Francis Lafferty aka James Davis, The Irish Rebel Who Defied an Empire

Francis Lafferty aka James Davis by Trevor James

From the quiet surrounds of Bath Avenue, James Davis who was born in Derry in 1883, led an extraordinary life of military service, rebellion and imprisonment. After joing the Royal Navy, he deserted and enlisted in the British Army under an assumed name. He served in India, Burma and France during the First World War before participating in the Connaught Rangers mutiny in 1920 India. Court martialled and imprisoned, he endured harsh conditions, escaped and joined the IRA. This is remarkable story.

 

For many years Francis Owen Lafferty lived a quiet life in 58 O’Connell Gardens, Bath Avenue, but it hadn’t always been quiet.  He had spent over twenty years in the Royal Navy, the Munster Fusiliers, the Connaught Rangers, and the IRA.  He had fought in Europe, Africa and India, deserted in England, mutinied in the Punjab and been imprisoned in India, England and Scotland.  And he lived much of his life under an assumed name- James Davis.  This is his story.

Birth Certificate

Francis was born in the Derry Bogside in 1883; his father Patrick Lafferty was a cattle dealer.  His father died in 1898 when Francis was only fifteen, leaving his widow with seven children.  Within a year Francis had left home and joined the Royal Navy. He gave his age as 18 and he signed on for twelve years.  His records described him as 5’ 3”, with red hair, hazel eyes and a ruddy complexion. The first year was spent training. His initial posting was to HMS Caledonia, a boys’ training ship moored in the Firth of Forth.  Subsequent training took place at Portland, Dorset and Devonport and Francis was a good student and his conduct was rated as ‘Very Good’.  But most of this training had been shore-based or on moored ships and the real test was still to come on board a sea-going warship. 

In May 1901, Francis was assigned to HMS Magnificent, a battleship with 672 crew, which patrolled the English Channel.  Things didn’t go so well for him and by July he had spent 14 days in the ship’s cells.  He lasted another few months but that November when Magnificent was in port, he left the ship and never returned – a deserter. 

Clearly Navy life was not for him but maybe Army life would suit.  He was eighteen now but a deserter couldn’t enlist in the Army so he changed his name to James Davis, arrived at the recruiting office in Dublin and re-enlisted as a private in the 2^nd battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers.  He served in India and Burma and was active in the North West Frontier campaign in 1908.  He was part of the expeditionary force to France during the First World War and would have seen action at many of the major battles at the Western Front.  He was promoted to corporal about July 1918 and as corporal, he was responsible for the discipline of a group of about ten privates and would relay orders from senior officers.   In September 1919, he was transferred from the Munsters to the 1st Battalion of the Connaught Rangers and sent to India.  The battalion arrived in the Punjab in October 1919 and were stationed at several outposts in the region.  James’s Company was assigned to Wellington Barracks in Jullundur.

On the evening of June 27^th1920, a small group of Connaught Rangers in Wellington Barracks were discussing the situation at home in Ireland where martial law had been imposed.  Some had been home on leave and recounted actions of the ‘Black and Tans’ they had seen, others had received letters from home telling of atrocities in their home district.  They decided to make a protest against British military behaviour in Ireland: they would ‘ground arms’ and refuse to soldier.  By the next day the word had spread, and many other soldiers agreed with their stand and also refused to obey orders.  A committee of seven was elected including James (we will call him James from now on) to liaise with the authorities and the mutineers agreed to only obey orders that were given by the committee.   Despite opposition from the officers, they had green, white and orange tricolours made and flew them in the compound, and sang rebel songs.  They also refused to carry arms and had them locked away in the armoury.  Later the mutineers sent two emissaries to another company of Connaught Rangers stationed about twenty miles away at Solon, and they took up the protest as well.

The protests were initially peaceful, with senior officers arriving and trying to reason with the mutineers but on the evening of 1 July around 30 members of the company at Solon attempted to retake their rifles from the armoury. The soldiers on guard opened fire, killing two men and wounding another. This effectively brought the mutiny to an end.  Troops from other regiments were brought in and all the mutineers, including James, were placed under armed guard.   For over three days they were held in a compound outside, with no shelter, in temperatures over 46^o C before they were brought to Dagshai in Northern India and court-martialled. 

Eighty-eight men were court-martialled and sixty-one were convicted for their role in the mutiny. Fourteen were sentenced to death by firing squad, but the capital sentence was only carried out on one soldier, Private James Daly.  James was sentenced to two years hard labour and discharged from the Army ‘with ignominy’. 

After serving some time in Indian prisons, James was returned to England and sent to Inkerman military prison in Woking, Surrey.  He was put on laundry work but on October 5^th 1921 he somehow procured a ladder and some rope, scaled the wall and escaped, still in his prison uniform.

About a week later, a man dressed in rags, which he had apparently taken from a scarecrow, was arrested in London for drunkenness.  While in custody, one of the police noticed his similarity to the description of a man who had escaped from gaol, and under questioning the prisoner confessed to being James Davis.  The newspapers reported that he was fined 10s/6d and taken to Pentonville.  Whether this actually was James seems unlikely, because we do know that later that year, he was in the north of Ireland.

