seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Category Archives: Arts & Music


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First Performance of Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan”

lady-windermeres-fanOscar Wilde‘s four-act comedy Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is first produced on February 22, 1892 at the St. James’s Theatre in London. The play is first published in 1893. Like many of Wilde’s comedies, it bitingly satirizes the morals of society.

The story concerns Lady Windermere, who suspects that her husband is having an affair with another woman. She confronts him with it but although he denies it, he invites the other woman, Mrs. Erlynne, to his wife’s birthday ball. Angered by her husband’s supposed unfaithfulness, Lady Windermere decides to leave her husband for another lover. After discovering what has transpired, Mrs. Erlynne follows Lady Windermere and attempts to persuade her to return to her husband and in the course of this, Mrs. Erlynne is discovered in a compromising position. It is then revealed Mrs. Erlynne is Lady Windermere’s mother, who abandoned her family twenty years before the time the play is set. Mrs. Erlynne sacrifices herself and her reputation to save her daughter’s marriage.

By the summer of 1891 Wilde has already written three plays, Vera; or, The Nihilists and The Duchess of Padua find little success, and Salome is censored. Unperturbed, he decides to write another play but turns from tragedy to comedy. He goes to the Lake District in the north of England, where he stays with a friend and later meets Robert Ross. Numerous characters in the play appear to draw their names from the north of England: Lady Windermere from the lake and nearby town Windermere (though Wilde had used “Windermere” earlier in Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime), the Duchess of Berwick from Berwick-upon-Tweed, Lord Darlington from Darlington. Wilde begins writing the play at the prodding of Sir George Alexander, the actor manager of St. James’s Theatre. The play is finished by October 1891. Alexander likes the play, and offers him an advance of £1,000 for it. Wilde, impressed by his confidence, opts to take a percentage instead, from which he earns £7,000 in the first year alone.

Alexander is a meticulous manager and he and Wilde begin exhaustive revisions and rehearsals of the play. Both are talented artists with strong ideas about their art. Wilde, for instance, emphasises attention to aesthetic minutiae rather than realism. He resists Alexander’s suggested broad stage movements, quipping that “Details are of no importance in life, but in art details are vital.” These continue after the opening night, when at the suggestion of both friends and Alexander, Wilde makes changes to reveal Mrs. Erylnne’s relationship with Lady Windermere gradually throughout the play, rather than reserving the secret for the final act. Despite these artistic differences, both are professional and their collaboration is a fruitful one.

There exists an extant manuscript of the play and it is held in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library at the University of California in Los Angeles.


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Death of Singer Delia Murphy Kiernan

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Delia Murphy Kiernan, singer and collector of Irish ballads, dies of a massive heart attack on February 11, 1971, five days before her 69th birthday. She records several 78 RPM records in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. In 1962 she records her only LP record, The Queen of Connemara, for Irish Prestige Records, New York, on the cover of which her name appears alongside the LP title. Her notable voice gives her the nickname the “Queen of Connemara.”

Murphy is born on February 16, 1902, in Ardroe, Roundfort, County Mayo, to a well-off family. Her father, John Murphy, from nearby Hollymount, makes his fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush. While in America, he marries Ann Fanning from Roscrea, County Tipperary. They return to Ireland in 1901 and purchase the large Mount Jennings Estate in Hollymount. Murphy’s father encourages her interest in singing ballads from a young age. He also allows Irish travellers to camp on the estate. According to her own account, she learns her first ballads at their campfires.

Murphy is educated at Presentation Convent in Tuam, Dominican College in Dublin, and University College Galway (UCG), where she graduates with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. While at UCG she meets Dr. Thomas J. Kiernan, and they marry in 1924, on her 22nd birthday. Kiernan then joins the Irish diplomatic service, where his first posting is to London. While there Murphy sings at many venues including many gatherings of Irish emigrants and becomes quite well-known. In 1939 she records The Blackbird, The Spinning Wheel, and Three Lovely Lassies for HMV.

