Government Buildings, Dublin

On Upper Merrion Street at the end of Fitzwilliam Lane in Dublin sits a thoroughly Edwardian pile which has been given the thoroughly boring title of ‘Government Buildings’. The city ceased to be a legislative capital in 1800 when the Irish Parliament voted to abolish itself and join the United Kingdom, so government edifices constructed during the nineteenth century lacked the proud stateliness of the Grattan era. The Westminster parliament finally conceded the principle of Irish home rule in 1914 but disastrously suspended its implementation due to the First World War. In stepped the Irish Volunteers, Easter 1916, the IRB, and all that and by the time the Treaty of Versailles ended the conflict on the continent, Britain was up to her neck in troubles in Ireland. Events had intervened and the unimplemented concession of home rule proved insufficient to quell the dire situation.

Even so, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 partitioned the island and created a separate government for ‘Southern Ireland’ and ‘Northern Ireland’, each with its own devolved legislature. The old Irish Parliament House had been sold to the Bank of Ireland so there was a question as to where the two houses of the new Southern Irish body would convene. Eventually the government decided upon this building, the Royal College of Science, and it was commandeered for that purpose. (more…)

In the Dublin auction houses

THOUGH THE BORING brains of tawdry metropolitan Londoners are all too quick at relegating Dublin to the provincial periphery of the mind, the Irish capital is a perpetual treasure trove for the old-fashioned and right-minded. A number of items of interests have recently been sold at the auction houses of the fair city, including two ceremonial uniforms (above) of that famous Dubliner, Sir Edward Carson QC. Carson was the lawyer and statesmen who passionately, but without bigotry, opposed the cause of Irish home rule. He was the defending barrister in the Archer-Shee case and led the Marquess of Queensberry’s team in Oscar Wilde’s doomed libel action. Carson and Wilde had been at Trinity together (where — little known fact! — Carson was a keen hurler), and the famous wit quipped of Carson “I trust he will conduct his cross-examination with all the added bitterness of an old friend.”

Having a fine mind for the law and being politically active meant that Carson moved through several layers of British government, holding numerous offices and positions. He was a Privy Counsellor twice over (of both Ireland and the United Kingdom), a Queen’s Counsel, served in the House of Commons as leader of the Irish Unionists, and held portfolios in the British Cabinet. The two ceremonial uniforms auctioned at Whyte’s of Molesworth Street are from his appointment as Solicitor General for England & Wales in 1900. (He had been Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1892, and was later Attorney General for England & Wales, in which position he was succeeded by the F.E. Smith of Chesterton’s famous poem).

The two black wool morning coats feature gold bullion trimming and buttons, and are sold with a pair of trousers with gold filigree stripe matching the lesser uniform, and knee breeches & silk stockings for the greater uniform. The vellum appointment as Solicitor General was also included, in a red leather box with a gilt impression of the royal arms. Whyte’s estimated a sale of €50,000-€70,000, but the lot’s realised price was €42,000. (more…)

No. 82, Eaton Square

In it’s long history, the address of No. 82 Eaton Square in London has housed a Major-General of the East Indian Cavalry, a Lord Strafford, a Lord Bagot, an Earl of Dalhousie, an Earl of Clare, a Duke of Bedford, and Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands — thankfully not all at once. It’s probably best know for its half-century as the Irish Club, a much-favoured drinking & smoking spot for the community of Gaels in London. The club was founded in 1947, with a number of pre-existing Irish clubs merging into it. George VI — grateful for the devoted service of the Irish who volunteered for his armed forces during the Second World War — heard that the club was in search of premises and asked the Duke of Westminster, one of the largest landowners in London, if he could help. The Duke provided the leasehold of No. 82 Eaton Square to the Irish Club for a nominal sum. (As it happens, the 4th Duke’s son served as a Unionist MP for Fermanagh & South Tyrone, and later in the Northern Irish Senate). (more…)