According to his own account, he escaped from gaol on September 1^st 1921, and made his way back to Derry, where he immediately made contact with the local IRA.   In his own words “I joined the 2nd Northern Division at Cranagh, Sperrin Mountains, Co. Tyrone, and served as Brigade Training Officer until December 21^st, when a raid was made on the camp and I, along with three others, were arrested. I was tried at the Winter Assizes at Omagh, Co. Tyrone and sentenced to five years penal servitude. I was sent to Peterhead Prison in Scotland to serve my sentence”. Peterhead Prison in Aberdeenshire was probably the harshest prison in the UK with a regime of relentless hard labour.  It was often referred to as Scotland’s Alcatraz, but with a biting North Sea wind.  Every day, summer and winter, prisoners were taken to a local granite quarry and had to break up huge granite boulders using only hand tools.  In the prison they were housed in cramped, freezing cells and with almost no freedoms. Years later James referred to the cold as being hard to bear, particularly for one who had spent many years in the heat of India.

Having spent over four years incarcerated, James was one of ten prisoners known as the Peterhead Ten who were the last republican prisoners to be released.  On their release on January 26, 1926, he made his way to Dublin.   He sought assistance from the government in finding employment and he worked for a while in the canteen of McKee Barracks, and as a temporary postman during the Christmas period.  In 1927 he was given a job as a labourer on the restoration of the Four Courts.  This was arranged by the President’s department which often arranged employment for ‘deserving cases’ who had served the state in some way. 

He also applied to the Irish White Cross for help.  The White Cross had been established in 1921 to distribute funds raised in America to Irish people who had suffered financial hardship due to the war of independence.  James was awarded a grant of £100, £50 of which he used to liquidate his debts.   He also immediately gave up his job in the Four Courts.

Possibly for the same reasons as he was given a job, in the early 1930s he was allocated a house in the newly built O’Connell Gardens, off Bath Avenue.  He was also given a post as an attendant at the National Museum for which he received £2 /11 shillings a week. 

By the mid-1930s he was the secretary of the Connaught Rangers Mutineers Association seeking pensions for the mutineers who had all lost their British Army pensions.  This was the time when Fianna Fail had come to power and there had been promises during the election that they would do something for these men.  After several years of struggle The Connaught Rangers (Pensions) Act, 1936 was enacted by the Oireachtas to provide for the “payment of pensions, allowances, and gratuities to or in respect of certain former members of the 1st Battalion, Connaught Rangers”. 

A ‘qualified person’ had to:
. have been a member of the 1st Battalion of the Connaught Rangers;
. have joined the mutiny;
. have been court-martialled in Dagshai in August 1920 and
. have been sentenced to death, penal servitude, or imprisonment for no less than 12 months.

Although only 88 men were court-martialled in Dagshai, 258 applications were made but only 38 were awarded pensions, 13 were awarded gratuities and a further two received disablement pensions. James was awarded a pension for life of 2s/9½d  (Two shillings, nine pence and a halfpenny) per day, about £50 a year. 

He married Sarah McKay from Donegal in 1937.  They married in St Columba’s church in Glendowan, Donegal where she was the sacristan.  Although still known as James Davis, his name on the marriage certificate was Francis Owen Lafferty and he was still working as an attendant in the National Museum. 

His address on the marriage certificate was 45 Belmont Avenue, Donnybrook although on his correspondence with the Department of Defence he was citing his address as 58 O’Connell Gardens.

About 1944, James and his wife moved to 51 Morehampton Road and he was calling himself Francis Owen Davis.  He died from cardiac failure on the 16^th November 1948 in Clonskeagh Fever Hospital.  The funeral was in the Church of the Sacred Heart, Donnybrook and he was buried in Dean’s Grange cemetery. 

His name appears on a memorial in Glasnevin cemetery, unveiled in 1949, to the 1st Battalion, Connaught Rangers “in commemoration of those members of the battalion who gave their lives during the mutiny and subsequently for Irish freedom”.

Sources

The British National Archives, Kew Gardens

Irishgenealogy.ie

History Ireland Volume 18 Issue 4

Dail Eireann Debates

Bureau of Military Archives

The Irishtown Butcher, the Strike and the Courts: Six Months of Turmoil in 1927 Dublin

 

In 1927, a dismissal at a small Irishtown butcher’s shop sparked a bitter industrial dispute that would drag on for six months, bring trade unionists and police into conflict, and repeatedly land its central figures before the courts. Behind the picket lines and courtroom confrontations lay a story of working-class Dublin, family livelihoods and the growing power of organised labour in a young Irish state. But the troubles of butcher Edward Coogan were far from over, and five years later, another court case would see him challenge the authorities over an entirely different matter.

 

Early in 1927, as the country wrestled with political instability and two general elections, industrial relations were still a thorny issue. In early January a small local industrial dispute found itself before the courts on numerous occasions as tensions flared between owners and strikers.

 

Edward Coogan owned two butcher shops, one at 15 Irishtown Road, now home to the very popular RICYS Café and 24 South Lotts Road on the corner of Gordon Street. Thirty-five-year-old Edward lived in Stella Gardens with his wife Teresa and three sons and a daughter.

