The newly unveiled Abbey Theatre opens its doors for the first time on July 18, 1966.
Fifteen years earlier, in 1951, the original buildings of the theatre are destroyed by fire during the run of The Plough and the Stars. Ironically, the play closes to the strains of “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” The fire forces the theatre company to find a new home.
They relocate to the Queen’s Theater on Pearse Street for what is intended to be a temporary stay but instead lasts for a decade and a half. A week before the brand new premises on Abbey Street are opened, the company has its final performance at the Queen’s Theatre in what is a bittersweet evening. For the Abbey Theatre it signals the end of an era and the beginning a new one, but the future of the Queen’s Theatre is far less bright.
After the final performances from the Abbey, Never the Time and the Place by Lennox Robinson and The Irishwoman of the Year by John Power, uncertainty shrouds the fate of the theatre with the Irish Independent reporting that “It will be used for variety performances up to the end of September, but after that it is just a matter for speculation.” It is ultimately closed in 1969 and is demolished in 1975.
The jubilee year of the 1916 Easter Rising, the 1966 Abbey opening recalls memories of the events that had taken place fifty years earlier.
In an article published the day after opening night, the Irish Independent recalls that “Thomas MacDonagh, one of the executed leaders of the Rising was himself an Abbey playwright and when news of the seizure of the General Post Office reached the theatre at a rehearsal, members of the Abbey players and other hands made a hurried exit to join the fighting. And by then others of the company were already at the barricades.”
A world away from the battleground of the Rising, the opening of the new Abbey Theatre is attended by a who’s who of arts, culture and politics.
The Abbey’s new home is opened by President Éamon de Valera, who once graced the Abbey Stage as an amateur actor.
The new building is designed by Irish architectMichael Scott, who also designed the nearby Busáras building. He is considered one of the great modern architects and his vision for the new Abbey is thought to be the last word in modern-day design.
Solomons is born to Maurice Solomons and poet Rosa Jane Jacobs. Her father is an optician whose practice in 19 Nassau Street, Dublin, is mentioned in Ulysses. Her father is also the Vice-Consul of Austria-Hungary. The Solomons family, who came to Dublin from England in 1824, are one of the oldest continuous lines of Jews in Ireland.
Solomons grandmother, Rosa Jacobs Solomons, who is born in Hull in England, is the author of a book called Facts and Fancies (Dublin 1883). Her brother, Bethel Solomons, a renowned physician, a master of the Rotunda Hospital and Irish international rugby player, is mentioned in Finnegans Wake. Her brother Edwin is a stockbroker and prominent member of the Dublin Jewish community. Her younger sister Sophie is a trained opera singer. A portrait of Sophie, by her cousin the printmaker Louise Jacobs, survives in the Estella Solomons archives in the Library of Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
In 1898, at the age of 16, Solomons enters the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art where she wins a significant prize. Her classmates include future Irish artists including Mary Swanzy, Eva Hamilton and William J. Leech. She also attends the Chelsea School of Art from 1903 to 1906. A visit to the tercentenary exhibition of the work of Rembrandt in Amsterdam in 1903 impacts her creative practice and possibly influences her adoption of printmaking as her principal vehicle of expression. She studies under two of Ireland’s leading artists, Walter Osborne, who is another major influence, and William Orpen. With her friends Cissie Beckett (aunt of Samuel Beckett) and Beatrice Elvery, she goes to study in Paris at Académie Colarossi. On her return she exhibits in Leinster Hall, Molesworth Street, with contemporaries such as Beatrice Elvery, Eva Hamilton and Grace Gifford. Her work is also included in joint exhibitions with other artists at Mills Hall and the Arlington Gallery, London. She also exhibits at her Great Brunswick Street studio in December 1926.
