Mary Magdalene's Asylum (early 1900s and Streetview)

 

I was doing my usual browsing through old photographs online when I found this one that caught my eye. It's of Saint Mary Magdalen's Asylum sometime in the early 1900s. This was situated on Brookvale Road in Donnybrook in Dublin and as far as I can ascertain operated into the 1990s as a Magadalene Laundry. It's estimated that between 10,000 and 30,000 women were incarcerated in these institutions for "crimes" such as prostitution, having children out of wedlock, being intellectually disabled, or having been a victim of abuse. Only in the past week has an official apology been made by the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, on behalf of the state, to survivors of these vile institutions. Thankfully the laundries no longer operate due to changing societal mores and economics. Frances Finnegan, an academic whose Do Penance or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland remains the most extensive study yet done on the laundries has said that "Possibly the advent of the washing machine has been as instrumental in closing these laundries as have changing attitudes." Below is the same location on Google's Streetview in recent years.

The Bona-Fide Traveller (1905)

This humorous article was published in The Lepracaun in November 1905. I'm mainly posting it for the cartoon attached which I find hilarious, showing the journey from Finglas to Phibsboro at the time for a certain type of hardy wanderer. Thanks to the glacially paced reform of our licencing laws the bona-fide traveller no longer exists. Here's a description I found elsewhere that is succinct. "The BFT in need of refreshment had of course to be Bona Fide. He had to be on a journey to somewhere for a genuine reason and the journey had to be more than three miles long. He was not to be just looking for drink when he was not entitled to it. The premises were not to be opened in the ordinary way. The BFT had to seek admission and if the licensee was satisfied that he was in fact Bona Fide he could be admitted and served." This is from: http://www.rossespointshanty.com/Shanty%202011/Heritage/bonafide.htm

 Our Unnatural History - The Bona-Fide Traveller

The Bona-Fide Traveller is an animal which subsists chiefly on damp, which it travels long
distances to obtain. It is frequently found in the suburbs on Sundays before two and after
seven o'clock, when it goes in pursuit of its favourite moisture.
It is said that the first bona-fide traveller was manufactured by an Act of Parliament by way of
a legislative joke, which descriobed him as a person who had travelled at least three miles
from where he had slept the previous night, and whose visit to licenced premises, "must not be
for the prupose of obtaining drink." This exquisite sample of parliamentary humour has been
the wonder and delight of all who have come in contact with it- from the perplexed
"man on the door", who enquires from Macaulay's New Zealander if he slept there last night, to
his lordship of Appeal- that, forlorn hope to whom the nonplussed trader looks in vain, generally,
for an explaination of this lawyer's El Dorado.That genial combination of Socrates and Grimaldi,
the late Baron Dowse, defined the "traveller" as a person "who had a bona-fide thirst,
wanted a bona-fide drink, and had the the bona-fide money to pay for it."
The late Doctor Whyte, when City Coroner, described this animal as a "bona-fide nuisnace."
Mr. T.W. Ruseell, from his recent remakrs, evidently regards him as a combination of the seven
deadly sins with a dash of bubonic plague thrown in.
All if which birngs us no nearer to the solution of a question which will continue to fill
and to emplty pockets as long as desicated humanity can get beyond the "three mile limit" to
warble "here's fortune."
The language of this animal is largely composed of adjectives, sometimes of a highly suphureous
character, and at others of such an insanitary description as to bring tears to the eyes of
 the Public Health Committee.
Occasionally the "still small voice" of "Ten shillings or seven days," has the effect of restoring
the equilibrium, and it is whispered that the music of "Forty Shillings or a month" has invaribaly been the means of effecting a complete pacification.

Hall's Barn (1795-2011)

Hall's Barn is an unusual looking structure in Rathfarnham. Francis Jukes the 1795 painter of the first picture stated: "This is a very curious building, the singularity of which much attracted my notice. The stairs, by which you ascend it, are on the outside; and having a parapet wall, the ascent is rendered easy and safe. At the top the prospect is very beautiful, commanding a view of Lord Ely’s and Mt Palliser’s park’s and of the country, as far as the mountains. It is two and a half miles from Dublin".
It was built in 1772 or 1743 and here it is throughout the ages. It's of a similar style to and seemingly inspired directly by the Wonderful Barn. The first image is Jukes' painting from 1795, the second image is from 1900 and the final image is a more recent photograph. From googling it seems that parts of it at least were a dwelling place at one time.

