riddled with spies and FitzGerald was betrayed by Thomas Reynolds and forced into hiding. On the eve of the planned uprising he was captured after a gunfight on Thomas Street. FitzGerald killed an arresting officer but sustained gunshot wounds and was taken. He died from his wounds in Newgate Prison in Smithfield in 1798 at the age of thirty four.

In the late sixties, the glare of development fell upon Frescati. The unremarkable exterior may have harmed its case for preservation, still, preservationists fought a thirteen year campaign before the house was demolished to make way for Roche’s Stores shopping centre in 1983.

The town itself was first noted in the late fifteenth century and was named, prosaically, Newtown. By 1610 Newtown became Blackrock. The black rock in question is limestone calp, which appears black in the rain. With the well-to-do colonising the coast in increasing numbers. Blackrock was booming by the eighteen thirties and provided a ready customer basis for the new Dublin Kingstown railway line. The construction of the railway causeway created something of a swamp north of the town, all the way up past Booterstown. In the 1870s the town commissioners tamed the part adjacent to Blackrock and turned it into a park.

Blackrock Park provides a scenic route into town and connects to the linear coastal park by way of Williamstown Martello Tower. The Rock Road entrance takes us across a rising green lawn which culminates in a twin pillar entrance against the eastern sky. To the left of this is a monument to Irish nationalism. The commemorative garden was opened in 2016 on the centenary of the 1916 Rising. The coastal views from here are splendid. Meanwhile, to our right, entrance through the twin piers takes us into the Park proper.

The ground plunges down to an attractive pond. This forms a naturalesque amphitheatre with the sloping green sward rising above the placid water. A small circular island provides an open bandstand. Time was, my friends and I would make our way here of a weekend, where we basked in those golden days with Thin Lizzy, Mellow Candle, Horslips, and, em, Chris De Burgh. That line up played here in August 1971.

What could beat a summer’s day, full of sunshine and flower power, and a vague scented mist settled over the hollow? Mellow Candle in one of their less mellow moments would launch into the manic vocalisation: toor a loor a loor a laddy, toor a loor a lay! Leading to the refrain:

I know the Dublin pavements will be boulders on my grave
I know the Dublin pavements will be boulders on my grave!

That number finished their album Swaddling Songs, released the following year, and brought their set to a close with audience and band taking a communal plunge into the pond. The waters are still and lily padded now with visual suggestions of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, mythology and rebirth. But if I hunker down here, I swear I can detect an echo of those soundwaves rippling the leaves and water like restless ghosts.

As a designated route linking Blackrock to Booterstown, the park is open all hours. There’s a children’s playground, designated cycle path, and an outdoor gym area. Heading around the pond, there’s a folly on the larger island to the south and here the terrain is softened and shaded by mature woodland. Farther on there’s a traditional bandstand. You can exit the park uphill at an entrance taking you to Main Street, or, as I did, through a narrow lane along the railway line, emerging at the Station.

Blackrock Station is a grand two storey structure with a portico. The Railway Station opened for business in 1834, being the one stop on the original Dublin to Kingstown line, twixt Westland Row in the city and the terminus at Kingstown.

Seaward of the far platform stood the baths and swimming arena. Blackrock Baths were built by the Railway Company in 1839. Fifty years later they were enlarged, with designated bathing for men and women in separate pools. In 1928 they were used in the Tailteann Games, an Irish Olympics after Independence, with a fifty metre pool and a stand for a thousand spectators. Usage declined in the seventies, leading to closure in the eighties. Sadly, the Baths were demolished in 2013. You can still see their outline from the pedestrian bridge over the tracks to the south of the station.

There’s still bathing along the coast from a narrow strip walled off from the railway. This culminates a hundred metres or so on at an imposing structure. The new railway crossed the private beach of Maretimo House, property of Valentine Lawless, Lord Cloncurry. By way of compensation, a grandiose bridge and private harbour were constructed. Up until recently, the harbour included a small shelter, rendered mythic by its classical portico, but this has been demolished. The bridge itself with its walkway strung between two elegant towers, has been allowed to fall into disrepair and access is fenced off. Lawless, appropriately named in his younger years, had fallen in with Lord Edward and was imprisoned for sedition in the Tower of London in 1798. He fled to Europe upon his release and settled for a time in Rome. Ultimately he reconciled himself with British authority in Ireland, becoming a Viceregal advisor and a magistrate.

