Blogs

A remarkable collection of photographs held at Dublin City Library and Archive brings Dublin of the late 20th century to life. The Donal McEnroe Photographic Collection, comprising some 17,000 images, puts the spotlight on life in the capital from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. Covering people, places, events, transport, shops, social issues and Dublin by night, the collection captures everyday life in the city.

The 18th annual Sir John T. Gilbert Commemorative Lecture, 'Dublin as a global city: through time and space' was given by Kevin Whelan, Director, Keough-Naughton Institute, Notre Dame Centre in Dublin at the Dublin City Library & Archive on Thursday 22 January at 6pm.A slideshow of photographs from the event is posted below. A recording of the lecture will be posted soon. 

A specially commissioned dance performance for 10-15 year olds took place in the Ballyfermot Library. See video below.Video: Paul DalyThis specially commissioned children’s dance event for both schools and the public was choreographed by dancer Maria Nilsson Waller. During this specially commissioned performance, Ballyfermot Library was transformed into a playground, for one of our most iconic legends of all times - Orpheus and Eurydice.Journey took place in Ballyfermot Library on the 20-23 of October 2014.It formed part of the Children’s Art in Libraries Programme.A second video of the event is posted below, and was produced by the artists themselves.AboutChoreography: Maria Nilsson WallerMusic and Video: José Miguel Jimenez and Maria Nilsson WallerPerformers: Lucia Kickham and Neil Brown

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

The period 1914 to 1918 was the last time Ireland was involved as a combatant in war on an international scale. Though we cannot say that Ireland has been a country at peace, during the past hundred years it has not suffered from the fear of invasion, the loss of thousands of young lives and the hardship of full-scale war.

The following is a transcript of The Underestimated Mr. Wesley: Charles Wesley 1707 - 1788 given by Dudley Levinstone Cooney at Dublin City Library & Archive on 18 December 2007, the 300th anniversary of the birth of Charles Wesley. AudioWelcome to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast.  In this episode, The Underestimated Mr Wesley, Dudley Levinstone Cooney discusses Charles Wesley, leader of the Methodist movement and younger brother of John Wesley. Wesley is primarily remembered as a writer of hymns including the Christmas favourite Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. He was also one of the most prolific poets in the English Language. Recorded in front of a live audience at Dublin City Library and Archive on 18 December 2007 to mark the tercentenary of Charles Wesley's birth.Alastair Smeaton, Dublin City Public Libraries: Today, as you all know, 18 December is the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Wesley. I’m told by a reliable authority that this is the one event that takes place on the tercentenary that is being run by a body other than a church authority; we are pleased to host this occasion. Our speaker tonight, the Reverend Dudley Levinstone Cooney is president of the Wesley Historical Society in Ireland; he is president of the Old Dublin Society and as a historian and writer, The Methodists in Ireland: a short history springs to mind. Dudley Levinstone Cooney is pre-eminently qualified to deal with the subject of his lecture this evening, Charles Wesley. Ladies and gentlemen, Dudley Levinstone Cooney.[Applause]Dudley Levinstone Cooney: Thank you Alastair for that introduction. Thank you for coming. Can I say that as you came in you were listening to some music composed by Samuel Wesley, the son of Charles and played by the Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton. So we were setting the scene with some Wesley music.  I also want to thank a number of people who have been most helpful to me: the curator of The New Room in Bristol, which is also responsible for Charles Wesley’s house in Bristol, who provided a number of photographs; the Dublin City Libraries who provided a number of photographs and Martin Thorpe who made the maps that you will see in due course, marking the places that Charles visited during his time in Ireland. My warm thanks to Alastair himself who put all these illustrations together. This is the first time that I have tried to use PowerPoint. If anything goes wrong it’s not their fault; it’s mine.Considering the lavish encomiums which have been bestowed on him as a poet and hymn writer, it may seem strange to describe Charles Wesley as underestimated. The fact remains that he is generally remembered by Methodists as well as by others, simply as a hymn writer.  In his brief obituary in the minutes of conference of 1788, John Wesley wrote of Charles, 'his least praise was his talent for poetry'. Before we have finished we will consider some evaluations of his verse, but even here there are reasons for believing that he has not been fully appreciated. Writing near the end of his life to his friend, the Reverend Dr William Chandler, who was about to leave for America, Charles made this revealing comment:I took my Master's Degree, and only thought of spending all my days at Oxford. But my brother, who always had the ascendant over me, persuaded me to accompany him and Mr. Oglethorpe to Georgia. I exceedingly dreaded entering into holy orders: but he overruled me here also.The dominance of John was in part due to the fact that he was the elder by four and a half years, but certainly also owed something to the difference in character of the two men. It seems to have continued through the years since their deaths. That Methodists have failed to give Charles due credit, is certainly due to two factors of which we must take account and which are not to his discredit. One was his withdrawal from the itinerant ministry; the other was his opposition to those actions of John which paved the way for the separation of the Methodist Societies from the established church and their development as a distinct denomination.Charles Wesley was born at Epworth, in the Isle of Axholme in the North Riding of Lincolnshire on December 18 1707. He was the eighteenth child of Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth and his wife Susanna. His birth was two months premature so that at first he appeared rather dead than alive. He neither cried nor opened his eyes and was kept wrapped up in soft wool until the time at which he should have been born according to the course of nature, when he opened his eyes and caused his voice to be heard.  To this has been ascribed the fact that he never enjoyed robust health and his recurrent illnesses reduced the amount of travelling he was able to undertake. His physical frailty did not affect his mental capacity and by the age of five, he had not only mastered the English language, but had begun to read the first verses of the Book of Genesis.  