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1 July 2016 marks the centenary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme which lasted until November 1916.  Over a million soldiers from both sides were killed during the carnage, which included over 3,500 Irish soldiers fighting for the Allies in World War 1.Image:  Detail from DCLA/RDFA1.09.047A, photo of soldiers marching across war-torn area of the trenches & battlefield. Caption: "War 1914-15-16... in the Somme French Offensive Relieving the trenches at Dompierre" (see larger image).The Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association Archive held at Dublin City Library and Archive, includes the personal papers of various Irish soldiers who experienced the Battle of the Somme and all of its horrors. An exhibition based on these resources will be launched in our Dublin Room exhibition space in October 2016.  Here's a sample of some of the remarkable stories that can be researched at Dublin City Library and Archive:Frank Gunning survived the Gallipoli Campaign 1915, despite being hospitalised for dysentery. He then transferred to the 6th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers where he was second lieutenant. In June 1916, Frank was sent to France, and wrote home to say:“Well, here I am in the thick of it – and talk about Suvla Bay – why this is a thousand times worse.  The noise would put you astray in the head.  Pray for us all dear, really it is an awful spot”He was killed during the Battle of the Somme and his body was never recovered.J. P. Flanagan fought on the 1st day of the Battle of the Somme. He was badly wounded and his left arm subsequently had to be amputated. Unable to return to active service, Flanagan was discharged and awarded a Silver badge to be worn on his civilian clothes to highlight that he had been wounded in service.Edward Brierley served with the 8th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and survived the entire Somme campaign. He received three awards than three certificates for bravery in the field, as well as the Military Medal, bestowed by the British Army for acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire.Photo: RDFA/09/27 Edward Brierley seated, in uniformThe RDFA/ Monica Roberts Collection includes letters to Monica Roberts from Irish soldiers, depicting their first hand experiences of life in the trenches on the Western Front. Because of censorship, the soldiers do not always refer directly to the Somme.  However our collection stored on Digital Repository Ireland, which contains digital images and transcription of letters, has both “keyword” and “browse by date” search functionality. By comparing the database with a soldier's World War I service records available from the Ancestery.com Database in our Reading Room, it is possible to identify soldiers which are serving along the Somme battle lines.George Soper is one such individual. His letter from 28 October 1916 vividly describes the battle landscape from ‘the hottest spot in France’‘we captured the German position But my God we had some fighting to do we used nothing else only bombs and bayonets. It was proper hand to hand fighting but thank God we came out alright. I never saw this country in such a state. The ground is absolutely ploughed up you could not walk for more than 3 yards without falling into a shell hole and it is next door to impossible to get up there in the night time. We are up at present in one of the hottest spots in France. The guns are about 1 foot apart from each other. I never saw such a number of guns in all my life’ [RDFA.01.04.11] Images from the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association Archive relating to the Battle of the SommeView images on flickr.

A native of Dublin’s north inner city, ‘Tom’ Dowling was recruited in 1915, aged sixteen, to the Dublin Corporation Libraries as a junior library assistant, having achieved second place in the Libraries examination.

