What does graffiti tell you about a place and a time? (Belfast, Derry City, Armagh City, 1970s)

While collecting images for my Old Ireland Pictures Twitter account I came across these images of graffiti in various cities in Northern Ireland. They all date from the 1970s, two from predominantly Protestant, Unionist areas and two from predominantly Catholic, Republican districts*. Graffiti has probably existed since people have been able to write and there are numerous examples of ancient graffiti to be found in Egypt, Rome, Greece, and the like. One of the slightly dubious delights at sites such as New Grange is seeing 19th century and older graffiti inside it. Like the marginalia found in illuminated manuscripts graffiti can lend the historian a different, less formal insight into a time and a place than the official narrative.

 Geoffrey Street, near Crumlin Road, Belfast, 1973

The examples of graffiti I've included can I suppose be seen as an ancestor of sorts to the political murals that I've written about before. The first image above, which shows graffiti that espouses a quite clearly Unionist perspective, includes "Keep Ulster Protestant", "God Bless Paisley", "God Save The Queen", and "O'Neill The Lundy". While the first three are probably self explanatory, the Paisley being of course Ian Paisley, the Queen being Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the last one might need a bit of explanation. The O'Neill referred to was Captain Terrence O'Neill, who was Prime Minister of Northern Ireland between 1963 and 1969. O'Neill felt it expedient to achieve a rapprochement with, and bring in reforms to improve the lot of, Northern Irish Catholics. In the eyes of many Northern Irish Protestants this was tantamount to treason. A Lundy is any traitor to the Protestant Unionist cause. The term, especially well known in Derry City and environs, refers to Robert Lundy, Governor of Derry during the Siege Of Derry. Due to either treachery or perhaps rank incompetence, Lundy seemed to do all in his power to let King James II's forces take the city. To this day he is burned in effigy.

 The Bogside, Derry City, 1972.

The graffiti in this next image comprises the slogan "Easter 1916-72", an Irish tricolour, and "Provisionals For Freedom". The first slogan obviously commemorates the 1916 Rising although I'm not sure why 72 was included. The latter, sounding almost like an advertising slogan, espouses support for the Provisional IRA. In the background is the Walker Monument which was blown up by the aforementioned Provisional IRA in 1973. All that remains of it in public view is the plinth. 

 Belfast, 1970s, I am not sure of the locale.

The presence of a Vanguard Unionist graffito indicates this photo was probably taken in 1972 or shortly thereafter.  The three most prominent slogans are "Paisley For P.M.", "UVF", and "We Are The People". The first slogan is somewhat prescient with Ian Paisley having served as First Minister of Northern Ireland over 30 years later. The second stands for the Ulster Volunteer Force, a Protestant Loyalist paramilitary group. The last one had me perplexed for a minute as I had only ever heard "We Are The People" in the song Free The People by the Dubliners, an anti-internment ballad. However, it seems in this context it is a popular Glasgow Rangers slogan, a team associated with Northern Irish Protestant culture.

Armagh City, again I don't know what street/area this is, early 1970s. 

This last example of graffiti in Northern Ireland features a grocer's apostrophe. First there's "Pig's Out", an anti-police sentiment voiced by many people in many different places over the years, but clearly understandable in the context of Catholic Republican animosity as regards the then RUC. The second part is calling for a "Worker's Republic" which is a term most associated with James Connolly. Many Irish Republican groups called for a 32-county Workers' Republic to be formed, that is not only an independent Ireland, free of British rule, but also organised on socialist principles. 

All of the above examples display touchstones of the sociopolitical culture of their respective communities. One thing they all have in common is they're very basic. That is, white paint and a simple font is used in each example. A simple Irish Tricolour in the second example is the only graphic to be seen. In this sense these examples of graffiti diverge greatly from later luridly coloured political murals and indeed modern day graffiti which is often colourful and sophisticated in a visual sense.

*I am fully aware that there are Republicans who aren't Catholic and that there are Unionists who aren't Protestant but for the sake of brevity I have used Catholic Republican and Protestant Unionist. 

