DEAR OLD DUBLIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18565, 24 November 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

DEAR OLD DUBLIN.

AN EXTRAORDINARY CITY. BY G.C. Some —dirty old Dublin; but these are not Irishmen, and so they do not count for anything. True, Dublin never exactly shone in comparison with other European capitals; she always had rather the aspect of a woman with a past, but that made her all the more interesting, and now the cumulative effect of several revolutions has, by destroying many of her most attractive points, given her an historical air which she never before possessed. An old writer said of Dublin:— Tie seat of the citi© i.i of all sides pleasant. comfortable and Tholsxorac. If you would traverse hills, they are not izt off. If champaign land, it licit of all parts. Iyou would be debited -viih fwsh -water, the It in-in a river called tho LsfSe. named of Ptcleme " L/bnium." runneth fast by. If you -will take the view of the sea, it is at hand. Nor did he • claim too much, for all this beauty still remains to be seen daring the interludes between frequent I strife. Bat the new Dublin of the Celtic Renaissance is as dead as the old Dublin of Charles Lever, and it has been re- ! placed by a strange city, less IrisL than Russian in habit, and less British than Belgian in condition. | The splendid thoroughfare of Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street) is just the i shell of its former self; the imposing Post Office was burned out in 1916. and the skeleton walls still stand; half one side of the street was destroyed in that year, and since rebuilt, only for the other half to be burned out in 1922; the Nelson Pillar, its hollow stem occupied for a week by sharpshooters, is pockmarked by a spray of bullets. Grafton Street has sunk from its pride of the Regent Street of Dublin to a mere provincial roadway, and if Merrion Square remains aristocratic, its aristocrats have long since departed. Three Rival Annies. In the month of June, 1922. the city simmered like a cauldron with the intrigues of the rival factions, only to overflow aimlessly into the Battle of the Four Courts, which resolved into days of suicidal street fighting. Landing at Kingstown then one stepped into an atmosphere of high tension; British armoured cars guarded the steamers, and, having been searched for arms at Holyhead the night before, one was landed amid the ferment with a feeling of raw impotence. Three viral armies lay uneasily in Dublin, watching to see who would be the first to spring. In the Phoenix Park ten thousand English troops, mere boys for the most part, remained under enforced restraint; at Beggars' Bush the soldiers of the Fr~-; State, green-clad j youths who smoked cigarettes on sentryj go. and dozed with the muzzle of a rifle j beneath their c in. remained far less {willingly inactive; while in the Four j Courts, Rory O'Moore and his men. barrii caded in with sand-bags and barbed- ; wire, deftly piled up their store of stolen | motor-cars, and awaited events with j brazen daring. I It was finally over these motor-cars i that the civil war begSn. Having raided | the Automobile Club successfully. 1 O'Moore inserted in the Irish Times a j double-column advertisement " thanking i all friends and supporters for the : kind l use of their cars for the blockade of ! Ulster. Signed, Rory O'Moore, Chief of Staff, Irish Republican Army." Truly 'W. 8L Gilbert died too soon. A prompt : demand by "the Free State for the return of the cars was as promptly refused, and next day : the . Four Courts, one of the finest" buildings in the United Kingdom, was bombarded by field-guns until onehalf of it was wrecked, when the remainder was blown up by a mine. Store Spectators titan Troops. They are truly unique, these Irish, and however great the damage to property (a total of twenty millions is admitted in Southern Ireland) there were alwavs more spectators than troops on the casualty list. Nothing could keep people away. * and during that bombardment nursemaids and their charges appeared even on the iron single-arch bridge across the Liffey, just below the Courts. How could anyone take this warfare seriously until confronted by the sight of death! And so the two parties fought one another from building to building round the quays and up O'Connell Street for days on end, while fascinated onlookers were content to be hit occasionally by a spent bullet as the price of their privilege. Chen, when the Republicans had scattered singly throughout the city, it was vigorously policed by the Free Staters; every passer-by was searched and searched and searched again, ambush and counter-ambush were the order of the 'day, and murder was met by assassination." Every now and then a fresh alarm would bring out a platoon of the green men. crammed into a high-armoured motor, bristling with rifle-barrels like a gigantic hedgehog, which raced through the streets bearing above the driver a man who blew lustily upon a bugle. In the midst of all this, the medical students of Trinity College elected to have a street collection in fancy dress, in aid of the Cancer Hospital. The proceedings lasted for several days,;, in the course of which many of the hunted Republicans, seeing a ready means of getting round the city in comparative safety, also assumed fancy costume, and when accosted by someone robed as a member of. the fcu Klux Klan, or by a " nurse" wearing football boots, one was never certain whether the outcome would be the production of a collecting-bag or an army revolver. - After such a holiday resort, life in England was dull indeed. Such was Ireland in 1922; Ireland, the Isle of Saints; Ireland, oppressed by the bated English; Ireland, "the land of the bravest men .and the ; most virtuous women. ' Government --. and ;■: Gaelic.■■ ■/" * And the new Government, locked in its extemporised quarters, from which no member dare venture at peril of his life, and to walk past which was to be seized and searched by " the bhovs," began to govern, in characteristically Irish; fashion, by restoring the Gaelic language, despite the * fact, of - its vocabulary being so small that English words had to be used whenever no native "term could' convey the sense. ■ Long, ago the Dublin streets were named upon the finger-posts in both English and Gaelic, but now telegraph forms and ;proclamations were issued in the old language, and the official receiving his printed instructions had usually to seek out the oldest inhabitant in order to translate them. An extraordinary city Dublin, without a first-class hotel, but where better English is spoken than in London with fine buildings, but all the poverty of. Spain; with great industries. V .t all 'the beggars of Italy. Begging has there attained the honour of a fine art and the- dignity of a sport— beggar will overtake you with blessings, and if they tie fruitless, pursue you with curses down those narrow side streets until his importunity, assisted by their -grime, brings, thoughts of Naples. And. strangest contrast, of all, this home of disaffection, this abode of piety and priesthood, cherishes the finest collection of Impressionist paintings outside Paris. What link; is there between these all-too-human people and the * nightmares of technique produced by the modern Frenchmen?.»' If one knew, it might be the key to the Irish re-rbut can a popple ever be judged by the public posaunflaft! .