Like all the Wesley children he received his first lessons at home, his teachers being his father and mother. In 1716, at the age of eight, he went to Westminster School, where his eldest brother Samuel, then aged twenty-six was a teacher. Samuel helped to pay his fees and gave support and encouragement to him, becoming something of a second father to his little brother.  Charles was a bright student, excelling in Biblical knowledge and acquitting himself well in Greek and Latin verse. At the age of thirteen he became a King’s Scholar of the school, as had Samuel before him, and in his final year was captain of the school. He was not only a good scholar he was also popular with the other boys. One of his contemporaries was a Scottish lad called William Murray, whose parents were Jacobites. A bully used this as an excuse to pick on Murray and make his life miserable. Charles Wesley, even then a champion of the underdog, came to Murray’s defence and fought the bully. Murray never forgot his champion, and in later years when as Lord Mansfield he was as Lord Chief Justice of England, renewed his friendship with Charles.Before he left Westminster a distant cousin in Ireland, Garret Wesley, having no children to inherit his estate, wrote to the Rector in Epworth, offering to make Charles his heir. The family left the choice to Charles, who surprisingly for the youngest son of an impecunious family, turned down the offer. Garret approached a cousin on his mother’s side, Richard Colley, who accepted. Richard was the father of the 1st Earl of Mornington, Professor of Music in Trinity College Dublin, who we shall meet again in Charles Wesley’s London drawing room.Charles went up to Oxford in 1727 and entered Christ Church, where both of his brothers Samuel and John had been before him.  To the disapproval of John he spent his first year at the university enjoying the social round.  Whether or not John’s admonitions had more influence than Charles was ready to admit, or he simply tired of wasting time, in the second year he became a reformed character, his letter to Dr Chandler has this:My first year at college I lost in diversions. In the next I set myself to study. Diligence led me to serious thinking. I went to the weekly Sacrament, and persuaded two or three young scholars to accompany me.This was to have far-reaching implications. When John was recalled to Oxford to take up his tutorial duties as a fellow, Charles apparently readily deferred to his seniority and better qualifications and John assumed the leadership of the group. It studied the Bible and patristic writings, as well as classical literature and began regular practice of the rules in the prayer book concerning worship, fasting, and works of piety. It was this that earned them a variety of derisive nicknames including the best known, the ‘Holy Club’ and ‘Methodists’. Charles’ reference to the latter nickname in the letter to Chandler, has led some to suggest that he was individually averse to be called a Methodist, but recent research has established that the name was not coined until after John had assumed the leadership. It was applied to the whole group.Having graduated BA in 1729, and received a college appointment as tutor in Oxford, Charles would happily have stayed there for the rest of his life, but John was becoming discontented. Chiefly because the young undergraduates were too sophisticated and irreligious to join the ideal Christian community, which John envisaged for the ‘Holy Club’.  His courtship of two young women in succession had come to nothing and he was being criticised for his encouragement of a measure of asceticism. Then he saw a way of escape. General James Oglethorpe was looking for clergy to assist him in the management of the new colony of Georgia in North America, of which he was proprietor, and John Wesley thought it might be possible the ideal community among the unsophisticated natives of the place. He persuaded Charles to come with him but first to be ordained. However reluctant Charles may have been, he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford, Dr John Potter on Saturday, September 21 1735 and priest by the Bishop of London, Dr Edmond Gibson on Sunday, September 29. Yet somewhere in the back of his mind there leapt a sense that he had been frogmarched into holy orders by his brother, and the letter to Chandler would suggest as much. Events were to prove that John’s judgement was sound. Charles’ subsequent career fully justified his ordination.Within three weeks, on October 14th, the Wesley brothers and two companions, Charles Delamotte and Benjamin Ingham, embarked on the Simmonds for Georgia. It took over sixteen weeks to cross the Atlantic. Sixteen weeks of rough winter weather, with at least one storm in which the passengers were sure that the ship would go down and all would be drowned. The effect of the voyage on Charles is reflected by the words with which he opened a letter to Sally Kirkham, the eldest of the three daughters of the Rector of Stanton in Gloucestershire and sisters of one of the members of the ‘Holy Club’. Dated from the isle of Tibey in Georgia on February 5, 1736 it opens:God has brought an unhappy, unthankful wretch hither, through a thousand dangers, to renew his complaints, and loathe the life which has been preserved by a series of miracles. I take the moment of my arrival to inform you of it, because I know you will thank Him, though I cannot.As he continues to write his spirits begin to lift and he leaves off after several paragraphs. When after an interval of nine days he resumes the letter off Peeper’s Island he is more cheerful:My friends will rejoice with me in the interval of ease I at present enjoy. I look with horror back on the desperate spirit that dictated those words above, but shall let them stand as the naked picture of a soul which can never know reserve toward you. I will still call myself a prisoner of hope.When eventually they landed the brothers were separated. John remained at Savannah as chaplain to the settlement there. As Oglethorpe’s secretary, Charles had to accompany the General, about eighty miles, one hundred and thirty kilometres to the south, where Fort Frederica was being built. If Savannah, the chief settlement was then little more than a village, Frederica hardly qualified as a village at all. A measure of homesickness, the isolation of the situation, the monotony of the work and having to deal with the rough colonists who were so very different from the people to whose company he had been accustomed, undermined his health. A disagreement with Oglethorpe completed the breakdown and Charles was obliged to face the rigours of a voyage back to England across the Atlantic once again between August and December 1737. The picture of Charles preaching to the Indians is a piece of Methodist propaganda. It has no foundation in actual fact.Brother John was hard on his heels. He too had failed to relate to the rough settlers of Savannah and he had seen few, if any of the Native Americans. His dream of the ideal Christian community in the wilderness had proved impossible and in December he too left Georgia arriving back in England in February of 1738. Both men came home with a sense of failure. However, on the Simmonds going to Georgia they had encountered a group of Moravians, by whose assured Christian faith they had been deeply impressed. They continued to meet the Moravians in Georgia and when they got back to London made a point of meeting some Moravians led by Peter Böhler there. The stage was set for dramatic religious experiences which changed the lives of both men. Interesting that it should happen in what was then quite a rough city.The story of John Wesley’s evangelical conversion, as it is generally called, has become much better known than that of Charles, though Charles had the experience three days before his brother.  