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Strolling around the centre of St. Stephens Green, amongst the flowers, swans, tourists and lunchtime-time sandwich eaters, stands an unassuming seat which you might easily pass-by without noticing. Going in for a closer look, the curious onlooker will note that this bench is dedicated to one Anna and Thomas Haslam for their tireless work campaigning for equal rights for women. The seat, made from Kilkenny Limestone, was erected in 1923, five years after women over 30 received the vote in Britain and Ireland and a year after all men and women in the Irish Free State constitution over 21 could vote. Collection: Dublin City Gallery The Hugh LaneThe Haslams' work in the later part of the nineteenth century is a great example of the overlapping campaign for social reform that many of those involved in the suffrage movement were also a part of.Both Anna and Thomas were Quakers (members of The Society of Friends), a Christian sect first introduced into Ireland in 1654. Their fundamental belief was in equality between men and women and they were predominantly known for their help with the poor and their support for the anti-slavery campaign, prison reform and temperance.Ann Maria Fischer was born in April 1829 to a middle-class Quaker family in Youghal, County Cork. She was educated in Quaker boarding schools in Newtown (Waterford) and Newgate (York, England). In 1845 she returned from York to work with her parents in the soup kitchens organised by the Society of Friends Anna for the relief of the Great Famine. From her family kitchen in Youghal, Anna and her sister Deborah started up a workshop teaching young girls to knit and crotchet. Anna organised the sale of their work and the business began to flourish, ultimately employed over 100 young women in the area. After a number of successful years trading, the nuns of the Presentation Convent eventually took over and introduced lace-making which later established Youghal’s renowned lace industry.In 1853, when working at a teaching position in Ackworth School in Yorkshire, Anna met fellow teacher and Irish Quaker Thomas Haslam, who was originally from Mountmellick in County Laois. Thomas shared Anna’s belief in equality for women, and after returning to Ireland they married in 1854 in Cork. The Haslam’s left teaching and moved to Dublin when Thomas obtained a position as an accountant at Jameson, Pim & Co. Brewery, in Aughrim Street. They were extremely close and devoted to each other, which friends often referring to their marriage as idyllic. They moved to Rathmines in 1862, and in 1866 Thomas suffered ill health which was to afflict him the rest of his life. He was unable to work, so Anna became the breadwinner, running a small stationary business from their home at 125 Leinster Rd., Rathmines for the next forty years.Credit: National Archives of IrelandThe first campaign the Haslams were involved in was around better education for women; Anna had been among the reformers let by Anne Jellicoe, in the founding of the Irish Society for Training and Employment of Educated Women in 1861 and in 1866 the establishment of Alexandra College for the Higher Education of Women. Alexandra College was the first college in Ireland to provide university-type education for women and then in 1873 Alexandra High School for Girls. Anna also contributed to the Intermediate Education Act of 1879, which enabled girls to sit public school examinations, and the Royal University Act of 1879, which permitted women to study for degrees in the Royal University. Credit: Dublin City Library and ArchivesDespite his illness, Thomas continued to contribute to the campaign for women’s rights. In 1874 he published The Women’s Advocate, the first of three Irish suffrage pamphlets and the first to be published in Ireland supporting women’s suffrage. They contained invaluable information and practical advice on the organisation of suffrage activism and as well as debating in favour of the vote for women.In 1876, the first Irish suffrage society was founded by Anna and Thomas, called the Dublin Women’s Suffrage Association. Anna became secretary, a position she