This is the end of the line for the coastal path, though it resumes shortly past Seapoint Dart Station. In between, we must return towards Blackrock station, overlooked by the elegant Idrone Terrace to our left, and climb up to Blackrock Main Street. Our route takes us through the village and along Newtown Avenue and Seapoint Avenue.

The main street is busy, with several coffee shops spilling onto the pavement. Blackrock Market is entered through an archway where it opens into a sizeable maze of stalls offering a cornucopia of fashion, furniture, arts and crafts, food and drink. While many such markets have been squeezed out of the marginal properties they occupy, Blackrock has clung on since its establishment in 1986.

I take a pint of Guinness at Jack O’Rourke’s, the brew being a malty response to the changing of the season. And very good it is too, savoured in a slice of sunlight that chanced upon the lane to the side of the boozer. Blackrock’s bars also include the Breffni, the Wicked Wolf, Flash Harry’s and the Ten Tun Tavern. There is little concession to the drift towards al fresco in the bar trade, though you can perch on the pavement outside the Ten Tun at the southern end of Main Street.

Near the top of the town, there’s a 9th century cross. This was probably a burial marker to begin with, becoming a property marker and then from the eighteenth century the focus of a tradition marking the boundary of Dublin City. Every three years, the Mayor of Dublin and his Sheriffs would journey here formally acknowledging the cross as the southern limits of the jurisdiction of Dublin Corporation.

Main Street divides into Temple Road and Newtown Avenue. Along Temple Road, the right hand fork, we come across Blackrock Dolmen. This sculpture by Rowan Gillespie is evocative of ancient days and teeters near the entrance to the Church of Saint John the Baptist. The church was built in 1845 on land donated by Valentine Lawless and designed by Patrick Byrne, an early example of Gothic Revival, inspired by Augustus Pugin. The interior holds stained glass windows by Ireland’s two masters of the form, Harry Clarke and Evie Hone.

The left fork is Newtown Avenue, which keeps us to our coastal route. The Town Hall was completed in 1865 with the formation of the Town Commission a few years earlier. Next to the Town Hall, and forming a unified three piece, the Carnegie Library and Technical Institute were built in 1905.

Newtown Avenue leads to a sharp dogleg right, to avoid running into the front porch of Newtown House. Blackrock House from 1774 is adjacent, distinguished by its two storey brick porch. The next sharp left takes us down Seapoint Avenue. There’s a narrow laneway leading to Seapoint station. This opened in 1860 when it was called Monkstown and Seapoint. To access the coast, take the next laneway on the left which leads down to Brighton Vale, a pleasant row of bungalows nestled on the shore. A few yards further on is Seapoint Martello Tower, overlooking the popular bathing place. From here the walkway curves along the lower lip of Dublin Bay to its end.

The next station is called Monkstown and Salthill. Salthill Station dates from 1837, closed in 1960, but was reopened with the electrified Dart service in 1984. This was the site of the original terminus before it moved farther east to the current location of Dun Laoghaire station in 1837. On reaching the West Pier, we begin retracing the steps we trod on South Dublin’s Rocky Shore. So, it is possible, and very enjoyable, to walk from the Liffey estuary, all the way down to beautiful Bray, County Wicklow. From Raytown to Bray town; and beyond.

Dublin’s Rocky Road

Posted on by
3

From Sydney Parade, Aylesbury Road heads west through the posher parts of Dublin 4. On a sunny autumn day the tree lined avenues are a slice of heaven. Veering left we’re on the Merrion Road with the Merrion Centre on the far side. The walk to Blackrock keeps to the coast for three and a half a kilometres, a forty minute walk, or four minutes if you take the Dart.

