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This week I have had the great pleasure of visiting Massachusetts and presenting a paper at the annual national meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies held in Boston. It was my second time attending such a gathering, having also presented a paper on Dublin poet Maeve Cavanagh MacDowell two years ago, when ACIS met in Kansas City, Missouri. This time around I spoke about the life of Dora Maguire, another woman who happened to be profiled in R. M. Fox’s 1935 book of essays Rebel Irishwomen.Whereas the likes of Maud Gonne and Countess Markievicz became legends in their own lifetimes, Dora Maguire (1889-1931) was perhaps the most obscure of Fox’s dozen ‘Rebel Irishwomen’. A friend of the author, she died aged forty-one in February 1931 after years of ill-health. During my paper I spoke about Maguire’s upbringing in England and the north of Ireland, time spent in Blackburn and London during the First World War (when she worked as a nurse and developed suppressed diphtheria and tuberculosis), decision to move to Ireland around the time of the War of Independence, and employment at St. Ultan’s Children’s Hospital in Ranelagh during the 1920s.I then focused at length on her arrest in 1925 over an incident at the Princess Cinema in Rathmines. Evolving into an ardent republican during her adulthood, Maguire was indignant at the time about the screening across Dublin of short films concerning the Prince of Wales’ recent dominion tour of South Africa. Entering the “Prinner” – as the Princess Cinema was known to locals – on 6th August 1925 with an inkpot hidden on her person, Maguire stood up and hurled her makeshift missile over the heads of the theatre orchestra as soon as the offending picture was shown, causing considerable damage to the screen and generating newspaper headlines.Surviving foyer plaque from the Princess Cinema, the scene of Dora Maguire's arrest in August 1925. Known locally as "The Prinner", the cinema closed its doors in 1960 and was demolished in 1982 (Photograph courtesy of Carol Dunne, Dublin City Libraries).This incident is the focus of The Spirit of Dora Maguire, an historical comic strip by Dublin artist Aidan J Collins. Some artwork from this creation, which came about in 2018 following a talk I gave in Dublin on Maguire’s life the previous year, can be seen below:Blueprint still from an animated video by Aidan J Collins. This is based on one of the panels from his 2018 historical comic strip The Spirit of Dora Maguire (Courtesy of Aidan J Collins).On Monday 20th May 2019 I will be teaming up with Maeve Casserly (Historian in Residence, South East Area) for a joint talk about Dora Maguire and St. Ultan’s Children’s Hospital at Rathmines Public Library. The event starts at 6:30pm and all are welcome to attend.Dr. James Curry, Historian in Residence, North West Area.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. 

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.

On Wednesday, 27th May 2015, Dublin City Council's Public Library Service took possession of a copy of a rare eye-witness account of the outbreak of the 1916 Easter Rising. The account was in the form of a letter written by Elsie McDermid (seen on the right), a popular opera singer of the era, to her mother in England on the occasion of Elsie's visit to Dublin. She was in Dublin to perform in Gilbert and Sullivan shows at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. However, the performances were cancelled as a result of the dramatic outbreak of the Easter Rising on Monday 24th April 1916. Elsie wrote a 26-page letter and in it she related, among other things, the digging of trenches in St Stephen’s Green and eye-witness accounts of the first casualties on the streets of Dublin.Visit the 'Elsie McDermid Letter' Image Gallery or view PDF version below.The letter, which includes Elsie’s hand-drawn maps of Dublin during the Rising, now forms part of a personal 1916 archive owned by Elsie’s nephew Colin McDermid.Colin visited Dublin in May 2015 and donated a digital copy of the letter to Dublin City Public Libraries. The copy formed an important part of the 'Citizens in Conflict: Dublin 1916' exhibition at Dublin City Public Library and Archive, Pearse Street (January to mid-June 2016). We are delighted to say also that the letter and related material is now available online (follow Image Gallery link above). Read more about the donation of the letter at the Mansion House on the 27th May 2015.The letter begins “We are living in stirring times. I am writing this to be posted if there is any post office left and will keep it till I know it will go.” Elsie McDermid kept the letter and other souvenirs of 1916, including shell casings and postcards, which her family preserved. The letter has never been published in historical accounts of the Rising but it and the other items in Elsie’s 1916 archive featured on the BBC's 'Antiques Roadshow' in the Spring of 2015.Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive would like to extend a sincere thanks and its appreciation to Colin for the donation.Elsie McDermid made her stage debut in Covent Garden in 1914 and had a London stage career well into the 1920s. She performed leading roles in many Gilbert and Sullivan classics including ‘The Pirates of Penzance’, ‘The Mikado’ and ‘The Gondoliers’. She also performed roles in Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ and Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’. Born in Middlesbrough in 1889, she died in Eston, North Yorkshire, in 1933.Visit the 'Elsie McDermid Letter' Image Gallery or view PDF version below. The Elsie McDermid 1916 Letter - Usage StatementOwnership of the Elsie McDermid Letter resides with Colin McDermid. Colin has very kindly granted Dublin City Council rights to reproduce the letter here.Personal Use:Printing or downloading of the letter (text, images) is permitted on a temporary, non-commercial basis for personal use only.Commercial Use and Reproduction:Those wishing to  use the content of the Elsie McDermid Letter (text, images) for commercial purposes or to publish* the content should contact Dublin City Public Libraries ([email protected]) for permission. When applying please state which content is being used and give the precise details of the type of use planned – exhibition, book, magazine, newspaper, performance or other. Conditions to apply.*Includes website or other electronic means.

In the week Patrick Pearse declared the Irish Republic on the steps of the General Post Office (GPO), the Irish Brigades of the 16th (Irish) Division suffered horribly in a gas attack launched by the Germans on 27 April 1916 at Hulluch.1 Like the men from the 2nd Dublins back in May 1915, many died years later as a result of this attack. On 29 April the Germans launched another gas attack on the Irish lines, however on this occasion the wind turned right round and blew the gas back over the German lines, the result being equally appalling.2 During April 1916, the Irish Division suffered 2,128 Irish causalities; approx. 538 were killed, the remainder were to suffer chronic lung and breathing conditions for the rest of their lives.3The timing of the attack on 27 April was very poignant indeed. News of the Easter Rebellion in Dublin reached the Irish troops at the front with disappointment. The Easter Rebellion was regarded as a stab in the back for the thousands of Nationalist Volunteers who followed John Redmond's advice. Captain Stephen Gwynn's post-Rising speeches to the House of Commons and his letters to the press were bitter about the damage the rising done to Home Rule.4 He told his fellow Nationalist MP, Major Willie Redmond MP, 'I shall never forget the men's indignation. They felt they had been stabbed in the back.'5 John Redmond commented in the House of Commons:6"Is it not an additional horror that on the very day when we hear that the men of the Dublin Fusiliers have been killed by Irishmen on the streets of Dublin, we receive the news of how the men of the 16th Division - our own Irish Brigade, and of the same Dublin Fusiliers-had dashed forward and by their unconquerable bravery retaken the trenches that the Germans had won at Hulluch? Was there ever such a picture of a tragedy which a small section of Irish faction had so often inflicted on the fairest hopes and the bravest deeds of Ireland."Above: Preparing for gas attack, Flanders, 1915. (click to view larger image)An officer of the 7th Leinster Regiment, Lieutenant Lyon, had the terrible task of gathering the dead. 'They were in all sorts of tragic attitudes, some of them holding hands like children in the dark.' He and his men found themselves pestered for the next few days by 'half-poisoned rats by the hundred.'7 The Chaplain to the Dublin Fusiliers described the scenes after the attack in a letter home to his father.8"Many men died before I could reach them and were gone before I could pass back. There they lay, scores of them (we lost 800, nearly all from gas) in the bottom of the trench, in every conceivable posture of human agony; the cloths torn off their bodies in a vain effort to breathe while from end to end of that valley of death came one long unceasing moan from the lips of brave men fighting and struggling for life."Tom BurkeFootnotes:Hulluch is a French village in the Arrondissement of Lens in northern France. The village sits approx. 