held for thirty-seven years. The DWSA sought reform for any discrimination against women, either on a legal or social level, and regularly sent petitions to the House of Commons and lobbied Irish MPs.In 1864, 1866 and 1869 parliament passed the Contagious Diseases Acts, where women suspected of prostitution living in garrison towns in Britain and Ireland were subject to compulsory checks for venereal disease. If they were found to be infected they could be forcibly detainment in a lock hospital for up to one year. Many felt the Acts were discriminative against women and maintained a sexual double standard. Anna and Isabella Tod, a prominent feminist from Belfast, were involved in the campaign to repeal the Acts from the beginning. Anna campaigned tirelessly, speaking at public meetings in Dublin and Belfast and lobbying Irish MPs. The long campaigned ended in 1886 when the acts were at last repealed, but Anna later wrote it set the suffrage campaign back by ten years as they were all so absorbed in it.Another success came in 1896 as the Women Poor Law Guardians Act was passed in Ireland. Poor Law Guardians were elected by magistrates and ratepayers, in Ireland women could vote but not be elected as Guardians unlike the rest of Britain. In 1897 there were thirteen women Poor Law Guardians, which increased to twenty-two the following year, opening the doors for women in local government. Anna and the DWSA continued to lobby Irish MPs and in 1898 the Local Government (Ireland) Act extended the local government vote to all women over thirty who satisfied the residential qualifications, and entitled them to be elected as local councillors. Thomas continued to work alongside Anna, publishing, Women’s Suffrage from a Masculine Standpoint, in 1904.The DWSA grew and extended beyond Dublin, becoming the Irishwomen’s Suffrage and Local Government Association (IWSLGA) in 1901. The turn of the twentieth century saw a more militant approach of which Anna disapproved. In 1908 two members of the IWSLGA, Margaret Cousins and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, frustrated by the limitations of the group established the Irish Women’s Franchise League (IWFL), an organisation prepared to break the law if necessary.The exclusion of women’s suffrage from the Home Rule Bill of 1912 brought further feelings of frustration and betrayal for many in the women’s movement. Some resorted to more drastic militant action by damaging government buildings such as the GPO and Dublin Castle. Those found guilty were given a prison sentence and some began hunger strike campaigns in prison. Anna disapproved of such methods in an open letter the Irish Citizen, (founded in 1912 by the Sheehy-Skeffingtons).The outbreak of the First World War brought a lapse in the activism of many in the suffrage movement, as many groups concentrating on contributing to the war effort. In 1916, at the age of ninety, Thomas Haslam published his last pamphlet, Some Last Words on Women’s Suffrage, he died a year later and didn’t live to see the Representation of the People Act brought into legislation in February 1918. This act finally gave women over the age of thirty, who met a property qualification, the right to vote in general elections.At the age of ninety, Anna voted at the Irish general election in December 1918. Despite their political differences, women from all organisations cheered her on the way to the polling booth, and presented her with a bouquet of flowers in suffrage colours.Anna died in 1922, just after the Irish Free State granted full suffrage to all adults over twenty-one. Her work, along with that of her husband’s, to campaigns for social reform and equality for women spanned decades of change in Irish and global society and she whose legacy is carried on my the successor of the IWSLGA, the National Women’s Council of Ireland. Maeve Casserly, Historian-in-Residence, Dublin City Council Additional Photo Credit:Bench: Flickr Commons William Murphy Further Reading (available from your local library!)Smashing Times, Rosemary Cullen OwenIrish Women and the Vote: Becoming Citizens, Louise Ryan and Margaret Ward (eds.)Rise up, Women! Diane Atkinson