St Vincent’s University Hospital occupies a large campus at the junction of Merrion and Nutley. Mother Mary Aikenhead, founder of the Sisters of Charity in 1815, set up the original hospital at the Earl of Meath’s town house on Saint Stephen’s Green in 1834. It moved to its current site in 1970, and became associated with UCD who had moved to Belfield, just up the road, in the previous decade. It is a training centre for nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and radiographers. Ownership transferred from the Sisters to the State in 2020. Further on, Caritas Convalescent home was also established by the Sisters of Charity. It occupies four landscaped acres and the main convent building was refurbished at turn of the century.However, it has fallen victim to the Covid Pandemic and a liquidator was appointed last year, 2020.

Our Lady Queen of Peace church lies this side of the road. Its free standing spire is in the style of a Celtic round tower. Inside there is a magnificent rose window. The church was opened and blessed by Archbishop John McQuaid in 1953.

At the Merrion Gates we are poised on the cusp between city and suburb. Coast, railway and the hectic thoroughfare of the Rock Road converge. The landward side is well peppered with modern developments. To our left is mostly parkland and marsh with the Dartline along a narrow causeway and Dublin Bay beyond.

Booterstown is appropriately named. The Irish, Baile an Bhothair simply means the town of the road. Booterstown is said to be part of the ancient highway system of Gaelic Ireland. The routes connected Tara, seat of the High King, with the various kingdoms. Sli Chualann, connecting with Cuala, in south Dublin and north wicklow, is said, by some, to have passed by here. In later times it was a notorious spot for highwaymen. These days it is humming with traffic. The Rock Road practically rocks with the volume of it. Where are they all going? Where are they all coming from? The surge of metal and migrant is so constant, so everlasting that the beat becomes a bodhran, You could practically sing to it.

In Dublin next arrived, I thought it such a pity
To be soon deprived a view of that fine city
Well then I took a stroll, all among the quality
Bundle it was stole, all in a neat locality
One two three four five
Hunt the Hare and turn her down the rocky road
And all the way to Dublin, Whack fol lol le rah!

The Rocky Road to Dublin was written by Irish poet D.K. Gavan in the nineteenth century and popularised by English music hall performer, Harry Clifton. The story is about a Galway man who seeks his fortune setting off on the road to Dublin, bound for Liverpool. It was re-energised during the ballad boom of the sixties, particularly with performances by the Dubliners and Luke Kelly solo. It has, the details of its theme notwithstanding, transformed into something of a theme for Dublin Jacks. And for emphasis, Dublin has three syllables.

Something crossed me mind, when I looked behind
No bundle could I find upon me stick a wobblin’
Enquiring for the rogue, said me Connaught brogue
Wasn’t much in vogue on the rocky road to Dublin
Whack fol dol de day!

The ghost of identity with the ancient Sli Chualain might have inspired the naming of The Tara Towers Hotel. Considered a modern highrise (no, really), it cast its seven storey shadow over the coast until 2019, when it joined the rubble club. When I tied the knot with M in 83, we considered the Tara for our honeymoon night, but thought better of it, choosing the Montrose at Belfield instead. A new hotel, the Maldron, is under construction. With 4 stars, 140 rooms and 60 apartments, it will rise to a dizzying eight storeys. The Seamark Building next door also tops out at eight storeys. Like a long and shiny snake, it masks out the vista to the north west.

Booterstown Marsh emerges on our left. Defined by the building of the railway in the nineteenth century, the southern end was landscaped into Blackrock Park in 1870. Here at the northern end it remains a brackish marshland. An Taisce maintains the area as Booterstown Nature Reserve, particularly as a sanctuary for birds. While the Rock Road is the human highway, the Reserve is likened to an international airport for avian visitors. Brent Geese migrate in winter from the Canadian Arctic via Greenland while Swallows come all the way from Africa to summer here.There are Grey Herons, Kingfishers, Oyster Catchers, Coots, Mallard, Gulls and more. A small green area with benches allows you to admire this wild enclave. However, it’s best not to trample all over the wilderness itself. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a wilderness.

