Derek Dunne, a Ringsend Olympic Hero & Musician

A Facebook post on the Ringsend Home and Abroad page caught my attention and led to some seasonal detective work and a unique story of a proud Raytown man. The post by Colette Lain was this,

‘Remembering my brother Dermot Dunne who died on Christmas Eve 1973 aged 30. Carried over the bridge a week later. He represented Ireland at the 1960 Olympic Games aged 16.’

Dermot was born to father Peter and mother Clare, and lived on South Dock Street off South Lotts Road, Ringsend. Aged just sixteen, what sport did he compete in, how did he do? Why just fourteen years later was his coffin earning the very traditional carry across Ringsend Bridge to St. Patrick's Church? As I went through the newspaper archives it was a surprise that at the age of 16 years 363 days, he was born in September 1943, he represented Ringsend, Dublin and Ireland at the Olympics games held in Rome. An Irish team that featured the likes of Maeve Kyle, Billy Ringrose and Ronnie Delaney. Although today we associate Irish Olympians with sports like boxing, athletics and rowing, Dermot represented Ireland at the Men’s Freestyle Bantamweight wrestling competition. A member of the Vulcan Wrestling Club and a pupil at Ringsend Tech. His ability was recognised by his competitors at an International wrestling tournament in 1959 held in Scherwin, near Hamburg, Germany. The East German wrestling authorities spotted the then 15 years old talent and said they expected him to be a world champion within four to five years. He had however initially been denied a place on the plane to Rome but after an appeal by his club Vulcan and the Irish Amateur Wrestling Association, Dermot was given a place in the Olympics. To help pay their way, a fundraiser as held in the National Stadium. 

In Rome Dermot won his first match to remain unbeaten. He beat Victorrio Mancini of San Marino in a wrestling match that lasted over eight minutes. The next match was against an Italian challenger Chinazzo but Dermot lost in two minutes twenty one seconds. His tournament came to an end in his next bout when Im Gwang Jae from South Korea beat him into submission after 2m 45 seconds. Dermot officially finished joint thirteenth in the Olympic Games. 

When he finished school he began working in his father's engineering business, his father was a well known greyhound owner and trainer at Shelbourne Park. But the young man was about to embark on a new adventure. He crossed the Atlantic and made his way to Toronto, Canada. In 1966, along with fellow Irishman  Michael Croly formed the band The Irish Rebels. They began playing in the numerous Irish venues across Toronto. In 1967, they released their first single on the little known Outlet record label but they were being noticed. They were signed by RCA Victor in Canada and released their first album ‘Rebel by Name and Nature's. The recording featured Dermot, Michael and Cork born Sean Broderick on vocals, Harry Beatkey on banjo, Eric Budman, lead guitar, Jim Morgan, bass and Frank McGowan on tin whistle and was produced by Jack Feeney. The first single from the album was ‘Mursheen Durkin’. They were initially booked for a one week residency at the famous Toronto Golden Nugget club. So popular was Dermot and his band that the one week stretched into six months. The band was also earning extensive airplay on Canada’s big country and western focussed radio stations including the giant CFGM Radio., The popular RPM magazine when reviewing the album stated,

‘Although only three of the group play instruments, they managed to play a total of seven instruments including harmonicas. Two thirds of their material is rousing and pubster type.’

When they played a two week engagement at The MacDonald Hotel in Edmonton they received extensive airtime and interviews on the major local radio station CFRN, even helping to raise funds for the local children's hospital. They then headlined the Old Time Festival in Alberta and were featured on CJRY which had millions of listeners on both sides of the Canadian / US border.’
By now they were attracting crowds at venues unseen before amongst the Irish bands touring Canada. They also appeared in the popular TV show ‘The Pig and Whistle Show.

A second album was released in 1971 titled ‘The Rebels Songs of Ireland. According to entertainment journalist Tony Wilson writing in the Evening Herald in 1972, The band became a trio with a number of musicians joining Dermot and Mick including Mayoman Keith Kennedy.

According to entertainment journalist Tony Wilson writing in the Evening Herald in 1972,

‘‘Dermot with Irish show business manager Sean Jordan and guitarist Gerry Hughes formed a booking agency in North America for touring Irish bands.’

In December 1973, Dermot returned from Canada  to his native Ringsend to attend a family wedding. It was while he was at home in South Dock Street that he accidentally fell down the stairs and died. 

According to mudcat.org fellow band member Michael Croly died in his sleep. 

The Allan Ryan Hospital, Ringsend

Allan Ryan

For many Dubliners the location of The Allan Ryan Hospital would draw a blank but it was an Important addition to the nation's capital and the aforementioned Allan Ryan was a controversial character. 