 

In early January, Coogan decided to sack part-time worker Chrisopher Dunne. Coogan later told the courts that he sacked Dunne, who was working just 5 – 6 hours per week, because he believed that he was being dishonest. Immediately the Workers Union of Ireland trade unions placed pickets on both of Coogan’s shops. The Workers Union of Ireland had been formed in 1924 after a split from the ITGWU, the split led by James Larkin and his brother Peter. Chris Dunne was a married man living on Rock Lane with his wife Mary and three sons. The 1926 census indicates that he was a ‘butcher’ but also a ‘casual worker’. Rock Lane was a small laneway of tenements located immediately off Lower Baggot Street. Rock Lane was the lane beside the Old Henry Grattan’s pub on Baggot Street.

 

Tensions flared as the pickets’ attempted locals from using these two popular local butchers. The shops remained opened but the tension between Coogan plus the employees who still worked in the shop and the trade unionists escalated. In April, Coogan sought an injunction under the Protection of Property Act against Frank Cluskey, a trade union delegate and a butcher himself. He was the father of Frank Cluskey who would lead the labour party from 1977 to 1981 and would later serve as Minister for Trade, Commerce and Tourism in Garret Fitzgerald’s coalition government.

 

In June it was Coogan before the courts when local Irishtown Garda Thomas Collins, a native of Kerry, charged the butcher with assaulting Peter Redmond of Thorncastle Street, who was still working for Coogan but that tempers had flared. The pressure was building and now the strike was six months old. It wasn’t until July 2^nd that news finally emerged that the industrial dispute had been settled amicably and that all the striking workers had been reinstated. The strike had lasted six months.

 

In 1932 Coogan found himself before the courts once more. By now he had disposed of the shop on South Lotts Road and was only operating at Irishtown Road. Judge Davitt imposed a fine of twenty shillings for having used a slaughterhouse at the rear of 39 Westland Row without a Department of Agriculture license. He argued that the house was licensed by Elizabeth Long from 1879 until her death in 1884 and then the premises was operated by William Cahill who sub let it to Coogan. The prosecution maintained that the licence died with Mrs. Long but the defence that as no physical evidence could be produced relating to the paperwork that the licence was still in effect, but the Judge found Coogan guilty and issued the fine. Coogan appealed the decision and forced the Department of Agriculture to tighten up both controls on and the enforcement of licensed slaughterhouses.

 

In 1932, Irishtown Road was sold to Chris Farrelly who ran the butchers until 1947. His butcher’s shop on South Lotts Road later became Kelly’s Grocery for many decades.

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“Three Balls, Sunday Bests & a Few Bob: The Tale of Pawnbroking in Ringsend”

 

“Three Balls, Sunday Bests & a Few Bob: The Tale of Pawnbroking in Ringsend”

a still from The Committments movie featuring a Delaney's Pawnbroker

 similiar to the one in Ringsend

The name ‘Rosie Brassballs’ was a recognisable name to many for generations in Ringsend, but both were affectionate names for Rosana (Rosie) and Brassballs a reference to the three brass or gold balls that hung outside to denote a pawnbrokers shop.  For many locals one important pawnbroker in the heart of Ringsend was located at 9 Fitzwilliam Street.

For many families in Ringsend who depended on uncertain work such as fishing, hobbling or ship building, pawning was not a last resort but an ordinary weekly routine. Families without savings would pawn their "Sunday best" clothes or blankets on Monday morning for emergency food and cash, then redeem them on Saturday evening using wages to wear to Mass. The number of licensed pawn shops in Dublin surged from just 10 in 1786 to 76 by 1870, and over 300 across Ireland by the mid-1860s, alongside numerous illegal back-street operators.

 

9 Fitzwilliam Street was built 1871 by the Pembroke Estate and became the home of Edward Smyth, Smyth sold the lease on the building and moved to Edinburgh where he died. The building was purchased by William Tunney who also owned a pub around the corner on Bridge Street and would later build Tunney Cottages at the end of Fitzwilliam Street where the Ringsend Medical centre is today. Number 9 would be sold once again after Tunney died in 1912.

                                     

He had leased the lower floor of the premises to Matthew Mulvany, a pawnbroker from Erne Street. Mulvany was married to Rosanna (nee Murphy) and one of their children was Matthew Alphonsios who was born in 1868. He would take over the business on Erne Street from his father.  Matthew senior, who had just opened a second pawnbroker shop in Ringsend, died on June 27^th, 1884 aged just fifty, having lost his wife Rosanna just a year earlier.

 

Matthew Junior was married to Mary Ellen and it was their first born, Rosana Mulvany, who would run the pawnbroking business in Ringsend. Rosana was one of four children, and she would marry fellow Ringsender Joseph Nelson, who owned the shop on Bridge Street. The Nelson family was also married into the local publican family The North’s.

By the turn of the twentieth century, another well-known pawnbroker William Delaney had taken over the Mulvany business in Ringsend. William’s father Richard was a pawnbroker with shops on Meath Street and Pembroke Street. William himself had numerous pawn shops including those located at 85 the Coombe and 19 New Street. Tragically his two brothers Frank and Patrick drowned in a Rathgar quarry in 1906. By the inauguration of the Irish Free State, Mrs Mary Delaney was the licensed pawnbroker in Ringsend. In 1923 the shop made the front page of the newspapers when three gunmen entered the shop and robbed it.

 

In 1933 Gertrude Mary Silke from Monkstown places ads in the newspapers stating her intention under the Money Lenders Act 1933 that she would be taking on the business of Mary Delaney at 9 Fitzwilliam Street. Silke’s husband William died in 1941, while Gertrude died in November 1974.