In 1941, Kiernan is appointed Irish Minister Plenipotentiary to the Holy See in Rome. The Irish legation is the only English-speaking legation to remain open after the United States enters World War II. Murphy becomes one of those who assist Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty in saving the lives of 6,500 Allied soldiers and Jews. In 1943, when Italy changes sides, many escaped POWs are helped by the legation to leave Italy.

In 1946, Murphy is awarded to Dame Commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

Kiernan later serves as Irish High Commissioner and later first Ambassador in Australia, and later to West Germany, Canada, and the United States. In 1961, while living in Ottawa, Murphy makes the recording of The Queen of Connemara produced by Ken Goldstein. Murphy and Kiernan purchase a farmhouse in Jasper, Ontario, near the Rideau Canal where she spends most of her time, even after Kiernan is posted to Washington, D.C. Tom Kiernan dies in December 1967.

By 1969 Murphy’s health is in decline. In November of that year, she sells her farmhouse in Canada and returns to Ireland. She lives in a cottage in Strawberry Beds, Chapelizod, County Dublin, until her death. During her lifetime she records upwards of 100 songs.


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Birth of Theatrical Producer Hilton Edwards

hilton-edwards

Hilton Edwards, an English-born Irish actor, lighting designer, and theatrical producer, is born in London on February 2, 1903.

Edwards begins his career acting with the Charles Doran Shakespeare Company in 1920 in Windsor and then joins The Old Vic in London, playing in all but two of Shakespeare‘s plays before leaving the company a few years later. Trained in music, he also sings baritone roles with the Old Vic Opera company.

After touring with various companies in Britain and South Africa, Edwards goes to Ireland in 1927 for a season with Anew McMaster’s company and meets McMaster’s brother-in-law, Micheál Mac Liammóir. As he tells an interviewer once, both men want a theater of their own. Mac Liammóir wants it to be in Ireland and Edwards does not care. “I don’t care about nationalism, I care about the theater,” he says.

Edwards and Mac Liammóir co-found the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1928. The two men’s talents are complementary. Mac Liammóir is an actor, designer, and writer. Edwards is a director, actor, producer, and lighting designer. Edwards produces and directs more than 300 plays at the Gate, ranging from the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Henrik Ibsen to the comedies of George Bernard Shaw and Richard Brinsley Sheridan and new Irish plays, by such authors as W.B. Yeats, Brian Friel, and Mac Liammóir.

In New York City in 1948 Edwards plays in and directs John Bull’s Other Island and directs The Old Lady Says No and Where Stars Walk. In 1961 Edwards takes a two-year leave from the Gate to become the first Head of Drama at Telefís Éireann. A year later, he wins a Jacob’s Award for his television series Self Portrait.

Edwards appears in 15 films, including Captain Lightfoot (1955), David and Goliath (1960), Victim (1961), and Half a Sixpence (1967). He also writes and directs Orson Welles‘s Return to Glennascaul (1951). However, he is primarily known for his theatre work. He is nominated for a Tony Award in 1966 for Best Director of a Drama for Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Hilton Edwards dies in a Dublin hospital on November 18, 1982. Edwards and Mac Liammóir are the subject of a biography, titled The Boys by Christophor Fitz-Simon.


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Opening of the National Gallery of Ireland

national-gallery-of-ireland

The National Gallery of Ireland, home of the national collection of Irish and European art, opens on January 30, 1864. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on Clare Street. The Gallery has an extensive, representative collection of Irish painting and is also notable for its Italian Baroque and Dutch masters painting.

In 1853 an exhibition, the Great Industrial Exhibition, is held on the lawns of Leinster House in Dublin. Among the most popular exhibits is a substantial display of works of art organised and underwritten by the railway magnate William Dargan. The enthusiasm of the visiting crowds demonstrates a public need for art, and it is decided to establish a permanent public art collection as a lasting monument of gratitude to Dargan. The moving spirit behind the proposal is the barrister John Edward Pigot (1822-1871), son of David Richard Pigot, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and he becomes one of the first Governors of the Gallery. The façade of the National Gallery copies the Natural History building of the National Museum of Ireland which is already planned for the facing flank of Leinster House. The building itself is designed by Francis Fowke, based on early plans by Charles Lanyon.