Next door, Booterstown Station is an original station from the 1835 Dublin to Kingstown railway, standing aloof on the causeway linking Merrion and Blackrock. Across the road the house, Glena, has an interesting heritage. John McCormack died here in 1945. Born 1884 in Athlone, McCormack was Ireland’s top tenor of the twentieth century. His fame spread across the water, bolstered during the Great War by his renderings of such patriotic British ditties as Keep the Home Fires Burning and Long Way to Tipperary. He was keen to project his Irish patriotism too. His repertoire included The Wearing of the Green and other folksy numbers as well as a sizeable chunk of the songs of Thomas Moore, including The Harp that once Through Tara’s Halls and the Minstrel Boy.

His first farewell concert was in the Albert Hall in 1938, but with the outbreak of WWII he resumed fundraising concerts for the Red Cross and the war effort. Poor health forced him to retire to his house by the sea. Perhaps he sank a few a couple of doors up in the Old Punchbowl Pub which dates from 1779. It was opened by William Skully and played host to the local lords of Merrion and Pembroke, to notorious highwaymen and, most likely, their victims. There’s Traditional music sessions on Tuesday and Bluegrass on Saturday. The atmosphere is welcoming and warm, so no need to bring a heavy sweater, although Christy Moore has played here.

Past the Dart station, there’s treasure on the wasteland, twice a year. The Circus Field hosts Duffy’s Circus in Summer and Fossett’s in late Autumn. One winter, late in the last century, we took our wide eyed youngster to Il Florilegio, performed by Circo Darix Togni, an Italian Circus who were touring. We walked a guard of honour of performers, clowns, giants, grotesques and golden winged angels. We were enthralled, if in a strangely strange sort of way. At least, myself and M were, my young son less so. Looking up he wailed: Why did you bring me to this place? At least I knew that he was never going to run away to join the circus. Mind you, all fear evaporated during the performance which was a weird and wonderful trip in time, and to a different realm.

Il Florilegio alludes to a collection of flowers, in a literary sense, a miscellany. Founding father, Darix Togni, was a major circus star in his native Italy in the forties and formed the Circus with his brother in 1953. He died in 1976, aged only fifty four, but his sons and nephews revived Circo Darrix Togni which tours internationally. That night we were part of a medieval carnival, along with performers who merged theatre and spectacle across a spectrum of moods.

From here there’s respite from the road with a linear stretch of parkland leading on to Blackrock Park. Along the way is Williamstown Martello Tower. When built in the early nineteenth century it was lapped by the sea until cut off by the railway causeway. The construction of the Park to the south further marooned it. Its rather stubby appearance results from the fact that the ground floor is now largely buried. The tower is backed by a small estate of period redbricks, Emmet Square. There’s a good looking old style bar and a take-away on the main road, but behind the busy front, neat terraces are gathered around cobbled squares. This is a small, attractive estate with the aura of a close knit community. With posh Blackrock College right across the road, it looks like something of a working class enclave.

Blackrock College is a leading secondary school for boys situated on over fifty acres of parkland. It was founded in 1860 by the Holy Ghost Fathers. Besides its high achievements and regular supply of the topdogs in politics, culture and commerce, Blackrock is possibly most characterised as a renowned rugger school. It is for this aspect of its image that its denizens, indeed most everyone in the general locale, are roundly slagged in the Ross O’Carroll Kelly books written by Paul Howard. In the media, these are the people responsible for the Dartline accent. Mind you, Howard lives in Greystones so he hardly needs to take the Dart to mine a rich vein of bourgeoisie accent and attitude. Apparently the pupils regard Ross as their hero all the same. Student boarders stay at Williamstown Castle. This was originally an eighteenth century pile whose gothic flourishes were later added by Daniel O’Connell’s election agent Thomas O’Mara. Past pupils from these pages include Bob Geldof, Flann O’Brien and Robert Ballagh, and of course Brian O’Driscoll. In BOD we trust.

And on to Blackrock Park proper and the prospect of a good day in Blackrock. But another day.

The International Bar Revisited

Posted on by
10

I have a soft spot for the International Bar in Wicklow Street. It was a regular haunt of mine in my Post and Telegraph days. Wicklow Street is a busy shopping street connecting Grafton Street and Sth Great George’s Street. It was developed as part of Exchequer Street in 1776 having previously been a lane. This eastern branch was renamed Wicklow Street in 1837.