The breakdown of himself in Georgia was not helped by the religious tension in which he lived for several months after his arrival back in England and in the early part of May he was confined to bed. On May 11 he moved to the house of John Bray at Little Britain, close to Aldersgate Street, but was so weak that he had to be carried in a chair. He describes Bray as, 'a poor ignorant mechanic, who knows nothing but Christ'. He was in fact a craftsman working in brass. Charles received the sacrament on Friday and Saturday, May 19and 20 but his dejection in no way abated. It was John Bray and his sister Mrs Turner who were instrumental in leading him to assurance that he needed and by the middle of Pentecost Sunday, May 21 the young Charles could write, 'I now find myself at peace with God'. His brother John found the same assurance on the following Wednesday, May 24 at a Moravian meeting in Littleton Court, off Aldersgate Street, while one of the Moravians was reading Luther’s Preface to his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.For the next fourteen months, the Wesley brothers maintained their links with the Moravians, forming a society in Fetter Lane. For three months, from the middle of June to the middle of September 1738, John left London to visit the Moravian centres of Marienborn and Herrnhut in Germany - Herrnhut was the estate of their leader Nicolas, Count von Zinzendorf. John was anxious to see Moravian faith in practice as the headquarters from which groups of families and individuals had been sent as missionaries to plant societies in Holland, England and North America. While he was away, Charles threw himself into the work of the burgeoning evangelical revival in London. He preached in whatever Church of England churches were prepared to welcome him, visited the prisons, and in an unofficial role of chaplain accompanied condemned felons to their execution in Tibourne. When pulpits were closed to him because of his zeal he took field preaching. This is a Methodist term for preaching outside a church or preaching house and need not necessarily take place in an actual field - market-places or crossroads, barns, assembly rooms, sessions houses or market houses - all were used. For a few months he served as curate to the Reverend George Stonehouse at Islington - the only curacy he ever held. Stonehouse was sympathetic to Charles’ evangelicalism but yielded to pressure from two bullying church wardens and Charles was dismissed.During 1739, a spirit of quietism grew among the Moravians, its more extreme exponents advocating that people should wait quietly doing nothing, not even attending religious meetings until moved by the grace of God. John Wesley believed that the way to wait for the grace of God was by using the means of grace – the sacrament, public worship, Christian fellowship, bible reading, private devotion and works of charity. On July 20, he and Charles left the Moravians with about seventy like-minded people and established a new society in the old king’s foundry at Windmill Street, behind City Road, which had been vacated only a short while before when the Royal Arsenal moved to Woolwich. From this base John Wesley began the frequent and extensive tours of England that developed the connection of Methodist Societies, which in time became the Methodist Church. John maintained this itinerating ministry for more than fifty years. For the first ten years, Charles participated fully in this work, of which the main bases were in London, Bristol and Newcastle-on-Tyne. However, his less robust health necessitated some reduction of both the frequency and the extent of his travels beyond the main bases.In 1747, John paid his first visit to Ireland visiting a society which had been formed a little earlier in the year. His meetings were held in the disused Lutheran chapel in Marlborough Street. He stayed for just two weeks and then left John Trembath to take charge of the society. Within days the building had been attacked by a mob and the furniture and timber wainscoting carried into the yard where the mob set it alight. Trembath wrote fearfully to John assuring him that, “Nobody was fit to be a preacher in Ireland who was not ready to die at a moment.” John felt unable to return to Ireland immediately and proposed to send Charles. He wrote to the younger man asking for a meeting at Garth in Breconshire in the home of Marmaduke Gwynne who had become a Methodist. It was to be a momentous meeting in more ways than one. Charles got to the venue first and while waiting for John became better acquainted with the Gwynne family, including one of the daughters, Sarah. She was to be the love of his life but there was no time for wooing.  The situation in Dublin was critical and to Dublin Charles accordingly went.His letters to Ebenezer Blackwell reveal the two main problems which he had to face, one was the number of people who were afraid to attend any more Methodist meetings in case of another attack and the second was the lack of premises. Not surprisingly the trustee of the Lutheran chapel Dorothea Felster asked the Methodists to go before any more damage was done to her property and nobody else would give them house or room. In little more than three weeks Charles’ calm and courage and the fact that there had been no more riots, restored the confidence of the society and a new premises had been found. This was a disused weaving shed at Cork Street in the Dolphin’s Barn area which was adapted to accommodate Methodist meetings. It provided living rooms for the preachers which delivered Charles from the conditions of his first lodgings, he had written to John a dryly humorous description of these: “A family of squalling children, a landlady just ready to lie-in, a maid who has not time to do the least thing for us, are some of our conveniences.”The mixed reactions of the people of Dublin were perhaps reflected in one of Charles’ letters, dated October 25, which served also as a journal, and was meant to be shared by his correspondents in England:Passed three hours under my usual burden, among the dry bones of the house of Israel at St. Patrick’s. How different the spirit here from that of our chapel in London. I seldom enter this place, but the zealots are ready to drag me out like that old profaner of the temple, Paul. Such murmuring, disputing, railing and loud abuse the very sight of me occasions, but I can compare the house of God to nothing but a den of thieves and murders.  