Lady Aberdeen

When Isobel Maria Marjoribanks married John Hamilton Gordon in 1877, she took on the title of Lady Aberdeen. Her husband, Lord Aberdeen, was a Liberal party member of the House of Lords. In 1893, he was appointed as Governor of Canada. While there, his wife became an active women's rights campaigner organizing the National Council of Women in Canada. 

 

In 1905, when the Liberal Party gained power in Westminster under Prime Minister Henry Campbell Bannerman, Lord Aberdeen was appointed as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the couple departed Canada moving to Dublin and into the Vice Regal Lodge in the Phoenix Park. Today the Vice Regal Lodge is Aras an Uachtarain home to the President of Ireland. 

As she had done in Canada, Lady Aberdeen made herself quickly acquainted with the state of women's rights in Ireland and what was needed socially and economically to improve women's conditions especially in the poorer part of the city she now found herself in. She became involved in and patron of the Women’s National Health Association of Ireland. In 1910, the association's primary focus was on the treatment and prevention of Tuberculosis, more commonly known at the time as consumption. By 1907, sixteen of every one hundred deaths were attributed to TB. 

 

In June 1909, the Aberdeen’s visited America. At a dinner held in their honour in New York, Lady Aberdeen met entrepreneur Allan A Ryan. Ryan was born in 1880 in New York, the son of one of the United States’s richest men at the time, transportation tycoon Thomas Fortune Ryan. Allan became a major player on Wall Street and it was at his zenith that he met Lady Aberdeen. She, without much persuasion, had Ryan agree to providing an endowment of £1,000 (€150,000) per annum for the following five years. Lady Aberdeen returned to a Dublin gripped by a TB epidemic especially affecting the poor and working-class areas of the city. 

 

In August 1910, with Lord and Lady Aberdeen in attendance, the Allan Ryan Home Hospital for Consumption under the auspices of the Women's National Health Association was officially opened at the Pigeon House just beyond Ringsend. It was located close to today's ESB power station on the banks of the Liffey. It was described as being a venue for the treatment of advanced but not hopeless cases of TB. Formerly part of Dublin Corporation's isolation building which had been used to treat patients during a smallpox outbreak. When the hospital opened it had eighteen beds but that quickly rose to fifty. The first patient was admitted on October 31st. Male patients were accommodated in two wards on the ground floor, while the female patients were on the first floor. There were thirteen staff including two physicians, a matron nurse, four nurses, a cook, a laundress and a number of maids employed from the locality. Four more shelters were then added to the Allan Ryan Hospital with the financial support of Lord John Lonsdale, secretary of the Irish Unionist Party. 

 

Lady Aberdeen also ran a number of fundraisers to fund both the hospital and babies club in Ringsend. One of the largest and most successful was held in Herbert Park. Along with the Allan Ryan Hospital, Lady Aberdeen used funds to build the Peamount Sanatorium.

 

On December 1st 1913, the running of the hospital was transferred to Dublin Corporation. While the hospital was for the treatment of those with TB, Lady Aberdeen also tried to persuade women especially, that prevention was better than cure. To this end she tried to educate the women in poorer areas including Ringsend that breast feeding their children was better than the often-tainted milk that was helping to spread the disease. She set up a number of what were called Babies Clubs including one in Ringsend. But with a growing national sentiment in Ireland the clubs were often treated with contempt and boycotted. The motives of Lady Aberdeen and Lonsdale were publicly questioned in newspaper letters from residents in Ringsend. Both the hospital and babies club were staffed by what was known as Jubilee Nurses, the forerunner of the district nurse. The Jubilee Nurses scheme was founded in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee. One of the most important Irish jubilee nurses was Annie P Smithson who was both a nurse, an author and a staunch republican who was jailed by Free State forces in 1922 but rescued from Mullingar jail by Muriel McSwiney amongst others. Smithson was born on Claremont Road in Sandymount and was later secretary of the Irish Nurses Organisation. In February 1911, New York lawyer John Quinn sent £25 (€4000 in today's money) to Lady Aberdeen specifically to provide meals for the children attending Ringsend national school on Thorncastle Street.

 

Lord and Lady Aberdeen remained in Ireland until February 1915. Allan Ryan meanwhile speculated heavily on the stock exchange and went bankrupt in 1922. He was disowned by his father and received none of the $200 million that was left when Thomas Fortune Ryan died in 1928. He had heavily invested in a passion project, a car described as ‘the sexiest car ever made’ the Stutz Bearcat. For a certain generation you may remember the 1971 TV series ‘Bearcats’ starring Rod Taylor and Leslie Nielsen that featured a Stutz Bearcat. His failure was later seen as one of the markers that lit the way to the Wall Street crash in 1929. The Allan Ryan Hospital was returned to Dublin Corporation and closed its doors in 1955.

(c) The Ringsend and District Historical Society 2024