The International Bar dates from 1838 and is housed in a fine, early Victorian, gothic redbrick four storey on the corner of Andrew’s Street, which continues as South William St south of the junction. This was the venue I chose for my twenty first birthday party. Friends and workmates gathered round, and, of course, the divine Ms M. Gifts, besides copious pints, checked shirts and scabrous greeting cards, included some music of the day: Horslips second Celtic symphony the Book of Invasions, AC/DC’s debut High Voltage and Thin Lizzy’s breakthrough album, Jailbreak.

I’d imagine these were played full volume and the final verse of The Boys Are Back in Town lingers strongly in the memory. 

That jukebox in the corner blasting out my favourite song

The nights are getting warmer, it won’t be long

Won’t be long till summer comes

Now that the boys are here again

Near enough seven years since they were formed in Dublin, Thin Lizzy had at last scaled the dizzy heights of international fame. Jailbreak was Lizzy’s first album to go gold in the USA. Phil Lynott had adapted his poetic muse to powerhouse rock with spectacular effect. The following summer, myself and M would be amongst the tens of thousands at Dalymount Park to give the heroes a memorable return to Dublin town. The Boys Are Back! 

Happy days. I remember a wall poster that night in the International advertising Billy Connolly, the comedian posed in front of a Scottish Flag. Suitable backdrop, as my birthday falls on Saint Andrew’s Day, and I’m half Scottish; probably three quarters Scotch that night. The International would go on to host nightly comedy shows since the 1990s with live music downstairs. Dara O Briain from Bray is one of a generation of comics to cut their teeth there. Outside of the music and laughter, life at the International goes on as always, a jewel of an oasis, the best of times suspended in amber. 

Walk in off the street to the high ceilinged narrow room. The bar is spectacularly set off by an ornate hand carved mahogany reredos. Brass fittings, mirrors and optics are set ablaze by light streaming in the large windows. When the canopies are out, high arched transom windows allow solid shafts of light to stream diagonally onto the bar.

This scene captures that snapshot of heaven, and perhaps some of the more subdued stories in the weave. There is a slight allusion to a painting by Degas, In a Cafe, in the couple seated to the right. But this painting is phrased to convey a sense of warmth, and our heroes may be enjoying a moment of easy silence. Remembering those golden days.

Dublin Fields

Posted on by
5

A scene that might have happened had James Joyce and Nora Barnacle married in Dublin, and not London, and walked out on O’Connell Bridge. There, they may have been accosted by photographer Arthur Fields, the Man on the Bridge. Fields, a Dublin fixture for fifty years, would have had a thing or two in common with Joyce, and indeed his best known character, Leopold Bloom. 

Arthur Fields was born in Dublin in 1901. His family fled antisemitism in Ukraine in the 19th Century and came to settle in Ireland. He lived in Raheny and used to walk into the city centre each morning to ply his trade. He would stand on O’Connell bridge, taking photographs of passersby, then offer a ticket. The prints were made by his wife in their home darkroom and those who chose could pick them up later. This created a snapshot history of the bridge from the early thirties to his retirement in 1984. A half century of snaps, up to a hundred and fifty thousand in all. Within this great parade, the bridge also became, in many ways, Dublin’s gondola; where young love, even older love, was displayed and immortalised against the dramatic backdrop of the city.

James Joyce and Nora had long gone by Fields’ day. Joyce the young boulevardier, the ultimate flaneur, had first seen Nora in June 16, 1904. The date has since been immortalised as Bloomsday, the twenty four hours in the life of fictional Dubliner Leopold Bloom, in Joyce’s humdrum epic Ulysses. Bloom, though actually (albeit fictionally) an Irish born Catholic, is cast as the Wandering Jew, his father having been a Central European immigrant. In reality, Joyce and Nora went to Ringsend, where Nora gave him a hand with a recurrent problem.