The Dean indeed I must except, and give honour to whom honour is due. He has always behaved towards us with great courtesy and love; looks pleased to see us make up the bulk of the communicants; appointed us a seat for ourselves – but the underling officers soon thrust us out; and constantly administers the sacrament to me first as the order of our church requires.In later years, the Dean William Cradock invited John Wesley to assist him in the administration of the sacrament but there is no record of his extending the same invitation to Charles. It was probably too early in the development of Methodism in the city for that. In the afternoon of the same day he went to a service in St Catherine’s Church in Thomas Street and in the evening conducted the opening of a new preaching house in Cork Street, where the congregation was so large that only a quarter of them would fit inside, so Charles moved out into the garden, standing with his back to the wall. He estimated that over a thousand people were present. Estimates of open air functions tended to err on the high side. It was in this building that Samuel Handy of Coolalough in County Westmeath was persuaded to hear a Methodist preacher, was convinced of their value and invited them to make his house the base for work in the Irish midlands. Within a very short while, societies had been established at Templemcateer, Tyrrellspass, Philipstown (now Dangan), Tullamore, Moate and Athlone.The portrait you are looking at by the way is roughly what Charles looked like at the time when he was here in Ireland.Good reports from the preachers who went to these places and from Mr Handy made Charles eager to see for himself. And on February 8 1748 he set out from Dublin. He remarks that as they rode to Tyrrellspass, he and his companions overtook a lad “whistling one of our tunes”. Arriving at Tyrrellspass they were welcomed by the local landlord Stephen Fois. He addressed the local society there, some of whom expressed their satisfaction in a way peculiar to them - they whistled for joy. On the following day he visited Templemcateer and on February 10 took horse with six companions to Athlone. Samuel Handy and his brother Jonathan rode at the front. At one point on the road, three or four men ordered them to go back to where they came from and threw stones. One of the preachers John Healy was knocked off his horse and Stephen Fois was struck on the head, but Samuel Hendysetting spurs to his horse, led a charge which scattered the enemy. When the authorities in Athlone heard of the incident they ordered the solders from the barracks in the castle to guard the visitors. Charles preached in the market house. Visits to the other towns were without untoward incident.On March 8 John Wesley landed in Dublin for this second visit and Charles was free to return to England for a few months. John toured the midlands societies, further consolidating the work there, as well as in Dublin, and returned to England in May. Charles came back to Ireland in August and this time stayed with William Lunell, who had been John’s host and who had recently lost his wife and baby son in childbirth. In the interval two of the preachers, Thomas Williams and Robert Swindells had introduced Methodism into Cork City. I think that’s a lovely name for a Methodist preacher, Swindells (laughter). On August 18, Charles set out on his longest Irish tour. At Ballyboy, some miles south of Tullamore, he was welcomed by a friendly Quaker whom he does not name, but in whose house a number of people gathered to hear him preach. On the following day he road through heavy rain on roads reduced to quagmires and stopped to eat at Roscrea. Here the people would not let him leave town until he had preached to them. By evening he had reached Cashel, where he stayed for the night but could find no means of drying his clothes. He reached Cork on August 20 and stayed there for almost a month in the house of a printer named Harrison. He found 200 members in the Methodist society and noted with satisfaction the improvement in the manners of the citizens since the arrival of the Methodist preachers. This was not an illusion. It was also observed by a young Quaker woman who wrote to her family making the same comment.Charles rode out to Riverstown to call on the Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork and Ross, Dermot Brown. Brown and his family received him with great affability. While staying in Cork he ventured into some of the neighbouring towns. At Bandon, he preached at both ends of the town. In Kinsale he writes, 'it is worth observing that I am of every religion; the Presbyterians say I am a Presbyterian, the churchgoers that I am a minister of theirs, and the Catholics are sure that I am a good Catholic at heart'. In Youghal he preached on the Strand and at Middleton the Town Hall could not contain the numbers that wished to hear him. Listening to preachers was obviously a form of entertainment in those days. From Kinsale, he wrote happily to Ebeenzer Blackwell, ‘rejoice with me for I have found the sheep that was lost. And not one only but a whole flock of them’.It was eight months after Charles had left Cork that a rascally ballad mongernamed Nicholas Butler fomented a succession of riots against the Methodists from which they suffered considerable personal injury and damage to property. The grand jury to whom they appealed to help, turned on them and accused the victims of being the cause of the trouble. ‘We found and present’ they said, ‘Charles Wesley to be a person of ill-fame, a vagabond and a common disturber of his Majesty’s peace and we pray that he may be transported.’ Remember these are members of the established church describing an ordained priest of the established church. When the Assize Judge saw the disreputable quality of the witnesses against the Methodists, he threw the charges out of court.Charles left Ireland in October 1748. On arrival at Holyhead, wrote to William Lunell, in the course of his letter describing the horrors of his voyage across the Irish Sea. ‘The water in Dublin Bay was so rough that it took two hours for the small boat by which the passengers were embarking to get from the quay to the ship.’ Charles was seasick for the whole journey and rather curiously blamed some cake he had eaten rather than the storm. First the main sail was carried away by the force of the wind, and then the master of the ship was blown overboard and seen no more. After two days of this the ship got safe to harbour. Fascinating description of a safe journey! Charles never again went on a sea voyage.Charles had continued his courtship of Sarah Gwynne by correspondence and occasional visits to Garth when he was not in Ireland. The fact that he was now forty-one and she was only twenty-two was not considered a difficulty as in the eighteenth century it was quite common for women to marry men considerably older than themselves. There was however, one difficulty. As would have been the case with most parents the Gwynnes were reluctant to agree to their daughter marrying a man with no settled income, Charles did not even have a curacy.  