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This year marks the centenary of the birth of Séamus Ennis, the renowned musician, singer, folklorist and broadcaster who left behind, to quote from one obituary, “a priceless heritage of Irish tradition to the nation”. Inspired by on-going centenary events taking place across Dublin and at the Séamus Ennis Arts Centre, this blog briefly examines Ennis’s final years and death. (The bronze statue of Séamus Ennis which was unveiled in Naul on 24th October 2001. Courtesy of the Séamus Ennis Arts Centre)In 1975 Ennis settled in The Naul to live out his remaining years on land which had once belonged to his grandparents. A countryman at heart, he felt a strong attachment for the area and christened the plot where he lived in a caravan ‘Easter Snow’ (after the slow air of that name which he was fond of playing). He played an important role in helping to revive interest in uilleann piping during the twentieth century. While he continued to perform across Ireland and sometimes further afield, Ennis’s health gradually deteriorated during the period and he underwent an operation for cancer of the throat. An able cook who could deal expertly with game, as his health continued failing it was noticed that he began to lose interest in food.On the afternoon of Tuesday, 5th October 1982, Ennis passed away at home during his sleep. He was 63 years old. No inquest was held into the death, with the post-mortem examination taking place the following day. On Thursday evening Ennis’s remains were then brought from St. Vincent’s Hospital, Elm Park, to the Church of the Nativity in Naul, with friends and neighbours standing in the rain for almost an hour to greet the cortege, which had been delayed in heavy traffic.The following morning Ennis was buried in the adjoining Naul Cemetery. Leading traditional musicians had crowded inside the tiny Naul church alongside neighbours for the funeral Mass performed by local curate Father Malachy J. Mahon, who also officiated at the graveside ceremony. After the recital of a decade of the Rosary in Irish, broadcaster Séan Mac Réamoinn delivered a bilingual funeral oration in which he spoke of Ennis’s sincerity, prowess as a piper, and fidelity to north County Dublin and Ireland. This was followed by a lament – “Cois Abhainn na Séad” – played by Liam O’Flynn (Liam Óg Ó Floinn) on a set of uilleann pipes given to him by his deceased friend and mentor. (An uilleann piper at a Dublin Street Carnival in College Green, 1984. Available at;http://digital.libraries.dublincity.ie/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:42327)Since his death efforts have been made to keep Ennis’s memory alive. These include the renaming of a section of Jamestown Road (Finglas) in his honour in 1994, and unveiling of a bronze statue of Ennis with uilleann pipes in hand beside the newly opened Séamus Ennis Cultural Centre (now the Séamus Ennis Arts Centre) in Naul seven years later. On Friday 3rd May, a new Dublin City Council ‘Séamus Ennis Commemorative Plaque’ will be unveiled in Finglas at the site of Burgess Galvin & Co. Ltd., Jamestown Road.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. 

This photograph (larger image below) from the Dublin City Library and Archive shows groups of women with their babies and young children outside St Monica’s Babies Club in St. Augustine Street, close to John’s Lane Church in the heart of Dublin’s Liberties.  This club, - one of about 170 set up throughout Ireland - opened in 1909 and aimed to educate mothers in the overall care of their infants by holding classes and appropriate lecture series on the premises.(St Monica's Baby Club)St. Monica’s Babies Club had been established by the Women’s National Health Association (WHNA).  This group was set up in Ireland in 1907 as part of the Irish International Exhibition, by Lady Aberdeen, wife of the Lord-Lieutenant who had a life-long interest in social and healthcare issues.  The WNHA focused on finding ways to eradicate tuberculosis within the general population, - a primary cause of early deaths in the adult population - by coordinating pasteurised milk distribution, and opening a range of healthcare centres with the support of government.  It also tried to address the social conditions and issues surrounding the extremely high infant mortality rates that existed in Ireland at the time.Catherine Scuffil, Historian in Residence, Dublin South Central.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.

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. 

The Soloheadbeg Ambush in January 1919 did not lead to a wide scale conflict immediately. For much of 1919, the Irish Volunteers embarked on a mainly defensive campaign, primarily searching for arms. As a result, some skirmishes broke out leading to some deaths.Isolated deaths of RIC men occurred in Limerick, Clare, Mayo and Tipperary. The shortage of arms was the main problem posed. Gun shops and private homes were raided for arms. In March 1919, all such premises were raided in the North-East of Dublin city.The most successful arms raid throughout the whole war occurred at Collinstown Aerodrome, present day site of Dublin Airport, on 20th March 1919. As the Aerodrome was heavily guarded by the British Military, according to Patrick Houlihan, a Volunteer and employee at the Aerodrome, the local Volunteers had to submit plans to the Irish Volunteers General Headquarters (GHQ) for approval. Once it was granted, two guard dogs at the Aerodrome were poisoned the afternoon before the raid, 19th March, calculated to kill them some hours later, to prevent an alarm being raised. That night the raiding party, numbering about 25, were dressed in khaki and masks, supplied by GHQ. Some volunteers engaged in disarming and tying up the sentries, 20 in number, whilst others collected all the arms and ammunition they could. The haul was transported away in two cars. To prevent a chase, over 20 cars in the military garage were demolished with sledgehammers. Acting in almost total silence to capture the sentries and sticking clearly to their well thought out plans, was key to the raid’s success.75 rifles and 5,000 rounds of ammunition were secured. There were no casualties nor prisoners taken. It was the largest loss of weapons by the British army from a single operation throughout the whole conflict. Many of the arms captured that day ended up in the IRA arms dump at the Naul in North Dublin. The British decided to punish the locals, a trend they would continue throughout the war, a foolish move which brought more and more support for the Volunteers. All 800 workers were sacked on the Collinstown site and replaced by military personnel. It was an act of collective punishment, recognised and resented as such. Cormac Moore, 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.