Ré Nua (1990)

Ré Nua (meaning New Era) was a series of Irish language books for kids from Junior Infants to Sixth Class, that were published by Folens in 1990. If you attended primary school in Ireland between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s it is possible you used these books in school. It's probably self-evident why I've posted these scans from the books. I think they're gorgeous, beautifully illustrated, and were perhaps the best schoolbooks I ever used. If I can string a sentence together in Irish nowadays it is in no small part thanks to them.

The books were illustrated by Emil Schinkel, who I am happy to say is still working today and has a site containing other beautiful work. Schinkel did a lot of illustration for Folens including on the Siamsa and Spraoi magazines that you may recall, which were sent out to primary school classes periodically. The illustrations have a colourfulness, busyness, and humour I find very endearing and which remind me of the Richard Scarry books that were another fixture of my childhood.

I am not sure how widely studied these books were in Irish schools and it seems that even those only a few years older than me never encountered them. The series has never attained a standing in the popular memory comparable with the likes of say Ann and Barry and the rest of the Rainbow series. Nor do I imagine they'll ever be reprinted for the Christmas nostalgia market like Soundings and other secondary schoolbooks have been in recent years. However, there is at least one Irish band named for one of the books (Dioscó na mBó) which is perhaps some indicator that these books are fondly remembered by people other than me.

Young Dublin, Old Dublin (1960s and 1970s)

When I was a young lad the bookshelves in our home were packed with reams of material related to my dad's work as a careers guidance counsellor. He had numerous worthy and wordy tomes by child psychologists from fascinating sounding locales like Kenosha, Wisconsin or Montreal in Canada. These described in terminology I couldn't understand then, nor scarcely would be interested in understanding now, child development and the many issues adolescents face.

Several of these books were illustrated and included images of children and young adults at school, at play, and at home.  To my young brain these images were like transmissions from an alternate universe. These children were like me but not like me, they wore strange attire and haircuts and played games I had never heard of. It was only when I was a bit older it dawned on me why I found the photos perplexing. These were North American kids and the stock photos of them had been taken years before I was born.

Similarly, the Childcraft encyclopaedias my parents bought contained snapshots of children in every corner of the globe. These images were at once elegiac and exotic. I recall being intrigued by an image of kids in Vermont eating maple syrup, doughnuts, and pickles, with snow. Lots of other images come to mind from the encyclopaedias, like a kid using a public telephone in the Soviet Union, a Ghanaian child playing with a handcrafted toy lorry, and a gaggle of children in a Kindergarten in East Germany.

There's no particular overarching theme to this post. It contains images of Dublin from the 1960s and the 1970s which I found interesting and I hope you find interesting too. When I saw these images, particularly the black and white ones, I was reminded again of those books and those images I had tried to comprehend as a child. The images below provide glimpses of the depths of poverty people lived in in Dublin during those years as well as the resourcefulness and joi-de-vivre of the children of the city at that time.

These images originally appeared in Edna O'Brien's Mother Ireland, Young Ireland by Jack Manning, and Ireland Through The Looking Glass by Ted Smart. Unfortunately I can't find the source right now for the last couple of the images but if I find it again I'll edit this post to include it.

 This one was captioned "Boot Boys", Hardwicke St, Dublin, 1970s.

 Driving cattle down Great Denmark St, Dublin, 1960s.

14 year old lad just joined CIÉ, Dublin, 1960s.

 Young lady selling newspapers in Dublin, 1960s, the caption for which states that girls didn't typically do that job. The Irish Press she's selling is headlined "Ship Blaze In Dublin Port" so it may be possible to pinpoint the exact day this photo was taken on.

 Young lads kicking a ball around, somewhere in Dublin. Can anyone suggest where this might have been taken? It looks to me like somewhere around Thomas St but that's a guess. 1960s.

Young man on a bike, Fownes St Lower, Dublin, 1960s. This street, in the heart of Temple Bar, has changed as much as any part of Dublin except maybe the Docklands. The concrete fortress that is the Central Bank now looms in the background and the whole row of buildings on the right of the shot appear to have been completely replaced. My eagle eyed brother is to thank for finding where the photo was taken.