They left for Trieste later that year. Joyce returned to Dublin to manage the city’s first Cinema, the Volta, in 1909. The venture failed and he returned to Trieste. There was one brief return to Dublin in 1912 to fight with the publisher of Dubliners. Nora and Joyce lived together in Italy, France and Switzerland and had two children, Giorgio and Lucia., but they only married in 1931 in London. Ten years after, Joyce died in Zurich, aged fifty eight. 

Amongst those who were captured by Fields’ lens are writer Brendan Behan, boxer Jack Doyle and musician George Harrison. With George it was the portrait of the artist as a young man. He was photographed in the early fifties with his mother Louise (nee French) whose family lived in Drumcondra. George was obsessed with the guitar, and his parents bought him an Egmond Toledo guitar on his thirteenth birthday. The rest, as they say, is history. I have something in common with George so, beyond a shared surname. My parents also bought me an Egmond for my thirteenth birthday, and the rest is three chords and a lot of strangled roaring. Within three years, however, George was playing guitar with The Beatles. Following their breakup, his success continued as a singer and songwriter until the end of the century. George Harrison died on 29th November, 2001 aged 58. 

I look from the wings

At the play you are staging

While my guitar gently weeps

As I’m sitting here

Doing nothing but ageing

Still my guitar gently weeps

While My Guitar Gently Weeps was recorded in 1968 for the double album, the Beatles, or the White Album as it’s known. There is a deeply personal thread woven through the song, including the personification of the guitar which acts both as Harrison’s alter ego and lover. The guitar featured was a red Gibson Les Paul, called Lucy. It was a gift from Eric Clapton, who played it on the recording.  

Dublin’s South Bull Wall

Posted on by
2

Dublin Bay has long thrown its arms wide to embrace the incoming voyager. Howth Head curves around to the north while the southern arc is framed by the Dublin Mountains to the rocky conclusion of Killiney Head at Sorrento Point. It is a spectacularly beautiful embrace, though it often proved treacherous for the unwary mariner. The silting of Dublin Bay, specifically across the mouth of the Liffey estuary, meant that medieval Dublin had to outsource its port to Dalkey at the southern tip of the bay. Two major sandbanks formed on each side of the estuary, the North Bull and the South. A sand bar frequently connected the two, hampering access to the Dublin quays. At low tide the South Bull formed an extensive sandbank enclosing a tidal pool known as the Poolbeg, from the Gaelic for ‘small pool’. 

In the early eighteenth century it was decided to remedy this situation. Sir John Rogerson funded a quay extending from the city centre to the confluence of the Dodder and Liffey. Further east, construction began on a barrier of oaken piles which effected reclamation of land to the south around Ringsend and Irishtown. The Piles was completed in 1730 but while it helped reclamation and navigation, it quickly showed signs of decay. It was decided to install a wall, using granite from Dalkey quarry. The wall connected Ringsend with the lighthouse, Poolbeg, which had previously been a floating lighthouse. The stone lighthouse was completed in 1767, although replaced in 1820 with the current structure, and painted bright red.

At the start of construction a house was built for the caretaker, John Pidgeon. Pidgeon opened a restaurant for construction workers which proved very popular amongst mariners and visitors. A hotel was established later and this became known as the Pigeon House. The great wall was completed in 1796, at which stage it was the longest sea wall in the world at three miles long. The resulting formation of the Poolbeg Peninsula and its development as a major industrial area means the remaining sea wall is now just a mile long. Following the rebellion of 1798 there was military development with the installation of a gun battery known as the Half Moon, owing to its shape. The fact that this name now applies to a swimming club probably conjures a different sense of meaning. A fort was constructed in the 1840s, its remains still visible. The Half Moon Swimming and Water Polo Club, founded in 1898, is still alive and kicking.

By the twentieth century development concentrated on industry. The first generating station was built in 1903 and has since been attached to the Pigeon House name. The new station in the sixties came with the two iconic chimneys. Over two hundred metres tall, they remain the tallest structures in Ireland and are visible from all over the county. Being tall, the authorities were determined to demolish them when decommissioned this century, but fortunately they’ve been listed for preservation and the ESB has undertaken to maintain them.

