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    Irish Hospital Sweepstakes Vintage Showcard

    €100.00
    Vintage showcard for the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes selling at 2 shillings & 6 pence for a quarter share and full tickets for 10 shillings a piece. Dublin  34cm x 29cm The Irish Hospital Sweepstake was a lottery established in the Irish Free State in 1930 as the Irish Free State Hospitals' Sweepstake to finance hospitals. It is generally referred to as the Irish Sweepstake, frequently abbreviated to Irish Sweeps or Irish Sweep. The Public Charitable Hospitals (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1930 was the act that established the lottery; as this act expired in 1934, in accordance with its terms, the Public Hospitals Acts were the legislative basis for the scheme thereafter. The main organisers were Richard Duggan, Captain Spencer Freeman and Joe McGrath. Duggan was a well known Dublin bookmaker who had organised a number of sweepstakes in the decade prior to setting up the Hospitals' Sweepstake. Captain Freeman was a Welsh-born engineer and former captain in the British Army. After the Constitution of Ireland was enacted in 1937, the name Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake was adopted. The sweepstake was established because there was a need for investment in hospitals and medical services and the public finances were unable to meet this expense at the time. As the people of Ireland were unable to raise sufficient funds, because of the low population, a significant amount of the funds were raised in the United Kingdom and United States, often among the emigrant Irish. Potentially winning tickets were drawn from rotating drums, usually by nurses in uniform. Each such ticket was assigned to a horse expected to run in one of several horse races, including the Cambridgeshire Handicap, Derby and Grand National. Tickets that drew the favourite horses thus stood a higher likelihood of winning and a series of winning horses had to be chosen on the accumulator system, allowing for enormous prizes.
    F. F. Warren, the engineer who designed the mixing drums from which sweepstake tickets were drawn
    The original sweepstake draws were held at The Mansion House, Dublin on 19 May 1939 under the supervision of the Chief Commissioner of Police, and were moved to the more permanent fixture at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Ballsbridge later in 1940. The Adelaide Hospital in Dublin was the only hospital at the time not to accept money from the Hospitals Trust, as the governors disapproved of sweepstakes. From the 1960s onwards, revenues declined. The offices were moved to Lotamore House in Cork. Although giving the appearance of a public charitable lottery, with nurses featured prominently in the advertising and drawings, the Sweepstake was in fact a private for-profit lottery company, and the owners were paid substantial dividends from the profits. Fortune Magazine described it as "a private company run for profit and its handful of stockholders have used their earnings from the sweepstakes to build a group of industrial enterprises that loom quite large in the modest Irish economy. Waterford Glass, Irish Glass Bottle Company and many other new Irish companies were financed by money from this enterprise and up to 5,000 people were given jobs."[3] By his death in 1966, Joe McGrath had interests in the racing industry, and held the Renault dealership for Ireland besides large financial and property assets. He was known throughout Ireland for his tough business attitude but also by his generous spirit.At that time, Ireland was still one of the poorer countries in Europe; he believed in investment in Ireland. His home, Cabinteely House, was donated to the state in 1986. The house and the surrounding park are now in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council who have invested in restoring and maintaining the house and grounds as a public park. In 1986, the Irish government created a new public lottery, and the company failed to secure the new contract to manage it. The final sweepstake was held in January 1986 and the company was unsuccessful for a licence bid for the Irish National Lottery, which was won by An Post later that year. The company went into voluntary liquidation in March 1987. The majority of workers did not have a pension scheme but the sweepstake had fed many families during lean times and was regarded as a safe job.The Public Hospitals (Amendment) Act, 1990 was enacted for the orderly winding up of the scheme which had by then almost £500,000 in unclaimed prizes and accrued interest. A collection of advertising material relating to the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes is among the Special Collections of National Irish Visual Arts Library. At the time of the Sweepstake's inception, lotteries were generally illegal in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In the absence of other readily available lotteries, the Irish Sweeps became popular. Even though tickets were illegal outside Ireland, millions were sold in the US and Great Britain. How many of these tickets failed to make it back for the drawing is unknown. The United States Customs Service alone confiscated and destroyed several million counterfoils from shipments being returned to Ireland. In the UK, the sweepstakes caused some strain in Anglo-Irish relations, and the Betting and Lotteries Act 1934 was passed by the parliament of the UK to prevent export and import of lottery related materials. The United States Congress had outlawed the use of the US Postal Service for lottery purposes in 1890. A thriving black market sprang up for tickets in both jurisdictions. From the 1950s onwards, as the American, British and Canadian governments relaxed their attitudes towards this form of gambling, and went into the lottery business themselves, the Irish Sweeps, never legal in the United States,declined in popularity. Origins: Co Galway Dimensions :39cm x 31cm