That last and most recent image comes from: http://irelandinruins.blogspot.ie/2011/06/bottle-tower-co-dublin.html

Dublin Oil Gas Station (1824 and Streetview)

 

Here's the Dublin Oil Gas Station on Pearse Street drawn in 1824 by John Connolly. Below is the same building in recent years as viewed on Google's Streetview. I couldn't get the angle right. I'm hoping the next time I'm in that part of the world to take a better photo.

Fishermen Declare Merman Again Seen (1937)

Here's one that looks fit for the pages of the Fortean Times or The Codologist's Quarterly at the very least. It was printed in Adelaide's The Mail on Saturday, August 27, 1937.

The Connemara merman is reported to have reappeared. Two Irish fishermen declare that they saw him swimming. They gave him a mackerel, but later when he re-approached, fearing that their little boat might be upset, one of them hit him with an oar. Then the merman gave a whine and disappeared.

Thus is the cause of science damaged by the ignorant! Had the fishermen given the merman another mackerel instead of that crack with the oar they might have won his confidence and opened a new chapter in marine biology. An interesting feature of the case is that the merman reappeared in almost the same locality in which he was seen by two other fishermen last year. More over, the description of the various witnesses tally in important respects. The merman's first appearance — described in a special article in 'T'he Mail' of August 7 — was near the little village of Renvyle on the promontory north of Ballynakill Harbor, on the Connemara coast. Now he has been seen in the mouth of Ballynakill Bay itself. Thomas O'Toole and Michael Warde saw him. He came swimming toward their curragh, using the breast-stroke described by the previous witnesses, Regan and Heanue.

Thinking that he was coming aboard, O'Toole and Warde pulled away, outdistancing the merman, who, however, followed. When they stopped rowing, he came within a few yards of the boat, and Warde threw him a mackerel. He snatched it eagerly with both hands and disappeared. There was no sign of the fish when, a few minutes later, the merman reappeared alongside the curragh. Fearing that he would upset the boat, O'Toole then struck Myn with an oar. The merman moaned and vanished. The fishermen describe their visitor as having straw-like, shaggy hair, a beard, very red lips, and bushy eyebrows. His skin was fair in front but blue at the back. He swam with his head and shoulders above the surface. This tallies in the main with the description of the previous witnesses- who, however, added that the merman wore a blue petticoat like a woman's apron.

Anti-Home Rule Postcards (1912-1914) #2

Here's even more Anti-Home Rule postcards from the same era. Of these my favourites are the map one and the one of the belligerent wee cub from Belfast. The map card displays the "Gulf Of Socialism" which would fit in comfortably in the anti-Obama rhetoric in America in recent years. This set also includes Donegall Place under Home Rule, a companion to the Belfast and Carrickfergus postcards in the previous post. There's also the Ulster Scot aptly proclaiming his opposition to Home Rule in Ulster Scots.

Anti-Home Rule Postcards (1912-1914) #1

This is a selection of postcards created by Belfast printers to capitalise on and promote the anti-Home Rule fervour that caught on in much of what is now Northern Ireland directly after the introduction of the Third Home Rule Bill by the British Parliament in 1912. While the Bill was passed by the House Of Commons, the House Of Lords repeatedly blocked it and by the time the Lords was overruled the Great War had made the legislation moot. Some of the postcards clearly come out against any measure of Home Rule but many of them espouse the continued political union between the province of Ulster and Britain (England then often used interchangeably with the term). At least one of the postcards features the partition of Ireland including the whole of Ulster, which of course was not to be. The postcards vary from the humorous to the pompous, from lovely draughtsmanship to amateurish scrawls. My favourites include the rather kitsch No Home Rule one with the male personifications of each country of the United Kingdom, and Belfast and Carrickfergus under Home Rule. Another notable one is the Home Rule Parliament, College Green, 1915 one which includes a distinctly 19th century portrayal of bellicose Irish Catholics. Although political postcards of this type don't really exist anymore much of the same iconography used in these postcards can be seen today in murals in Unionist/Loyalist areas all throughout Northern Ireland. Indeed, a minor industry has sprung up around bringing tourists to view political murals from both communities in Belfast and elsewhere, but more on that in another post.