Doing their bit: Irish women and the First World War is a new exhibition in Dublin City Library and Archive in Pearse Street. The exhibition centres on the impact that the First World War had on the lives of Irish women and the new opportunities that opened up for them.

During the First World War, an estimated 200,000 Irish joined the British forces, a fact that did not sit well with the republican movement. Some dismissed the volunteers as mercenaries or misfits, while others took a more considered view. Maeve Kavanagh, born in South Frederick Street in 1878, was a noted republican poet and she often used her pen to take aim at men who volunteered for the British army. In her 1914 collection of poetry Sheaves of Revolt, she described the brutality and horror of war and its aftermath to dissuade Irishmen from volunteering:So hurry up and take the ‘bob’The Butcher cannot wait,The German guns are talking,At a most terrific rate.And if you should crawl back,Minus arm or minus leg,You’ll get leave to roam your cityTo sell matches – or to beg.Maeve’s brother, Ernest, was a talented cartoonist and his work was published in various republican and leftist newspapers: Irish Worker, Fianna and Irish Freedom. One of his most celebrated cartoons lampooned the recruiting rally held at the Mansion House on 25th September 1914, see image below (click to enlarge). The rally was addressed by both British Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith and John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. At the meeting, Redmond repeated his call, made at Woodenbridge in Wicklow a few days earlier, for Irish recruits to join the British forces, while Asquith promised an Irish brigade or army corps.  Kavanagh published his impressions of the Mansion House rally in the Irish Worker in early October 1914, characterising Redmond as ‘Judas Empire Redmond…recruiting sergeant at the packed Mansion House meeting’ and Asquith as ‘ ‘Erbert ‘Enry’, who lied about German atrocities on the continent. He also drew unflattering portraits of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, standing guard over the meeting. Ernest, a clerk at the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU,) was shot dead by British troops on the steps of Liberty Hall during the Rising, while Maeve went on to be exceptionally active in the Gaelic League, Citizen’s Army and Cumann na mBan. Both Sheaves of Revolt and Ernest’s cartoons are available to view in Dublin City Library and Archives. Despite opposition from nationalists, Irish recruitment into the British forces continued throughout the war, both into the traditional Irish regiments and into the other branches of service. The war memorial at Islandbridge quotes a figure of 49,500 Irish dead, which represents all those who died in Irish regiments; it is estimated that 35,000 of this total were Irish-born. Papers, artefacts and other items belonging to Irish participants in the First World War can be found in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association Archive at Dublin City Library and Archives. Search or browse Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association Archive online at Digital Repository Ireland.Bernard Kelly, Historian in Residence, Dublin City Library and Archive.

Dublin City Archives marked the centenary of the Russian Revolution of 1917 with a series of lunchtime talks at Dublin City Hall. The talks curated by Francis Devine examined Ireland's political and cultural reaction to the Revolution. Here you can listen back to two talks from the series.

Every day, thousands of people travel on the Red Line Luas from Tallaght or City West on their journeys to the city centre.  What many may not realise is that the Luas follows the former Main Line of the Grand Canal – now filled in as a Linear Park from Davitt Road to the Basin Lane end of St. James’s Hospital.

Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards founded the Dublin Gate Theatre in 1928 and this year its 90th anniversary will be marked with seminars, exhibitions and publications. It is worth remembering however that the duo had to share the Gate Theatre building with Longford Productions, on a rotating six-month basis.

John O'Grady was a member of A Company, 3rd Battalion, Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. He was the only volunteer from the Jacob's Factory Garrison killed in action during the 1916 Rising.Last year we were honoured to welcome Dermot Hogan, a relative of John O'Grady to our Reading Room, and he kindly showed us some of the 1916 memorabilia carefully preserved by the family for over 100 years. Pictured below is the 1916 medal awarded to John by the President of Ireland. The 1916 Medal is awarded to persons with recognised military service during the 1916 Rising. The medal is bronze and it depicts the death scene of Cú Chulainn, surrounded by a circle of flames. The reverse is inscribed "Seachtain na Cásca 1916 John O'Grady".  John's brother Charles was also a Volunteer and was involved in fighting in the South Dublin Union. Returning to the family residence on Nicholas Place following the Rising Charles met with a neighbour who sympathised with him on the death of his brother. Until that moment Charles had not been aware of his brother's fate.Here Dermot tells the story of the night of 29 April 1916 when John O’Grady died.There is a memorial to John O'Grady in St James Graveyard where he is buried. The old St James' Church is now the Pearse Lyons Distillery.Image: John O'Grady's wife Josephine O'Grady (née Gray) and mother Ellen O'Grady at his grave at St James' Church, Thomas Street. Photo: Dermot Hogan. Further readingMurphy, Sean J. 1916 Rebel John J O'Grady Buried in St James's Graveyard, Dublin. https://ucd.academia.edu/SeanMurphy.Jacob's Biscuit Factory and the 1916 Rising. Lisa McCarthy, Eneclann, Project Contract Archivist. 