    The Irish Hospitals Sweepstake was established because there was a need for investment in hospitals and medical services and the public finances were unable to meet this expense at the time. As the people of Ireland were unable to raise sufficient funds, because of the low population, a significant amount of the funds were raised in the United Kingdom and United States, often among the emigrant Irish. Potentially winning tickets were drawn from rotating drums, usually by nurses in uniform. Each such ticket was assigned to a horse expected to run in one of several horse races, including the Cambridgeshire Handicap, Derby and Grand National. Tickets that drew the favourite horses thus stood a higher likelihood of winning and a series of winning horses had to be chosen on the accumulator system, allowing for enormous prizes.

    F. F. Warren, the engineer who designed the mixing drums from which sweepstake tickets were drawn
    The original sweepstake draws were held at The Mansion House, Dublin on 19 May 1939 under the supervision of the Chief Commissioner of Police, and were moved to the more permanent fixture at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Ballsbridge later in 1940. The Adelaide Hospital in Dublin was the only hospital at the time not to accept money from the Hospitals Trust, as the governors disapproved of sweepstakes. From the 1960s onwards, revenues declined. The offices were moved to Lotamore House in Cork. Although giving the appearance of a public charitable lottery, with nurses featured prominently in the advertising and drawings, the Sweepstake was in fact a private for-profit lottery company, and the owners were paid substantial dividends from the profits. Fortune Magazine described it as "a private company run for profit and its handful of stockholders have used their earnings from the sweepstakes to build a group of industrial enterprises that loom quite large in the modest Irish economy. Waterford Glass, Irish Glass Bottle Company and many other new Irish companies were financed by money from this enterprise and up to 5,000 people were given jobs."By his death in 1966, Joe McGrath had interests in the racing industry, and held the Renault dealership for Ireland besides large financial and property assets. He was known throughout Ireland for his tough business attitude but also by his generous spirit. At that time, Ireland was still one of the poorer countries in Europe; he believed in investment in Ireland. His home, Cabinteely House, was donated to the state in 1986. The house and the surrounding park are now in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council who have invested in restoring and maintaining the house and grounds as a public park. In 1986, the Irish government created a new public lottery, and the company failed to secure the new contract to manage it. The final sweepstake was held in January 1986 and the company was unsuccessful for a licence bid for the Irish National Lottery, which was won by An Post later that year. The company went into voluntary liquidation in March 1987. The majority of workers did not have a pension scheme but the sweepstake had fed many families during lean times and was regarded as a safe job.The Public Hospitals (Amendment) Act, 1990 was enacted for the orderly winding up of the scheme,which had by then almost £500,000 in unclaimed prizes and accrued interest. A collection of advertising material relating to the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes is among the Special Collections of National Irish Visual Arts Library.

    In the United Kingdom and North America[edit]

    At the time of the Sweepstake's inception, lotteries were generally illegal in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In the absence of other readily available lotteries, the Irish Sweeps became popular. Even though tickets were illegal outside Ireland, millions were sold in the US and Great Britain. How many of these tickets failed to make it back for the drawing is unknown. The United States Customs Service alone confiscated and destroyed several million counterfoils from shipments being returned to Ireland. In the UK, the sweepstakes caused some strain in Anglo-Irish relations, and the Betting and Lotteries Act 1934 was passed by the parliament of the UK to prevent export and import of lottery related materials.[6][7] The United States Congress had outlawed the use of the US Postal Service for lottery purposes in 1890. A thriving black market sprang up for tickets in both jurisdictions. From the 1950s onwards, as the American, British and Canadian governments relaxed their attitudes towards this form of gambling, and went into the lottery business themselves, the Irish Sweeps, never legal in the United States,[8]:227 declined in popularity.
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  • The United Irishmen of 1798 Bicentennial Commemorative Poster (limited edition)