Solomons illustrates Padraic Colum‘s The Road Round Ireland (1926) and DL Kelleher’s The Glamour of Dublin in 1928. Originally published after the devastation of the 1916 Easter Rising, the later edition features eight views of familiar locations in the city centre including Merchant’s Arch and King’s Inns. Her etching “A Georgian Doorway” is included in Katherine MacCormack’s Leabhar Ultuin in 1920. This publication features illustrations by several prominent Irish artists and is sold in aid of the new Saint Ultan’s Children’s Hospital in Charlemont Street, Dublin, that had been founded by two prominent members of Cumann na mBan, Dr. Kathleen Lynn and Madeleine ffrench-Mullen.
Solomons is elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in July 1925, but it is not until 1966 that she is elected an honorary member. Her work is included in the Academy’s annual members’ exhibition every year for sixty years.
Solomons is married to poet and publisher Seumas O’Sullivan, whose birth name is James Sullivan Starkey. Her parents oppose the relationship as O’Sullivan is not of the Jewish faith. They marry in 1925, when she is 43 and he 46, after her parents have died. She collaborates with her husband on The Dublin Magazine (1923–58), the renowned literary and art journal, of which O’Sullivan is editor for 35 years. She provides vital financial support to the magazine, particularly in sourcing advertising, which is difficult in the tough economic climate of the new Free State. She is helped in this endeavour by poet and writer, Kathleen Goodfellow, a lifelong friend. When Solomons and O’Sullivan are looking to move from their house in Rathfarnham because of a damp problem, Goodfellow offers them the house beside her own on Morehampton Road for a nominal rent. Two of Solomons’ portraits of Goodfellow are in the Model Arts and Niland Gallery in Sligo.
Solomons joins the Ranelagh branch of Cumann na mBan at the same time as Goodfellow. They are taught first aid, drilling and signaling by Phyllis Ryan. She is active before and during the Irish War of Independence. She conceals ammunition in the family vegetable garden before delivering it to a Sinn Féin agent. Her studio at Great Brunswick Street is used as a safe house by republicanvolunteers. During this time, she paints the portraits of a number of revolutionaries, some of which she has to later destroy to avoid incriminating them. Her work includes a portrait of Frank Aiken when we was chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Solomons takes up a teaching position at Bolton Street College, Dublin. In 1939, she organises an exhibition in Dublin to help refugee artists from Europe.
Solomons dies on November 2, 1968, and is buried in Woodtown Cemetery, Rathfarnham. Her friend Kathleen Goodfellow gifts the Morehampton Road Wildlife Sanctuary, where Solomons liked to paint, to An Taisce. Two plaques have subsequently been erected there, one in memory of Solomons and one for Goodfellow.
Some of Solomons works are held in the Niland Collection, at The Model gallery in Sligo and in the National Gallery of Ireland. Her archives, which include artwork and photographs (and prints by Louise Jacobs), and the archives of The Dublin Magazine are in the Library of Trinity College Dublin.
Margaret Brady is born to Patrick Brady, a coal merchant whose family are from County Meath, and Brigid Brady (née Savage) of Oldtown, Dublin. She is baptised in St. Lawrence O’Toole’s parish. At the time, her parents are living at 1 Clarence Street. She has three known siblings and is educated by the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. She is employed as a stationery shop assistant where she meets her future husband, James Pearse.
In 1877, she marries James Pearse at St. Agatha’s Church, off the North Strand. James is born in Bloomsbury, Middlesex, on December 8, 1839, and later lives in Birmingham. He comes to Ireland to work as a sculptor in the late 1850s with his first wife, Emily Susanna Fox, who dies in 1876. They have four children together. The first three children are Margaret Mary (born on August 4, 1878), Patrick (born on November 10, 1879) and William (born on November 15, 1881). All three children are born while the family lives in 27 Great Brunswick Street. Their youngest child, Mary Brigid, is born on September 29, 1888, by which time the family has moved to Newbridge Avenue, Sandymount. Pearse’s aunt, Margaret Brady, an Irish speaker, is a frequent visitor to the family home and encourages the children’s interest in the Irish language and culture. Her husband dies in 1900. Pearse does not permit her children to play with other children, however, she supports her children in all their aspirations. She has a very strong relationship and consequent effect on her eldest son, Patrick, who founds St. Enda’s School in 1908 and is the headmaster up until the time of his execution. She takes over the responsibility of Housekeeper at the school.