The Gallery is unlucky not to have been founded around an existing collection, but through diligent and skilful purchase, by the time it opens it has 125 paintings. In 1866 an annual purchase grant is established and by 1891 space is already limited. In 1897, the Dowager Countess of Milltown indicates her intention of donating the contents of Russborough House to the Gallery. This gift includes about 223 paintings, 48 pieces of sculpture, 33 engravings, much silver, furniture, and a library, and prompts construction from 1899 to 1903 of what is now called the Milltown Wing, designed by Thomas Newenham Deane.

At around this time Henry Vaughan leaves 31 watercolours by J.M.W. Turner with the requirement that they can only be exhibited in January, this to protect them from the ill-effects of sunlight. Though modern lighting technology has made this stipulation unnecessary, the Gallery continues to restrict viewing of the Vaughan bequest to January and the exhibition is treated as something of an occasion.

Another substantial bequest comes with the untimely death in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania of Hugh Lane, director of the Gallery since 1914. Not only does he leave a large collection of pictures, but he also leaves part of his residual estate, and the Lane Fund has continued to contribute to the purchase of art works to this day. In addition to his involvement in the Gallery, Lane has also hoped to found a gallery of modern art, something only realised after his death in Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. George Bernard Shaw also makes a substantial bequest, leaving the Gallery a third of royalties of his estate in gratitude for the time he spent there as a youth.

The Gallery is again extended in 1962 with a new wing designed by Frank DuBerry of the Office of Public Works. This opens in 1968 and is now named the Beit Wing. In 1978 the Gallery receives from the government the paintings given to the nation by Chester Beatty and in 1987 the Sweeney bequest brings fourteen works of art including paintings by Pablo Picasso and Jack Butler Yeats. The same year the Gallery is once again given some of the contents of Russborough House when Alfred Beit donates 17 masterpieces, including paintings by Diego Velázquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Jan Steen, Johannes Vermeer, and Henry Raeburn.

In the 1990s a lost Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ, known through replicas, is discovered hanging in a Jesuit house of studies in Leeson Street in Dublin by Sergio Benedetti, senior conservator of the gallery. The Jesuits generously allow this painting to be exhibited in the Gallery and the discovery is the cause of national excitement. In 1997 Anne Yeats donates sketchbooks by her uncle, Jack Yeats, and the Gallery now includes a Yeats Museum. Denis Mahon, well known art critic, promises the Gallery part of his rich collection and eight paintings from his promised bequest are on permanent display, including Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph by Rembrandt.

The collection currently contains about 14,000 artworks, including approximately 2,500 oil paintings, 5,000 drawings, 5,000 prints, and some sculpture, furniture, and other works of art.


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Birth of Brian Downey, Founder & Drummer of Thin Lizzy

brian-downey

Brian Michael Downey, Irish drummer best known as the drummer and a founding member of the rock band Thin Lizzy, is born in Dublin on January 27, 1951. Along with Phil Lynott, Downey is the only constant member of the hard rock group until their break-up in 1983. Downey also co-writes several Thin Lizzy songs. Allmusic critic Eduardo Rivadavia argues that Downey is “certainly one of the most underrated [rock drummers] of his generation.”

Growing up in Crumlin, Dublin, Downey’s early musical influences come from his father who plays in a local pipe band and loves jazz, and also from his 60’s heroes: The Kinks, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones. In his youth, Downey meets friend, co-founder, and bass guitarist Phil Lynott, who attends the same school. Before forming Thin Lizzy, Downey has been in numerous school bands, beginning with The Liffey Beats, Mod Con Cave Dwellers, and briefly The Black Eagles (with Lynott). He moves on to performing in a local band, Sugar Shack, and then is persuaded by Lynott to join him in another band, Orphanage. Upon meeting guitarist Eric Bell, the trio form Thin Lizzy. Although the line-up of musicians within the band changes over the years, with the exception of Lynott, for the next thirteen years Downey remains the only other permanent member of the band, as well as drumming on Lynott’s solo albums.