Glimpses Of The Irish House (1870-1968)

Ever since reading about it some years ago in Brendan Behan's Ireland: A Sketchbook I've been intrigued with O'Meara's Irish House, a sadly long since gone Dublin pub, that sat at the corner of Wood Quay and Winetavern Street. At the time I read about it first I thought it still existed and I went on a walk down the Quays looking for it. This was pre-google and my search was fruitless. Here's what Behan had to say about the place in 1962:

"Near by is O'Meara's, the Irish House, though why it should be called that in Ireland I don't know. I used to know the man that owned it - it has changed hands since; and I remember him principally for a few lines that he recited to me:
  'Then Hoolihan hit Hannaghan and Hannaghan hit McGilligan,
   And everyone hit anyone of whom he had a spite,
  And Larry Dwyer, the cripple, who was sitting doing nothing,
  Got a kick that broke his jawbone for not including in the fight."

A friend of mine painted that pub one time - Dinny Bowles, a very famous man - a signwriter he was and a very good one at that."

For all I know it could have been a lousy auld venue for a pint but what attracted me and many others to it was its exterior decorations. It was festooned with stucco work depicting various figures and moments in Irish history. Built in 1870 and decorated by Burnet and Comerford the pub operated for nearly 100 years until it was ignominiously torn down along with the rest of Wood Quay in 1968, a casualty to progress. What was found there after the Irish House and other buildings were torn down is a story in itself. While you can no longer visit the pub if you visit Dublin's Civic Trust you can see what remains of the friezes. The venerable Come Here To Me blog also has some close up images of the figures.  When fortune shines on me and I've earned my fortune I fully intend to reconstruct the pub somewhere in Dublin. Here are a few more images of the wonderful looking building.

The Irish House also lives on in film. In the opening moments of this CIE training film from 1965 you can clearly see the pub on the left as the driver crosses the Liffey. 

The pub also featured in the now largely forgotten 1967 screen adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses which is available on youtube in its entirety and very much worth a watch for its shots of contemporary Dublin if nothing else. 38 minutes into the film there's a pub interior which may or may not be the Irish House but a few minutes later, after an altercation, you can see the lower exterior of the pub.

The body of John Keegan Casey, the young poet and revolutionary who penned "The Rising Of The Moon" is interred in Glasnevin Cemetery. The nationalist decorations that adorn his gravestone remind me of the friezes on the Irish House which makes sense as this gravestone dates to around the same time the Irish House was built.

Throwing It Up: Another Deadly Blow To The Enemies Of Ireland (1890)

Here we have Charles Stewart Parnell beating the money out of a grotesque creature that's the personification of the Times Of London. Not long before his death, Parnell won a libel case against the Times, an action which was a direct result of the Parnell Commission. This was a British government enquiry into allegations Parnell and The Irish Party were involved in criminality around the Land War. The most infamous crime that had been associated with Parnell was the Phoenix Park murders of Cavendish and Burke, Chief Secretary For Ireland and the Permanent Undersecretary respectively. In 1887, The Times had printed a letter, purportedly written by Parnell, that announced his support for the murders. In an out-of-court settlement Parnell accepted £5,000 in damages. He had sought £100,000. The Times' overall costs amounted to somewhere in the region of £200,000.

Kodachrome Ireland #2

Grafton Street, 1969.

 

Cork City, c1970.

Here is another selection on flickr of Kodachrome photos taken in Ireland, this time a mix of dates from the '50s to the '70s. If that wasn't enough jacolette (amazing photography blog) also has a wonderful selection of beautifully shot Kodachrome slides from 1967 that you can see here.