The University of Dublin

Founded in 1592, the University of Dublin is the youngest of the ancient universities of Britain. (It’s ten years younger than the next youngest, Edinburgh, and nearly five-hundred years younger than the oldest, Oxford). On Archiseek, an Irish internet forum dedicated to architecture, there is a user named ‘grahamh’ who posts, from time to time, photographs he has taken from around the fair city of Dublin, of which those presented here are a selection. The University of Dublin is much more commonly known as Trinity College, Dublin, as the university has just the one college, unlike the multi-collegiate universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere. (more…)

The Seanad Éireann

Ireland’s senate is a curious creature. Its first members were co-opted & appointed and these included seven peers, a dowager countess, and five baronets and knights, twenty-three Protestants, and a Jew. Among this cast of characters were W. B. Yeats, General Sir Bryan Mahon, and the physician-poet-author Oliver St. John Gogarty. In 1937, however, the Seanad Éireann took its current form, and since the abolition of the Bavarian upper house in 1999, the Seanad is (so far as my research can discover) the last corporately-organised parliamentary body in Europe.

There are sixty members of the Irish senate, who are chosen by a variety of means. (more…)

Enda & Declan

“Now you wouldn’t go scuppering this Lisbon deal we’ve got now wouldja, Mr. Ganley?” Mr. Enda Kenny of Fine Gael (left) meets Mr. Declan Ganley of Libertas (right).

While I am Fine Gael by tribe & temperament, there’s no doubting the party’s been heading in the wrong direction for several decades now. Once moderate in the face of republican extremism, it is now a banal shell of its former self. (Who would Gen. Mulcahy vote for today, one wonders). I hope those who have the opportunity of voting in the current European elections might consider voting for Mr. Ganley’s Libertas party, which is running candidates in quite a number of EU member states, including the United Kingdom.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Another view of Dublin’s splendid General Post Office on O’Connell Street; the last one we posted was from half a century earlier.

The Victory Parade, Dublin 1919

UPDATED Peter Henry’s article from Trinity News corrects my errors.

Persuant to our previous photograph of the Union Jack proudly snapping from Dublin’s General Post Office, one of our dear friends & loyal readers, a former editor of Trinity College’s newspaper, sends this photo of the 1919 Victory Parade through the streets of Dublin after the end of the Great War. The red, white, and blue here flies from the top of Trinity College, and the view looks down D’Olier Street (if I recall correctly) towards O’Connell Street in the distance. The classical portico on the left marks the entrance to the Irish House of Lords.

It is worth remembering that a great deal more Irish served in the forces of the Crown than in any republican armed forces or groups. The memory of Ireland’s great sacrifice during the First World War was shamefully neglected from the 1930s until about ten or fifteen years ago. It was a pity that the famous old Irish regiments were disbanded when independence came in 1921, rather than being continued under a native Irish command. Gone the Connaught Rangers and Dublin Fusiliers, and all the great battle honours won by Irishmen from Waterloo to far off India. (Two Irish regiments still exist in the British Army, the Royal Irish and the Irish Guards). Still, in remembrance of the dead of the First World War, one can visit the War Memorial Gardens by the banks of the Liffey, beautifully designed by Lutyens and completed after independence. The cost was split between the Irish and British governments, and, in the post-war downturn, half the workers were Irish veterans of the British Army and half were veterans of the formerly rebel forces.

Ireland remained neutral during the Second World War but declared a state of emergency, which is why the time of the war is often known in Ireland as “the Emergency”. Allied and Axis soldiers who washed up or crash-landed in Ireland found themselves interned in camps, but the Irish soldiers guarding them were only armed with blank ammunition. (Allied internees were often allowed to escape). The law of the day forbade any Irish citizen from joining a foreign military, but many soldiers of the Irish Army, policemen of an Garda Siochana, and many Irish civilians left for Britain to join the Allies in the fight, and were not punished on their return. When the port of Belfast suffered a German bombardment, fire brigades from Dundalk to Dublin were sent north irrespective of the border in order to help quell the flames.