John Wesley solved the problem by guaranteeing Charles an income of £100 a year from the sale of their hymns, most of which came from Charles’ pen. An income of £100 a year in 1749 had the purchasing power of about £14,000 or €20,000 300 years later. It was not wealth but neither was it want.The wedding took place at Llanlleonfel Church, a mile from Garth and six miles from Builth Wells on what is now the A483. It was conducted by John Wesley. To mark the occasion, the happy bridegroom wrote a hymn opening with the lines ‘Thou God of truth and love, we seek thy perfect way’. The third verse originally read:Didst thou not make us one,That both might one remain,Together travel on,And bear each other's pain;Till both thy utmost goodness prove,And rise renewed in perfect love?For the word ‘both’ in lines 2 and 5, John substituted the words ‘we’ and ‘all’ respectively and published it in his collection of hymns. As such it has been happily sung by generations of Methodists as a hymn of fellowship, blissfully unaware that it was originally a wedding hymn, first sung at the wedding of Charles himself.Charles and Sarah set up house at number 4 Charles Street in Bristol. Here over a period of nineteen years, eight children were born, of whom five died in infancy and were buried in the nearby graveyard of St James’ Church. The eight were John, Martha Maria, Charles, Sarah called Sally, Susannah, Selena, Samuel and John James. In 1753, Sarah Wesley caught smallpox which so marred her features that the disparity of her own and her husband ages was no longer apparent. It was from her that the infant John caught the infection and died before his first birthday.It was after his marriage that Charles began to withdraw from the itinerating ministry that Methodism had demanded of him.  To some degree he was beginning to be nervous of some of John’s activity, which he clearly saw would eventually lead to the separation of Methodism from the Church of England, and this Jackson sees as the most significant factor in his withdrawal. This was something John would not see. But there was also the fact that Charles was now a happily married man with a family. There was a kernel of truth in the caustic wit of the eccentric rector of Everton in Bedfordshire, John Berridge, who commented, ‘No trap so mischievous to the field preacher as wedlock. Matrimony has quite maimed poor Charles and might have spoiled John and George if the wise master had not sent them a pair of ferrets’. (laughter) John Wesley and George Whitefield were both married to shrewish wives.The picture is of Charles’ house no. 4 Charles Street, Bristol and the statue of him outside the New Room. Of the three surviving children of Charles and Sarah Wesley, the girl Sally had some literary talent, and Routley detected ability as a cartoonist in at least one of her sketches, but it was her brothers, Charles Junior and Samuel whose gifts had the greatest impact on the family. Their musical genius became evident at a very early age. Their uncle John and their father had both been competent singers but Uncle John had never had much appreciation of music for its own sake. He saw it more as a convenient vehicle for the words of a hymn. Charles, the father of the two boys had a greater musical appreciation and was able to play the organ but the talents of his son went far beyond that. He began to realise that Bristol was too small a place for their development and in 1771 the family moved to London. They took up residence at No. 1 Chesterfield Street, off the Marylebone Road, then on the fringes of the city. It had been the home of a Mrs Gumby, whose lease had still twenty years to run. She gave the house free of charge to Charles and Sarah richly furnished and completely ready for occupation. The cellars were well-stocked with wine and even with barrels of table beer.It was in the drawing room of this house that Charles organised subscription concerts at which his sons could display their talents. Among those who attended was distant cousin Gareth Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, son of the Richard Colley who had inherited the estate Charles had declined fifty years before. Lord Mornington brought his violin and joined the boys in playing. Another who came was General James Oglethorpe, differences in the colony of Georgia long forgiven and forgotten. Among the leading musicians who encouraged the lads were Thomas Arne and William Boyce. As is not unusual with child prodigies neither boy in later life quite fulfilled the promise of his early years, though Samuel was recognised as the leading organist of his day in England. His great contribution to English musical appreciation was his popularising of the work of Johan Sebastian Bach, indeed one of his sons was known as Samuel Sebastian Wesley.The last years of Charles’ life was spent in an unremitting struggle to keep the Methodist Societies within the Church of England. He was shocked and saddened when in 1784 his brother John ordained ministers for America. He could not accept the theological arguments by which John justified this action. It has been said that Charles showed his love for the church by supporting it, John by trying to reform it. To Charles John’s action was separation, though the Methodists in England did not organise themselves as a separate church for ten years, by which time both Charles and John were dead. But in spite of these deep disagreements, Charles did not abandon either his brother or the Methodist Societies, continuing to preach in Methodist chapels whenever he had opportunity. Whatever else may be said about the Wesley brothers and sisters, differences of opinion never destroyed their love for each other. Rutter’s comment is apposite, ‘Charles represented the law opposition on many organisational matters.’Charles died on March 20 1788 in his eighty-first year. His mother Susanna had been buried in Bunhill Fields, the great London dissenters’ burial ground and his brother John had prepared a burial ground behind the Methodist chapel in City Road. But these were not consecrated ground as the Church of England understood it and Charles was a churchman. He chose that his body should be buried in the churchyard of the parish of Marylebone, where he had lived for seventeen years. There thirty-four years later, his beloved wife Sarah joined him, having lived to the age of ninety-six. There too the mortal remains of their musical sons were laid, Charles Junior in 1834 and Samuel in 1837.In our survey of Charles Wesley’s life there have been indications of the ways in which he has been underestimated. We must look a little more closely at these. He was, as we have observed a strong churchman, but that did not make him any less a Methodist. Throughout his life he was loyal to the primary view that the Methodist societies were part of the life of the established church and that to be a Methodist was to be more devoted and more conscientious in membership of the church. He did far more for the early Methodists than teach them to sing