    €50.00
    Lovely,limited edition  commemorative poster celebrating the bicentennial anniversary of the 1798 United Irishmen Rebellion. 78cm x 57cm The 1798 United Irishmen Rebellion led by Theobald Wolfe Tone was ill fated from the outset.Inspired by the recent successful American and French Revolutions,the Rebels leadership became fragmented and the revolt was only sporadically successful .This poster captures the portraits of such notable United Irishmen as Henry Joy McCracken,Napper Tandy and Wolfe Tone himself.
    The united Irish crest.
    An overview of the insurrection of 1798, by John Dorney. The 1798 rebellion was an insurrection launched by the United Irishmen, an underground republican society, aimed at overthrowing the Kingdom of Ireland, severing the connection with Great Britain and establishing an Irish Republic based on the principles of the French Revolution. The rebellion failed in its aim to launch a coordinated nationwide uprising. There were instead isolated outbreaks of rebellion in county Wexford, other Leinster counties, counties Antrim and Down in the north and after the landing of a French expeditionary force, in county Mayo in the west. The military uprising was put down with great bloodshed in the summer of 1798. Some of its leaders, notably Wolfe Tone were killed or died in imprisonment, while many others were exiled.
    The 1798 rebellion was failed attempt to found a secular independent Irish Republic.
    The 1790s marked an exceptional event in Irish history because the United Irishmen were a secular organisation with significant support both among Catholics and Protestants, including Protestants in the northern province of Ulster. However, the unity of Catholics and Protestants was far from universal and the fighting itself was marked in places by sectarian atrocities. As a result of the uprising, the Irish Parliament, which had existed since the 13th century, was abolished and under the Act of Union (1800) Ireland was to be ruled directly from London until 1922.

    Background

     
    The Irish Parliament on Dublin’s College Green.
    In the 18th century, Ireland was a Kingdom in its own right, under the Kings of England. Executive power was largely in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary, appointed by the British prime minister. However, Ireland also had its own parliament, which throughout the century, lobbied for greater control over trade and law making in Ireland. The Irish parliament was subservient to the British parliament at Westminster, but increasingly, as the century wore on, agitated for greater autonomy. In 1782, the Irish parliament managed to free itself from subservience to the Lord Lieutenant and, to an extent, from the British parliament through the passage of laws that enabled it to make its own laws for the first time without reference to Westminster.
    Ireland in the 18th century had its own parliament but the majority of the population was excluded from political participation on religious and property grounds.
    However, membership of the parliament was confined to members of the Anglican Church of Ireland, which, allowing for some conversions, was overwhelmingly composed of descendants of English settlers. The parliament was not a democratic body; elections were relatively infrequent, seats could be purchased and the number of voters was small and confined to wealthy, property-owning Protestants. Under the Penal Laws, enacted after the Catholic defeat in theJacobite-Williamite war of the 1690s, all those who refused to acknowledge the English King as head of their Church – therefore Catholic and Presbyterians – were barred not only from the parliament but from any public position or service in the Army.
    United Irish leader Theobald Wolfe Tone.
    Catholic owned lands were also confiscated for alleged political disloyalty throughout the 17th century. Catholics, to a large extent the descendants of the pre-seventeenth century Irish population, also suffered from restrictions on landholding, inheritance, entering the professions and the right to bear arms. Presbyterians, mostly descendants of Scottish immigrants, while not excluded as rigorously as Catholics from public life, also suffered from discrimination – marriages performed by their clergy were not legally recognised for instance. Although some of the Penal Laws were relaxed in 1782, allowing new Catholic churches and schools to open, and allowing Catholics into the professions and to purchase land, the great majority of the Irish population was still excluded from political power, and to a large extent from wealth and landholding also, as the last decade of the 18thcentury dawned. Discontent among Catholics was exacerbated by economic hardship and by tithes, compulsory taxes that people of all religions had to pay, for the upkeep of the established, Protestant Church. Initially the United Irishmen, founded, mainly by Presbyterians in Belfast in 1791, campaigned merely for reform, lobbying for the vote to be extended to Catholics and to non-property holders. The United Irishmen had a determinedly non-sectarian outlook, their motto being, as their leading member Theobald Wolfe Tone put it, ‘to unite Catholic Protestant and Dissenter under the common name of Irishman’.
    The United Irishmen, inspired by the American and French revolutions, initially lobbied for democratic reform.
    They were greatly inspired by the events of the American and French revolutions (1776 and 1789 respectively) and hoped to eventually found a self-governing, secular Irish state on the basis of universal male suffrage. The leadership of the United Irishmen was largely Protestant or Presbyterian at the start and it recruited men of all sects, mainly in the richer, more urban, eastern half of the country. Some of their early demands were granted by the Irish parliament, for example Catholics were given the right to vote in 1793, as well as the right to attend university, obtain degrees and to serve in the military and civil service. However the reforms did not go nearly as far as the radicals wished. Catholics still could not sit in the Parliament for example, nor hold public office and the vote was granted only to holders of property worth over forty shillings a year.