The following is a transcript of "Printing the 1916 Proclamation"  a talk by Dr Mary Clark at Dublin City Hall on Monday, 25 April 2016.AudioWelcome to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast. In this episode Dublin City Archivist Mary Clark talks about the 1916 Proclamation so kindly donated to Dublin City Council by the family of Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell, and tells the story of how the original signatures were chewed to a pulp by Michael Molloy. One of three talks given at a seminar held in Dublin City Hall on 25 April 2016.Good afternoon. I’d like to open this seminar by welcoming the O’Farrell family to City Hall. We are greatly in their debt as they so generously donated Elizabeth’s 1916 Proclamation to Dublin City Council, which we now have on display in the City Hall Exhibition downstairs.Of all copies of the Proclamation which survive this is one of the most historic. It was in the GPO with Elizabeth O’Farrell and she herself is one of the most heroic figures in the story of Easter week, as we will hear later on from her grand-nephew Ian Kelly. This seminar is designed to look at the Proclamation in general and at Elizabeth’s Proclamation in particular, through talks on its printing and conservation. We will also look at Elizabeth’s life and career, including her activities after the Rising and we will close with an original poem inspired by Elizabeth’s life and courage.So I’m up first, my name is Mary Clark and I’m the City Archivist and I am going to talk about printing the 1916 Proclamation. Now there is the 1916 Proclamation and obviously it’s a really historic document, but it’s also a work of art, it’s a simply beautifully object.  You can see that it sits comfortably into its frame with even margins all around, and none of the words at the end of any of the lines has been hyphenated, so it’s been extremely well-designed. This is the achievement of three men, Christopher Brady who was the printer and Michael Molloy and Liam O’Brien, who were the two compositors.  These three men worked for the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, printing up trade union cards and programmes for weekly concerts at Liberty Hall, but also getting out the weekly newspaper The Workers’ Republic.  They were used to working under pressure and meeting tight deadlines, but even so printing the Proclamation was the most important and critical task ever entrusted to them.Each of these three men gave his witness statement to the Bureau of Military History during the 1950s.  Although each man has his unique perspective, the statements dovetail in essentials. At James Connolly’s request, the three men met at Liberty Hall on Easter Sunday. According to Christy Brady, Connolly introduced them to Thomas MacDonagh, who had the manuscript of the Proclamation in his hand, which is an absolutely riveting historical moment, Thomas MacDonagh standing in front of the three men with the manuscript Proclamation in his hand. So MacDonagh said ‘Well men, the time is about opportune to strike a blow for Ireland’. MacDonagh read the Proclamation to the three men, and when he was finished, he gave it to each man to read. So they were each being empowered to make a personal decision about whether they wanted to print the Proclamation or not.  So he asked them if they would print the document each man agreed to this, reckoning that it was an honour to be asked. Liam O’Brien noted that the ‘manuscript was entirely legible, the script being upright and almost perfect, without any changes or corrections’. He also formed the opinion that the handwriting was that of Padraig Pearse, which he had seen before.That evening, Easter Sunday evening, work began on typesetting the Proclamation.   The type that was used has been obtained on Good Friday by Michael Molloy, who was asked to find more type by James Connolly, without being told exactly what it was going to be used for. So Michael Molloy went to Stafford Street where there was an Englishman by the name of West, who was a printer, and he asked for type and he then said if you don’t give it to me I’m afraid I’ll have to take it. So with that Mr West handed it over, but he said that he wanted it back, so when you’ve used the type please bring it back to me. But of course, as we know, that never happened. The type was in fact smashed up by the British Army when they raided Liberty Hall during Easter Week.However, once typesetting began, on the evening of Easter Sunday, it soon became clear that there was a shortage of type, and to remedy this smaller letters, mainly the letter e were used in between the larger ones.  There is a tradition in the family of Councillor Patrick V. Mahon that the smaller letters were obtained from him, as he had a printing works around the corner but I have not found any verification of this – certainly the three men who worked on the document do not mention it.  Christy Brady also made a new letter by converting F to E using sealing wax. The document was ready for printing around 8.30pm and between 12 midnight and 1.00am on Easter Monday, the task was finished with a total of 2,500 copies made. Now that number of copies is what is stated by Christy Brady, and as the printer of the Proclamation he should know. On the Internet you are going to find all kinds of different numbers given, but the total of 2,500 is what is believed to be true.Because of the shortage of type, the document was printed in two parts, using a Wharfedale cylinder printing press. James Connolly checked the proofs against the original manuscript Proclamation. So on Easter Monday morning, the Proclamation, the manuscript Proclamation was still in Liberty Hall. And apart from the incorrect spelling of Eamon with one N instead of two, he pronounced himself satisfied.  