Young girls playing games, 1960s, in what looks to me to be Summerhill in Dublin, but again if anyone has a better idea of where this was taken please comment on the post.

 Boys paying close attention, or at least feigning close attention, to their Irish lesson, Dublin, 1960s.

This shot and the next one confused me. Because of the colours and the year the book was published I assumed they were taken in the 1970s. However, it quickly became apparent that the pillar is present in both photos which of course dates them to 1966 at the latest. There's a John Hinde postcard that has a similar quality which I featured in a previous post. The shots are very reminiscent of the house style of National Geographic at the time. It's of course, O'Connell Bridge and O'Connell St.

This lady waits on O'Connell Bridge, Dublin, 1960s, for someone or something. A sign exhorts all passersby to "Smoke Bendigo". 

 This melancholy image was captioned the "Pickaroon". The girl is collecting coal that has fallen off trucks. I can't say for certain but I believe this image is from the 1970s. Sadly, it looks like it could have been taken any time in the previous hundred years. It was taken in Dublin's Docklands, an area that has seen huge change in its built environment in recent decades.

Old ladies in the Liberties, 1970s. This beautiful image clearly shows the extent to which many parts of Dublin were let fall to rack and ruin in the 20th century.

 The lads, hanging out, somewhere in Dublin, 1970s.

This image taken in the Docklands in the 1970s works as a colour companion piece to the pickaroon image above. A lone figure, lost in a Dickensian wasteland.

Corkcentric Print Ads (1956)

The ads below come from Blarney Magazine, Summer, 1956. It's not a publication I know anything about other than what I can glean from the sole issue I found in my possession. The advertisements in it have a simple elegance. These ads, mainly for Cork based companies, also give an insight into what consumer items were available in Ireland in the middle of the last century. Not being overly familiar with the People's Republic I can't tell if any of the advertised local firms still exist although of course Paddy Whiskey and Smithwick's Ale are still available in Cork as elsewhere. The most peculiar ad, to my mind, has to be for The Leprechaun cafe, illustrated as it is with a seemingly angry, malevolent leprechaun.

Discovering Northern Ireland (1950 and 1971)

Here's an advertisement for the Ulster Tourist Development Association from 1950. It featured in a guide book to Dublin and environs published in Britain. It's probably obvious why I posted this advertisement, but in case it isn't, I shall explain. The slogan "Ulster opens her doors to all" is replete with irony as the Northern Irish state at the time, while perhaps welcoming to tourists, wasn't all for opening doors to a substantial swath of its population. Catholics, who comprised around 1/3 of the population at the time, were in many significant ways treated as second class citizens. Similarly, a generation later nobody was describing the "quiet serenity" of the place.

(Source: http://clydesburn.blogspot.ie/2010/10/promoting-northern-ireland-in-1971.html)

Since the Troubles commenced in the late 1960s, promoters of tourism in the north have had a uniquely difficult job. Even today, fifteen years after the Good Friday Agreement, there's a stigma with some potential visitors associating the north, and in particular Belfast, with sectarian division and violence. Indeed, Belfast exploits its dark tourist potential with black taxi tours of political murals on both sides of the divide being a popular tourist activity.

A Song Of Swords (1916)

This poem relates to labour-related goings-on in my home town in 1913 which are elaborated upon here. The poem was written by GK Chesterton, the English polymath who is perhaps best remembered in Ireland these days for the oft-recited lines, "For the great Gaels of Ireland, are the men that God made mad, for all their wars are happy, and all their songs are sad" which feature in his epic poem, the Ballad Of The White Horse. 

 

Main Street, Swords, c.1900

(Image courtesy of Swords Historial Society via Gaelart)

A SONG OF SWORDS

  "A drove of cattle came into a village called Swords;
  and was stopped by the rioters."—Daily Paper.

  In the place called Swords on the Irish road
  It is told for a new renown
  How we held the horns of the cattle, and how
  We will hold the horns of the devils now
  Ere the lord of hell with the horn on his brow
  Is crowned in Dublin town.

