Ireland's OWN: History
17 November 2003
London’s Irish history
—by Louise Duff, The Irish Post
The streets of London are steeped in Irish history — and a uniquely British institution is helping mark that connection. LOUISE DUFF looks at how English Heritage’s Blue Plaque scheme is charting the history of the famous Irish inhabitants of Britain’s capital.
IRELAND’S great and good have lived, toiled and dreamed their dreams at many a London address over the years.
From James Joyce to Michael Collins, Oscar Wilde to Francis Bacon the streets of the British capital teem with the history of Irish cultural and political life.
Like many of their countrymen, artists, poets, writers and political thinkers headed over the Irish Sea over the years to live in Britain.
But if you’re looking to take a tour of these famous people’s hunting grounds, just where do you start? Easy, look for the Blue Plaque.
Conservation group English Heritage has spent years marking the homes of the famous around the capital with the distinctive circular, glazed plaques — recording the dates they lived there and their achievements.
Now an exhibition marking the 150 years of history recorded by the scheme is running in Hyde Park. And it includes some notable Irish names. Dublin-born literary greats are prevalent — including James Joyce, Sean O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw, William Yeats and Oscar Wilde.
English Heritage historian Emily Cole said: “All levels of society are featured in the scheme. Each celebrates a person’s connection with an actual building and transforms bricks and mortar into living history.”
There are also several plaques in existence that were not erected by English Heritage — such as that to Michael Collins. But the Blue Plaque scheme, originally founded by The Royal Society of Arts in 1866, is the most distinctive — and now places around 20 new plaques each year.
Candidates currently under consideration include Irish author and politician Erskine Childers (1870-1922) and the tenor John McCormack (1884-1944).
Selection criteria are strict. An individual must have been dead for 20 years or have passed the centenary of their birth, and overseas nationals have to be of international reputation or significant standing in their own country.
An exhibition celebrating English Heritage blue plaques is currently being held at the Wellington Arch in Hyde Park Corner.
Lived in London: 150 Years of Blue Plaques runs until December 31. The exhibition outlines blue plaque history, gives information on how to propose an individual for a blue plaque and asks visitors to suggest who they think will be future subjects.
Opening hours: Until September 30: Wednesday–Sunday, 1.00–17.30 and Bank Holidays; October 1–31: Wednesday–Sunday, 1.00–17.00. November 1–December 31: Wednesday–Sunday, 1.00 — 16.00, Closed 24–26 December. Entry: £2.50/£2/£1.50. Tel: 020 7930 2726.
Michael Collins
(1890 — 1922)
Cork-born Sinn Féin leader
5 Netherwood Rd, W14Probably the most charismatic political leader in the history of 20th century Ireland.
Born in Clonakilty, Collins joined the civil service and moved to London in 1906. He developed a keen interest in Irish politics among exiled nationalists and joined the Gaelic League and the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Returning to Ireland, he served as an aide to Joseph Plunkett in the GPO during Easter week, after which he was interned at Frongoch, North Wales. On his release during Christmas 1916 he returned to Ireland, was elected to the Sinn Féin executive and became MP for South Cork, and Tyrone.
During the Anglo-Irish war, Collins was vital in co-ordinating the IRA’s military campaign and was instrumental in extracting most of the concessions secured from Lloyd George.
In 1922, he was appointed Chairman and Minister of Finance of the provisional government, responsible for the establishment of the Irish Free State. He was decisive in devising a constitution, creating security forces and appointing a civil service. When war began, Collins became Commander-in-Chief of the Free State Army and helped lay down the military strategy which enabled the pro-Treaty troops to emerge triumphant. He was shot dead in Béal na mBláth in Cork.
Lord William Thomson Kelvin
(1824-1907)
Belfast-born physicist
15 Eaton Place, SW1A scientist and inventor, Kelvin sought to use science for practical ends.
He was the son of James Thomson, a professor of Mathematics in the Royal Institution. The family moved to Glasgow in 1832 and he studied at the city’s university. He later became professor of natural philosophy and also Chancellor of the University of Glasgow.
Kelvin worked on reforming the mariner’s compass and inventing a tide-predicting machine. He also showed the possibility of utilising the power of Niagara Falls in generating electricity.
He also developed the theory which forms the basis of wireless telegraphy, was knighted for his services to telegraphy and became president of the Society of Telegraph Engineers in 1874. He is buried in Westminster Abbey in London.
William Butler Yeats
(1865-1939)
Dublin-born poet and dramatist
23 Fitzroy Road, Camden NW1Yeats was one of the greatest 20th century poets and in 1923 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
He was educated in Dublin and London, but spent much of his boyhood with his maternal grandparents in Sligo where the local scenery, legends and folklore had a lasting influence on his life and work.
Yeats’s poems such as The Wanderings of Oisin and The Rose celebrate the Irish landscape of his boyhood and explore pagan Irish themes. The lyrical, nostalgic beauty of these poems is also evident in The Lake Isle of Innisfree — which came into the poet’s mind as he walked in a London street.
Yeats was also interested in mysticism, founding a society in Dublin to study Hinduism and Asian religions.