                                     

By the Second World War in 1943, the licenced pawnbroker was Martin Hutchinson. In 1946, the broker was broken into and a quantity of clothes robbed but detectives arrested and charged a number of men and one of their wives who was just 16 years old. Her husband received a four-year sentence when convicted. In January 1948, there was another break in at Hutchinsons, thieves attempting access through the top floor through bathroom but main shop heavily fortified. In 1948, Joseph Rafter took over the business now known as the Ringsend Money Office. Rafter also had sale and auctioneer showrooms in Capel Street.

By the late sixties the pawnbroker in Ringsend was closed and a new business moved into 9 Fitzwilliam Street. The Rafter family had moved their pawnbroking across the River Liffey to Gardiner Street.

And so, after almost a century of pawning everything from blankets to Sunday best, the brass balls finally stopped swinging at 9 Fitzwilliam Street. The shop had witnessed hard times, family tragedies, daring robberies and enough changes of ownership to keep any historian reaching for the pawn ticket. For generations, however, it had been more than a place to raise a few shillings—it was part of the weekly rhythm of Ringsend life. By the late 1960s the pawnbroker was gone, and with it went one of the neighbourhood’s most familiar institutions. Rosie Brassballs may have disappeared, but her name—and those famous three balls—remain part of Ringsend folklore.

1965

1976

1978

Today 9 Fitzwilliam Street, Ringsend is occupied by Eurosales.

(c) Ringsend & Irishtown History, EAB 2026

This article has been sponsored by Max McElinden Solicitors email: McElindenLaw@gmail.com

 

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The Early History of St. Patrick's Church, Ringsend and the Work of Canon Mooney

1000’s without a church, powerless to build one

The Early History of the Ringsend Roman Catholic Church, St Patrick’s

Prior to 1859, the Catholic congregation of Ringsend travelled to the small chapel in Irishtown for the sacraments. In 1454, an edict, the Statutes of Kilkenny, was issue by the authorities at Dublin Castle to the effect that ‘all men and women of Irish blood, whether nuns, clerics, journeymen, apprentices, servants, beggars etc., to quit the city within four weeks and anyone found within the city gates after that date shall forfeit goods, chattels etc and be cast into prison and suffer other penalties.’ This edict was the original of Irishtown, where Irish citizens congregated after their banishment from the city centre. Ringsend was a later creation in the early seventeenth century as shipping entering Dublin port berthed at Ringsend, closer the city, than the then ports of Dalkey and Howth.

 

Up to 1857 Ringsend was part of the Donnybrook, Sandymount, Irishtown and Ringsend parish. Ringsend was for a century or more seen as a protestant parish with several Protestant churches before the first sod was turned on a Catholic church. There was a Methodist, Anglican, Wesleyan and Church of Ireland churches within a ten-minute walk of Ringsend. Catholics were reduced to using a boat tied up at a pontoon on the River Dodder beside the Ringsend Bridge. Mass was celebrated on board with a priest travelling from Haddington Road or Donnybrook to celebrate.  But as the demographics changed, so too did the need for a dedicated Catholic place of worship.

 

1857                           An 80-year lease signed by the Archbishop of Dublin with James Patrick Curran, who signed on behalf of Lord Fitwilliam (the present-day Pembroke Estate) to use unused land on the corner of Bridge Street and Thorncastle Street. An old grocery store was converted into crude living accommodations for a priest. The yearly rent was set at £28 per annum.

1857                           In August, Cork born Reverend Anthony Jagoe, a Protestant emissary to the Catholic Church, delivers a lecture in the schoolhouse attached to St. Matthews church, Irishtown, on how Pope Adrian IV called the Irish ‘ignorant and uncivilised tribes’ and that the early Irish catholic church was independent of Rome. He said that the Irish church was schismatic of Rome in the 6^th century and therefore how could St Patrick be subject to the papal doctrine and therefore he must be Protestant. Adrian IV was the only English born priest elected as Pope.

This lecture may have been the catalyst for the naming of the new church in Ringsend ‘St. Patrick’s’ as it would be the only Catholic St. Partick’s in the Dublin diocese as the Cathedral of the same name had been lost to the Protestants during the reformation.  By October, Fr. Thomas Leahy is listed as living at the St. Patrick’s Ringsend Presbytery. It was classified as a chapel of ease, as was the one in Irishtown, attached to the Donnybrook/Sandymount parish.

1858                           First dedicated church to the patron saint of Ireland, St Patrick, since the reformation, opened in April on the corner of Bridge Street and Thorncastle Street has the first stone laid

A school catering for 80 boys is opened in the grounds of the church.

A Female Sunday School is opened, and pupils are taught by Sisters of Charity, who travel from Lakelands, Sandymount.

Donnybrook & Irishtown Parish priest Very Rev Andrew O’Connell PP, who had become the areas parish priest in 1849, formed a collection to build a new church in Ringsend. £200 donated immediately by The Archbishop of Dublin Dr, Cullen as a bequest from Miss Farrell.  O’Connell was instrumental in getting new churches built in Donnybrook, Sandymount and Ringsend. The first parish priest is Fr. Thomas Leahy who is seconded from the Star of the Sea. O’Leary would later return to the Star of the Sea as Parish priest in 1876.

1858                            In December as Christmas approached, a bazaar held at St Mary’s Haddington Road to raise funds.