After Lynott’s death in 1986, Downey plays in the tribute Thin Lizzy line-up with John Sykes, Scott Gorham, Darren Wharton, and Marco Mendoza, but has been absent from subsequent Thin Lizzy touring bands. After John Sykes’ departure from the group in 2009, guitarist Scott Gorham creates another line-up of Thin Lizzy. Downey, Mendoza, and Wharton rejoin, along with two new members: Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell and former vocalist from The Almighty, Ricky Warwick. This version of Thin Lizzy starts an extensive world tour in January 2010 and continues to tour until early 2013, with new permanent guitarist Damon Johnson eventually replacing Richard Fortus. Gorham has stated that the band members are considering recording new material, and this project eventually emerges under the Black Star Riders name, with which Downey chooses not to be involved due to the pressures of consistent touring.

Downey is a guest at the unveiling of Lynott’s statue in 2005, and drums for Gary Moore at the tribute concert that follows. Downey also appears on Moore’s 2007 album, Close As You Get, and subsequent tour.


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Opening Night of “The Playboy of the Western World”

playboy-of-the-western-world

The Playboy of the Western World, a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge, is first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on January 26, 1907. The play is set in Michael James Flaherty’s public house in County Mayo during the early 1900s. It tells the story of Christy Mahon, a young man running away from his farm, claiming he killed his father. The locals are more interested in vicariously enjoying his story than in condemning the immorality of his murderous deed, and in fact, Christy’s tale captures the romantic attention of the barmaid Pegeen Mike, the daughter of Flaherty. The play is best known for its use of the poetic, evocative language of Hiberno-English, heavily influenced by the Irish language, as Synge celebrates the lyrical speech of the Irish.

The Playboy Riots occur during and following the opening performance of the play. The riots are stirred up by Irish nationalists who view the contents of the play as an offence to public morals and an insult against Ireland. The riots take place in Dublin, spreading out from the Abbey Theatre, and are finally quelled by the actions of the Dublin Metropolitan Police.

The fact that the play is based on a story of apparent patricide also attracts a hostile public reaction. Egged on by nationalists, including Sinn Féin leader Arthur Griffith, who believe that the theatre is not sufficiently political and describes the play as “a vile and inhuman story told in the foulest language we have ever listened to from a public platform,” and with the pretext of a perceived slight on the virtue of Irish womanhood in the line “a drift of females standing in their shifts” (a shift being a female undergarment), a significant portion of the crowd riots, causing the remainder of the play to be acted out in dumbshow. Nevertheless, press opinion soon turns against the rioters and the protests peter out.

Years later, William Butler Yeats declares to rioters against Seán O’Casey‘s pacifist drama The Plough and the Stars, in reference to the Playboy Riots, “You have disgraced yourself again. Is this to be the recurring celebration of the arrival of Irish genius?”

In the 1965 film Young Cassidy, a riot occurs during a play by the fictitious playwright Cassidy, following which the character W.B. Yeats refers to Synge and speaks similar words, starting with “You have disgraced yourselves again.”

The production of Synge’s play meets with more disturbances in the United States in 1911. On opening night in New York City, hecklers boo, hiss and throw vegetables and stink bombs while men scuffle in the aisles. The company is later arrested in Philadelphia and charged with putting on an immoral performance. The charges are later dismissed.


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Birth of Painter Daniel Maclise

daniel-maclise

Daniel Maclise, Irish history, literary and portrait painter, and illustrator, is born in Cork, County Cork, on January 25, 1806. He works in London, England for most of his life.

His early education is of the plainest kind, but he is eager for culture, fond of reading, and anxious to become an artist. He later studies at the Cork School of Art.

Maclise exhibits for the first time at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1829. Gradually he begins to confine himself more exclusively to subject and historical pictures, varied occasionally by portraits – such as those of Lord Campbell, novelist Letitia Landon, Charles Dickens, and other of his literary friends. In 1833, he exhibits two pictures which greatly increase his reputation and, in 1835, the Chivalric Vow of the Ladies and the Peacock procure his election as associate of the Academy, of which he becomes full member in 1840. The years that follow are occupied with a long series of figure pictures, deriving their subjects from history and tradition and from the works of William Shakespeare, Oliver Goldsmith, and Alain-René Lesage.