In 1889, he met Irish nationalist Maude Gonne and she drew him into the independence movement.
In 1898 he met the Nationalist playwright and mythographer Lady Augusta Gregory and spent his summers at her home at Coole Park in Galway. In 1899 the Irish Literary Theatre — which later became the Abbey Theatre — performed his The Countess Cathleen as its first venture.
Following Irish independence Yeats became a member of the new Irish Senate. He died in France and in 1948 his body was returned to Ireland and laid to rest in Sligo.
Edmund Burke
(1729-1797)
Irish-born politician
37 Gerrard St, W1Burke’s stated birthplace is Dublin although there is a tradition in Cork that he was actually born at Ballywater in Shanballymore. Although his mother Mary Nagle was a Catholic and his solicitor father Richard had converted to Anglicanism, Burke was educated at Abraham Shackleton’s Quaker boarding school in Ballitore in Kildare.
Burke successfully sat the entrance examinations for Trinity College, Dublin and embarked on legal training at the Middle Temple in London.
But he lost interest in law becoming an assistant to William Gerard Hamilton MP. When Hamilton was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland he asked Burke to accompany him as his private secretary. Consequently Burke had a significant role in the government of Ireland between 1761 and 1764. He went on to be elected MP for Bristol and then for Malton.
Tom Moore
(1779-1852)
Dublin-born poet
5 George Street, W1Moore was among those who tried unsuccessfully to provide words for the Londonderry Air — which eventually became Danny Boy. He also published biographies of Lord Byron, Brinsley Sheridan and Irish aristocrat Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
Although showing signs of acting ability, he entered Trinity College, Dublin on his ambitious mother’s insistence as she wanted to take advantage of the easing of the anti-Catholic penal laws to allow a legal career for her son.
Moore entered the Middle Temple, London and became popular in society circles with his musical talent for writing and singing. He declined the specially created Poet Laureatship of Ireland in favour of a post as Admiralty Registrar in Bermuda in 1804.
His first volume of Irish Melodies was published in 1808 and the last of ten appeared in 1834. They were instant successes and patriotic songs such as The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls and The Minstrel Boy were received with enthusiasm.
Moore died in Sloperton in Wiltshire where he had spent his later years.
Louis MacNeice
(1907-1963)
Belfast-born poet
52 Canonbury Park South, Islington, N1MacNeice’s poetry is characterized by its familiar, sometimes humorous tone and its integration of contemporary ideas and images.
Attending Oxford, he majored in Classics and Philosophy. Although he lived the majority of his adult life in London, MacNeice frequently returned to his childhood landscapes and took great pride in his Irish heritage.
He became Classics Lecturer at the University of Birmingham and then taught Greek at the University of London, later joining the BBC as a staff writer and producer where he found an audience for his work through radio.
On location with a BBC team in 1963 MacNeice insisted on going down a mineshaft to check on sound effects. He caught a chill that was not diagnosed as pneumonia until he was fatally ill.
Dr Thomas John Barnardo
(1845-1905)
Dublin-born philanthropist
58 Solent House, Ben Johnson Road, E1Barnardo made it his crusade to rescue street children. He raised millions of pounds, established a network of care homes for homeless, needy and afflicted children and rescued about 60,000 destitute youngsters.
The son of a furrier, Barnardo was educated at St. Patrick’s Cathedral Grammar School. Considered a troublemaker, he was argumentative but eloquent. After failing his exams he was apprenticed to a wine merchant.
Approaching his 17th Barnardo became a strongly evangelical Christian, taught Bible classes in a Dublin school and conducted home visits. Hearing about the work of the Inland China Mission, Barnardo believed his future lay in such work. He left Ireland to study medicine at the London Hospital and took up residence in East London.
He threw himself into missionary work and was often attacked in some of London’s tougher areas but went on to set-up the first of many schools for the poor.
By the time of Barnardo’s death, there were nearly 8,000 children in the 96 homes he had established.
Bernardo O’Higgins
(1778-1842)
General, statesman and liberator of Chile
Clarence House, 2 The Vineyard, RichmondBernardo was the illegitimate son of a daughter of an aristocratic Chilean family and an Irish engineer named Ambrose O’Higgins.
He inherited his father’s Los Angeles estates and worked in Chile as a farmer. Bernardo was later elected Deputy to Chile’s first National Congress. But Royalists who wanted Chile to return to royal rule began to oppose the Congress. Using his inheritance, Bernardo formed cavalry companies and distinguished himself for bravery. His exhortation “Live with honour or die with glory. He who is brave, follow me” lives in Chilean history. Bernardo went on to claim several victories and be named Commander in Chief.
Sean O’Casey
(1880-1964)
Dublin-born playwright
49 Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Drive, Battersea, SW11O’Casey was the youngest of eight children of a Protestant clerk. In 1886, his father died and he became devoted to his mother. Sent to work at 14, he educated himself from his father’s books.
He was a labourer for nine years on the Great Northern Railway and involved himself with the Nationalist movement as Secretary of the Gaelic League and a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
O’Casey became Secretary of the Women and Children’s Relief Fund during the Dublin general strike and Secretary of the Irish Citizen Army.
