Maud Gonne McBride

Edith Maud Gonne McBride (1866–1953), the political activist was born on 21 December 1866 at Tongham Manor, Farnham, Surrey and was the eldest daughter of three daughters born to  Capt. Thomas Gonne and Edith Cook. Gonne’s family were wealthy importer of Portuguese wines and the Edit Cook came from a family of successful and respected drapers in London. Edit, who suffered from tuberculosis, sadly died in London after giving birth to her third daughter. The infant, Margaretta, died soon afterwards.

Maud Gonne McBride

In 1876 then Maj. Gonne was appointed military attaché to the Austrian court, and the family spent time in the south of France. Maud liked being in France as much as being in Ireland or England, and spoke French fluently. In 1882 Gonne, after a stint in India, was posted to Dublin as assistant adjutant-general at Dublin castle. Maud said that she watched the arrival of the new lord lieutenant from a window in the Kildare Street Club on the 6^th May 1882, the same day that the Phoenix Park murders took place.

By 1886 Maud Gonne’s political thinking was shifting to that of a nationalist, after she and her father witnessed the horror of the evictions in the country. She said that he was going to resign from the army and stand as a home rule candidate. This, however, never happened as Gonne died from typhoid fever on the 30 November 1886.

William Butler Yeats

She met WB Yeats in Dublin 30 January 1889 and he was immediately besotted with her beauty: tall, bronze-eyed, and with a ‘complexion . . . luminous, like that of apple-blossom through which the light falls’. He fell in love with her, and wrote many poems about her. She played the lead role in his play Cathleen ni Houlihan, and although he proposed to her twice she refused his offers.

She died at Roebuck House, Clonskeagh, Dublin on 27 April 1953 and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery two days later.

Dublin’s Georgian Squares – Southside

St Stephen’s Green: Of all the Georgian squares in Dublin St Stephen’s has the longest history having been an area where farm animals once grazed. It gets its name from an old leper hospital dedicated to St Stephen where Mercer’s Hospital now stands. In 1663 the Dublin Corporation decided to raise funds by selling land for the construction of 96 plots, and a wall was erected around the green in 1664. Many two-storey houses were built, but by the mid-1750s these were replaced by the Georgian houses with which we are familiar.

The pond from O’Connell Bridge

The layout of 22-acre site was carried out by William Sheppard, and it comprises many interesting features, notably a pond that is crossed by O’Connell Bridge – the second bridge in the city with that name!

The land was purchased by Lord Aridlaun (a member of the Guinness family) in 1880, and access was made available to the general public. There are many statues on show, including those of James Joyce, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Theobald Wolf Tone and the Fusiliers’ Arch.

Merrion Square: When the Duke of Leinster built his palatial home (now Leinster House) in 1748 it was the impetus for many developers to start building south of the Liffey. The layout of Merrion Square (11 acres) started in 1762 and continued for 30 years. Owned by the Catholic Church, which had planned to erect a cathedral there, access was made available to the general public in 1974 when Archbishop Dermot Ryan leased the property to Dublin Corporation. Some of the famous people who have lived ‘on the square’ include Oscar Wilde, Daniel O’Connell, AE Russell, WB Yeats and Sheridan Le Fanu.

Oscar Wilde relaxing in Merrion Square

Fitzwilliam Square: it is the smallest of the city’s Georgian squares (3.7 acres) and also the last to be completed. Richard Fitzwilliam developed the site, hence its name, and work continued from 1789 for three years. It comprised 69 townhouses, and access to the park is available to these keyholders only. The artist Jack B. Yeats lived in No. 18.

John Millington Synge

John Millington Synge, poet, folklorist and leading figure in the Irish Literary Revival of the late 19^th century was born on the 16^th April 1871 in Rathfarnham, County Dublin. He was the youngest of eight children and his father was John Hatch Synge, a wealthy barrister who came from a family of laned gentry in Glanmore, County Wicklow.

JM Synge

His father died in 1918 and was buried on his son’s first birthday. Soon afterwards his mother took the family on the short journey to Rathgar where they lived beside her mother’s home. The little boy was educated at home before attending the Royal Irish Academy of music where he studied violin, piano, music theory and won a scholarship in counterpoint. He entered Trinity College in 1889 and graduated three years later before travelling to continue musical studies in Europe. However, due to his inherent shyness he was unable to deliver convincing musical performances and he opted for a literary future. So, in 1895 he moved to Paris and enrolled to study literature and languages.

JM Synge’s home in Rathfarnham, Dublin

He met WB Yeats the following in a hotel in Paris, and he suggested that he should travel to the Aran Islands and write about what he experienced there. Over the next few years, he did just that, and in learning the language spoken by the locals, he was able to write incisive, dramatic works. His play In the Shadow of the Glen, formed part of the bill for the opening run of the Abbey Theatre from 27 December 1904. But it was his masterpiece The Playboy of the Western World that was remembered by the audience and the public. On its opening night, 26^th January 1907, riots broke out and continued on following evenings. The play was ridiculed by just about every commentator and it caused more riots when it was performed later that year in America.