6 kilometres north of Lens.Denman, Terence. Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers. The 16th (Irish) Division in the Great War (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992). p.69. Ibid. p.62. Leonard, Jane. "The Reactions of Irish Officers in the British Army to the Easter Rising of 1916" in Facing Armageddon. The First World War Experienced, ed. Cecil H and Liddle P H (London: Lee Cooper, 1996). p.264. Gwynn was a nationalist MP serving with the 6th Connaught Rangers. Denman p.144 Ibid. p.129. Ibid. p.69. O'Rahilly, A. Father William Doyle S.J. (London: Longman's Green and Company, 1920). p.237.To commemorate this tragic event which fell on the people of Ireland during the Easter Rising, Dublin City Library and Archive in co-operation with The Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association will present a one day seminar at the Council Chamber in Dublin City Hall on Saturday 16 April 2016.See also the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association Archive, housed in the Dublin City Library & Archive, where it is available for public consultation in the Reading Room. The RDFA Archive is managed by Dublin City Archives.About our Guest BloggerTom Burke is Chairman, The Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association.  

Jacob's Biscuit Factory on Bishop Street was one of the sites occupied by the Irish Volunteers during Easter Week, 1916, and has acquired iconic status within Irish history.   The Jacob's Biscuit Factory Archive has recently being catalogued and opened to public access in the Dublin City Library and Archive.  In conjunction with the Business Information Centre the exhibition "W&R Jacob and Easter Rising" will be open to the public from 13 April, with a talk by Dr Séamas Ó Maithiú on 21 April.Right: Sketch of Bishop Street Factory, c.1900s, Jacobs Biscuit Factory Archive (DCLA) (View larger image)Whilst researching how factory workers both participated in and were affected by the Rising in different ways, our guest blogger and Dublin City Archives intern Saffron East was enthralled by the dramatic witness account written by 35 year old  William George Smith,  an Assistant Manager at the factory,  which can be  accessed in the Manuscript Department of the National Library of Ireland.:Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, St John Ambulance and 1916During Easter Week, many civilians were caught in the crossfire between the rebels and the British Army. St John Ambulance was an important organisation during the Rising, as it worked to organise emergency hospitals and medical care for civilian casualties across the city. William George Smith was a key member of the W&R Jacob Ambulance and Nursing Division of St John Ambulance and he kept an account of his personal experiences of Easter Week, which can be accessed in the Manuscript Department of the National Library of Ireland, and tells us the story of how the Rising impacted this extraordinary Dubliner.Left: Portrait photo of William G. Smyth, Jacobs Biscuit Factory Archive (DCLA) (click to view larger image)Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, began as an ordinary day for William Smith, as he took his sons on the tram to spend some time in Merrion Square during their Easter holidays. On the tram, Smith writes that they overheard other passengers speaking of 'trouble in Dublin and that the Sinn Fein volunteers were causing commotion.' Smith enquired with the tram driver, who did not know much as the trams had not been allowed into the city centre, but said that 'he heard the Volunteers were rising.' Smith and his boys 'thought that it was probably only an ordinary riot which the police would soon quell' so continued their journey. Further disruption to the trams meant that the family had to walk home in the afternoon, where they ran into a friend of Smith's: a Four Courts officer of the St John's Ambulance Brigade, who explained 'that the Sinn Feiners had risen in rebellion and had captured Dublin Castle, the GPO, Four Courts, Boland's hill and some other places.'The next day, Smith decided to cycle into the city to investigate. He travelled via Peter Street, where he saw Jacob's Biscuit Factory. He describes that 'everything there seemed peaceful in fact, unnaturally so for the street was deserted.' Smith cycled around the city, finding 'a large crowd assembled' near Redmond's Hill, and 'saw the windows of the General Office broken and filled with flour bags, behind which were men with rifles.' He described: 'The crowd seemed not generally to be showing much sympathy with the rebels, or were taking it rather as a joke.' Smith cycled to St Stephen's Green, finding the rebels 'digging trenches and barricading the place. Many of them were mere boys; in fact only about one in ten was a man; they had a great many young girls, ranging from about 13 to 20...'  