Pearse supports her sons’ political beliefs. After their execution, she wishes to maintain their legacy and becomes involved in political life. She joins Sinn Féin after the Rising and gives support and endorsement to candidates during the 1918 Westminster election. During the 1920 Poor Law Elections for the Rathmines area of Dublin, she stands as a Sinn Féin candidate and is elected on the first count. She is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin County constituency at the 1921 Irish elections.
Pearse strongly opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty, as do all the female TDs. She states during the Treaty debate that:
“I rise to support the motion of our President for the rejection of the Treaty. My reasons for doing so are various, but my first reason for doing so I would like to explain here today is my son’s account. It has been said here on several occasions that Patrick Pearse would have accepted this Treaty. I deny it. As his mother I deny it, and on his account, I will not accept it.”
Later she continues in a similar vein:
“Always we had to be on the alert. But even the Black and Tans alone would not frighten me as much as if I accepted this Treaty; because I feel in my heart – and I would not say it only I feel it – that the ghosts of my sons would haunt me.”
Following the ratification of the Treaty Pearse leaves the Dáil with the other anti-Treaty deputies. She is defeated at the 1922 Irish general election. She supports those who oppose the Treaty during the Irish Civil War and continues to be a member of Sinn Féin until 1926. In 1926 she leaves the party conference with Éamon de Valera and becomes a founder member of Fianna Fáil. She never stands for election again.
At the launch of The Irish Press newspaper, Pearse is asked to press the button to start the printers rolling. At many public occasions she states that were her sons alive they too would have joined Fianna Fáil. Accordingly, Patrick Pearse is recognised as the spiritual figurehead of the party to this day.
After Patrick’s death, the responsibility for running the school falls to Pearse and her two daughters. As Patrick Pearse had died without a will, the school is left in a precarious financial position. In May 1924, when she is aged 70, she undertakes a trip to the United States to raise funds for the school, alongside showing support for Éamon de Valera and the Irish Republic. At an event in Brooklyn on May 19, 1924, when referencing the execution of her two sons, she declares herself the “proudest mother in Ireland.” She also states that Michael Collins had attempted to “bribe” her with an offer to subsidise the school, which she refused. During a meeting in Seattle on August 11, 1924, she again discusses her sons and how she believes “the best way to honour their memory was to carry on their work for Ireland.” She raises over $10,000 in donations for the school during the trip. Notwithstanding her fundraising activities, St. Enda’s continues to decline and eventually closes in 1935. Great Brunswick Street, where she and the Pearse family originally lived, is renamed Pearse Street in 1920 by a resolution passed at the Dublin City Council meeting.
Pearse dies on April 22, 1932. She is honoured with a large state funeral and a motion is passed at the meeting of Dublin City Council expressing sympathy with the Pearse family. On April 26, 1932, sizeable crowds pay their respects as her funeral procession makes its way through the streets of Dublin. At the General Post Office (GPO), where Patrick and William fought during the Easter Rising, the funeral cortege pauses for a minute of silence before proceeding to Glasnevin Cemetery. Éamon de Valera gives an oration as she is laid to rest, which praises her inspiring courage, charity and cheerfulness during the years after her son’s death.
After Pearse’s death, her daughter, Mary Margaret, continues to reside at St. Enda’s. She also joins Fianna Fáil, and serves as a TD from 1933 to 1937 and later serves in Seanad Éireann as a Senator from 1938 until her death in 1968. Upon her death, as per her mother’s request, she passes St. Enda’s on to the people of Ireland.
Broy is a double agent within the DMP, with the rank of Detective Sergeant (DS). He works as a clerk inside G Division, the intelligence branch of the DMP. While there, he copies sensitive files for IRA leader Michael Collins and passes many of these files on to Collins through Thomas Gay, the librarian at Capel Street Library. On April 7, 1919, he smuggles Collins into G Division’s archives in Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street), enabling him to identify “G-Men,” six of whom are eventually killed by the IRA. He supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and joins the National Army during the Irish Civil War, reaching the rank of colonel. In 1925, he leaves the Army and joins the Garda Síochána.