    Radicalisation

     
    A contemporary depiction of the ‘the mob’ during the French Revolution.
    The United Irishmen did not remain an open reformist organisation for long. The French revolution took a radical turn in 1791. In the following two years it deposed King Louis XVI and declared a Republic. Britain and revolutionary France went to war in 1793. In Ireland, the United Irishmen, who supported the French Republic, were banned and went underground in 1794. Wolfe Tone went into exile, first in America and then in France, where he lobbied for military aid for revolution in Ireland. The United Irishmen now stated that their goal was a fully independent Irish Republic. At the same time, popular discontent was growing, as the government dispatched troops to suppress the United Irishmen and other ‘seditious’ groups. The government also announced that men had to serve in the militia which would maintain internal security in Ireland during the war with France. Resistance to impressment into the militia led to fierce rioting in 1793 that left over 200 people dead.
    Repression of United Irish suspects, in this case a ‘half hanging’.
    Having been driven underground, the United Irishmen in Ireland began organising a clandestine military structure. In an effort to recruit more foot soldiers for the hoped-for revolution, they made contact with a Catholic secret society, the Defenders, who had been engaged in low level fighting, especially in the north, with Protestant groups such as the so called Peep of Day Boys and the newly founded Orange Order. As a result, while the majority of the United Irishmen’s top leadership remained Protestant, their foot soldiers, except in north east Ulster, became increasingly Catholic. That said, the Catholic Church itself was opposed to the ‘atheistical’ Republicans and was, for the first time, courted by the authorities, being granted the right to open a college for the education of priests in Maynooth in 1795. In 1796 revolutionary France dispatched a large invasion fleet, with nearly 14,000 troops, and accompanied by Wolfe Tone, to Ireland. By sheer chance, invasion was averted when the fleet ran into storms and part of it was wrecked off Bantry Bay in County Cork. Battered by the weather and after losing many men drowned, they had to return to France.
    The United Irishmen were banned after Britain went to war with France in 1793 and went underground.
    The government in Dublin, startled by the near-invasion, responded with a vicious wave of repression, passing an Insurrection Act that suspended habeas corpus and other peacetime laws. Using both British troops, militia and a newly recruited, mostly Protestant and fiercely loyalist, force known as the Yeomanry, government forces attempted to terrorise any would-be revolutionaries in Ireland who might aid the French in the event of another invasion. The Crown forces’ methods including burning of houses and Catholic churches, summary executions and the practice of ‘pitch-capping’ whereby lit tar was placed on a victim’s scalp. By the summer of 1798, the United Irishmen, under severe pressure from their own supporters to act, planned a co-ordinated nationwide uprising, aimed at overthrowing the government in Dublin, severing the connection with Britain and founding an Irish Republic.  

    The Rebellion breaks out

     
    Edward Fitzgerald is shot dead during arrest in Dublin.
    The rebellion was intended to be signalled by the stopping of all mail coaches out of Dublin on May 23, 1798. However, the authorities in Dublin were aware of the plans and on the eve of the rebellion arrested most of the senior United Irishmen leadership. Their most senior leader in Ireland, Edward Fitzgerald was shot and mortally wounded during his arrest. While mail coaches were stopped in some areas, other areas had no notice of the planned insurrection and with the United Irish leadership mostly in prison or in exile, the rising flared up in in a localised and uncoordinated manner. Large bodies of United Irishmen rose in arms in the counties around Dublin; Kildare, Wicklow, Carlow and Meath, in response to the stopping of the mail coaches, but Dublin city itself, which was heavily garrisoned and placed under martial law, did not stir.
    The Rising was uncoordinated as most of the United Irish leaders had been imprisoned.
    The first rebellions resulted in some sharp fighting but the poorly armed (they mostly had home-made pikes) and poorly led insurgents were defeated by British, militia and Yeomanry troops. In many cases, captured or surrendering rebels were massacred by vengeful government forces.