Returning to Trinity, flying the Union Jack in 1919 would not have proved controversial in the slightest (after all, it was still the official flag of the land), but the crowds gathered again on College Green in 1945 to spontaneously celebrate the news of Germany’s surrender. The flag of Ireland with those of all the Allied nations were flown from the flagpole of Trinity, but some tactless student had placed the Union Jack at the top and the Irish Tricolour at the very bottom, below even the Soviet hammer-and-sickle. The crowd noticed this and began to howl, but some more thoughtful Trinity man swiftly took the colours down and raised them again with the Tricolour to the fore. The joyful spirit resumed.

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Dublin (In the Rare Old Times)

O’Connell Street, Dublin, United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland.

Norn Iron Unites

What issue could be so important that it unites Northern Ireland’s four main political parties? The leaders of the Democratic Unionist Party, Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic & Labour Party, and the Ulster Unionist Party (to name the parties, from largest to smallest in number of votes) have written to Westminster MPs urging them to oppose the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland was exempt from the Act legalizing abortion in Great Britain because at the time it had its own parliament handling regional issues. The six Irish counties that have remained in the Union are the most strongly anti-abortion part of the United Kingdom.

The Physical Incarnation of Ireland’s Golden Age

I HAVE ALREADY written about the old Houses of Parliament in Dublin, one of my favourite buildings in the entire world, but occasionally one feels the need to revisit previous haunts on this little corner of the web. It is supposedly the first purpose-built parliament building in the world, and stands on the site of Chichester House, a stately home adapted for use by the Irish Parliament from the 1600s onwards.

The Parliament of Ireland first formed in the thirteenth century and existed until its abolition by the Act of Union in 1801. The first recorded meeting was in 1264, making it ostensibly older than the English Parliament if one counts de Montfort’s Parliament of 1265. (More reasonably, we might count the Oxford Parliament of 1258 as England’s “first”). Admittedly, the Parliament was born out of the extended Anglo-Norman domination of Ireland, and Poynings’ Law of 1494 meant that all acts had to receive approval from England before becoming law. Alongside the Protestant Revolution in England, Protestantism was made the state religion in Ireland. Nonetheless, Irish Catholics were actually allowed to vote for the Irish House of Commons (though not stand for election) and take seats in the Irish House of Lords until they were explicitly banished in 1728.

As the eighteenth century proceeded, the Anglo-Irish aristocracy who dominated the Irish Parliament began to seek greater freedom from the British Parliament in Westminster. Through the efforts of the great reformer Henry Grattan, the Parliament of Great Britain was persuaded to allow the repeal of Poynings’ Law in order to appease the growing Irish discontent. With the “Constitution of 1782″, as it was known, Ireland’s legislative independence was restored.

“I found Ireland on her knees,” Grattan proclaimed. “I watched over her with a paternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed! Ireland is now a nation!”

The Irish House of Lords

Ireland’s aristocracy in the Commons and the Lords used their newfound freedom from Britain to adopt a program of moderate, evolutionary reform with the aim of stabilizing the divided nation. Most importantly, by the actions of this Protestant elite the freedom of the Catholic Church was gradually extended. Catholics were once again allowed to vote for the Commons from 1793. In 1795, George III, King of Ireland, exhibited his munificence towards his loyal Roman Catholic subjects by establishing St. Patrick’s College at Maynooth as a Catholic seminary. The land for the college donated by the (Anglican) Duke of Leinster. The seminary continued to be funded by the officially Protestant government until 1869, when the (Anglican) Church of Ireland was disestablished, removing Protestantism as the official state religion.

The Irish House of Commons

With the Parliament’s freedom, Dublin once again became a city of great importance instead of a mere administrative backwater. Merchants and the aristocracy built grand houses in and around the city to participate in the social season. Between January and St. Patrick’s Day in March, the Viceroy of Ireland presided over state balls in the Viceregal Apartments of Dublin Castle, coinciding (for the most part) with the parliamentary session.