As far as I can make out, this is the last known sighting of the original manuscript Proclamation. Where it is, if it has survived nobody knows. However, the seven signatures were on a separate piece of paper appended to the document and Michael Molloy put them in his pocket for safe keeping.  When he was later imprisoned in Richmond Barracks, he remembered that he had the signatures in his pocket and that this would be dangerous if found.  He began to tear up the paper but a fellow-prisoner advised him to chew the paper up instead and spit it out on the floor for added safety, so Molloy followed his advice. So that was the end of the seven signatures to the 1916 Proclamation.When the Proclamation was ready, the 2,500 printed copies were brought by Helena Molony to the General Post Office, which was to be the centre of the 1916 Rising.  Sean T O Ceallaigh, who was aide-de-camp to Patrick Pearse, was charged with arranging for the Proclamation to be pasted up around the city on walls and boards – wherever possible.  There are around thirty extant Proclamations left out of 2,500 and people wonder why so few have survived.  The historian Lorcan Collins tells a very good story about the nurses in the GPO making a bed out of comfy Proclamations to prevent their patients from lying on the bare floor. There were just so many Proclamations that it was felt that these few wouldn’t be missed. And certainly the Proclamations pasted up around the city centre would have been torn down by the British Army or else in time worn away by the weather. Even as early as 1917, the first anniversary of the Rising, Helena Molony was concerned that the Proclamation was in danger of being forgotten, because there were so few copies of it.  It’s interesting that she decided to have facsimiles made for distribution around Dublin. She just didn’t have any, or very few from 1916 - so she just needed more. She asked Tower Press to prepare these facsimiles and when they reported having a shortage of type, same problem a year on. Helena found some type still intact from the 1916 printing in Liberty Hall and she gave it for inclusion in what is knows as ‘The 1917 Proclamation’.As for the three men involved in printing the 1916 Proclamation.  Christy Brady went home but after three sleepless days he headed out to Howth, where he had a tent, the tent seems to have been there in permanence and he tried in vain to relax in his tent.  He then walked home to Little Mary Street as no trains or trams were running.  There he noticed some ‘shawlies’ pointing out his house to the British military and he decided to go on the run and he was on the run for six months.  He escaped capture, but his father, who was also a printer, was arrested on suspicion of having been involved in printing the Proclamation. So he was mistaken for his son and arrested. After working for various printers, Christy Brady got a job with the Bank of Ireland in 1922.  He lived firstly in Cabra and later in Dundrum, dying in December 1974 at the home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor.  Michael Molloy served during the 1916 Rising with the Irish Volunteers under Thomas MacDonagh in Jacob’s Factory. So once they had finished printing the Proclamation they started to get involved in the 1916 Rising. Liam O’Brien served in St Stephen’s Green.  Both men were interned at Knutsford and afterwards at Frongoch, and were released some months later.So that’s the amazing story of how this beautiful object was created. So I’m just going to show you one or two things that I think are interesting about it. This is the first line of the Proclamation Poblacht na hÉireann. This word Poblacht is very important. It means of course Republic. But it was the name chosen by the signatories for the 1916 Rising to express what they meant by Republic. Poblacht is a portmanteau word and it is pobal acht, so it’s the 'actions of the people'.  And it is much more meaningful than the word Republic, which is from res publica, in latin 'public things'. So there is a great deal more impact in the Irish, it means 'people acting together' and that’s what a republic really is all about. So I just think their choice of word is very important there.Now you will see a couple of capital letters there. If you look at ‘Irish Republic’ you will see that the ‘r’ is slightly banjaxed, if you can see that there. That is a proof that this is an original Proclamation, because the type was indeed banjaxed and this flaw runs right through all of them. And if you look at the other end of it, the ‘c’, that is an ‘o’ which has been cut, not particularly well I must admit, to create a ‘c’ out of it, so you can work that one out. This is the first incidence of the small letter e that I was able to find in the Proclamation and it’s in the third paragraph. You can see quite a difference between the e and the rest of it and it’s quite likely that this was a letter e that was actually fashioned by the type setters in order to continue on the story.‘Extinguished’ has a small letter ‘t’ - there you see that, and also at the very end of the word [extinguish]‘hed’ it’s actually a letter ‘a’ with the tick deleted. You will see a number of ‘e’s together there. A correct ‘e’ in ‘the’ but then ‘three’ has two small ‘e’s and ‘hundred’ and ‘years’ have small ‘e’s as well. And you can also see in the ‘r’ of ‘years’ that it was originally a ‘p’ and a little bit has been cut off to try and make it look like a ‘r’, the same with ‘three’ there.I just thought this was too good to miss for my final comment, ‘sovereign independence date’ and this, of course, is what the men and women of 1916 fought and died for, and it something that we need to maintain for present and future generations. Thank-you very much. 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.