Three centuries of development crowd and clash in this fascinating urban area. In around 1640 the first bridge crossed the Dodder to connect Dublin and Irishtown, which was then the native ghetto. Cromwell landed for his Irish tour and it’s been full steam ahead ever since with this the setting for surging industrial and architectural modernity. Standing in the lee of the East Link Bridge, looking west to wards the city you’ll note, at the end of Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, the Capital Docks building. This is Ireland’s tallest storeyed building at sixty nine metres. It is very much an exclamation of the city, a portal of sorts; right where the Dodder River, the Grand Canal and the Liffey join with the sea. 

Nearby lies the ancient urban village of Ringsend. Also known colloquially as Raytown, being the source of the famed fish supper of Long Ray and Chips, A maritime atmosphere still pervades with such pubs as the Oarsman, the Yacht and the South Dock which I’d bet shelter the stray salty dog. While one can still imagine the port of old, it has been overlaid by blocks of Art Deco flats from the thirties. Past the library, another Art Deco gem from 1937, Ringsend merges into Irishtown and on to the Poolbeg peninsula. This was the Waxies Dargle in the nineteenth century. The name derives from Waxies, a nickname for shoemenders, while Dargle is the river of Bray, then a posh resort. The workers couldn’t afford the trip to Bray so the seashore hereabouts was the alternative. 

Breaking out onto the seafront at Sean Moore Park is to feel the heart lift. Sandymount curves away to the south, on out to Dun Laoghaire. The strand at low tide is a huge panorama of flat sand, reclaimed at intervals by the shallow sea. We can follow the shore all the way out to the Poolbeg Generating Station and it majestic twin towers. Alternatively, you can follow a more northerly route through the industrial heart of the peninsula. Either way, both roads meet at the Pigeon House, and when you get to the east of the generation station, the remaining mile of the sea wall points out into the open sea. Overall, the route is about five and a half kilometres from Ringsend to the lighthouse, an 11k roundtrip.

A walk along the South Bull gives a bracing snapshot of Dublin city and is a means by which Ireland’s capital can best be understood. This is the port, ancient and modern; from when Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria pinned it to the map of Europe in the 2nd century, to the growing nest of spires of twentieth century Dublin. Walk along its narrow causeway, you’ll sometimes literally be walking on water. All around the ships sail in and out, passengers and cargo and pleasure sailers, all part of the ceaseless throbbing heart of Dublin.

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun

I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ comes

Watching the ships roll in

Then I watch ’em roll away again, yeah

I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay

Watchin’ the tide roll away, ooh

I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay

Wastin’ time

Sitting in the dock of the bay was written by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper. Redding was inspired to write the song while staying in a houseboat in Sausilito on San Francisco Bay. He recorded it days before he died in a plane crash over Lake Minona, Wisconsin in December 10, 1967. It became a posthumous number one for him in America. The song fades evocatively into a lonesome whistler heard over the sound of seagulls and waves. If you stand alone on the South Bull Wall you can hear it, and whistle along. 

Heading for Grogan’s

Posted on by
2

Evening is falling and the lights are flickering on. We make our way from Grafton Street via Johnson’s Court, across Clarendon Street and straight on through Coppinger Row to South William Street. Facing us is the Castle Inn, Grogan’s Castle Lounge. It is a pub like any pub, being only really like itself. A literary pub, a boozer, a haunt of artists, buskers and assorted ne’er-do-wells. There’s an interesting mural on the far wall featuring chancers and characters who have frequented the joint.

Dave O’Hara is in there somewhere. He told me once of this immortality, conferred when he held his stall in the nearby Arcade, peddling ancient books, modern posters and timeless yarns. By the half light he’d be in Grogan’s sinking pints, reciting his poetry. He’d sell it too, his books including Heartstrung, Headstrung and Rainbows and Stone. Dave joined our writers group in Bray and helped flog our collection Wednesday at Eight, though he wasn’t included. One buyer was a columnist at the Evening Press who wrote a very nice review, surmising that we were ‘of tender years’. I suppose we were; raw certainly. Dave stayed in Bray for a while, until he came adrift, and was lost out there in Dublin Bay. A long time gone but too short a time here.

