An exciting tour which mixes eras and brings alive the timeless spirit of our capital : from the bewigged dandies of the 18th century to the spiky Punks of the 1970s. Next tour Sunday, 9th November.
The tour goes from College Green and Trinity College up Grafton Street to St Stephen’s Green, taking in the statue and buildings connected to famous characters.
We hear about Maud Gonne (pictured above) the beauty and rebel who inspired the love poetry of William Butler Yeats – and still turned him down. We look in on the literary pubs of the 1950s and 60s, frequented by Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh. And we hear about the former McGonagles nite club where Hippies, Mods and Punks mingled over the decades.
Our tour guide Eamon Delaney, a teenage punk himself, gives us a few tales about the rock shows back then and an emerging band called U2.
Before that on Grafton Steet, in 1758, there was Whytes Academy, a ‘Seminary for the Instruction of Youth’. The pupils included dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan (‘The School for Scandal’) patriot Robert Emmet and a young Duke of Wellington (below). Yes, he was Irish – up to a point.
The school’s founder, Samuel Whyte, once advised an aspiring writer Henrietta Battier that ‘if thou must write and would’st thy works dispense – write novels, sermons, Anything but verse’. The poet Patrick Kavanagh would disagree!
Women were still denied formal education and Whyte feared that Henrietta’s poetry would not be taken seriously.
No such gender restraints, however, for Constance Markiewicz, (pictured above). In 1916, she took over a building above Grafton Street as part of the Easter Rising. The building overlooked St Stephen’s Green, and bullet holes from the firing between Irish rebels and British troops are still visible on the nearby Fusiliers Arch.
Across from this arch was the Dandelion Market, famous for its colourful stalls and a big attraction for hippies, folkies and punk rockers. Our guide Eamon will give us more tales of his punk days (pictured below!)
There is a further personal angle in that the tour begins at the Thomas Davis statue on College Green, sculpted by Eamon’s father, Edward Delaney RHA. And it ends at the Wolfe Tone statue on St Stephen’s Green, also sculpted by his father.
We hear the stories behind these statues and the personalities of.the heroes depicted – Thomas Davis was the leader of the Young Irelanders revolt of 1848 and his statue replaced that of King William of Orange who was blown off his bronze horse.
Wolfe Tone meanwhile was a leader in the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion. He helped the Revolutionary French to invade and was sentenced to hang by the British. But he cheated the hangman by cutting his own throat – he wanted to be shot as a soldier. His statue was blown up in 1971 but it was subsequently repaired.
His son Eamon (above) remembers these statues being constructed in the yard of his childhood home, and now shares these memories, as well as his knowledge of the city’s history and characters.
Book now for a fascinating two hours ramble on these Dublin streets.
Next tour will be on Sunday, 24 August, meeting at 11.00 am, inside the front gates of Trinity College.
Book via PayPal or contact eamondelaney2@gmail.com or call 087 9465974.
Cost is 18 euros with payment in cash, or via PayPal here :
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/EamonDDelaney
The Lion and the Shamrock 