A native of Dublin’s north inner city, ‘Paddy’ Stephenson (known to his family as ‘Paddy Joe’) was educated by the Christian Brothers at the O'Connell School, North Richmond Street.

A native of the Clogher Valley in Co. Tyrone, Róisín Walsh was born into a staunchly nationalist, Catholic family on 24th March 1889. Walsh was a brilliant linguist and gifted scholar and received the best education then available to females.

A native of Dublin’s inner city, 'Tommy' Gay was educated at Synge Street CBS. His early life coincided with the political and cultural revival of the late nineteenth century and he became very active in a range of sporting and cultural organisations, including the GAA and the Gaelic League.  A keen sportsman, he was a member of the Croke Gaelic Club where he became an accomplished hurler and was also a founder member of the Dublin Camogie Club.Right: Thomas E. Gay (1884-1953)As Gay himself later explained it, these organisations ‘gave impetus and new life to the revolutionary movement’.  He started in the Corporation libraries as a library assistant at the then newly-opened Charleville Mall Library in line with the practice of recruiting 16 year old boys.  By April 1916 he was already a mature 32-year-old man, established in his career as Capel Street Head Librarian and engaged to be married.In September 1914, he enlisted at ‘A’ Company of the 1st Battalion of the Dublin Brigade at the Columcille Hall in Blackhall Street, Stoneybatter. From that time he drilled regularly with his company and attended field manoeuvres near Swords under commanders such as Thomas MacDonagh and Piaras Béaslaí. By early 1916 Gay had learned from his company First Lieutenant, Denis O’Callaghan that ‘a Rising was to take place early in the year.’ Under orders to parade in full kit on Easter Sunday, Gay, by his own account, turned out as instructed, but on learning of MacNeill’s countermanding order he then returned home. Gay spent Easter bank holiday Monday 24 April at the Fairyhouse races (where rumours of the fighting in Dublin reached him).  Returning late on Monday night he had no way of knowing where his company was garrisoned.A pragmatic man, by Tuesday morning he decided to report to the post nearest to his home. This was at Jameson's Distillery in Marrowbone Lane under Captain Con Colbert, who, because he had enough men inside the Garrison, decided that Gay, because of his keen knowledge of the area, should be deployed instead in an intelligence and communications role between the Jameson's Distillery Garrison and Jacob’s Biscuit Factory.To all appearances Gay was ‘a mild mannered and innocuous bookworm’, and had a particular ability to make himself unobtrusive and so avoid suspicion. This was therefore a role to which he was well suited and, as he later recalled, ‘to which he was to become more and more attached’ (his subsequent service up to 1924 was almost exclusively in an intelligence capacity).He went on to provide vital assistance from the Tuesday right up until the surrender on the following Sunday. Reporting in daily, he brought in crucial supplies of arms, ammunition, medical and other supplies, updating Colbert regularly on enemy movements. By the Thursday he observed the advance of a troop of the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire regiment (the Sherwood Foresters) coming along the South Circular Road from the Harcourt Street direction, heading towards Rialto. This was most likely the advance of the 2nd Battalion, 18th Regiment of the 2/8th Sherwood Foresters who were ‘detailed to escort a consignment of ammunition to the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham’. Gay immediately forewarned Colbert who was able to alert neighbouring garrisons and frustrate the British offensive.Colbert had instructed him to organise the urgent movement of food supplies from Jacob's factory; Gay went there on the morning of Sunday 30 April, when Thomas MacDonagh was already discussing terms of surrender. Major John MacBride, who was second in command to MacDonagh, instructed him to communicate the verbal surrender  back to the Distillery where Captain Séamus Murphy was standing in for Colbert.  Murphy ordered Gay back to Jacob’s to request the order in writing. MacBride refused vehemently, stating that he had never and would never put in writing an order for an Irishman to surrender and that they would know when they saw the flag coming down from their building that the surrender had taken place.Gay avoided capture in the aftermath of the surrender.  