theology.He travelled less than his brother John in the interests of the work, but that was primarily due to his less robust health and not to any lack of enthusiasm. The serious debility from which he served on his return from Georgia was largely psychosomatic prompted by his sense of failure to achieve the purpose of his going there. The evangelical experience of Pentecost 1738 removed the sense of failure and the debility went with it. He found the energy to throw himself into the work of the revival. However, the physical weakness remained to reduce the amount he could do, though not the effectiveness of it. We have looked in detail at the record of his time in Ireland which was quite evidentially spent very energetically. One of his supporters has claimed that he planted Methodism in Ireland with a tenacity that caused it to remain and flourish. That is to overstate the case. He did some pioneering in the small towns of County Cork, but in the Midlands and in Cork City others had been there before him. Had he not come to Ireland the Dublin Society would have taken longer to rally after the initial mob onslaught, but the patient work of John in the course of twenty further visits through the following forty-eight years and the devotion of the early preachers sent from England and more recruited in Ireland itself, would have been sufficient to develop the work. Nevertheless Charles must be given credit for the speedy recovery of the Dublin Methodists in 1747 and for responding immediately to the invitation from Samuel Handy which opened the way into the provinces.It is hard to assess Charles as a preacher, but so it is of John. But one thing is certain that the 151 sermons John published were not the sermons that so deeply affected the general public. They were drafted for highly educated congregations or as teaching material. The few accounts which have survived of John’s field preaching indicate what would today be called a much more populist style. Of Charles’ sermons virtually nothing survives. The manuscript of six in his handwriting upon examination proved to include transcriptions of five by John. An examination of style has suggested that one of John’s 151 was originally by Charles. In all probability the brothers were unconcerned about who wrote which sermon as they were about who wrote which hymn; if it was good they published it. The only thing that we can be certain about is that Charles was an effective preacher and his pulpit and field preaching did much to build Methodism in England, Wales and Ireland. It is fitting that both brothers are commemorated in Westminster Abbey with their portraits on the one tablet. It is also fitting that Common Worship, Services and Prayers for the Church of England, published in 2000, includes in its calendar, a letter festival, May 24 John and Charles Wesley, evangelists, hymn writers.John R Tyson’s study led him to believe that Charles Wesley was an important theologian, often underrated. Tyson of course was studying Charles. In fact the same comment would be true of both John and Charles. The Calvinist discipline which predominated in Europe and American theology through much of the 20th century tended to dismiss both of the Wesleys as poor theologians whose position changed from time to time.  More recently theologians have began to re-evaluate the Wesleys, to recognise their apparent changes as the evolution of the experiential element in their thinking. And to perceive that this experiential approach offers the root into the 21st century thinking outside the church that is alienated by the rigidly deductive method. It is difficult to distinguish Charles’ theology from that of John and this is yet another evidence of how closely the brothers worked together. The main distinction lies in the media through which they communicated. John wrote sermons and tracts, Charles wrote poetry. It might be said that John wrote primarily for the head, Charles appealed to the heart. An example may be found in one of Charles’ hymns for the sacrament:Come, Holy Ghost, thine influence shed,And realize the sign;Thy life infuse into the bread,Thy power into the wine.Effectual let the tokens proveAnd made, by heavenly art,Fit channels to convey thy loveTo every faithful heart.Wesley does not intend to suggest in the third and fourth lines that different things happen to the bread and wine at the epithesis, the words life and power are used for poetic effect. The verses together make a powerful appeal to both the emotions and the understanding and are clear about the real presence without attempting to define it. Langford’s assessment of the theology of the two brothers is well balanced. It seems safe to attribute to John the primary role as theologian of the Methodist movement. Charles served as supportive, encouraging and propagandising role to and for John. The preface to the Methodist Hymn Book of 1933 opens with the words, ‘Methodism was born in song’.We must now turn to a consideration of Charles Wesley as a poet, but before we do one other point needs to be made: Charles the propagandist is Charles the poet and his flair as teacher of the faith lay in his ability to make theology singable. People remember songs long after they have forgotten verse or prose. Music is the finest aid to memory. It was in singing the hymns of the Wesleys that the Methodists learned their Christian doctrine. It has been said that Charles wrote between 6,000 and 7,000 hymns, but until comparatively recently it has been virtually impossible to say. Between 1988 and 1991 S.T. Kimborough Jr and Oliver A Beckerlegge completed the mammoth task of compiling and publishing in three volumes the unpublished poetry of Charles Wesley. That facilitates the task of counting and it has been computed that he wrote just a little under 9,000 poems. Given a productive period of fifty years, it averages 180 poems a year or more than three a week. When one takes account of the fact that he did not always maintain that average, his output was prodigious. But how many of these were hymns? What is a hymn? His poems fall into five broad classes; political, comment on current events, love poems, poems written for fun with children and religious poems. Even within the religious category, which is by far by the largest, the calculation will depend on how one defines a hymn. Is a hymn a poem capable of being sung by a congregation or does it only qualify if it has been actually sung in a worship service?Charles began writing verse before his evangelical experience. In the Epworth Rectory his father, his mother, his brother John and his sister Hettie all wrote verses and at least one critic has suggested that Hettie was the best poet of them all. The writing of verses including translations from the classic authors was part of the curriculum at Westminster School. In his years at Oxford and afterwards, Charles wrote a good deal of verse in the manner of Dryden and Pope. Poems that have survived from this period give evidence of his classical scholarship and his poetic talent. Beckerlegge asks the question why Charles has been so neglected by