Last month I was in the King’s Inns building for the launch of a remarkable short film. Trish McAdams directed and wrote Confinement for the Grangegorman Development Agency, who asked her to create a public art project. The film’s 30-minute running time evokes three hundred years of the history of the King’s Inns, Henrietta Street and the Grangegorman Asylum. The story is told through the imagined voice of Tony Rudenko, an artist who lived in Henrietta Street until his death in 2014, who was also a friend of the director.(Poster for Dublin International Film Festival showing of Confinement)The film opens with animated maps of the Henrietta Street area in the early 18th century.  It tells how the beautiful houses in the street were built originally for the wealthy, eventually accommodating the poor, and recently seeing many of them currently undergoing restoration to former glory. This is a history well told by the Tenement Museum at 14 Henrietta Street.The King’s Inns was built with its back to Henrietta Street and its magnificent frontage facing in the direction of Grangegorman, which was at various times since the late 18th century the site of a workhouse, a prison and an asylum for the mentally ill.(The King’s Inns building seen from Constitution Hill)By the early 19th century, the workhouse and prison had been merged into the hospital, which was added to over the years until its peak in the early 20th century, when it had over 2,000 patients. During the cholera epidemic of 1832, the hospital was used to isolate patients and was referred to as the Dublin Cholera Hospital for the duration of the epidemic.(Surviving gate to the asylum buildings at Grangegorman)For the film, McAdams animated her own wonderful drawings that are based on actual photographs of the inmates of the asylum, contained in the inmate records.  The site is now part of the huge development in the Grangegorman area, which hosts the DIT campus of the new Technological University Dublin. Dr. Mary Muldowney, 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. 

Gerald Crofts (1888–1934) was one of a small group of musicians and lyricists who made a huge contribution to the Irish independence movement in the early 20th century. He came from Capel Street originally, where his family had a shop and he was a popular singer. His brother Joseph was a composer who arranged the words and music for this marching song, which was dedicated to Crofts.Gerald had joined the Irish Volunteers in 1914 and he was a close friend of some of the leaders of the Rising. He was imprisoned in Dartmoor and Lewes prisons in England and suffered poor health for the rest of his life. Crofts continued his republican activities after his release from prison although he was curtailed in what he could do by a problem with his hands, which meant he could not hold weapons. Family papers suggest that he was involved in intelligence work with Michael Collins. In the later years of his life he was well known for singing his friend Constance Markiewicz’s anthem 'A Battle Hymn’ (dedicated to the Irish Citizen Army) at political gatherings and concerts. He died on 14th November 1934. 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.

Dublin supported James II at the Battle of the Boyne, but following his defeat by William III, a protestant ascendancy resumed control of the city and began to forge links with the new and successful monarchy. This process intensified after the death of Mary II in 1695 left William III as sole monarch. Dublin Corporation added William’s arms to the City Sword; in 1697 and in the following year, the king presented a chain of office to the Lord Mayor of Dublin, carrying the monarch’s bust on a medallion, which is in use to this day.

Our featured online resource this week is Freegal ,a free music service which offers access to about 15 million songs, including Sony Music’s catalog of legendary artists, and over 40,000 music videos.The Freegal Music website has thousands of artists, tens of thousands of albums, and millions of songs.In total the collection is comprised of music from over 40,000 labels with music that originates in over 100 countries. There is no software to download, and there are no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. Dublin City Public Library users have unlimited streaming and can download 5 songs per week. All you need is your library card number and PIN. Go to https://dcpl.freegalmusic.com/ or download the free App from Google Play or the Apple Store  

The e-resource featured in this week’s blog is World Book Online. A suite of three websites from the publishers of the famous World Book encyclopedias. Supplying you with accurate information at age appropriate levels in a controlled safe learning environment.From pre-primary to secondary school – from the wobblers and toddlers to tweenies –  World Book provides fast and accurate information at every level in an immersive learning environment. The information is reliable, age-appropriate, and easy to read and comprehend.·         Early World of Learning for ages 3 to 6 years: this is a resource for preschoolers and children in early primary education. Developed with experts on early childhood education, it offers rich resources designed for the younger child.(An example of a webpage on World Book Online)·         Kids for ages 7 to 11 years: this is a premier reference website developed especially for young students. It features an intuitive user interface, thousands of easy-to-read articles packed with stunning illustrations, videos, interactive maps, and a wealth of engaging games and activities.(Example of the search function on World Book Online)·         Student for ages 12 to 15 years: this contains numerous tools to engage users in 21st-century education and blended-learning practices.(Further example of the search function on World Book Online)And best of all, it’s free with your Dublin City Public Libraries membership card.See World Book Online for more details.

As the world commemorates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, it may come as some surprise to hear that both Marx and Fredrich Engels, authors of The Communist Manifesto and creators of modern-day Marxist thought, were both strong proponents of Irish independence.