1859                            On Friday March 25^th, the new bell of St. Patrick’s church was blessed. 

1859                            The official opening in July by Most Reverend Dr. Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin was originally set for Sunday July 3^rd, but it was deferred to Thursday 14^th. Admission prices for the High Mass were set primarily to raise more funds to pay for the building costs. It cost worshippers 5s for access to the chancellery or 10s for 3 tickets. For all other areas of the new church admission was 2s 6d (the old half-crown).

On a beautiful summers’ day, thousands gathered in Ringsend to both greet and pray with The Archbishop of Dublin, who was assisted in the dedication of the new Church by Very Reverend Meagher, the Lord Bishop of Bombay. From every vantage point and window, the locals craned their necks to get a glimpse of the assembled hierarchy. The altar and tabernacle were sponsored by Mrs. Scully of Haddington Road. A choir of priests greeted the celebrants as they entered the church from the sacristy. A Mrs. Elfie accompanied the choir on a harmonium. Two hours after the first blessing the archbishop blessed one and all as the High Mass ended.

1863                            In October St. Patrick’s is designated as the parish church for Catholic born soldiers based at Beggars Bush Barracks and the Pigeon House Fort.

1866                            Reverend Phillip McCarthy was appointed parish priest in October.

1872                            Joseph Grant Mooney appointed CC to Ringsend as part of the unified parish of Sandymount, Irishtown and Ringsend. Canon O’Hanlon from Star of the Sea acts as parish priest.

1884                            On St. Patrick’s Day saw the opening of the Parochial Hall at 2 Cambridge Road. The plot of land had been donated by John Edward Vernon on behalf of the Earl of Pembroke and cost £300 to build. It was used as an early library, known as the St. Patrick’s Literary Institute, for the local citizens and a venue for lectures and concerts in the main hall. It later became the presbytery when the new church was built.

1890                            A presbytery was built beside the Parochial Hall for Canon Mooney to live in. Up to that Mooney was listed in Thoms Directory as living at Leahy Terrace opposite the Star of the Sea Church. Archbishop Walsh was there for the laying of the foundation stone. He was then presented with a trowel bearing the following inscription,

‘Presented to his Grace, the Most Rev W J Walsh DD, Archbishop of Dublin, Primate of Ireland, on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of the new Presbytery at Ringsend in the parish of St. Mary’s, Star of the Sea, Sandymount, County Dublin, 30^th November 1890, from Rev. John canon O’Hanlon PP, Rev Joseph Grant Mooney CC W.H. Beardwood, architect.’

The building and fitting out cost £1,377, over £700 of which was raised by the subscriptions with the remaining £600 identified as a loan from Commissioners of Public Works. £300 was raised through various concerts and bazaars, leaving an outstanding bill of £300. One of the contributors to erasing that debt was Thurles born the Most Reverend Dr. John Ryan Archbishop of Philadelphia.

As the century reached an end and numerous meetings held to discuss the finances of the parish, Reverend Mooney complained that St. Patrick’s needed upgrading, renovation and the simplest act of being painted and he informed meetings that the church building was no longer fit for purpose as the congregation increased.

1903                            The great storm of February 27^th, 1903, severely impacts Ringsend leading to heavy damage to the Glass Works in the village on Thorncastle Street and on the roof of St. Patrick’s.

1905                            In May, Joseph Grant Mooney is appointed the first Parish priest having been a curate for the previous decade as Ringsend became an individual parish separating from Donnybrook and Sandymount following the death of Canon O’Hanlon in Sandymount. Reverend Mooney was born in Dublin in 1842 to father William and his wife Teresa. He was baptised St Michael’s and Johns on Essex Quay.

1907                            A Grand Concert is held in the Round Room of Rotunda as a fundraiser,

                                    ‘Fund for the Restoration and Enlargement of St Patrick’s’

‘Thousands without a church, powerless to build one’, declared Canon Joseph Mooney

There is the formation of a Bizarre Committee with £2 prize on offer

Regular letters appear Irish newspapers pleading for more donations and annual dancing and music festivals were held in the new Ringsend Stadium on South Lotts Road.

May 4^th at Dalymount Park, home club Bohemians took on local rival Shelbourne in a charity match to raise funds for the renovation of St. Patrick’s. The band of the Dublin Royal Fusiliers entertained the crowd before and at half time. The match generated £114.00 for the parish.

Sunday June 2^nd a public meeting is held organised by Canon Mooney and attended by the Archbishop of Dublin and the Lord Mayor to discuss the possible renovation of St Patricks or its complete rebuild. Canon Mooney told the gathering that on the directions of the Archbishop he had purchased the immediate landlord’s lease at a cost of £400 and that the Earl of Pembroke had generously given a lease forever for the church ground at a merely nominal rent.

1908                            Canon Mooney inaugurates a new branch of the Gaelic League in Ringsend. Eoin McNeill is in attendance.  

1909                            Rev P. H. O’Donnell, the state chaplain of Massachusetts, appeals for American funds as the poor Irish had built churches across America.

1910                            A meeting of the fundraising committee, chaired by Canon Mooney agrees on an advertising poster, the renting of roller rink for the bazaar from the Rotunda Rink and the acceptance of electric advertising from Mr. Nolan on Burgh Quay.

