Cónaitheach

The following is a transcript of 'River, rivalry and revolt: history of the built fabric of Dublin City', the eleventh Sir John T. Gilbert Commemorative Lecture by Dr Christine Casey , at Dublin City Library and Archive on 23rd January 2008.

A year–long series of events to mark the tercentenary of Dublin’s Mansion House culminated on 14 December 2015 with the launch of a beautiful book The Mansion House, Dublin 300 years of History and Hospitality edited by City archivist Dr Mary Clark.

The following is a transcript of Dublin City Public Libraries 1884-2009: 125 years of service to the community, a talk to commemorate 125 years of Public Library Service in Dublin City by Deirdre Ellis-King, Dublin City Librarian as part of Local History Day 26th September, 2009.

The garden suburb of Marino was the first in Ireland and one of the earliest in Europe. It is located on the north side of Dublin City. This small garden village is unusual insofar as it was requested by the people themselves, at a public meeting held in Clontarf Town Hall in 1910. The historic village of Fairview was being redeveloped and the reclamation of land at the nearby Strand was underway in order to provide a public park.

The following is a transcript of Commodious temples: Catholic church building in nineteenth-century Dublin, the thirteenth Sir John T. Gilbert Commemorative Lecture by Brendan Grimes, at Dublin City Library and Archive on 21st January 2010.

As well as developing typing skills, TTRS is designed to benefit students of all ages who experience spelling, reading or writing difficulties. Students with dyslexia or literacy issues have found it helpful.

The Transformation of the Irish Army During the Emergency by Colonel Donal O’Carroll.

Last month I was in the King’s Inns building for the launch of a remarkable short film. Trish McAdams directed and wrote Confinement for the Grangegorman Development Agency, who asked her to create a public art project. The film’s 30-minute running time evokes three hundred years of the history of the King’s Inns, Henrietta Street and the Grangegorman Asylum. The story is told through the imagined voice of Tony Rudenko, an artist who lived in Henrietta Street until his death in 2014, who was also a friend of the director.(Poster for Dublin International Film Festival showing of Confinement)The film opens with animated maps of the Henrietta Street area in the early 18th century.  It tells how the beautiful houses in the street were built originally for the wealthy, eventually accommodating the poor, and recently seeing many of them currently undergoing restoration to former glory. This is a history well told by the Tenement Museum at 14 Henrietta Street.The King’s Inns was built with its back to Henrietta Street and its magnificent frontage facing in the direction of Grangegorman, which was at various times since the late 18th century the site of a workhouse, a prison and an asylum for the mentally ill.(The King’s Inns building seen from Constitution Hill)By the early 19th century, the workhouse and prison had been merged into the hospital, which was added to over the years until its peak in the early 20th century, when it had over 2,000 patients. During the cholera epidemic of 1832, the hospital was used to isolate patients and was referred to as the Dublin Cholera Hospital for the duration of the epidemic.(Surviving gate to the asylum buildings at Grangegorman)For the film, McAdams animated her own wonderful drawings that are based on actual photographs of the inmates of the asylum, contained in the inmate records.  The site is now part of the huge development in the Grangegorman area, which hosts the DIT campus of the new Technological University Dublin. Dr. Mary Muldowney, Historian in Residence, Dublin City Library and Archive.Dublin City Council Historians in Residence are available to meet groups and schools, give talks, walks etc, run history book clubs and advise on historical research. 

The natural sciences formed an important branch of science from the earliest times. Growing plants and crops to feed the population and for healing the sick were essential pursuits. Development of new crops or improving the yields of existing crops resulted from experimentation and the publication of research results.

The River Liffey, and the port that lies at its mouth, is the commercial lifeblood of Dublin city. This image gallery celebrates the Port of Dublin and those who worked in it throughout the twentieth century. From dockers and shipwrights to barge-men and captains of industry, 'all along the riverrun' they made their livelihoods.

24 June 1879 – A marble statue, by Thomas Farrell, of the late Sir John Gray, M.P. (1815-1875), was unveiled in Sackville Street, Dublin, with the inscription 'Erected by public subscription to Sir John Gray Knt. MD JP, Proprietor of The Freeman’s Journal; MP for Kilkenny City, Chairman of the Dublin Corporation Water Works Committee 1863 to 1875 During which period pre-eminently through his exertions the Vartry water supply was introduced to city and suburbs Born July 13 1815 Died April 9 1875’.Sir John GraySir John Gray died in 1875 and little time was spared in establishing a committee to erect a statue to the man who, as chairman of the Dublin Corporation waterworks committee from 1863 until his death, played a key role in the introduction of a water supply to Dublin from the Vartry Works in County Wicklow in 1868.A site for the monument was granted by the Corporation in 1877 on Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street) close to the Abbey Street offices of the Freeman's Journal of which he was owner.Thomas Farrell was approached by the monument committee to create a memorial. He represented Gray 'in the guise of a Victorian gentleman, complete with open coat, confident stance and a serious yet kindly expression'. The monument did not turn out as originally planned. Initially, it had been designed with a representation of Ireland, complete with harp, on the right hand side of the pedestal and incorporated broken fetters to represent the legislative and social wrongs from which the country had been rescued. There was also to have been a figure of patriotism. The necessity of erecting the monument without delay, however, resulted in the statue featuring the figure of Gray alone.The granite pedestal was laid on 1 May 1879 and the statue was unveiled by Archbishop McHale on 24 June 1879.-----------------------------Taken from 'History of Monuments O’Connell Street Area' (pdf), a report commissioned by the Archaeology and Heritage Office of Dublin City Council, in November 2003, as part of the overall conservation plan for the O’Connell Street Area. The report acknowledges the contribution of staff at Dublin City Archives.This report and others can be accessed at Heritage (Dublin City Heritage Office). 

On Friday 17 May 1918 the British government ordered the arrest and imprisonment of all leading members of Sinn Fein. They claimed they were involved in a plan to import arms from Germany. Among those arrested were Countess Markievicz, Eamon de Valera, Arthur Griffith and W.T. Cosgrave. They were quickly removed from Dublin and lodged in prisons across Wales and England. The arrests did dislocate Sinn Fein’s organisation but did not paralyse it; for example, Michael Collins was one of those who avoided capture.Following on from the conscription crisis in April 1918, the German Plot arrests provided another issue for the republican movement to rally around, particularly the injustice of the prisoners being held without charge.On the 27th of September 1918, Áine Ceannt presided over a protest meeting at the Mansion House. Addressing it in both Irish and English, Áine called for the government to release the prisoners at once. She was a founder member of Cumann na mBan, deeply involved in the Irish language movement and republican politics and was the widow of the executed 1916 leader Eamon Ceannt. The meeting was a remarkable cross-section of the nationalist movement and illustrated the continuing high profile of women in the politics of the time. Letters of support from the Bishop of Killaloe and Irish Parliamentary Party MP Timothy Healy were read out while William Smith O’Brien, Cathal O’Shannon, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Eoin MacNeill, Countess Josephine Plunkett, George Gavin Duffy, Muriel MacSwiney and Alderman Thomas Kelly were all in attendance.De Valera escaped from Richmond prison in February 1919 and the British government finally bowed to public pressure, releasing the remaining prisoners in March. By then, the war of independence had broken out and Ireland was gripped by the insurgency that the government had hoped to avoid by arresting the leaders in the first place. Bernard Kelly, Historian in Residence, Dublin City Library and Archive.Dublin City Council Historians in Residence are available to meet groups and schools, give talks, walks etc, run history book clubs and advise on historical research.