anthologists of English verse. He comments, ‘one can only assume the precious taste of so many very literary men prevented their ever knowing the work of one whom they probably thought of in their ignorance as being a mere evangelist or even a revivalist’.His classic scholarship did not desert him when he came to writing hymns and Baker has written of his, ‘Miltonic facility for incorporating polysyllabic Latinate words into his verses in a way that enhances the verbal music’. The lines he gives as examples are ‘incomprehensibly made man’, ‘inextinguishable blaze’, ‘concentred all through Jesu’s name’. John Lawson has done us considerable service by tracing the biblical references in about 150 of Wesley’s hymns demonstrating how many scriptural allusions there are in each verse. That does not suggest Charles sat down to write hymns with an open Bible, rather it is evidence that his youthful study of the bible was so thorough that its language came to him naturally and references fit seamlessly into the poetry.In the writing of hymns, Charles was profoundly influenced by the German carols to which the Moravians introduced him. But he was evidently alert to the significance of congregational singing and Shields believes that he actually wrote with tunes in mind. If that be so one must not forget that in the early hymn books music was not printed with the hymns and each congregation sang the hymns to any tunes they knew which fitted. It was possible to sing the same hymn with half a dozen congregations to as many different tunes. There is a story told of Charles preaching in West Cornwell and being interrupted by a group of drunken sailors singing the lewd ditty ‘Nancy Dawson’. Charles told them that he liked the tune but not the lurid lines and suggested that if they would return later in the day he would have a song for them all to sing together. The challenge drew a large crowd to the second meeting and Charles passed around the text of his defence of Christian hymnody “on the true use of music” which they all sang to the tune the sailors had bawled earlier in the day. Stories such as this have given rise to the idea that all of Charles’ hymns were written to tunes that were already popular. But that is only true in so far as many could be sung to ballad tunes likely to be known to the congregations. What is quite extraordinary is the variety of verse forms which Charles used. Hymns and Psalms, the hymn book currently in use in Methodist Churches in Britain and Ireland carries 150 hymns by him and they are written in twenty-eight different verse forms.It should not of course be forgotten that Wesley described his Collection of hymns, for the use of the people called Methodists as ‘a little body of experimental and practical divinity’. He was borrowing from the Dissenters who generally used their hymn books in Routley’s phrase as “word in Roman Catholicism’ they were intended as much to be read and prayed, as sung.If the verse anthologists have underestimated Charles Wesley, the hymnologists and musicologists have not. Dr John Julian in his Dictionary of Hymnology described him as perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration ‘the great hymn writer of all ages.’ W.J. Courthope in his History of English Poetry called him, ‘the most admirable devotional lyric poet in the English language.’ Bernard Manning gave high praise to A collection of hymns, for the use of the people called Methodists almost entirely Charles’ work.Today these hymns have to struggle against three disadvantages; the first is the limited repertoire of the average congregation; the second is the heresy spread by the advertising media that the latest is best and the dead have nothing to offer; the third is the demand for gender inclusive language and the modernising of the personal pronouns, that may not do much damage to the prose of the liturgy but it does seriously damage poetry. In the long run John Wesley has proved quite correct when he wrote, ‘Many gentlemen have done my brother and me, though without naming us, the honour to reprint many of our hymns. Now they are perfectly welcome to do so provided they print them just as they are but I desire they would not attempt to mend them, for really they are not able’. Thank-you[Applause] Thank-you for listening to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast. To hear more, please subscribe on iTunes or SoundCloud. You can also visit our website - dublincitypubliclibraries.ie and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Dublin City Council has acquired a unique Dublin Fire Brigade Ambulance log-book which covers the period of the Easter Rising, 24-29 April 1916. The log-book relates to Tara Street Fire Station and records hour-by-hour the response of the Dublin ambulance service to those injured in the Rising.

Ancestry Library Edition is now available for consultation free of charge in the Reading Room of Dublin City Library & Archive. Among other items, this contains official records for the First World War, including: British Army World War I Service Records 1914-20British Army World War I Pension Records 1914-20;British Army World War I Medal Rolls Index Cards 1914-20;UK Soldiers died in the Great War 1914-1919It is a very useful resource if you are searching for Irish soldiers in the Great War. 

There is a goldmine of information and untold stories within the collections of Dublin City Archives.  This STORYBOX created for Explore Your Archive Week 2014 gives examples of how we can use a variety of different archival collections to uncover the history of a particular area or street across different centuries. The STORYBOX focuses on examples of archival sources which relate to Parnell Square (previously known as Rutland Square), one of Dublin’s finest Georgian Squares. The original items referred to below can be viewed by calling to Dublin City Library and Reading Room in person.Please bring photographic id with you on your first visit so that we can issue you with a research card.Explore Your Archive Box from Archives & Records Association on Vimeo.Source 1: Wide Street Commission Minute Book 1789-1790 (WSC/Mins/09) and the Wide Street Commission Map CollectionThe Collection: The Wide Street Commission established by an Act of Parliament in 1757 was the first urban planning authority in Europe. Its function was to provide “Wide and Convenient Streets” for Dublin and it had extensive powers to acquire property by compulsory purchase, develop new streets, demolish buildings and impose design standards on building lots which were sold to developers. The Commission had a major impact on development of Georgian Dublin between 1757- 1851Storybox Item: The Minute Book of the Wide Street Commissioners show details of a meeting held on 27 March 1790 in which plans for new street to be built between Rutland Square and Dorset Street are discussed. The new street is to be called Fredrick Street and the adjoining Barley Field is also to be developed. See:  WSC/Mins/09  pp 179-180 and pp 208.Related Records: The Wide Street Commissioners produced over 900 maps in the course of their work, many of which have been conserved and can be viewed at our Wide Street Commission Maps Image Gallery.  