BITE-SIZED HISTORY
Published in Issue 3 (May/June 2021), Volume 29BY TONY CANAVAN
Cultural vandalism vs city living
In a surprising move, Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan has defended the ESB’s proposal to convert the Georgian House Museum in Dublin into luxury apartments. The minister has said that the project ‘has the potential to become an exemplar scheme for Dublin to demonstrate successful city living’. The house at 29 Fitzwilliam Street is one of eleven Georgian buildings planned for conversion—eight for residential use—in the company’s proposed redevelopment of its headquarters. Both the Irish Georgian Society and People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith are opposed to the plan. Ms Smith described the proposal as cultural ‘vandalism’. The building was restored by the ESB in 1988 as part of a deal with the then Dublin Corporation to allow it to exceed standard plot ratios in its expansion of its office complex, originally built in the 1960s when sixteen Georgian houses were demolished. The museum was temporarily closed in 2017 to facilitate the demolition of the old headquarters and the construction of new offices. The new building is almost completed but the ESB does not intend to reopen the museum. It appears to justify its decision on the grounds that there are enough ‘museum/heritage alternatives now available’, so the museum won’t be missed. Dublin City Council, however, has sided with the conservationists and voted down the ESB proposal.
‘Turbulent priest’ celebrated in new exhibition
Above: Detail from one of Canterbury Cathedral’s 6m-high ‘miracle’ windows, created in the early 1200s, now on display in the British Museum’s ‘Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint’ exhibition.
A new exhibition at the British Museum explores the life, death and legacy of St Thomas Becket, who was murdered by four of King Henry II’s knights in 1170. ‘Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint’ was originally intended to mark the 850th anniversary of Becket’s assassination in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral. Its centrepiece is a stained-glass window from the cathedral. The 6m-high window, originally one of twelve ‘miracle’ windows created in the early 1200s, has never before left the cathedral nor been seen at eye level by the public. The exhibition also includes reliquaries, pilgrims’ souvenirs, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, jewellery and a wax impression of Becket’s personal seal. Some are rare loans from institutions across the UK and Europe, brought together for the first time. The murder of Thomas Becket is relevant to Irish history, as Henry II attempted to rebuild bridges with the pope by going to Ireland, ostensibly to enforce the papal bull Laudabiliter, calling for reform of the Church here.
Charles Stewart Paisley?
A recent Zoom appearance by Ian Paisley MP caused a stir when someone spotted that he had a caricature of Charles Stewart Parnell hanging on the wall behind him. Mr Paisley was speaking from his Ballymena constituency office, where his wall is adorned with prints of leading figures from pre-partition Anglo-Irish politics. It is unusual that Mr Paisley, a Democratic Unionist MP, should include the nationalist leader who is credited as the ‘man who most gave Ireland the sense of being an independent nation’. The MP has described Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, as among the ‘most interesting and formative people’ in nineteenth-century Anglo-Irish politics. Perhaps, however, we should not read too much into this, as the Parnell drawing was one among a collection of caricatures of political, religious and sports figures that he acquired 30 years ago. Also in the collection are sketches of James Craig, Northern Ireland’s first prime minister; Edward Carson, leader of the anti-Home Rule movement; and even Keir Hardie, founder of the British Labour Party.
‘Troubles’ archive saved
The future and staffing of CAIN—Conflict Archive on the Internet—was in doubt but the project has been saved thanks to Initiatives for Change, an international charity, and the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund. CAIN, based at the University of Ulster’s Magee campus in Derry, covers the history, key events and political issues of the Troubles since 1968. The new funding means that the archive will be retained and expanded and that its three staff will be paid. The archive has been freely available on the internet since 1997, with new material continually added. It contains thousands of documents, photographs and articles, and is widely used by academics and researchers. The new funding will ensure the future of the archive. The University of Ulster is also investing in technology that will enhance the experience for all those using the platform.