Maclise also designs illustrations for several of Dickens’s Christmas books and other works. Between the years 1830 and 1836 he contributes to Fraser’s Magazine, under the pseudonym of Alfred Croquis, a remarkable series of portraits of the literary and other celebrities of the time – character studies, etched or lithographed in outline, and touched more or less with the emphasis of the caricaturist, which are afterwards published as the Maclise Portrait Gallery (1871). During the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament in London in 1834–1850 by Charles Barry, Maclise is commissioned in 1846 to paint murals in the House of Lords on such subjects as Justice and Chivalry.

In 1858, Maclise commences one of the two great monumental works of his life, The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher, on the walls of the Palace of Westminster. It is begun in fresco, a process which proves unmanageable. The artist wishes to resign the task, but, encouraged by Prince Albert, he studies in Berlin the new method of water-glass painting, and carries out the subject and its companion, The Death of Nelson, in that medium, completing the latter painting in 1864.

marriageaoifestrongbow

Maclise’s vast painting of The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife (1854) hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. It portrays the marriage of the main Norman conqueror of Ireland “Strongbow” to the daughter of his Gaelic ally. By the grand staircase of Halifax Town Hall, which is completed in 1863, there is a wall painting by Maclise.

The intense application which he gives to these great historic works, and various circumstances connected with the commission, has a serious effect on Maclise’s health. He begins to shun the company in which he formerly delighted, his old buoyancy of spirits is gone, and in 1865, when the presidency of the Royal Academy is offered to him he declines the honour. He dies of acute pneumonia on April 25, 1870 at his home 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London.

(Pictured lower right: The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife)


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Birth of Irish Artist Patrick Scott

patrick-scottPatrick Scott, Irish artist, is born in Kilbrittain, County Cork, on January 24, 1921. He is perhaps best known for his gold paintings, abstracts incorporating geometrical forms in gold leaf against a pale tempura background. He also produces tapestries and carpets.

He has his first exhibition in 1944, but trains as an architect and does not become a full-time artist until 1960. He works for fifteen years for the Irish architect Michael Scott, assisting, for example, in the design of Busáras, the central bus station in Dublin. He is also responsible for the orange livery of Irish intercity trains.

His paintings are in several important collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He wins the Guggenheim Award in 1960 and represents Ireland in the 1960 Venice Biennale. The Douglas Hyde Gallery holds a major retrospective of his work in 1981 and the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin holds a major survey in 2002. His works are distinguished by their purity and sense of calm, reflecting his own interest in Zen Buddhism.

In October 2013, Scott weds his companion of 30 years, Eric Pearce, in a civil ceremony at the Dublin Registry Office.

On July 11, 2007, Scott, who is a founding member of Aosdána, is conferred with the title of Saoi, the highest honour that can be bestowed upon an Irish artist. The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, makes the presentation, placing a gold torc, the symbol of the office of Saoi, around his neck. No more than seven living members may hold this honour at any one time.

Patrick Scott dies in Ballsbridge, Dublin, on February 14, 2014 at the age of 93. He is survived by his partner.


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Birth of Singer/Songwriter Eleanor McEvoy

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Eleanor McEvoy, one of Ireland’s most accomplished contemporary singer/songwriters, is born in Dublin on January 22, 1967. McEvoy composes the song “Only A Woman’s Heart,” the title track of A Woman’s Heart, the best-selling Irish album in Irish history.

McEvoy’s life as a musician begins at the age of four when she begins playing piano. At the age of eight she takes up violin and, as a teen, she joins the Junior Irish Youth Orchestra. Upon finishing school, she attends Trinity College, Dublin where she studies music by day and works in pit orchestras and music clubs by night.

McEvoy graduates from Trinity with an Honors Degree in music and spends four months busking in New York City. In 1988, she is accepted into the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra where she spends four years before leaving to concentrate on songwriting.