Broy’s elevation to the post of Commissioner comes when Fianna Fáil replaces Cumann na nGaedheal as the government. Other more senior officers are passed over as being too sympathetic to the outgoing party.
In 1934, Broy oversees the creation of “The Auxiliary Special Branch” of the Garda, formed mainly of hastily trained anti-Treaty IRA veterans, who were opponents of Broy in the civil war. It is nicknamed the “Broy Harriers” by Broy’s opponents, a pun on the Bray Harriers athletics club or more likely on the Bray Harriers hunt club. It is used first against the quasi-fascistBlueshirts, and later against the diehard holdouts of the IRA, now set against former comrades. The “Broy Harriers” nickname persists into the 1940s, even though Broy himself is no longer in command, and for the bodies targeted by the unit is a highly abusive term, still applied by radical Irish republicans to the Garda Special Branch (now renamed the Special Detective Unit). The Broy Harriers engage in several controversial fatal shootings. They shoot dead a protesting farmer named Lynch in Cork, and when the matter is discussed in the Senate in 1934, the members who support Éamon de Valera‘s government walk out. They are detested by sections of the farming community. In the light of this latter history, their name is often used in reference to individuals or groups who attempt to disrupt contemporary dissident republicans, such as the remnants of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
Broy is President of the Olympic Council of Ireland from 1935 to 1950. He is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Irish Amateur Handball Association.
Broy dies on January 22, 1972, at his residence in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar.
On September 17, 2016, a memorial to Broy is unveiled in Coolegagen Cemetery, County Offaly, close to his childhood home. His daughter Áine is in attendance, as are representatives of the government, the Air Corps, and the Garda Síochana.
Neil Jordan‘s film Michael Collins (1996) inaccurately depicts Broy (played by actor Stephen Rea) as having been arrested, tortured and killed by Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) agents. In addition, G Division was based not in Dublin Castle, as indicated in the film, but in Great Brunswick Street. Collins had a different agent in the Castle, David Neligan. Broy is also mentioned and makes an appearance in Michael Russell’s detective novel The City of Shadows, set partly in Dublin in the 1930s, published by HarperCollins in 2012.
Pearse is the eldest child of James Pearse and Margaret Pearse (née Brady), who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) in the 1920s. She is educated at the Holy Faith Convent in Glasnevin. After leaving school, she trains as a teacher. She helps to found St. Enda’s School with her brothers Patrick and Willie. Following the executions of her brothers in the aftermath of the Easter Rising, she continues to run St. Enda’s, along with Fergus De Búrca, until 1933.
Illness forces Pearse into the Linden Convalescent Home in Blackrock, County Dublin when she is in her 80s. In 1967, when she is 89 years old, her condition is described to be deteriorating. However, in 1968 during the months leading up to her 90th birthday, she leaves the Linden Convalescent Home for a short while in order to spend her birthday at St. Enda’s in Rathfarnham. The president of Ireland at the time, Éamon de Valera, visits her at St. Enda’s to congratulate her on her upcoming 90th birthday.
Margaret Pearse dies, unmarried, at the Linden Convalescent Home in Blackrock, County Dublin, on November 7, 1968, and is given a state funeral. President de Valera, the church and the state all pay tribute to her at the funeral. She is buried beside her parents and sister at Glasnevin Cemetery. The Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, says that Margaret Mary Pearse is the last remaining member of the noble Pearse family. He says her life, like her patriotic brothers, was dedicated to Ireland.
As per her mother’s wishes, Pearse bequeaths St. Enda’s to the people of Ireland as a memorial to her brother’s sacrifice. The school is now home to the Pearse Museum.
Pearse follows his brother into the Irish Volunteers and the republican movement. He takes part in the Easter Rising in 1916, always staying at his brother’s side at the General Post Office. Following the surrender, he is court-martialed and sentenced to death. It has been said that as he is only a minor player in the struggle it is his surname that condemns him. However, at his court martial he emphasizes his involvement.
