Magazine
Finding Structure: Dublin Since 1922 by Tim Carey
Dublin Since 1922 was a book that I had wanted to write for many years but I was unable to find a structure that would allow me to address a number of questions about Dublin since independence. How could I capture the main themes – music, sport, housing, planning, crime, literature, transport – of Dublin’s life since independence? How could I portray the defining characteristics of each era of the city as well as the key factors that make Dublin ‘Dublin’? How could I portray the evolving importance of the capital to Irish society in general? How could I do all of this in a way that would be accessible to as many people as possible while at the same time being based on sound research?
Then one day while I was thinking about my own life and how much of it has been defined by certain key days – the day I got married, moved house, was a victim of an armed robbery, severed an Achilles tendon, became a father, became a father for a second time, published my first book – I thought the same could tell the story of Ireland’s capital.
In the end the book was structured around 300 or so key dates starting with the arrival of Michael Collins at Dublin Castle on 16 January, 1922 to take over the reins of power from the Lord Lieutenant, to the collapse of the Anglo Irish Bank in Dublin on 21 December 2008. Each entry tells the story of what happened that day but also, in most cases, the background to that day, thereby allowing a much bigger story to be told.
So, how did I decide on the 300? The selection of some was relatively straightforward. People familiar with the city and its history could have fairly quickly come up with an initial list of the likes of the Eucharistic Congress, the Pope’s Visit, the Millennium Year, the City of Culture year, Brendan Behan, James Joyce, the last tram service from the city centre in 1949, the huge transformations that took place in the city in the 1960s and 1970s, U2, the Dubliners, the bombing of North Strand during World War II, the slums and tenements, the DART, the closing of the Red Light district of Monto, the publication of Frank McDonald’s seminal book The Destruction of Dublin and so on. Ultimately these mainstream entries would comprise around a third of the book. After this came the essence of any research, the trawl.
Newspapers were a valuable source of information. Sometimes I would just scroll through day after day, week after week, month after month of issues looking for stories on Dublin. This is pure slog but inevitably this type of research brings to light material that has not made it into mainstream history books. Among the subjects I came across in this way was the impact of the car on the city in the 1920s, the crime wave of the 1950s and the Women’s Liberation movement in the city in the 1970s.
Apart from consulting newspapers the vast majority of work took place in Dublin City Council’s Pearse Street Library, the Trinity College Library, the National Archives and, most important of all, the National Library, that great repository of hidden stories.
During the course of research literally hundreds of books that were published about Dublin during the period 1922-2008 were consulted. These covered an eclectic range of subjects from marital desertion in Dublin, three years of Women’s Way Magazines, the 1967 Myles Wright planning report that ultimately gave us the M50, East Link and Port Tunnel, James Plunkett’s Strumpet City, the various guide books to the city, Mamie Cadden: Backstreet Abortionist by Ray Kavanagh, the Minute books of Dublin Corporation meetings and the Catalogue to the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943. The sheer variety of subjects requiring inclusion provided a constant source enjoyment but also presented the challenge of trying to get one’s head around yet another new aspect of the city’s history.
There were many unexpected finds along the way that led to near, and sometimes actual, fist pumps of excitement – sad, I know!! Among these were Garda Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy’s evidence of child abuse and the causes of prostitution of Dublin given in the long suppressed 1931 Carrigan Report, Professor Erwin Shroedinger’s lectures at TCD during World War II on ‘What is Life’ which helped pave the way for the discovery of the DNA Double Helix, insights into the suburban aspirations of Irish women in the 1960s expressed through the pages of the aforementioned Women’s Way magazines and a column Patrick Kavanagh wrote in the Irish Press during World War II called ‘Piers Ploughman’ which documented the often unreported daily life of the city.
There were some entries that required a length of time totally disproportionate to the space they take up in the book. I became particularly obsessed with finding out the date that the first red letter box was painted green in the city after independence – it was a small but telling symbol in the transition process. It took me fully two days research to find out it was on Dame Street, appropriately near the entrance to Dublin Castle, and was painted in 14 March 1922, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.
By and large the entries that were ultimately included were ones that just ‘fit’ in terms of what I was trying to achieve. Mostly these made immediate and obvious sense to me as being definitive parts of the story of Dublin Since 1922 and did not require great deliberation – no doubt people could argue about the inclusion, or exclusion, of certain topics
I was always on the lookout for quotes from people, from whatever era, that caught an aspect that defined the very experience of being in Dublin. Of these I particularly liked the quote by VS Pritchett, ‘You would not dare to aske two or three Dubliners to dinner without telling them who was going to be there. The place is full of enemies and non-speakers.’ And Olivia Robertson’s 1957 quote, ‘You can always recognize a native Dubliner by his self-deprecation…It is a habit which is fatal to promotion prospects in America, but in Dublin is essential, as it wards off possible criticism.’
The final stage of the process of deciding what goes in and what does not is the inevitable cuts made due to lack of space. In particular there were three entries which I spent a good deal of time working on that had to be taken out. They were the findings of a report on the Morale of Busmen and Conductors that was carried out in the 1960s – really interesting insights into the life of a Dublin bus conductor, the work by linguist Raymond Hickey on the emergence of the new Dublin accent among the affluent young people of the city in the late 1990s and the hundreds of occupations in the city that were gleaned from the Annual Thom’s Directory in the 1940s.
People often ask me how do you know when you are done? I don’t believe the quote, ‘A piece of art is never finished, just abandoned’. For me it is when I have exhausted all the main and minor sources of information, when I have read what I have written and feel the story is complete, self-contained, that it does not lead the reader down blind avenues and where an entry does not jar. At that point I can walk away entirely content that I have done my best.
(c) Tim Carey
About Dublin Since 1922
Dublin Since 1922 tells the story of Ireland’s capital city since independence. Richly illustrated throughout, it unfolds around hundreds of dates in the city’s history, beginning with the founding of the Irish state – when Dublin had the worst slums in Europe – and ending in the last days of the Celtic Tiger.
Through major events, Carey charts nearly a century of the capital’s history, from the Civil War, the Eucharistic Congress and President Kennedy’s visit, to the 1986 earthquake, the Stardust disaster and the changing faces of the St Patrick’s Day parade.
Brought to life are the figures who have shaped the city’s identity – from Archbishop McQuaid to Tony Gregory, from Luke Kelly to Maeve Binchy – and the daily life of its people, through the books they read, the way they move around the city, the music they listen to, the crimes they commit and the unique experiences they have of simply being in the city of Dublin.
A captivating celebration of people and place, this book makes essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the character of a city – and its inhabitants – is shaped.
Dublin Since 1922 is the perfect gift and is in bookshops now, or pick up your copy online here!
Tim Carey is a best-selling historian who has written extensively on Irish history and, in particular, the history of Dublin. Among his publications are the bestselling Mountjoy: The Story of a Prison, Hanged for Ireland, Hanged for Murder and Croke Park: A History. He is Heritage Officer for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council where he started and directed the Mountains to Sea book festival.
