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We are delighted to announce that Cathy Scuffil, Historian in Residence with Dublin City Council (South Central area) has been awarded a silver medal by the Old Dublin Society for her paper on the South Circular Road on the eve of the First World War.  Professor Frank Barry from Trinity College Dublin presented the medal to Cathy on 21st June and praised her research which she undertook initially for an MA in Local History from Maynooth University.  Cathy brings her knowledge and love of history to groups and schools all over the Crumlin, Ballyfermot, Dolphin’s Barn, Walkinstown, Kimmage and Dublin 8 areas of the city. Some information about the Old Dublin Society medal:The Old Dublin Society was founded in 1934. Ten years later, the President at the time, Dr George Little, gave a silver medal for the best paper read by a member at one of the Society's meetings and published in 'The Dublin Historical Record'. This was known as 'The President's Medal' and this continued until Dr Little’s resignation in 1955. The Council then decided to continue awarding the medal, but calling it 'The Society's Medal'. Since 2016 articles submitted for publication by non-members of the Society are now eligible for the award as long as they feature original research on aspects of the history of the city and county of Dublin. The medal is now awarded for the best paper published in 'The Dublin Historical Record' in a calendar year, the winner being decided by majority vote of the Council.

Mellows bridge, situated towards the Heuston Station end of the quays, sits on the site of one of the oldest bridges in Dublin city. The original was built in 1688, was named Arran bridge and it collapsed in 1763. Its replacement, completed in 1768, was known as the Queen’s Bridge and has been renovated several times since. In the post-independence rush to rebrand structures with imperial connections, the Dublin Municipal Council renamed the bridge after Queen Maeve of Connacht in 1922. In 1942, the National Graves Association successfully petitioned to change the name to Mellows bridge, marking both the death of Barney Mellows in February 1942 and the 20th anniversary of the execution of his brother Liam. Born in Manchester in 1892, William Mellows was the son of a British army sergeant and his family moved to Ireland in the early 1900s. He attended the Hibernian Military School in Dublin but soon both Mellows brothers became heavily involved in the republican movement, starting with Na Fianna, before graduating to the Volunteers and the IRB. William soon abandoned his first name, choosing the more appropriately Gaelic Liam, and lead the Galway Volunteers during the 1916 Rising. After returning from the US in 1920, he chose the anti-Treaty side and was captured in the Four Courts in June 1922. While being held in Mountjoy Prison he was appointed Minister for Defence in de Valera’s shadow cabinet but was one of four prisoners executed in reprisal for the killing of TD Sean Hales in December 1922.   On 25 May 1942, following a procession from St Stephen’s Green, members of the National Graves Association and the Old Fianna Association assembled to hear a speech from Nora Connolly, daughter of James. Connolly pointedly remarked that Mellows’ vision of Irish independence was freedom from ‘foreign oppression and domestic exploitation’. A plaque was also unveiled on the bridge, dedicated to ‘Liet-General Liam Mellows’, reflecting his high status in the republican movement. Mellows bridge remains the oldest bridge over the Liffey and commemorates one of the most fascinating characters of the revolutionary period in Ireland.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.

In the run-up to the referendum to repeal the 8th Amendment in May 2018, a mural appeared near the George Bernard Shaw pub in Portobello, Dublin. The mural by Aches graffiti artists depicted Savita Halappanavar who died in Galway University Hospital in October 2012 following a septic miscarriage. Dublin City Library and Archive photographed some of the messages that were left at the Memorial Wall so that a record of these transient notes might be preserved for future scholars and historians on what was a transformative event in Irish social history.

The following political cartoons come from the United Ireland and the Weekly Freeman and the National Press, Irish nationalist newspapers that commented on the last few decades of nineteenth-century Ireland. These cartoons illustrate Irish nationalist sentiments at the time by commenting on political events and figures, in particular the Home Rule Movement, the Land War, and the 1892 General Election.

Despite declaring neutrality when the conflict broke out in September 1939, Ireland came under aerial attack several times during the Second World War. Most of the incidents happened in 1940-41, while the Luftwaffe was attacking British cities and trying to degrade their air defences. In August 1940, three people were killed by German bombs in Campile, County Wexford, while more fell in Sandycove, County Dublin in December of the same year.

This flyer is an extract from a speech given by Fr. Michael O’Flanagan to 10,000 people at Ballyjamesduff, Co. Cavan on Sunday May 26, 1918. O’Flanagan mentions the arrest of De Valera, the suppression of Arthur Griffith’s newspaper, and the ‘poison-gas of lies’ spun by ‘the Little Welsh spider’ (Prime Minister David Lloyd George) against the Irish people in the ‘German Plot’.Over 70 members of Sinn Féin had been arrested that month as part of this alleged plot. They were accused of conspiring with the German Empire to stage an armed rebellion in Ireland. O'Flanagan's clerical status exempted him from the round-up and in the second half of 1918 he operated as acting leader of Sinn Féin's political activities. The censor refused to allow even one word of the speech to be published, but it was later printed and distributed by Sinn Féin from their office at 6 Harcourt Street. History Document of the MonthEvery month the Dublin City Council Historians in Residence will be highlighting a document from Dublin City Public Libraries and Archives Digital Repository.  An image of the selected document will be on display in branch libraries during the month.Historians in Residence are available to meet groups and schools, give talks, walks etc, run history book clubs and advise on historical research. 