  Light in the East and light in the West,
  And light on the cruel lords,
  On the souls that suddenly all men knew,
  And the green flag flew and the red flag flew,
  And many a wheel of the world stopped, too,
  When the cattle were stopped at Swords.

  Be they sinners or less than saints
  That smite in the street for rage,
  We know where the shame shines bright; we know
  You that they smite at, you their foe,
  Lords of the lawless wage and low,
  This is your lawful wage.

  You pinched a child to a torture price
  That you dared not name in words;
  So black a jest was the silver bit
  That your own speech shook for the shame of it,
  And the coward was plain as a cow they hit
  When the cattle have strayed at Swords.

  The wheel of the torrent of wives went round
  To break men's brotherhood;
  You gave the good Irish blood to grease
  The clubs of your country's enemies;
  you saw the brave man beat to the knees:
  And you saw that it was good.

  The rope of the rich is long and long—
  The longest of hangmen's cords;
  But the kings and crowds are holding their breath,
  In a giant shadow o'er all beneath
  Where God stands holding the scales of Death
  Between the cattle and Swords.

  Haply the lords that hire and lend
  The lowest of all men's lords,
  Who sell their kind like kine at a fair,
  Will find no head of their cattle there;
  But faces of men where cattle were:
  Faces of men—and Swords.

John Hinde Postcards Of Ireland (1950s - 1980s)

John Hinde (1916-1997) was an English photographer who set up shop in Ireland in the 1950s, after a stint in the circus. Hinde produced postcards of the Irish landscape and city streets. He favoured a lurid style often with posed, explicitly nostalgic subject matters. His postcards became immensely popular with tourists and locals alike and are fondly recalled to this day. In Britain, Hinde is best remembered for producing postcards of Butlins but his company produced postcards from all over these islands. Although Hinde sold his company in 1972 it continued to produce postcards into the 1980s, most of which were in his very particular house style.

I've posted two samples from the Hinde postcard collection. The first one is to my mind atypical of Hinde, featuring an almost futuristic nightscape of Dublin with the ghostly trails of traffic and the illuminated advertising for Club Orange, Texaco etc. It's a beautiful postcard and one I'm trying to find a physical copy of. The second is much more typical of the style Hinde became famous for. It's a presumably posed, kitsch and colourful representation of the Irish landscape featuring an archetyal buachaill and cailín rua as well as a trusty donkey, carrying turf from the bog. More of Hinde's Irish postcard collection can be viewed here.

Dalkey, Co. Dublin (1834)

This article was published in the Dublin Penny Journal issue number 85, Volume II, dated February 15th, 1834.

The Island of Dalkey, of which the foregoing is a view taken from Bullock, is divided from the mainland by a channel called Dalkey Sound, in which ships may safely ride at anchor in eight fathoms of water, sheltered by the island from the north-east wind, to which every other part of Dublin Bay lies exposed. This island is said to contain eighteen acres, and, although covered with rocks, is esteemed an excellent pasturage for cattle of all kinds. It is curious to see the people conveying black cattle hither from the mainland. They fasten one end of a rope about the beast's horns, and then tie the other end to the stern of a boat, which is pulled with oars in the direction of the island. By this means they drag the animal into the sea, and force it to swim after the boat across the sound, a distance of about a quarter of a mile. Besides good pasturage, Dalkey island produces some medicinal plants, and there is a ruin on it, said to be that of a church, but (the belfry excepted) no lineament survives that would induce a person to suppose it the remains of a place of worship. I much doubt its having ever been used for one. The side of the structure where some traces of an altar might be sought for, presents no such appearance ; but, on the contrary, a fire-place and chimney are to be seen where the altar should stand, had the building been for ecclesiastical uses. There are also visible in it vestiges of its having been lofted. It is therefore probable that the fabric, which is small and in the form of a parallelogram, was used for domestic or commercial and not for religious purposes.