He subsequently became an Intelligence Officer on the General Headquarters staff of the Irish Volunteers, reporting directly to Michael Collins. Interrupting his library career for a time, in 1922 Gay joined the National Army, rising by 1923 to the rank of Colonel, again in an intelligence role. His place of work, Capel Street library became a centre for IRA intelligence, and his home at Haddon Road, Clontarf was frequently used by Collins for meetings.About our Guest BloggerEvelyn Conway is Librarian at Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive.The above is based on an essay in the book 'Dublin City Council and the 1916 Rising', published by Dublin City Council, March 2016. Evelyn is one of a number of contributors of essays exploring events of the Rising and biographies of persons involved and either employed by the Council at the time, or subsequently. Read this recent blog post for more.Part of a series looking at Dublin City Public Libraries staff and the 1916 Rising. See also:Róisin Walsh: Dublin City’s first Chief Librarian and the RisingPaddy Stephenson: Dublin City Council's second Chief Librarian and the RisingJames Thomas Dowling – Dublin’s County Librarian and the RisingMichael McGinn: The Clontarf Town Hall Caretaker and the RisingJames O'Byrne: The Kevin Street Librarian and the Rising 

Dublin City Council holds an original 1916 Proclamation which belonged to Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell and was kindly donated by her family.  This Proclamation has been conserved and is now on display in The Story of the Capital exhibition at City Hall. To commemorate the family’s generosity, Dublin City Council held a seminar in the Council Chamber at City Hall on Monday 25 April 2016.

This new publication looks at 1916 in central Dublin, an area which formed the backbone of the 1916 Rising. We know that many of the men and women who fought in the 1916 Rising were from the north inner-city area with 287 of those who fought in the GPO alone hailing from this part of the city.

Dublin City Council had a strong connection to the 1916 Rising through the involvement of elected members and Dublin Corporation employees, while the City Hall was a garrison building, held by the Irish Citizen Army. A new book, Dublin City Council and the 1916 Rising, published on 9 May, is the first detailed study of the impact of Dublin City Council on the 1916 Rising and in turn its effect on the council. The thirteen essays in this book, researched and written by experts in their field, explore the events and strategies leading into and following the Rising as it concerned the City Council.The book features biographies of 151 persons who were involved in the Rising and were either employed by the Council at the time, or subsequently. This wide-ranging book is essential for a complete understanding of the Rising.A number of elected members of Dublin City Council fought in 1916, including Councillor Richard O’Carroll, who fought with the Irish Volunteers at an outpost of Jacob’s Factory. Two of the men executed after the Rising – Eamonn Ceannt and John MacBride – were council employees. Ceannt, also known as Edmund T. Kent, was a valued employee in the Rates Department, while Major MacBride was the city’s Water-Bailiff. City Hall, the Corporation’s premier building, was garrisoned on Easter Monday by the Irish Citizen Army under Captain Sean Connolly, who in civilian life was an official in the Motor Registration Department; his brother Joseph Connolly, a member of Dublin Fire Brigade, fought with Michael Mallin and Countess Markiewicz at the College of Surgeons. Ever concerned with delivering information services, staff of Dublin Public Libraries also played an active role in communications during the Rising.The contributors are Sheila Carden, Shay Cody, Evelyn Conway, Donal Fallon, Las Fallon, David Flood, John Gibney, Anthony Jordan, Conor McNamara, Martin Maguire, Thomas J. Morrissey SJ, Seamus Ó Maitiú, Lawrence White, Padraig Yeates.The book is edited by John Gibney, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and the author of several books on Irish history. He has been a research fellow at the University of Notre Dame and NUI Galway. In 2012 he produced the acclaimed RTÉ Radio 1 documentary The Animal Gangs (broadcast July 2012) on the folklore of inner city Dublin. He has worked in heritage tourism in Dublin since 2001.The book is available from Four Courts Press and other bookshops.