Plaque at Synge’s home in Rathfarnham, Dublin

Synge, who had always been a frail type, died from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on 24^th March 1909 in Dublin, and he is buried in Mount Jerome cemetery.

YEATS – Birthday Boy

Yes, I’ll go now, to my beloved lake isle

Ensconce myself there, and stay awhile

At last I find

The peace of mind

Simple life, that always brings a smile

WB Yeats – Born on 13 June 1865 at 5, Sandymount Avenue, Sandymount, Dublin

Lady Augusta Gregory

Isabella Augusta Persee was born on the night of the 14^th and 15^th of March 1852 in Roxborough House, Galway on an estate that measured 6,000 acres. Many years later she often questioned whether such timing – The Ides of March – was indeed favourable. She was the ninth of thirteen children, and closest to her four younger brothers, which commentators suggest developed her independent streak. She was educated at home and learned about local folklore from her nanny, Mary Sheridan, a native Irish speaker, and these tales left a strong impression on the young girl that she would develop later.

Lady Augusta Gregory

She was married to Sir William Gregory in 1880 and they lived at his estate at Coole, Co Galway. He was thirty-five years her senior, and they travelled in Europe and the Middle East, and had months-long breaks in London where she met such celebrities as Alfred Lord Tennyson and Henry James. When William died in March 1892 she returned to Coole and set about improving the financial position of the estate. After reading works by WB Yeats and Douglas Hyde she became interested in Irish legends and learned Irish to be better able to understand the stories that she collected.

By the mid-1890s she had become friends with Yeats who often stayed for months at a time in Coole, and the place became a hub for discussion on the budding Irish Revival. In 1897 a decision was taken to form an Irish Theatre, and the Abbey Theatre opened its doors on the 27^th December 1904 with two plays, Spreading the News by Lady Gregory and On Baile’s Strand by Yeats. Hugh Lane, her nephew, who she introduced to many Irish artists, later bequeathed most of his wonderful collection of paintings to the museum in Dublin that now bears his name.

Since those early days, The Abbey Theatre has become world famous, and Lady Gregory’s role as playwright and manager (until 1928) was remembered by dramatist Lennox Robinson ‘..without Lady Gregory’s doggedness and determination and belief in the Theatre, these people (Irish playwrights) might never have, artistically, existed’.

The Abbey Theatre

Oliver St. John Gogarty – Polymath

He was a man of many talents and was born in 5, Rutland Square (now Parnell Square) on 17^th August 1878 the eldest of four children. His father, Henry, was a successful physician and his mother, Margaret, who was from Galway. Henry died when Oliver was eight years old, and he was sent to school in Mungret College in Limerick before transferring to Stonyhurst College in Lancashire which he described as ‘a religious jail’.  He returned to Ireland in 1896 and attended Clongowes Wood College, Kildare, before studying medicine in Trinity College, and graduated in 1907. He went to Vienna to finish his studies and specialised in otolaryngology (Ear, Nose & Throat). Later, he had consulting rooms in Ely Place and was a member of staff at the Meath Hospital until he went to America. 

Plaque outside 5, Parnell Square East, Dublin

A keen sportsman he enjoyed cricket, football (he played for Bohemians FC) and a fine swimmer who saved four people from drowning. He wrote poetry and his poem Tailteann Ode won a bronze medal at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Among his friends he counted WB Yeats, AE Russell, James Stephens and James Joyce. When Gogarty rented the Martello Tower at Sandycove in 1904 he invited Joyce to stay. He, however, stayed only a few nights, but used the place in the opening scene of Ulysses and immortalised Gogarty in his character Malachi ‘Buck’ Mulligan. 

Martello Tower in Sandycove, Dublin

A close friend of Arthur Griffith he was an early member of Sinn Fein, and became a Senator. In 1922 when Griffith died on 12th August 1922 he performed the autopsy, and did the same for Michael Collins who died less than two weeks later.

In 1917 he and his wife Martha Duane, who was from Galway, bought Renvyle, a large house in Connemara. It was burnt down in 1923 but was rebuilt and operates to this day as Renvyle House. He moved to America where he spent his final years, and he died on the 22nd September 1957 in New York. He is buried in Ballinakill cemetery, near Renvyle.  

Portrait by Sir William Orpen

The Abbey Theatre – Centre Stage

The home of Yeats, Synge and Gregory too

Tales of Old Ireland, and thinking anew

The Abbey’s the place

What an intimate space

For onstage antics, and ideas to chew

 

From the start, it shone a searching light

The Playboy leading, to drama and fights

The Old Lady Says No!

