Evie Hone

Eva Sydney Hone – better known as Evie – was born at Roebuck Grove, Clonskeagh, Dublin on 22 April 1894. She was the youngest of four daughters of Joseph Hone, a director of the Bank of Ireland, and Eva Hone (née Robinson), who sadly died only two days after Evie’s birth. Roebuck Grove is now known as the University Lodge since the property was bought by University College Dublin (UCD). She was related to the noted 18^th century Irish artist Nathaniel Hone.

Evie Hone

She was educated at home, but after contracting poliomyelitis at the age of twelve she was sent to Switzerland for specialist treatment. Although her condition improved it was not a total recovery and she was a semi-invalid for the rest of her life. It is all the more amazing that she overcame this restriction to become a painter and later a successful and internationally recognised stained-glass artist.  In 1913 she went to London and studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts under Bernard Meninsky. In London she became friends with Mainie Jellet, before they went to France and studied with cubist painter Albert Gleize, making them pioneers of the modern movement in Irish painting.

She returned to Dublin and lived in Lucan, and by the early 1930s she had become interested in stained-glass. In 1933 she joined An Túr Gloine, and one of her first pieces was ‘The Annunciation’, in Taney church, Dundrum, Co. Dublin. Her work was well received and in 1939 she was commissioned to produce a piece, My four green fields, for the New York World Fair which won first prize. It is now in Government Buildings in Dublin. Another piece that brought international recognition was her east window in Eton College chapel, Windsor. It was completed in 1952, covers over 900 square feet and comprises more than 40,000 pieces of glass.

My four green fields

In 1954 was elected an honorary member of the RHA. She died 13 March 1955 while entering her parish church at Rathfarnham.

National Gallery of Ireland

After his visit to the successful Great Exhibition in London in 1851, William Dargan, the Father of Railways in Ireland, agreed to underwrite the costs of a similar event on Leinster Lawn in 1853. It was a huge success and the art pavilion particularly popular. This enthusiastic response was noted and a committee was formed to promote the creation of a national gallery. The land was purchased from the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and the gallery as we know it today (on Merrion Square), was opened by the Earl of Carlisle on 30^th January 1864.

The National Gallery of Ireland

Back then the entire collection of paintings numbered around 120. However, due to the generosity of a few collectors, namely Henry Vaughan (31 watercolours by JMW Turner), the Countess of Milltown, and Sir Hugh Lane, the Director of the gallery who died when the Lusitania was sank in 1915. The Lane Fund continues to fund the purchase of paintings to this day. And George Bernard Shaw, the famous playwright, made a significant bequest where the gallery receives a third of royalties of his estate. As a young man he often visited the gallery, happy times that he never forgot.

The gallery made international news when it discovered Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ that until then thought lost or destroyed. The painting was restored and is now one of the gallery’s real gems. And the recently acquired La Vie des Champs (Life in the Fields) by the French post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne will no doubt prove to be a popular addition.

So much to see….

The addition of the Millennium Wing in 2002 provided a much-needed second entrance (on Clare Street), and it is where you will find the Gallery Shop, restaurant and new exhibition space. The gallery has much to offer, and its ethos ‘to provide a place where the people could learn about art’ is alive and well and eagerly encouraged.

It’s a ‘must see!

Marlay Park

Marlay Park is one of Dublin’s biggest parks, and at 210 acres there is plenty to see and do. Set in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains, in Rathfarnham, you can enjoy many interesting walks through leafy woods or take in bubbling rivers that feed into ponds where swans float serenely past. If you are looking for a place to ‘get away from it all’ then you should spend some time in Marlay Park – it’s a must see.

If you go down to the woods today….

The property was originally bought by Thomas Taylor in the early 18^th century and the house he built on it was called ‘The Grange’. In 1764 David La Touche acquired the property and he set about developing the house and extending it. La Touche was the first governor of the new Bank of Ireland, and he named the place in honour of his wife Elizabeth Marlay. The house is a fine example of Georgian architecture and features a fabulous ballroom, an oval-shaped music room and wonderful plasterwork by the renowned Michael Stapleton.