His play The Shadow of a Gunman premiered in 1923 and three years after riots erupted at a performance of The Plough and the Stars over its realistic depiction of the Easter Rising and socialist disillusionment with Nationalism.
At 46, O’Casey left Ireland and headed to London where he became an admired figure in fashionable society.
In 1928 after the Abbey Theatre rejected The Silver Tassie. O’Casey decided to live in exile. The film of Juno and the Paycock, directed by Alfred Hitchcock was released in 1930 and a copy of the film was burned in a Limerick street by Nationalists.
The Silver Tassie later finally opened at the Abbey in 1935 when O’Casey visited Dublin for the last time.
Francis Bacon
(1909-1992)
Dublin-born artist
7 Cromwell Place, SW7A giant of contemporary art, Bacon was born at 63 Lower Baggott Street in Dublin. His father was a British army major who moved to Ireland as a horse-trainer and his mother was the granddaughter of LL Firth who invented stainless steel.
In 1914, the family emigrated to London and for some years moved around country houses in Ireland and England. During the early 1950s Bacon was short of money and relied on friends for accommodation. In 1955, he moved in with friends at the above Battersea address, staying for six years.
Cecil Day-Lewis
(1904-1972)
Irish-born Poet Laureate
6 Crooms Hill, Greenwich, SE10Day-Lewis was the son of an Anglo-Irish Protestant clergyman and the family moved to England in 1906. He was educated at Oxford University where he met and was strongly influenced by the poet WH Auden. He was one of a group of poets who used their work as a vehicle for left-wing political statements in the 1930s.
Unable to earn a living as a poet, and not wholly fulfilled by his job as a schoolteacher, Day-Lewis turned his hand to crime writing under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake.
George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950)
Dublin-born author, dramatist and playwright
29 Fitzroy Square, W1Shaw was awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature. His plaque reads: “From the coffers of his genius he enriched the world.”
Shaw’s father George was a corn-miller with little money to spend on his son’s education. He went to local schools, but never to university and was largely self-taught.
After working in a Dublin estate office, Shaw moved to London in 1876. During the next seven years he wrote five unsuccessful novels but was more successful with his journalism and contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette.
In 1882 Shaw heard a land nationalization lecture which had a profound effect on him and helped to develop his socialism ideas. He joined the Social Democratic Federation but whilst convinced by the economic theories was aware it would have little impact on the working classes.
In 1884, Shaw joined the Fabian Society and the following year, the Socialist League. He gave lectures on socialism on street corners and helped distribute political literature.
In 1900 the Fabian Society joined with other groups to form the Labour Representation Committee which later became the Labour Party. Shaw wrote several plays with political themes during this period, including Man and Superman, John Bull’s Other Island and Major Barbara.
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde
34 Tite St, Kensington, SW3
(1854-1900)Dublin-born dramatist and wit
With his flamboyant style, sharp social comedies and quotable conversation, Wilde dazzled London society.
Wilde’s father William was a doctor who studied at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and was appointed medical advisor to the Irish Census of 1841. His mother Jane Francesca Elgee wrote revolutionary poems under the pseudonym Speranza for the Irish newspaper The Nation.
Wilde attended the Portora Royal School at Enniskillen, where he excelled at Classics. In 1871, he was awarded the Royal School Scholarship to attend Trinity College, Dublin.
His first and only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray sparked protests over its implied homoerotic theme — but his plays Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman Of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance Of Being Earnest received widespread acclaim.
His downfall came after he met Lord Alfred Douglas, the third son of the Marquis of Queensberry. Wilde sued Lord Douglas’s father for libel after he accused him of homosexuality. Oscar later withdrew the case but was arrested, convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years imprisonment.
On release he spent the last years of his life wandering Europe before dying from meningitis.
Michael William Balfe
(1808-1870)
Dublin-born composer
12 Seymour St, W1This child prodigy wrote 28 operas in his lifetime.
He was born at 10 Pitt Street — now Balfe Street — Dublin. The building which was his home has since been demolished but there remains a commemorative plaque on the wall.
Balfe’s father William gave dance classes in Dublin and Wexford. His mother Mary Ryan was a niece of the lawyer, songwriter and spy Leonard MacNally.
Balfe took violin lessons with well-established musician James Barton, composer William Rooke and others in Wexford.
His first public concert aged just nine was at the Rotunda Concert Rooms. Successful concerts followed, at the Crow Street Theatre and again at the Rotunda.
On leaving Dublin for London Balfe joined the Drury Lane Theatre orchestra — then under the direction of Irishman Tom Cooke.
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce
(1882-1941)
Dublin-born novelist
28b Campden Grove, Kensington, W8Author of Ulysses — thought by many to be the greatest novel of the 20th century.
Educated at University College, Dublin, Joyce went on to work as an English teacher and bank clerk before taking up writing full-time.
His work often baffled critics with its complexities — but has been acknowledged as some of the greatest literature ever written. He once boasted his books “would keep professors busy for centuries”.
Joyce also established Dublin’s first cinema — the Volta — in 1909.
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