On this Tuesday, William Smith witnessed his first casualty of the Rising, as he saw a civilian man shot by the rebels. He wrote that this 'was certainly a shock, because it was such a cold blooded affair to shoot down in this way an old unarmed civilian, and for a few minutes I felt decidedly upset.' Smith wrote that, later that day, 'one could hear the curious tap-tap of the machine guns, a sinister sound which one could never get wholly used to.'On Wednesday, Smith began working on organising extra help within Dublin's hospitals, and creating emergency hospitals in new locations around the city. He also helped in the creation of an emergency ambulance service, where men travelled with stretchers to bring in wounded civilians. This was dangerous work, and many of these St John’s Ambulance volunteers were wounded or killed in the crossfire. Smith recalled that he would 'never forget the dreadful wounds we had to look after that night... The constant rattle of rifle fire, the sound of bombs exploding.'Above: W& R Jacob  Ambulance and Nursing Division, including Smyth (undated).  Jacobs Biscuit Factory Archive (DCLA) (click to view larger image)Smith wrote that Thursday 'was the most miserable day I ever spent.' As well as organising ambulances, Smith arranged for moving wounded patients to different hospitals, as they were all overcrowded. On patrol for wounded civilians, Smith found that Mount Street was 'a very "hot spot" indeed... sufficient to say that for many days this district was a regular death trap to its inhabitants.' That afternoon, Smith opened a new hospital in a school, and had to beg the local hotels for bedding and furniture supplies. Friends provided food for this hospital, so the patients would not starve. This hospital became Smith's base for the rest of the rising. Smith wrote that he 'lost all count of time... It is difficult to recollect all the things one did during that dreadful time and the strange things one came across.' Smith witnessed many people 'digging graves to bury the dead, as they could not be disposed of otherwise.' He wrote that 'Stephen's Green had some dead buried in very shallow grave, for I saw in one case boots sticking out of the soil' and that 'one doctor whom I knew had to bury an officer in his back garden, whose name he did not know and who had nothing on him by which he could be identified'.Smith wrote of a near-disaster: 'the rebels got wind of our taking patients and the rumour spread amongst them that all patients were to be taken out of the hospital and the military were then to occupy it and attack the [Jacob’s Biscuit] factory from that point. This they resolved to stop and brought up a machine gun... and were about to fire when MacDonagh, one of their leaders, came up and protested and finally they took a vote on the question and by a few votes decided not to fire and afterwards found out the truth of the matter.'He also recounted the bravery of his peers, including one of his ambulance drivers who 'was shot through the thigh whilst driving a car full of wounded past the Four Courts, but he drove on until he reached the Castle Hospital, when he fell off his seat.'William George Smith's account includes many more anecdotal stories of his experience of the Easter Rising. He writes of the resilience and bravery of many Dubliners who pulled together to make the limited hospital supplies work as best they could, and travelled around the city collecting the wounded despite the dangerous conditions.The first ambulance class under the St. John Ambulance Association regulations was held in W&R Jacob in 1906, and throughout the twentieth century, the W&R Jacob Ambulance and Nursing Division of St John Ambulance attracted  employees of the factory to get involved with something practical and social in the workplace. Various records relating to their activities in the work place are held by Jacob's Biscuit Factory Archive  at Dublin City Library and Archive.  Additional records held by  St. John Ambulance Ireland National Headquarters.About our Guest BloggerThis article was prepared by Saffron East as part of the internship program with the M.Phil in Public History and Cultural Heritage at Trinity College Dublin.