It is fitting on International Nurses Day 2018 to remember one of the most notable figures in Irish nursing before and during the First World War. Katherine Elizabeth Middleton Curtis was born in London in 1860 and married to the noted Engineer and Merchant William Charles Middleton Curtis. Moving to Ireland, she became a member of the Blackrock Nursing Division of the St John Ambulance Brigade in Dublin and was a regular contributor to the Irish Times on nursing and medical matters. Always an innovator, Kate was involved in various public initiatives to raise public awareness of hygiene and health; she ran first aid courses for women from 1911 and was also involved in Kingstown ‘Health Week’, held in April 1913. Kate was one of the best-known members of St John Ambulance and noted in her diary on 20 October 1914 that she was also ‘the oldest ambulance lady in Ireland.’Kate was matron of the Convalescent Home for Soldiers and Sailors at Temple Hill House in Blackrock, taking up the post in October 1914. She remained in place until April 1915, when it was converted into an Auxiliary Hospital for Service personnel. Temple Hill was one of 70 such centres in Ireland during the war and it specialised in orthopaedic services for injured service personnel. Originally it had 20 beds but was later expanded to 36 and over 500 patients passed through the building during the war. Kate kept an autograph book of her time in Temple Hill which was signed by many of the soldiers she cared for.Kate Middleton Curtis died on 29 January 1918 of appendicitis, aged 58. Her legacy lived on after the war in the Kate Middleton Curtis Cup, awarded annually to winner of the St John Ambulance First Aid competition. Her personal papers were donated to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Archive at Dublin City Library and Archive and can be consulted in the reading room in Pearse Street.The Kate Middleton Curtis collection can be view online at Digital Repository Ireland.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. See Also: Listen back to Women of the Brigade: Pádraig Allen, St John Ambulance Ireland discusses some women of St John Ambulance who contributed to the war effort during the First World War.

From working in munitions factories, V.A.D. nursing, supporting the war effort through charitable works, and leading the anti-conscription movement, World War 1 led to a multitude of different experiences for Irish women. In this talk Pádraig Allen looks at some women of St John Ambulance who contributed to the war effort during the First World War.

Bhain slua maith taitneamh as seo ó Ghuthanna Binne Síoraí (Everlasting Voices) ar Lá Filíochta na hÉireann, Déardaoin, 26 d’Aibreáin i mBliain na Gaeilge, 2018. Bhí filíocht ó WB Yeats curtha i láthair i mbéarla agus Gaeilge ag Cathal Quinn, Acadamh Lir agus seinnteoir, Enda Reilly. D’aistrigh Gabriel Rosenstock na dánta ó bhéarla go Gaeilge.We celebrated Poetry Day Ireland, 26 April and Bliain na Gaeilge with a great event, "I Hear It in the Deep Heart’s Core" with Guthanna Binne Síoraí at Dublin City Library and Archive.

As illustrated in the ‘Doing their Bit: Irish women and the First World War’ exhibition, women played a central role in the British wartime propaganda campaign, which aimed to both engage the public with the war effort and to persuade volunteers to join the forces. News of German atrocities against Belgian and French civilians were widely reported in the press, with the treatment of women often being emphasised, as this example from the Freeman’s Journal in December 1914 shows.The case of Edith Cavell provided the British government with a propaganda coup which was exploited heavily. Born in December 1865, Cavell was the matron of a nursing school in Brussels when the First World War broke out. Following the German occupation of the city in November 1914, Cavell became involved in providing refuge for escaping Allied prisoners of war and often aided their flight. She was arrested by the German forces in August 1915 and charged with treason; tried by a military court-martial, she was found guilty and, despite the international community pressurising Berlin to commute her death sentence, she was shot by firing squad on 12 October 1915. The execution of Cavell, as well as the press reports of German violence against civilians and the sinking of the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland in May 1915, featured extensively in Allied propaganda. The below postcard from the Monica Roberts collection in Dublin City Library and Archives is typical of the time: Cavell’s status as a martyr is highlighted by the fact that she is depicted still wearing her nurses uniform when executed.Image. Postcard from Monica Roberts Collection, ref RDFA 1.09.135Such propaganda filtered through to the frontline and was often quite effective. Private Joseph Elley, 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers wrote in a letter home in November 1915 that the execution of Cavell was a ‘brutal affair’ and that ‘All the boys will never forget things like that if they get the chance.’ |Letter DCLA/RDFA1.03.038 from Pte Joseph Elley to Monica Roberts ref RDFA 1.03.038 (page 5 and 6 of letter) 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.