1911                            On October 29^th the cornerstone is laid for the new church by Dr. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin. The newspaper reports state that the new church,

‘Has been designed in the Gothic style and will be built of Irish granite. The work of the building is being carried out by Milliam Connolly and Sons of Upper Dominic Street from the designs of William Byrne and Sons, architects.’

Canon Mooney told the large gathering that the old church had space for 300, yet the parish had over 5,000 and that their new church would have a capacity for 800 parishioners.

1912                            January 1^st newspaper headlines declared ‘Sacrilege in Ringsend’ when the old church was broken into and ‘robbed of alms and chalices’.

1913                            In August the first section of the new church is opened with a dedication by the archbishop. The Archbishop said Father Mooney was ‘one of the most successful church builders of his time’. In the Irish Standard newspaper published in Minnesota, the informed readers that the reason the church was so named was that St. Patrick landed in Ireland at Ringsend.

1914                            When Charles Lawler, the former owner of the Imperial Hotel on O’Connell Street died in his will he left a bequest of £100 to help with the completion of the new church.

1916                By the momentous and rebellious year of 1916, Canon Mooney was not alone in tending to his flock in Ringsend, he had a curate by the name of Father Flanagan. Patrick    Flanagan was born on April 7th 1883 in Dublin. A good student at school, he went onto study at Clonliffe College to begin the process to join the priesthood. He completed his studies at Maynooth University and in 1909 he was ordained. His first appointment as a curate was to the south city suburb of Ringsend. As a passionate believer in the Gaelic League and a supporter of the nationalist cause, he set up Fianna Phadraig in Ringsend in 1911, just two years after his arrival in the parish. According to Sean O’Shea’s Witness Statement at the Bureau of Military History, he said that he was a member of Fianna Phadraig and that their uniform was a grey shirt with an orange kerchief, blue breeches, grey puttees and a green wide-brimmed hat. He added,

‘Fianna Phadraig was a scout unit organized on similar lines to Fianna Eireann. The unit was founded by Father Pat Flanagan, C.C., Ringsend. We were if anything better trained from the military point of view than Fianna Eireann. We met the latter iii a scouting exercise on Ticknock in the summer of 1915 and proved to be the better unit on that occasion.’

The 1913 St. Patrick’s Day parade organised by the Gaelic League and conducted in ‘flashes of sunshine alternating with periods of snow’ included the participation of the Fianna Phadraig along with the Fontenoy Hurling club also from Ringsend. In July, the newspapers reported that at the ‘Aeridheacht Mor’ (Large Open Air Gathering) held in Shelbourne Park,

‘An interesting display of camp life given by Fianna Phadraig claimed much attention, while the choice selections rendered by the Artane Band, Mr. H. Lowe conducting, were thoroughly appreciated’

According to O’Shea,

‘Fr. Flanagan had some liaison with "D" Coy., 3rd Battalion, the local Volunteer unit and the members of the Fianna were understood to be at the Company's service for despatch work and the like.’

But the Reverend’s involvement was more active. It was reported in the newspapers that on March 29th, 1914, before the split, Father Flanagan presided at a meeting of the National Volunteers. He would become a close confidant of many of those who would later become involved in planning the 1916 Rising.

O’Shea added in his witness statement,

‘without ever raising his voice from the pulpit he succeeded in stamping out drunkenness and loutishness from Ringsend. His chief weapon was the Fianna, a well-trained body with its own pipe band. He had a definite military outlook. He took the Fianna on winter's evenings through the history of the Boer War and showed us that that war had been imposed on a peaceful people by a bullying Empire. He told us how the Boers fought and how they could have won. He understood guerrilla warfare and passed his knowledge on to us. We imbibed all this for four or five years before the Rising. We were the first Fianna unit to carry arms openly. This was the year before the Rising. He borrowed .22 rifles from all quarters so that we could march to the Tattoo we held in Shelbourne Park. At that Tattoo we gave military display of attack and defence firing blank from our rifles. We performed a display of tent-erecting and camp-fire singing.’

After the rebel surrender in 1916, some fighting was still proceeding in the Ringsend district on a small scale. Fr. Paddy Flanagan was asked by the military to try and stop it. But the Reverend would get more than he bargained for according to Monsignor Curran.

"Father Paddy Flanagan, Curate of Ringsend, was arrested yesterday and sent to Richmond Barracks. Poor Father Mooney, P.P., was detained a prisoner, under armed guard in his own house, from twelve noon until 6.30, and then only freed on the promise not to leave the place for three days."

Father Flanagan became the only Priest to be arrested and imprisoned in the aftermath of the Rising but was released on Tuesday, 9th May, 1916. He provided a dreadful account of the treatment of the prisoners in the Barracks under the British military

Patrick’s brother, John, had also become a priest and was attached to the Pro-Cathedral when the Rising began. According to Monsignor Curran,

‘Fr. John Flanagan of Marlborough Street who went with Fr. Byrne (Later Archbishop of Dublin) to Parnell Square, and there found that Eoin McNeill's countermanding orders were being carried out.’

Father John would later find himself at the heart of the action inside the GPO hearing confessions of the rebels. According to the Monsignor

In 1918 Patrick Flanagan was transferred to Aughrim Street Church and later made parish priest of Booterstown in 1939. He was then involved in the building of a new church on the Merrion Road, Church of our Lady Queen of Peace, opposite St Vincent’s Hospital today.