On May 3, 1916, Pearse is granted permission to visit his brother in Kilmainham Gaol, to see him for the final time. However, while he is en route, Patrick is executed. He is executed on May 4. He and his brother are the only two brothers to be executed after the Easter Rising.
There are many more public commemorations of Patrick Pearse than of William. In 1966, Dublin’s Westland Row railway station is renamed Dublin Pearse railway station to honour both brothers. Pearse Square and Pearse Street in Dublin are renamed in honour of both, Pearse Street (then Great Brunswick Street) having been their birthplace. Many streets and roads in Ireland bear the name Pearse. Few name William, but there is a Pearse Brothers Park in Rathfarnham. The bridge over the River Dodder on the Rathfarnham Road, between Terenure and Rathfarnham is named after them and carries a plaque depicting the brothers in profile.
Brothers Pearse Athletic Club, founded in Rathfarnham, is named after the two brothers. A number of Gaelic Athletic Association clubs and playing fields are named after both Pearses, and at least one after William.
The first production of the Irish Literary Theatre, The Countess Cathleen, is performed on May 8, 1899. Like many of William Butler Yeats’ plays, it is inspired by Irish folklore. In a time of famine, demons sent by Satan come to Ireland to buy the souls of the starving people. The saintly Cathleen disposes of her vast estates and wealth in order to feed the peasants, yet the demons thwart her at every turn. At last, she sacrifices her own soul to save those of the poor.
Yeats, Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn publish a “Manifesto for Irish Literary Theatre” in 1897, in which they proclaim their intention of establishing a national theatre for Ireland. The Irish Literary Theatre is founded by Yeats, Lady Gregory, Martyn and George Moore in Dublin in 1899. It proposes to give performances in Dublin of Irish plays by Irish authors.
In 1899 Lady Gregory secures a temporary licence for a play to be given at the Antient Concert Rooms in Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street) in Dublin and so enables the Irish Literary Theatre to give its first production. The play chosen is The Countess Cathleen by Yeats. It is done by a very efficient London company that includes May Whitty (Dame May Webster) and Ben Webster. The next production given is Martyn’s play The Heather Field.
In the following year the Irish Literary Theatre produces three plays at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin: Maeve by Edward Martyn, The Last Feast of Fianna by Alice Milligan and The Bending of the Bough by George Moore. The Bending of the Bough is staged during the Second Boer War which begins on October 11, 1899.
The Irish Literary Theatre project lasts until 1901, when it collapses due to lack of funding.
The use of non-Irish actors in these productions is perceived to be a failure, and a new group of Irish players is put together by the brothers William and Frank Fay, among others. These go on to form the Irish National Theatre Society, which leads to the founding of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1904.
The gates of Mountjoy Gaol are opened at 8:25 AM and news of the executions is read out to the distraught relatives of the dead. As many as 40,000 people gather outside the prison and many mournfully say the Rosary for the executed men.
By evening, the streets clear rapidly as the British-imposed curfew comes into effect at 9:00 PM each night. During this period, the city is a fearful place, patrolled by regular British troops and the much-feared paramilitary police, the Auxiliary Division, as people scurry home and await IRA retaliation for the hangings, which is not long in coming.
That very evening, IRA captain Peadar O’Meara sends as many as thirty-four IRA men out to attack police or military targets. They are armed with the standard urban guerrilla arms of easily hidden handguns and grenades. One young Volunteer, Sean Dolan, throws a grenade at a police station on nearby Merrion Square, which bounces back before it explodes, blowing off his own leg.
At around 8:00 PM, with the curfew fast approaching, a company of Auxiliaries based in Dublin Castle is sent to the area to investigate the explosion. It consists of one Rolls Royce armoured car and two trucks holding about sixteen men. Apparently, the Auxiliaries have some inside information as they head straight for the local IRA headquarters at 144 Great Brunswick Street, now Pearse Street. One later testifies in court that “I had been notified there were a certain number of gunmen there.”