Personal Histories
On this Day
April 24
- 1951 Enda Kenny, TD for Mayo West (1975–97) and Mayo (1997–2020), leader of Fine Gael (2002–17) and taoiseach (2011–17), born in Derrycoosh, Islandeady, near Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
- 1945
Above: The steamship Monmouth Coast—torpedoed by a German U-boat near Tory Island on 24 April 1945. (Paul Johnson Collection)
During the last week of the Second World War, the Monmouth Coast, an unescorted steamship en route from Sligo to Liverpool with a cargo of barytes ore from the mines of Ben Bulben, was torpedoed by a German U-boat some seven miles north-east of Tory Island. The captain and fifteen crewmen (including two Irishmen) lost their lives, but one managed to survive, thanks to two locals from Arranmore. Two days later, whilst beachcombing on the north-eastern coast of the island, they spotted a life-raft floating in a remote sandy inlet; they rowed out to it and lifted the tarpaulin, to discover a wide-eyed teenager, Derek Cragg (17) from Liverpool, the mess-room boy from the Monmouth Coast. He explained that the ship had gone down very quickly and that those of the crew who managed to leap clear were sucked down after it. He, too, was dragged down but somehow managed to make it back to the surface, where he spotted the life-raft and clambered on board. He was given every assistance by the islanders and safely repatriated, but had the north-easterly wind that drove him 25 miles blown him into the adjoining inlet, his raft would have been smashed to pieces. Over 30,000 Allied merchant seamen, of every nationality, lost their lives during the war. Despite our neutrality, Irish Shipping lost two ships. The Irish Pine was torpedoed off Greenland in November 1942 with the loss of all 33 on board, and the Irish Oak was sunk in the North Atlantic in May 1943, though her entire crew was rescued by a sister-ship, the Irish Plane.
- 1912 Justin McCarthy (82), Home Rule politician, leader of the anti-Parnellite faction (1891–6), historian and novelist, died.
- 1916 The Easter Rising began.Sir Ernest Shackleton and five of his crew set out on their epic 720-nautical-mile rescue mission in the James Caird, from Elephant Island to South Georgia.
- 1974 The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) announced that Carnsore Point, Co. Wexford, would be the site of its planned nuclear power station.
May 19
- 1935
Above: ‘Lawrence of Arabia’—his father was in fact Sir Thomas Chapman of South Hill, Delvin, Co. Westmeath.
T.E.—Thomas Edward—Lawrence (46), the legendary ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, died as a result of a motorcycle accident in Dorset. For much of his adult life Lawrence was a troubled man. Though his key role in the British-inspired Arab revolt (1916) against Ottoman Turkish rule earned him international celebrity, he was torn by guilt over Britain’s post-war betrayal of the Arabs with the implementation at Versailles of the notorious Sykes–Picot Agreement. Then there was the issue of identity. At the tender age of ten he discovered that his parents were not married, meaning that he and his four brothers were illegitimate. Later he was to learn that ‘Mr Lawrence’, his father, was, in fact, Sir Thomas Chapman of South Hill, Delvin, Co. Westmeath, who, though married with four daughters, had fled with their governess, Sarah Lawrence, first to Wales—where ‘Ned’ was born—and finally to London. He was eventually to find himself increasingly drawn to his father’s homeland. A close friend of George Bernard Shaw and his wife Charlotte—GBS had helped him to edit his major work, Seven pillars of wisdom (1926)—he mentioned his desire in his surviving letters to visit Ireland and often referred to the works of Seán O’Casey, James Joyce and J.M. Synge. Indeed, he hoped to write a biography of Sir Roger Casement. It seems that he never did try to make contact with his half-sisters. In 1954, almost twenty years after his death, some of his old friends visited the two surviving ones, who were living at 39 Northumberland Road, Dublin. They told them that they had followed their half-brother’s career with great interest but likewise had made no attempt to contact him.
- 1870 The Home Government Association of Ireland was founded by Isaac Butt with the aim of establishing a federal system for the United Kingdom, which would grant Ireland a parliament responsible for national affairs. Succeeded by the Home Rule League (1873).
- 1868 Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, son of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803), brewer and writer who restored St Patrick’s Cathedral (1860), died.