So on with the show

Always plenty to say, for those who write

 

With the curtain up, and actors on stage

Hushed attention, as the audience engage

A world of dreams

In the darkness streams

A wonderful night, now turn another page

 

Don Cameron 2020

The Abbey Theatre – Centre Stage

 

Wordy Men – Dublin’s Nobel Laureates

Dublin has long been recognised as a literary influencer and it is nice to see that three city natives – WB Yeats (1923), GB Shaw (1925) and Samuel Beckett (1969) have received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Seamus Heaney, a Derry native who lived in Sandymount, Dublin for many years, joined the exclusive club in 1995.

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He was a poetic man, from Sandymount

Tales of Irish mystics, he did recount

Aengus and The Tower

Words of such power

That tumbled easily, from the fount

 

Playwright, activist with Academy prize

So many plays, did he cleverly devise

Press Cuttings were right

To his utter delight

In great observation, his genius lies

 

If you want less words, as some often do

Sam has plays, that will just suit you

Perhaps Come and Go

Or, yer man Godot

However small, there’s always much to chew

 

District and Circle the way to go

Next stop coming, is Golden Bough

Needing Room to Rhyme

Good time after time

A man beloved, he just steals the show

Don Cameron 2020

Write On….and on…

WB Yeats – Happy Birthday

William Butler Yeats was born on 13th June 1865 in 5, Sandymount Avenue, south Dublin, the eldest of four children. Ireland’s greatest poet was one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre, a leading member of the Irish Literary Revival, a Senator in the new Irish Free State and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.  (I will arise is dedicated to the great man.)

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I will arise

 

I will arise and go now, to the big shop

A place long-closed and almost forgotten

After such strange effort, my goodies I drop

Please don’t break, the eggs I’ve just gotten

 

It was fun being there, the place was right stuffed

Crowds gathered for ages, talking bargains galore

Anticipation finally over, we pushed and huffed

So much dizzy excitement, never once a chore

 

I will arise and go now, be sure to make it count

The place looking lovely, under a cloudless sky

The haggling was tough, but I got a dis-count

After such a busy day, time for bye-bye!

 

Don Cameron 2020

 

Bust of WB Yeats in Sandymount Green, Dublin

 

Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) – it’s molificent!

 

MoLI – Newman House

MoLI is the latest addition to Dublin’s literary map, and a splendid place it is too. It is situated in Newman House (86, St Stephen’s Green), a wonderful building that has been splendidly revamped, and there are exhibits on different floors. This reimaging of the grand, old house’s purpose has been, no doubt, well considered, and deftly achieved.
The museum is a collaboration between University College Dublin (UCD) and the National Library of Ireland (NLI) with the latter supplying many of the exhibits including, most famously, the first copy of James Joyce’s greatest work Ulysses. Joyce signed the first hundred copies (of the original one thousand print run) and the first one he gave to Harriet Shaw -Weaver, the English political activist and magazine editor (The Egoist), who had supported the writer financially for many years.

Some of our literary greats

Early in the exhibition homage is paid to the multitude of Irish writers whose works have entertained, provoked and, no doubt, encouraged others to put pen to paper. For a small island our contribution to world literature is impressive, and undeniable when you see the list of famous names.

A Riverrun of Language shows, through various media, the development and history of Irish writers. Then the Dear Dirty Dublin exhibition (Bayeaux Tapestry-like), which was proving very popular, takes you on a tour of Joyce’s life and writing. The city model, with streets and buildings highlighting scenes from his books, was of particular interest and very informative. It shows Dublin, the muse that he loved but had to leave, when he observed (in An Encounter, Dubliners) ‘I wanted real adventure to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.’

Dear Dirty Dublin

Upstairs there are items from the lives of George Bernard Shaw and WB Yeats, with the telegram informing the poet of his Nobel Prize award. With the extensive archives of both UCD and, particularly, NLI to draw from, exhibitions will change to showcase the collections and the works of Irish writers. So there will be plenty to see for years to come, and of that you can be certain!

Even the statue has a book!

The garden at the back of the museum is easy on the eye, and an oasis of calm in the heart of the city. With access directly from the restaurant I can see it being a popular place when the weather permits.

The building itself is a treat and dates from the early 1730s. It was once owned by William ‘Buck’ Whaley, a Member of Parliament, a renowned bon vivant and gambler. It was bought in 1854 for the Catholic University of Dublin (now UCD), and is where Joyce and many other famous Irish writers like Flann O’Brien, Maeve Binchy and Mary Lavin attended.
There is much to see and enjoy here, and I’ll finish with a comment that I overheard as I was looking at one of Joyce’s much-corrected notebooks.
First Voice: So,  what do you think?
Second Voice: Well, if you must know, I’m suitably…mollified.’
I had to smile, and I knew that Joyce would be happy that the Dublin wit he so appreciated was alive and well. Oh yes, it’s a wordy place!

A place for quiet reflection