In the building of the church, he built a round tower, similar to the Glendalough tower of St. Kevin’s. It was described at the time by future Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave as ‘Flanagan’s Folly’.  He died in 1956, his brother, by then Parish priest in Fairview ad Mariano, predeceased him in 1935. Archbishop McQuade was the chief celebrate of the funeral mass.

 

1917                In March, Canon Mooney celebrates his golden jubilee of joining the priesthood.

However, on August 22nd Canon J. G. Mooney passed away. The concelebrated funeral mass was overseen by The Bishop of Canea, Nicholas Donnelly. Through the marriage of his sister Donnelly became a relative of the Boland Mills family. Bishop Donnelly was no stranger to Ringsend also having served as a curate in St. Andrews, Westland Row. When his sister Mary died, he became guardian to her seven children, five girls and two boys. One of the boys was John Pius Boland, who not only served as an MP to the House of Commons for Kerry but also won two gold medals at the 1896 Olympics in Athens.

 

Of such reverence and appreciation Canon Mooney was held in throughout Ringsend, his was the first coffin carried across Ringsend Bridge from South Lotts Road to the Church. A traditional that continues today when loved ones and friends carry the deceased coffin across ‘the brudge’.

 

In his will he left behind £25,000 which he donated to Maynooth College.  

Sources:

The Irish Newspaper Archives

The Pembroke Estate Archives

The Irish National Archives

The National Library of Ireland

The British Newspaper Archives

The Welsh Newspaper Archives

Ancestry.com

The Catholic Archives of New York

The US Library of Congress

The US Newspaper Archives

Thoms Directory

The Ringsend & Districts Historical Society

The Late Brian Siggins

The Archdiosese of Dublin

RTE Archives

Do You Dare Take Ringsend With a Pinch of Salt

 

Before the great factories, before the docks and warehouses transformed the landscape, Ringsend had another commodity at the heart of its prosperity — salt. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the humble crystals that seasoned food and preserved meat and fish helped create an industry of remarkable scale, bringing employment, investment and wealth into the community.

Names such as the Page family, Ambrose Burges, Robert Roe and Flower & McDonald became closely associated with Ringsend’s salt trade. Their enterprises were part of a thriving industrial world that stretched along the waterfront, where salt was processed, stored, transported and sold.

And this was no small local enterprise. By the 1840s, the salt industry was employing around 2,000 people in Ringsend — an astonishing figure that gives some idea of its importance to the community. For generations of local families, the salt works were not simply places of employment; they were woven into the economic and social fabric of Ringsend itself.

But how did a substance that seems so ordinary today become such an important source of employment and prosperity? And what was life like for the thousands of men, women and families whose livelihoods depended upon Ringsend’s salt industry?

To answer those questions, we need to step back into a Ringsend very different from the one we know today — a busy industrial community where the waterfront was alive with workers, carts, boats, warehouses and the unmistakable presence of an industry built on salt.

Courtesy of Cormac Louth

In 1730, The Dublin Gazette printed an advertisement stating,

‘Whereas the Salt Works at Ringsend where Mr Burges (the late famous undertaker and builder of the Salt Works) formerly made the best of salt, are now made by his son Ambrose Burges.’ 

Ambrose, Senior had originally been a merchant and druggist in Donnybrook before becoming a pioneer of salt production in Ringsend, then in its infancy in Ireland. The area where today’s Ringsend Park is located were described as ‘salt marshes’ on numerous maps. Ambrose Senior died September 8^th, 1732, and his son took over the complete running of the business. By 1748 there were two major salt works located north and south of the River Liffey in Ringsend and Clontarf. 

 

Salt has been important in the preservation of fish and the curing of meat for centuries. Salt production dates back to early China and the Romans used salt as a payment option leading to the word ‘salary’ from the Roman word for salt, ‘sal’. Ringsend salt was refined from seawater gathered in salt marshes and was becoming more in demand across Europe.

 

 In the 1760’s the larger of the salt works was being run by Robert Roe, but his success was attracting more competitors to Ringsend. Access to Ringsend was via a bridge across the River Dodder. That bridge was washed away in 1782 by a flood and a replacement wooden bridge, built in 1786, was itself washed away by flood waters just a year later.  In 1787, Roe was instrumental and the main source in financing the rebuilding of the Ringsend Bridge over the Dodder but his efforts proved a short lived as other bridges as it too succumbed to a flood in December 1802. The stone bridge that it used today replaced the previous wooden structures and opened in 1812.

 

Roe had died on March 29^th, 1795, and the business was leased by the owner of the Ringsend Tavern on Bridge Street, John Howard and his business partner in the salt works was Thomas Bray. In 1801 Howard put his tavern up for sale and exited the business following a legal dispute with Bray’s brother Michael. Howard would buy another tavern in the centre of the city after leaving the maritime village.  In 1814, Robert Roe’s son puts the Salt Works up for sale.