The WSC Map collection includes WSC/Maps/327 and WSC/Maps/245/1-2 which relate directly to the development of Barley Field and Fredrick Street in the vicinity of Parnell Square in 1790.  These three maps were conserved in 2014 with funding received from the Heritage Council of Ireland under the Heritage Management Grant Scheme 2014.WSC/Map/245/1 includes a map of proposed new street adjoining Rutland Square and a survey of the Barley Field with details of rental agreements and leaseholders.Further Research: A vast collection of records relating to Wide Street Commission (including maps, minute books, deeds & leases, architectural drawings) are held in Dublin City Archives. These records can help uncover the history of many streets and buildings within Dublin City. Search and browse the Archive of the Wide Street Commission Maps online. Source 2: Dublin City Archaeological Archive/ Moore Street/Parnell Street, Dublin 1 (98E0357) CollectionThe Collection: The Dublin City Archaeological Archive was established in 2010 to preserve the records created by archaeologists during and after an excavation.  It can include items such as maps, drawings, find sheets, photographs, slides and reports which provide important information on a site –and these records are particularly significant if the site is subsequently developed over.DCAA.01.06 related to an excavations carried out by Edmond O’Donovan of Margaret Gowen & Co. Limited on a block at the north-eastern corner of Moore Street and Parnell Street between January and April of 2003 in advance of the construction of a hotel and other retail outlets by Shelbourne Developments.Storybox Item. DCAA.01.06/Box 1/Folder 6: Archaeological Excavations Moore Street/Parnell Street, Dublin 1 Report- Edmond O'Donovan (24 May 2004)The final report describes the four phases of activity uncovered at the site: 1) the medieval phase, 2) use of site as brickfield in early eighteenth century, 3) construction of Georgian Houses between 1750-1770  and 4) occupation & alterations of site from 1770 to 2003. One of the most significant finds at the site was a wooden toy boat c.1750-1780.Further research: There are summary details of all DCAA collections available on our website, with full collection lists available on the Dublin City Archaeological Database in the Reading Room. Artefacts found during excavation are deposited with the National Museum of Ireland.Source 3: Dublin City Council Minute Book 1911The Collection: The indexed Dublin City Council Minutes (1841 –1997) record the various meetings of the municipal authority. Many buildings and streets (public and residential) are discussed. In some cases the streets under discussion may also be referred to in the Dublin City Council Reports (1841 –1997).Storybox Item: Dublin City Council Minute Book 1911The Minutes of meeting held on 12 June 1911  record that the postponement of the motion ‘…that the names of Rutland Square and Cavendish Row be changed to Parnell Square in recognition of the services to Ireland of the great Irish chief, Charles Stuart Parnell”. See item 455, p 321.The Minutes of meeting held on 9 October 1911, record that a letter was submitted by the Secretary, Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, embodying a protest from the Governors of that institution against the proposed changing of names of Rutland Square and Great Britain Street. See item 718, p 484.Further Research: Dublin City Council Minute Books (1841 –1997) and Dublin City Council Reports (1841 –1997) are available in the Reading Room.Source 4: Dublin City Council/Voters Registration Book, 1939-1940. Volume 3About: Electoral Lists (also called Voters' Registration) list the names and addresses of people eligible to vote in Dáil elections, local elections and from the 1970s in European Elections. The Franchise section within Dublin City Council is responsible for the production of the register of electors who reside within the Corporation's administrative boundaries.  The information contained within electoral lists can be used to complements and supplements sources such as Thom’s Street Directories & 1901 and 1911 Census to identify residents of a street at a particular time.Storybox item: Voters Registration Book, 1939-1940. Volume 3, Electoral Lists for Parnell Square East, Polling District-HH, Registration unit- Rotunda, pp39-43.Further Research: Electoral Registers from 1908-1983 (with some gaps) are held by Dublin City Archives and are accessible to the public in the following ways: Electoral Registers for 1908-1912 and 1915 have been digitised and made fully searchable and can be viewed for free online at databases.dublincity.ie. Electoral registers for 1937-1964 have been digitised and made fully searchable and can be viewed on databases in our Reading Room. Electoral Registers from 1965-1983 can be viewed in hard copy format in the Reading Room and are searchable by address only. Source 5: Dublin City Interiors of Importance, Volume 5Collection: In 1983 Dublin Corporation commissioned An Taisce to carry out a survey to identify buildings whose interiors might be worthy of ‘listing’ under the provisions of the Local Government (Planning and Development Act) 1976.  The results of this survey were published in six volumes titled Dublin Interiors of Importance (William Garner, editor) in the mid-1980s. The volumes provide written descriptions, floor plans, photographs and survey notes of some of Dublin’s most familiar buildings, especially of Georgian or earlier design.Storybox Item: Dublin City Interiors of Importance, Volume 5 includes floor plans, photographs and notes for No. 4 Parnell Square, No. 18-20 Parnell Square,  No 22 Parnell Square and No. 33 Parnell Square.  See pp 74-79.Further Research: All six volumes of Dublin Interiors of Importance can be viewed in the Reading RoomSource 6: Dublin City Council Development Plan 1999The Collection: Dublin City Development Plans have been a statutory requirement under various Local Government Planning Acts since 1963. The plan sets out policies and objectives for the development of the City over a six year period. It reflects consultation with the general public and other interested bodies. The making of the Dublin City Development Plan, Local Area Plans, any variation of a plan and any material contravention of the plan is a function reserved to the elected members of the Council.Storybox Item: Dublin City Development Plan 1999 contains reference to Parnell Square on pp74, 144, and 242.Further Research: Dublin City Council Development Plans 1955 –2011 can be accessed in the Reading Room. The Dublin City Development Plan 2011-2017 and the proposed new Dublin City Development Plan 2016-2022 can be viewed on the Dublin City Council website. See also www.parnellsquare.ie which has a wealth of information on the history of Parnell Square and on the project to develop the Parnell Square Cultural Quarter.

'Becoming John Gray', a talk by Jerusha McCormack as part of Dublin: One City, One Book 2010.