Tradition informs us, that when the city of Dublin was limited by a plague in former days, some of the citizens retired to this island as an asylum from its desolating effects. It is certain that Primate Usher retired with his family from the same calamity to Lambay, and that he introduced a clause into the leases of that island, that, in case Ireland should again be visited by plague, the Lambay demises should be void, in order to ensure a safe retreat for his family.

There is a battery mounting three twenty-four pounders on the Island of Dalkey, whose highest point is crowned by a martello tower that differs from any I recollect to have seen elsewhere. The entrance to the tower is at the very top of the building, while the doors of most others stand no more than twelve or fourteen feet from the ground. Dalkey Island is uninhabited, save by the military stationed in the batteries. 

The engraving which accompanies this article also exhibits a view of part of Dalkey common, which extends from the village of the same name on the west, and the Government quarries on the south side to the sea. There is a dwelling house of a most extraordinary kind now being completed on a portion of this common. It is seen in our drawing, two stories in height, standing alone, with the front door opening within a few feet of a craggy mountain- precipice, and its rere (sic) wildly hanging over a dreadful rocky steep washed by the boisterous sea. The erection of this extraordinary edifice was a strange vagary of the projector. The first glance of it at once suggests to the imagination, ideas of the amphibious retreats of desperate smugglers, or cruel pirates of bygone times, rather than of the rural summer haunt of a peaceful citizen. The occupier might repose in it as it is said the celebrated Granuaile used to do in Carrickahooly castle, where her shipping was moored to her bedpost, for the purpose of preventing surprise. 

The name of Dalkey common is perpetuated in the convivial song called the Kilruddery Hunt, written in 1774 by Father Fleming, of Adam and Eve Chapel, and of which a copy is said to have been presented by the Earl of Meath to King George the Fourth, when he visited Ireland. The expression, " Dalkey-stone common," in that song, leads me to remark that there was formerly a druidical rocking-stone in the neighbourhood of Bullock or Dalkey. I find mention made of it by some old writera and also by Wright, in the Guide to the County of Wicklow : but although I have devoted several days to searching for it, I am with regret obliged to say, I have not been able to find it. 

The Government quarries on the common are at present worked by the respectable firm of Henry, Mullins, and Mc Mahon, who have contracted for the completion of Kingstown harbour. The largest blocks of granite, raised in the quarries by the force of gunpowder, are lowered (to the long level of the railway where the horses are yoked to the trucks) by a succession of three inclined planes, in the following manner. A large metal wheel with a groove in it, and revolving freely on an upright axis, is fixed at the head of each inclined plane. Over the groove a strong endless chain is passed, and from thence carried down a railway to the bottom of the inclination, where, running over friction-rollers, it returns up another rail road, parallel to the former, back to the wheel first mentioned. When a laden truck has to be lowered, it is brought to the verge of the descent, and there attached to the chain. At the same time, an empty track is fastened at the bottom of the descent to the ascending portion of the same chain. The laden truck is then pushed down the sloping rail-road, and by reason of its weight (from five to seven tons) proceeds rapidly down, drawing at the same time the empty truck up from the bottom of the parallel railway. There are generally three laden and as many unladen carriages moving up or down the steep in this manner at the same moment. Should the motion become too rapid, a man at the top has the power of regulating it by means of a friction-band, which, with the help of a compound lever, he can close upon the grooved metal wheel. The same contrivance serves to stop the descent altogether, the instant the trucks have arrived at their destination. Thus, by the aid of a simple combination of mechanic powers, a single man is enabled to move and controul (sic) the motion of six heavy carriages, bearing an aggregate weight of granite of about twenty tons, a task which it would require twenty-seven horses, with the ordinary modes of conveyance on common roads to accomplish. 

The village of Dalkey stands about seven miles from Dublin, at the northern side of Dalkey hill, on which was formerly a telegraph, now dismantled, and nearly undermined by the quarrymen in the neighbourhood. The village was formerly a place of great importance. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was a repository for the goods imported or to be exported by the merchants of Dublin. The ruins of several castles are still remaining here; they were built for the protection of trade against the hordes of land and sea robbers that infested the country at a remote period.