In this podcast ‘William Spence: A Victorian engineer in the right place at the right time’, Cathy Scuffil, Dublin City Council Historian in Residence, looks at the history of William Spence Engineering Works Cork Street. The Cork Street Foundry and Engineering Works of William Spence and Son was established in Dublin in 1856.  It continued trading over two generations of the Spence family, with no small measure of success until 1930.  The company was situated on a large, circa 3 acre industrial site located at 105 -109 Cork Street, Dublin, on a site that, until the early 1850s, had housed the tanning and currier business of a James O’Neill, who also had a residence at 26 Cork Street.It is generally accepted that the Spence operations that evolved over the years, should be ranked among the first and finest concerns of the kind in Ireland, devoted primarily to general engineering and steel foundry. The main achievements of the company were the construction of the Birr telescope and the little trains that served the Guinness brewery, and system that was in existence in living memory.  A number of church bells located in the Liberties are also of Spence origin.Of interest were the houses constructed by William Spence for his employees at Spence’s Terrace, Cork Street and at Marion Villas – which was named for his much loved wife.  Upon his sudden death in 1907, the business passed to his son Arthur.  The company ceased trading in 1930.  ‘Plant Life’ occupies the premises today.  Image of Plant Life above from Google Maps.The Rathmines Township commemorated William Spence in a unique way which Cathy reveals during her talk. Recorded on 24 November 2017 as part of Explore Your Archive (18 - 26 November 2017). ‘Explore Your Archive’ campaign is an initiative of the Archives and Records Association of Ireland and UK which aims to raise awareness of archives, their value to society and the impact they have on individual lives.Thank-you for listening to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast. To hear more, please subscribe on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Marjorie Hasler (c. 1887 -1913) joined the Irish Women’s Franchise League (IWFL), a militant suffrage group, in 1910. She was at the frontline of the women’s suffrage campaign during its explosive pre-war years. She travelled to London in November 1910 to protest against the Liberal Prime Minister H.H. Asquith’s dismissal of a Conciliation Bill that would extend voting rights to women. The suffragists were attacked by the police in an event that became known as ‘Black Friday’. Marjorie was among those injured when her head struck a wall during the agitation. Undaunted she travelled to London once more in November 1911 where she was imprisoned for breaking government windows (the suffragists’ preferred protest strategy). She spent fourteen days in Holloway prison.Marjorie was among the eight IWFL members imprisoned in Mountjoy for breaking windows in Dublin in June 1912. She was fined £10 and sentenced to six months in jail, of which she served four. This was the longest single sentence served by any of the eight women.She died of measles in 1913 but her IWFL colleagues insisted that her injuries and imprisonment contributed to her early death. The Irish Citizen declared that Marjorie was ‘the first Irish martyr for the cause’.Marjorie Hasler believed that Irish suffragists were forced to adopt violent means in the face of public apathy and institutional hostility. She wrote in the Irish Citizen (22 June 1912): ‘We don’t like smashing glass any more than men like smashing skulls. Yet in both cases there is, I believe, a strong feeling that something must be broken before a wrong is changed into a right’.Marjorie Hasler is just one of the Irish suffragists commemorated in the exhibition ‘Suffragist City: Women and the Vote in Dublin’ at Dublin City Library & Archive. The exhibition runs throughout January and February 2018. Admission Free.Further Reading:Hourican, Bridget, ‘Marjorie Hasler (c.1887-1913)’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, vol. 4 G-J, James McGuire and James Quinn (eds.), pp. 516-7.Ward, Margaret, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: a life (1997).The Irish Citizen (available on microfilm in the Dublin City Library & Archive).  

Muckross Hockey Club was founded in 1917 by the past pupils of Muckross Park College. Over the past 100 years it has won over 30 Leinster league titles, an unparalleled 29 Leinster Senior Jacqui Potter Cup wins, a strong representation at international and provincial level and a record seven past players inducted into the Irish Hockey Association Hall of Fame.View Muckross Hockey Club Image Gallery.The Muckross Hockey Club collection comprises 70 photographs including material donated via international player Joan Priestman. It was transferred to the Dublin City Sports Archive via Peter Agnew and the Irish Hockey Archive.The photographs have been digitised and catalogued by Library Assistant, Finola Frawley.To hear more about the history of Muckross Hockey Club listen to Off the Bench podcast's "When we were Queens" episode. The Dublin City Sports Archive was established by Dublin City Library and Archive in September 2010 to provide a lasting legacy to Dublin’s term as European Capital of Sport.   It aims to  collect, preserve and make accessible to the public, records relating to sports events, clubs, sporting organisations, and records of sporting individuals, fans and players. The Dublin City Sports Archive ensures that records which reflect the rich sporting heritage of our city and county are given a permanent and secure home.