Brian O’Nolan is most famed amongst regulars. He would find his way here from Dublin Castle, and the pub appears in the pages of At Swim Two Birds. There’s an ever changing display of art on the walls too, works by contemporary artists sold commission free. Dating back to 1899, the pub remains mercifully free of television and piped music.

There’s a seating area outside where I like to perch, glowering with menace at passersby. People watching is always a pleasure on William Street, where all the chaotic comings and goings of the crowd provide a continuous performance.

The South Dublin City Markets lie just beyond. The gabled building to the right is an outlier, echoing the style of the main building which is a delightful Victorian Gothic palace from 1881, blood red and topped by swirling turrets. Castle Market, the short street with canopies centre frame, leads to this, Dublin’s first shopping centre. Generally referred to as George’s Street Arcade, the central arcade pushes through the building from Castle Market to emerge onto South Great George’s Street beyond. It is lined with stalls selling jewellery and art, books and vinyl, all the paraphernalia that’s a little bit out there, antique, retro or cutting edge. I might find a stool a counter, grab a burger and chips, proper food with copious sauce and of course, salt, all the better to encourage a return trip to Grogan’s.

So perhaps it’s that time of day, summer or winter at the fulcrum when the sky turns deeper blue and the lights flicker on. There’s a purpose to the human crush again, going home, going out, heading for Grogans.

Crossing O’Connell Bridge

Posted on by
Reply

Modern Dublin radiates from O’Connell Bridge. The River Liffey divides the city between North and South, flowing swiftly East to the port and the wider world beyond. The bridge marks the end of O’Connell Street, the city’s principal thoroughfare running due North behind us. We’re heading South of the river where the thoroughfare divides into d’Olier Street and Westmoreland Street. Four named quays meet, Burgh Quay and Aston Quay on the Southside, with Bachelor’s Walk and Eden Quay on the Northside. So, seven roadways and a river, and by the river the sea, and on to the whole world.

This acrylic catches us entering the nexus of the bridge. It’s a sunny winter morning and the sun pours down like honey from a vertiginous sky. Ahead, the centrepiece is a six storey Gothic Revival Chateau which seems to be the fulcrum of the spectacular weather patterns above. People and cars pass by, overhead a seagull circles, perhaps singing away to himself.

The feeling of space is emphasised by the unusually wide proportions of the bridge and connecting streets. The original Carlisle Bridge from the end of the eighteenth century was hump backed and narrow, but redevelopment in 1880 created a structure which was said to be as broad as it was long: fifty metres wide and forty five long.

D’Olier Street branches left, Westmoreland Street right. D’Olier Street is named for Jeremiah D’Olier, a Huguenot goldsmith who became Dublin City Sherriff in 1788 and a Wide Streets Commissioner. The Commission was established in 1758 and over the next ninety years transformed Dublin from a medieval maze of alleyways into a modern city of wide thoroughfares. D’Olier Street and Westmoreland Street are each ninety feet wide.

The modern building to the left is O’Connell Bridge House. Built in 1964, the twelve story concrete and glass tower effectively marks Dublin City centre. It has pleasing clean lines and a strong vertical at its leading edge which functions as a clock tower. Coherently topped out, the ‘penthouse’ was originally a rooftop restaurant with fine views of the city centre, but it was quickly commandeered for office space. One of the few attractive buildings of that decade it was designed by Desmond Fitzgerald, also architect for the Dublin Airport terminal building of 1940.

If there’s a song in my heart, or I hear the seagull singing, perhaps this is it. Four Strong Winds is a Canadian folk anthem, written in New York by Ian Tyson in 1961 and recorded with his partner Sylvia Fricker. Neil Young’s version with backing vocals by Nicolette Larson is taken from his 1978 album, Comes a Time. That plaintive vocal takes you into the vast wilderness of Alberta, or anywhere at all, into a glass filled with the aching loss of loneliness, but bubbling with the permanence of hope.

Four strong winds that blow lonely

Seven seas that run high

All those things that don’t change, come what may

But our good times are all gone

And I’m bound for moving on

I’ll look for you if I’m ever back this way