The IRA is expecting the Auxiliaries. As soon as the Auxiliaries approach the building, fire is opened on them from three sides. What is described in newspapers as a “hail of fire” tears into the Auxiliaries’ vehicles. Five of the eight Auxiliaries in the first truck are hit in the opening fusillade, two of them fatally injured. The IRA fighters, however, are seriously outgunned. The Rolls Royce armoured car is impervious to small arms fire (except its tires, which are shot out) but mounts a Vickers heavy machine gun which sprays the surrounding houses with bullets. The uninjured Auxiliaries also clamber out of their trucks and return fire at the gun flashes from street corners and rooftops.
Civilian passersby fling themselves to the ground to avoid the bullets but four are hit, by which side it is impossible to tell. The British military court of inquiry into the incident finds that the civilians had been killed by persons unknown, if by the IRA then they were “murdered,” if hit by Auxiliaries the shootings were “accidental.”
The gunfire lasts only five minutes but in that time seven people, including the two Auxiliaries, are killed or fatally wounded and at least six more wounded. Three civilians lay dead on the street – Thomas Asquith is a 68-year-old caretaker, David Kelly is a prominent Sinn Féin member and head of the Sinn Féin bank, and Stephen Clarke, aged 22, is an ex-soldier and may have been the individual who tipped off the Auxiliaries about the whereabouts of the IRA meeting house. An internal IRA report notes that he is “under observation, as he was a tout for the enemy.” The wounded are spirited away by sympathetic fire brigade members and members of Cumann na mBan and treated at nearby Mercer’s Hospital.
Two IRA men are captured as they flee the scene. Thomas Traynor, a 40-year-old veteran of the Easter Rising, is carrying an automatic pistol, but claims to have had no part in the ambush itself. He had, he maintains, simply been asked to bring in the weapon to 144 Great Brunswick Street. The other is Joseph Donnelly a youth of just 17 years of age.
As most of the IRA fighters get away through houses, over walls and into backstreets, the Auxiliaries ransack St. Andrew’s Catholic Hall at 144 Great Brunswick Street but find little of value. Regular British Army troops quickly arrive from nearby Beggars Bush Barracks and cordon off the area, but no further arrests are made. Desultory sniping carries on in the city for several hours into the night.
(From: “The Pearse Street Ambush, Dublin, March 14, 1921” by John Dorney, The Irish Story (theirishstory.com), January 26, 2015)
Pearse is born on August 24, 1878, at 27 Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street) in Dublin, the eldest child of James Pearse and Margaret Pearse (née Brady), who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) in the 1920s. She is educated at the Holy Faith Convent in Glasnevin. After leaving school, she trains as a teacher. She helps to found St. Enda’s School with her brothers Patrick and Willie. Following the executions of her brothers in the aftermath of the Easter Rising, she continues to run St. Enda’s, along with Fergus De Búrca, until 1933.
Illness forces Pearse into the Linden Convalescent Home in Blackrock, County Dublin when she is in her 80s. In 1967, when she is 89 years old, her condition is described to be deteriorating. However, in 1968 during the months leading up to her 90th birthday, she leaves the Linden Convalescent Home for a short while in order to spend her birthday at St. Endas in Rathfarnham. The president of Ireland at the time, Éamon de Valera, visits her at St. Endas to congratulate her on her upcoming 90th birthday.
Margaret Pearse dies, unmarried, at the Linden Convalescent Home in Blackrock, County Dublin, on November 7, 1968, and is given a state funeral. President de Valera, the church and the state all pay tribute to her at the funeral. She is buried beside her parents and sister at Glasnevin Cemetery. The Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, says that Margaret Mary Pearse is the last remaining member of the noble Pearse family. He says her life, like her patriotic brothers, was dedicated to Ireland.
As per her mother’s wishes, Pearse bequeaths St. Enda’s to the people of Ireland as a memorial to her brother’s sacrifice. The school is now home to the Pearse Museum.
seamus dubhghaill 