A CITY OF ASHES AND MEMORIES

Dunstan Times, Issue 3139, 16 October 1922, Page 2

A CITY OF ASHES AND MEMORIES

(By Pamela Hinkson.) As 1 turn up my diary looking for an entry I find this for ai day in last .March: "Danced at Gresham in the evening. If I go through the diary 1 will find it again and! again. Dublin, up to the war and through the first years of it. was as gay ai city as any in the world and as beautiful. True, the gaiety wara more the gaiety of the heart than anything else, for Dublin provides little in the way of amusement; did provide. I should say. for Dublin like- Ireland has changed until it is hardly recognisable. The el'a-s that made Dublin gay before the war and Idled the streets with gay youth m those early days, youth, more exquisite perhaps because (if the foreboding of what was to come, has gone, apparently for ever. The survivors of the war have been disbanded, but they are not coming hack to Ireland; they are drifting into E'nglish regiments where they will be forlorn and strange and sick for the regiment which was home and everything that home meant to them. Dublin, when 1 left it two months ago, was gay still, but it was another world that danced and made merry. It was a beautiful city stilk although one of its 'dories—the Custom House—had been burned, and the Post Office, with its memories of 1916. was stdl in ruins Yet Ganden's other masterpiece, the Four Courts, remained to make that part of Dublin beautiful, although on that evening when 1 saw it last it was obvious that it was already doomed I had gone down to see it once more because 1 was about to leave Ireland, and <riies«ed that it would be destroyed lielore I came back, but i hardly realised that the destruction would be so com- !> Although Horv O'Connor's men held it, it looked very peaceful, and there were no armed men to be seen. Only the law books and records of centuries sandbagging the windows, and a barbed wire entanglements outside, and in .front a tinv crowd and the inevitable army of small children with toy bandoliers and sticks on their shoulders performing military evolutions. Someone said to me afterward-. ") mi should nut go down there, you might he shot." but on that April day fighting seemed as far away as though it were impossible. And'now Sackville street is in rums again and the Gresham Hotel has gone; with what memories! Dublin has few public dancing places; the Gresham floor, swung on chains, was at one time unique and something rather wonderful, ft is a democratic country, and at the Gresham dances all classes and shades of opinion rubbed shoulders. Many a bov and girl danced there together for the last time in those four years before ho "sailed at dawn," many a match was made in the sitting-out rooms upstairs. What memories! One could go on for ever if it were not too sad. as all memories must be in a time like this. When I danced there last the new regime- had begun. Our party included two British officers about lo be ovaUßated and a girl whose elder brother was well known in Sinn Fein circles, while- her youngest had fallen in the war. While we danced the Croat Ones ol the new regime came to the door and watched us benevolently. "That's Collins." one of the soldiers whispered to the other. "Did you hear the story of how he escaped from ?" There would follow one of the well known tales. "I'd like to see MeKeown, the other soldier said. "They say he's a splendid fellow." .The Great Ones were still somewhat shrouded in mystery, even to Irish people, and many had never seen them. "1 believe that's Mick Collins," said a girl excitedly to her partner as a tall man passed them in the corridor. lie turned and smiled at her. "Yes. I'm Collins." he said, and went on. leaving her half confused, half elated. Some of the Great Ones at the Gresham in those, clays, which added to the interest: of the dances. They held: meetings, councils in the rooms where so many hoys and girls had made love in the days when youth had no sterner business to do; while away in Stephen's. Green. Diehard Mulcahy. Chief of Staff of the new Irish army, had his conferences in the Shelbourne. that one-time stronghold of Toryism. One is ..dad that at least the ShelI.ourno remains, with its memories, though the Gresham has gone with its ghosts for ever and ever.