Ireland’s golden age, however, was not to last long. Alongside Ireland’s peaceful liberation, the horrors of the Revolution were regnant across the sea in France, and the revolutionary regime there attempted to export its evil ideology. In 1798, the Society of the United Irishmen, a radicalized band of angry reformers, launched a violent republican revolution inspired by the French. The rebellion was eventually suppressed but its widespread nature spread alarm at the state of affairs in Ireland. In the backlash, the British government was convinced that the only solution was the union of Great Britain and Ireland, along similar lines as the Union of Scotland and England in 1707. The initial attempt to get the Irish parliament to abolish itself and agree to union with Great Britain failed, but after a mass campaign of bribery and inducements, the Act of Union was passed in 1800. On January 1, 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland joined, and the United Kingdom was born.

The last session of the Irish Parliament, 1800.

Previously: The Old Irish Parliament House | Hail Glorious Saint Patrick | Parliament House

Hail Glorious Saint Patrick

THE FEAST OF IRELAND’S patron saint is an occasion for parading if ever there was one. For this, we can send part of our thanks to the British Army, which happened to initiate the most famous St. Patrick’s Day Parade of them all, namely, New York’s. It was 1762 when a number of Irish troops in the service of the Crown took it upon themselves to parade up Gotham’s own Broadway on the 17th of March. (More recently, the Duke of Edinburgh was invited to partake in the New York parade during his 1966 visit to America). Despite the lamentable outbreak of separatist republicanism in much of Ireland, the sons of Erin continue to take the Queen’s shilling and serve proudly in Her Majesty’s forces, and true to form they are sure to mark their patron’s feast day.

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Lord Glenavy

Sir James Henry Mussen Campbell, Bt., 1st Baron Glenavy, PC, QC. was born in Dublin in 1851. Campbell graduated from the University of Dublin (Trinity College) a Bachelor of the Arts in 1874. He was called to the Irish bar in 1878, being made a Queen’s Counsel in 1892. Campbell was elected to parliament in 1898, being called to the English bar a year later. He was made Solicitor General for Ireland in 1903, as well as being appointed an Irish Privy Counsellor. He rose to become Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1916, being made a baronet the following year, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland the year after that (1918). Sir James was ennobled as 1st Baron Glenavy upon relinquishing office in 1921.

Ireland was partitioned in the following year, and Lord Glenavy became the first Cathaoirleach of the Seanad Eireann (Presiding officer of the Irish senate). In 1923, he chaired the judicial committee investigating the establishment of a new courts system for the Irish Free State. His proposals were implemented the following year in the Courts of Justice Act 1924, forming the Irish courts as they remain today. Having served one six-year term in the Seanad, he did not seek re-elected in 1928, and died three years later in 1931. Holding the largely honorary position of President of the College Historical Society (“the Hist”), Dublin University’s debating society, from 1925, he was succeeded upon his death by his fellow Irish Protestant, Douglas Hyde, who himself later became the first President of Ireland from 1938 until 1945.

Bon Voyage

Heading to Scotland for a little bit, then down to Somerset for a spell. Dino Marcantonio, you’re in charge!

The University Church, Dublin

It is said that Newman was not a fan of the gothic revival. When he had this church built for his Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin (since then merged into the Royal University of Ireland which became the National University of Ireland, University College Dublin), he certainly made sure it was über-byzantine. Though beautiful on the inside, it has possibly the least imposing facade of any church I’ve ever seen. Perhaps that adds to its charm.

Parliament House

Irish Parliament House, now the Bank of Ireland, on College Green in Dublin, is one of my favourite buildings in the world. You can go there and visit the House of Lords chamber. Unfortunately, the House of Commons chamber burned down shortly after the Irish Parliament was merged into the British one in 1800. It is supposedly the first purpose-built parliament building in the world, though no longer in use.