The archives of Kevin Street Library were accessioned by Dublin City Library and Archive in 2012. It is an important collection for exploring the history of Dublin Public Libraries, Cumann na Leabharlann, and also includes materials relating to the 1916 Rising and the Emergency Period in Ireland. The collection has recently been catalogued, with part-funding provided by Dublin City Council Decade of Commemoration Fund.  The Kevin Street Library archives can now be accessed by members of the public in the Reading Room of Dublin City Library and Archive.Kevin Street Library ArchiveOpened in 1904, Kevin Street Library was built after Dublin Corporation was encouraged to buy a plot of land on the street. With John Whelan as its first chief librarian, it is an example of the trend to provide free access to books to the citizens of the city. This collection contains material on a schools scheme, which provided free books to schoolchildren and material from the Dublin Technical Schools, both showing how the libraries resources were used to provide better access to reading materials for the citizens of Dublin. The library also subscribed to magazines which covered many different areas of interest from motors, travel and economics as well as Irish interests with Irish Monthly and An T-Oglach available to read. What the collection also tells us is the difficulties that the library encountered in its early years. Railway strikes meant that coal could not be delivered to heat the library. The outbreak of the First World War meant a reduction in reading material due to paper shortages. The library had to adapt to different functions due to outside factors including displaying pamphlets sent from London which encouraged men to join the war in Europe. The Soldiers and Sailors Family Association also had weekly meetings in the library throughout the duration of the conflict. The Irish Civil War also forced the library to adapt a new role when it was asked to be an aid dispensary due to the Peter Street Dispensary being occupied by soldiers. While providing us with an insight to the running of a public library in the early twentieth century, this collection also offers an insight into how the difficult political landscape at the time affected the library and the people who used it.Easter RisingWhile most of the Easter Rising material in this collection is made up of letters sent by members of the public, explaining how the rising prevented them from returning books they loaned, they give an insight into how the rising affected people's routines and lives. A letter from a Mr T.L. Townshend for example, asks the library to reprieve a woman of paying a fine for a late book due to the book being destroyed along with her house during the conflict. Another letter from a former employee of the library was written to notify the library of the death of her husband, who was killed in the Custom House during the events. A letter sent by Eamon O’Duibhir is of significance as it was sent from Reading Prison, a prison that was used to hold many who took part in the rising. The letter mentions that Henry Dixon was also imprisoned there. Dixon along with John Whelan was central to the foundation of Cumann na Leabharlann, the Irish Library Association. Dixon had been a campaigner for Irish industry and culture from the 1880s onwards and was involved in many republican organisations set up to preserve Irish traditions.Cumann na LeabharlannCumann na Leabharlann, or the Irish Library Association in English, was established in 1904 The collection contains the constitution and rules of the association, of which the first objective was to promote the establishment of public libraries and reading rooms. Thomas W. Lyster, who was Vice President of the association and also Director of the National Library of Ireland, originally voiced his concerns in a letter from February 1900 that the time wasn’t right for such an association to be set up but that he strongly believed that such an association should be set up eventually and recommended that the constitutions of the American Library Association and the Library Association of the UK be looked at as templates for the proposed constitution for the Irish Library Association. Lyster is later named as being a Vice-President of Cumann na Leabharlann. A letter written by author John DeCourcy MacDonnell is also included in the collection where he voices his approval of such an association being set up. With the Public Libraries (Ireland) Act of 1902 allowing rural districts to set up public libraries, Cumann na Leabharlann played an important role in making this happen. Letters from around Ireland are included in the collection that highlight the difficulties but also the successes of setting up these public libraries across the country. An Leabharlann, which was the association’s journal was also central to the aims of the association with a cover of the first edition included in the collection. View a small sample of documents from the Kevin Street Library Collection on flickr. The FutureDublin City Public Libraries announced in 2013 the commencement of works to refurbish Kevin Street Library. As highlighted through the archives, Library services have seen enormous change over the years. Kevin Street Library is in need of refurbishment works to accommodate the requirements of a public library beyond those envisaged when the building first opened in 1904. View more information about Kevin Street Library refurbishment project.About Guest bloggerKevin Healion is an archivist with Eneclann.