The property was sold in 1925 to Robert Ketton Love for  £8,325, and his son, Philip, a racehorse breeder, won the 1962 Epson Derby with Larkspur.

With so much space available there are tennis courts, football pitches, a cricket pitch, par-three golf course, children’s playgrounds and miniature railway that is run by the Dublin Society of Model and Experimental Engineers. And the park  is also the official starting point of the Wicklow Way, a 132km trail that works its way southwards through the Wicklow Mountains before finishing at Clonegal in County Carlow.

The rather lovely ornamental garden, has much to see and enjoy, and the water features are a real treat.

By the pond…time for reflection

Beside the house is the Craft Courtyard where you can sit and  relax over a coffee after all your walking. There are a number of shops where you can find pottery, weavers, jewellery, embroidery and copper work. The famous Irish stained-glass artist Evie Hone had a studio here in the 1950s, and a Farmer’s Market is held here every Saturday and Sunday.

O’Donovan Rossa Bridge

It was the first of a pair of bridges designed by James Savage and constructed by George Knowles, both of which are still looking good after more than two hundred years. It was opened on the 17^th March 1816, and two years later they once again teamed up and the result was the Father Matthew Bridge which opened in 1818.  

O’Donovan Rossa Bridge

The bridge, the second oldest over the Liffey, was originally a timber construction and built by the developer Humphrey Jervis and called Ormonde Bridge in honour of the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Being a man who was not given to decoration the bridge had no railings, something that caused many an accident to pedestrians and animals alike!

A later version was badly damaged by floods in 1802 before it was decided to build a new stone bridge. A competition was held and James Savage’s design won in 1805, although the foundation stone was not laid until 1813. When it  was completed in 1816 (for a cost of £29,950) is was called the Richmond Bridge after the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Richmond.

The bridge is made from granite quarried in Wicklow, and it has a span of 45 metres. It is 15 metres in width, and this made it wider, when completed, than any bridge over the Thames in London. It’s a three-arch construction and the three keystones that face east represent Plenty, Anna Livia and Industry, while those facing west show Commerce, Hibernia and Peace.

Like many other bridges it had another name change, this time in 1922, to O’Donovan Rossa Bridge. This was in honour of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, the Fenian leader who was born in Rosscarbery, County Cork, in 1831. Having seen the terrible damage done by the Famine he got involved in politics, and became a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1865 but was released in 1871 and went to America where he died on 29^th June 1915.

O’Donovan Rossa Memorial, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin

Atmospheric Railway

Following a patent in 1839 Samuel Clegg and the Samuda brothers set up a demonstration of an atmospheric railway at Wormwood Scrubs in England. The directors of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway were impressed by the system and determined it would be a suitable means to extend their existing line from Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) to Dalkey. James Pim (Junior), the treasurer of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, became an enthusiastic supporter of the atmospheric system and began preparations to extend the service to Dalkey using it.

In 1841 he sent a letter to Viscount Morpeth indicating the expected cost of the work to be £15,000, with William Dargan as contractor and Charles Vignoles as engineer. The Harbour Commissioners granted land for the project which adjoined the line known as The Metals. It got its name from the haulage of granite from the Dalkey quarries down the steep hill for the building of the Dun Laoghaire piers. The line was opened in July 1844, with trains leaving every thirty minutes from 8am to 6pm.

Atmospheric traction was only used for the climb to Dalkey where there were no buffer stops, and trains sometimes ran right through the station and off the rails! Gravity, however, took charge of the downhill journey, and when the train slowed before the station the unfortunate third-class passengers had to push while the others walked.

In August 1844 the line was visited by the great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and other representatives of the Great Western Railway. They subsequently constructed the 20 mile (32 km) South Devon Railway which operated with atmospheric propulsion.

However, maintaining proper atmospheric conditions was no easy task. The leather flaps, which were an integral part of keeping the system air-tight and operating at its best, were covered in grease and this became a problem. The smell attracted rats that gnawed at them, rendering them not only expensive to repair but hindering performance. The last Atmospheric Train ran on Wednesday 12^th April 1854.