 

By the early nineteenth century, salt production in Ringsend becomes even more important as there was a major revival of the fishing industry in the village with the arrival of fishermen from Torbay in the southwest of England.  In October 1826, The Liffey Salt Works, as it became known, a new but smaller works competitor as compared to the Thorncastle Street plant in Ringsend, was located at the corner of Pigeon House Road. In 1826 it was put up for sale following the death of the owner Charles Pentland. Pentland was from Townsend Street and operated the Hibernian Marine Society on Rogerson’s Quay. The Society was set up to educate and look after orphaned children of seafarers. The sale included ‘valuable buildings, dwelling house, stables and extensive stores and warehouses’.  The business was producing 3000-4000 tons of salt annually. By December 1827, it had still not been sold. The problem was the cost of producing the salt. Seawater was heated to evaporation point and the salt crystals were the commodity that remained. The amount of coal needed to reach the temperatures to create the salt became extremely expensive and with the bottle making industry in Ringsend also demanding coal for production, the coal was in high demand. In the mid nineteenth century, the rise and efficiency in production of rock salt also affected the value of the sea salt.

 

By 1835 a ‘Salt Works’ was located at the end of today’s Cambridge Avenue and today’s York Road. It was being operated by James Hill. In 1840, The Evening Post reported,

‘The poor of that very impoverished town called Ringsend are reduced almost to the worst state of human misery by the curtailment of the demand for Irish manufactured salt occasioned by the import of white salt from England at a rate which Irish manufacturers cannot produce the article’.

The newspaper stated at the height of the Ringsend Salt works up to 2,000 were directly or indirectly employed in the salt business in the three main works. On March 5^th, 1842, James Hill was declared bankrupt.

 

The biggest salt works on Thorncastle Street was opened by Theophilus Page (b. 1784) and wife Margaret Cummins. The opened their salt works in 1826. Theo died March 6^th, 1837, with his son William Henry Page taking over.  William was a bit a ‘cad’ as they might say in upper-class English life. He married Joanna Quinlan in 1838 and a year later their first child William John arrived. A number of children followed including Mary Genivieve in 1840, Clarina in 1846 and an unnamed child in 1850 who died shortly after her birth. According to family research William abandoned his wife and children in 1850 and by March 1851 he is listed in the UK census as living near Norwich, Norfolk. The story is somewhat foggy after that, but what is known is that Joanna gave birth to Anna Martha Page in 1852, but that Joanna died just two years later on November 22^nd 1854. In January 1855 in the Boston Pilot newspaper in the United States the following announcement was printed,

‘November 22^nd at the Ringsend Salt Works, Dublin after a protracted illness Mrs W. Page deeply regretted by all acquainted with her admirable discharge of her duties as a wife and a mother.’

William then almost immediately married Thirza Ann Rouse in Norfolk on January 14^th, 1855, and was barely a year married when he died in February 1856

 

By 1850 between the cost of production, the competition from cheaper salt maker in the United Kingdom and taxes, the salt industry in Ringsend was in serious trouble. The three manufacturers in 1850 were William Page, Patrick Kelly and on Fitzwilliam Street, James Pommeret saw his business taken over by James Cusack in 1850.

 

By 1851, Page had a business partner, Daniel Pallin, he was a salt and coal merchant on North Earl Street. Pallin was also described in merchant directories as also a ‘soap boiler and chandler’. He was in business with Page and they had offices at 141 Lower Baggot Street next door to Grants public house, today known as Toners.

 

With Page gone, his business on Thorncastle Street in 1859 was taken over by Mrs. Ellen Egan, who was advertising her Ringsend Salt Works and they were not only producing Irish salt but also importing cheaper salt from Norwich Salt Works. Delivery is available by ship, canal boat, train or efficient horse and cart. Egan’s family own the original Yacht Tavern lower down on Thorncastle street where today’s Yacht is based.  In 1861, The Egan’s salt works was being operated by William Shaw, who had a showroom in Talbot Street.

 

The writing however was on the wall. In June 1870 the Thorncastle Street buildings were for sale following the bankruptcy of Samuel Shelly, this was partly due to a police constabulary report on the state of the Ringsend Salt works which were described as ‘in a filthy state, horse manure, mire and night soil lying in heaps.’ The bankruptcy notification in January 1871 stated that Shelly was in partnership with Robert Falk of Runcorn and William Powell of Liverpool of ‘Samuel Shelly Jnr and Company’.

 

One of the final salt works as this valuable industry died quietly in Ringsend was the Irish Salt Works operated by James Flower & Thomas McDonald on the site formerly owned by Willaim Page but by now there was very little production in Ringsend, Flower and McDonald according to records has two operating pans but were importing most of the salt into Ringsend, packaging it and selling it on.

 

The Ringsend salt industry lasted less than 150 years but like glass production, boat making and fishing, it provided livelihoods to 1000’s in a village that census records showed a population of less than 2,500. In the mid nineteenth century when Ireland was suffering from the catastrophic effects of famine and disease, Ringsend was spared the worst as work, fishing and a true village spirit pulled Ringsend through. However, the salt industry in Ringsend no longer provided certainty of employment and as a result many who worked in the various salt works in Ringsend, packed their bags and emigrated across the Atlantic to America. According to Onondaga Historical Association in New York, it was thanks to those Irish salt workers who arrived in the 1850s turned the Syracuse salt works into one of the most successful in the United States that by the 1870s, Onondaga produced 90% of the United States salt.

 

So next time you are in Ferrari’s or Ianelli’s and they ask if you want salt on your one and one, remember how important salt was to the economy of Ringsend.

 

In our next post we will take a closer look at the early St. Patrick’s Church in Ringsend, why, who and when. The original church lasted from 1858 to 1910 and has an interesting and at time complicated history.