During a solo date in July 1992, she performs a little-known, self-penned song, “Only a Woman’s Heart.” Mary Black, of whose band McEvoy is a member, is in the audience and invites her to add the track to an album of Irish female artists. The album is subsequently titled A Woman’s Heart and the track is released as the lead single. The album goes on to sell over three-quarters of a million copies in Ireland alone and remains the biggest selling Irish album of all time. The record’s success makes McEvoy a superstar virtually overnight.

Eleanor McEvoy, the self-titled debut offering, recorded in Windmill Lane Studios, is released in February 1993, and tours in the United States, Asia, and Europe follow. Back on Irish soil, McEvoy is awarded Best New Artist, Best New Performer, and Best Songwriter Awards by the Irish entertainment and music industries.

McEvoy signs a contract with Columbia Records and begins working on a new, edgier second album, which is eventually entitled What’s Following Me? The album is released in 1996 and the sound is louder and grungier than her debut.

McEvoy releases her third album Snapshots in 1999. Her primary goal is to make Snapshots her most song-oriented album to date. Toward that goal, she hooks up with legendary producer Rupert Hine, who has worked with Stevie Nicks, Tina Turner, Suzanne Vega, and Duncan Sheik, and records the album at Rupert’s “Chateau de la Tour de Moulin” and then in Metropolis Studios in London.

As the century closes, McEvoy has had enough of major-label involvement, making the decision to take the fourth album and head down the independent road. Yola was a turning point in McEvoy’s musical direction. Released in 2001, it reflects the acoustic, jazz-influenced style she had developed on stage with Brian Connor.

March 2004 sees the release of Early Hours, produced by McEvoy and Brian Connor. The style differs from McEvoy’s previous work, taking on a jazz/blues feel for many of the songs. She continues to tour with Brian Connor until April 2005. She then begins performing solo, accompanying herself on bass guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, and violin.

McEvoy continues to release new albums almost on a yearly basis with Out There (2006), Love Must Be Tough (2008), Singled Out (2009), I’d Rather Go Blonde (2010), Alone (2011), If You Leave… (2013), and Stuff (2014).

Naked Music (2016) is McEvoy’s twelfth studio album. It is recorded at the Grange Studio in Norfolk, UK. McEvoy records the tracks by “studio-performing,” in other words, playing the songs as she would in a live performance. The album features exclusive artwork by famed painter Chris Gollon.


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Opening of the Albany New Theatre

theatre-royal-1821The Albany New Theatre opens in Hawkins Street, Dublin, on January 18, 1821.

In 1820, Henry Harris purchases a site in Hawkins Street and builds the 2,000–seat Albany New Theatre on the site at a cost of £50,000. The theatre is designed by architect Samuel Beazley. The construction work is not completed at the time of opening and early audience figures are so low that a number of side seating boxes are boarded up.

In August 1821, George IV attends a performance at the Albany and, as a consequence, a patent is granted. The name of the theatre is changed to the “Theatre Royal” to reflect its status as a patent theatre.

On December 14, 1822, the Bottle Riot occurs during a performance of She Stoops to Conquer attended by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Marquess Wellesley. Orangemen angered by Wellesley’s conciliation of Catholics jeer him during the national anthem, and a riot ensues after a bottle is thrown at him. Wellesley’s overreaction, including charging three rioters with attempted murder, undermines his own credibility.

In 1830, Harris retires from the theatre and a Mr. Calcraft takes on the lease. The theatre attracts a number of famous performers, including Niccolò Paganini, Jenny Lind, Tyrone Power, and Barry Sullivan. By 1851, the theatre is experiencing financial problems and closes briefly. It reopens in December under John Harris, who had been manager of the rival Queen’s Theatre. The first production under Harris is a play by Dion Boucicault. Boucicault and his wife are to make their first Dublin personal appearances in the Royal in 1861 in his The Colleen Bawn. The first performance of Boucicault’s play Arrah-na-Pogue is held at the theatre in 1864, with Boucicault, Samuel Johnson, John Brougham, and Samuel Anderson Emery in the cast.

The theatre burns to the ground on February 9, 1880.