    Wexford, Ulster and Kilalla Bay

    The battle of Vinegar Hill.
    Only in County Wexford did the United Irishmen meet with success. There, after rising on May 27, the insurgents defeated some militia and Yeomanry units and took the towns of Enniscorthy and Wexford. The leadership of the Wexford rebels was both Catholic and Protestant (the leader was the Protestant Harvey Bagenal), but included some Catholic priests such as father John Murphy and the rank and file were largely Catholic, in many cases enraged by the sectarian atrocities committed in the previous months by the Yeomonary. The rebels failed to take the towns of New Ross and Arklow despite determined and costly assaults and remained bottled up in Ireland’s south eastern corner. In response to the government forces’ killing of prisoners at New Ross, the rebels killed over 100 local loyalists at Scullabogue and another 100 at Wexford Bridge. The fighting in the rebellion was marked by an extreme ideological and, increasingly, sectarian, bitterness. Prisoners on both sides were commonly killed after battle.
    The rebels in Wexford held most of the country for a month before being defeated at Vinegar Hill.
    The Wexford rebellion was smashed about a month after it broke out, when over 13,000 British troops converged on the main rebel camp at Vinegar Hill on June 21, 1798 and broke up, though failed to trap, the main rebel army. Guerrilla fighting continued, but the main rebel stronghold had fallen.
    A depiction of the Battle of Antrim 1798 at which the Ulster Irish uprising was crushed.
    In the north, the mainly Presbyterian United Irishmen there launched their own uprising in support of Wexford in early June, but again, after some initial success, were defeated by government troops and militia. Their leaders, Henry Joy McCracken and Henry Munro, were captured and hanged. The last act of the rebellion came in August 1798, when a small French expeditionary force of 1,500 men landed at Killalla Bay in county Mayo. Led by General Humbert, they defeated a British force at Castlebar, but were themselves defeated and forced to surrender at Ballinamuck. While the French soldiers were allowed to surrender, the Irish insurgents who accompanied them were massacred. Another, final, French attempt to land an expeditionary force in Ireland, accompanied by United Irish leader Wolfe Tone, was intercepted and defeated in a sea battle by the Royal Navy near Tory Island off the Donegal coast in October. Tone was captured along with over 2,000 French servicemen. Sentenced to death, Tone took his own life in prison in Dublin. Lord Cornwallis, the Lord Lieutenant, tried to end the bloodshed and reprisals by government forces by forgoing execution of the other imprisoned United leaders in return for their telling what they knew of the clandestine United Irish organisation. An amnesty and pardon was also declared for rank and file United Irishmen.

    Aftermath

     
    Cornwallis, the Lord Lieutenant who oversaw the Act of Union.
    The fighting in the 1798 rebellion lasted just three months, but the deaths ran into the tens of thousands. A high estimate of the death toll is 70,000 and the lowest one puts it at about 10,000. Thousands more former rebels were exiled in Scotland, transported to penal colonies in Australia and others such as Miles Byrne went into exile serving in the French revolutionary and Napoleonic armies until 1815. A brief rebellion led by Robert Emmet, younger brother of one of the 1798 United Irish leaders, in 1802 achieved little beyond Emmet’s own death by execution. In 1800 the Irish parliament, under pressure from the British authorities, voted itself out if existence and Ireland was ruled directly from London from then until 1922.
    The Irish parliament was abolished in 1800 and Ireland ruled directly from London until 1922.
    While the radicals of the 1790s had hoped that religious divisions in Ireland could be made a thing of the past, the fierce sectarian violence that took place on both sides during the rebellion actually hardened sectarian animosities. Many northern Presbyterians began to see the British connection as less potentially dangerous for them than an independent Ireland. The United Irishmen’s hope of founding a secular, independent, democratic Irish Republic therefore ended in total defeat.
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  • Original WW1 Sweetheart Embroidered Royal Irish Hussars Regimental Crest

    €300.00
    Beautiful example of WW1 sweetheart artwork -an embroidered regimental crest for the Royal Irish Kings Hussars 34cm x 34cm  Birr Co Offaly  

    Origins

    Raised as a dragoon unit in 1693, this regiment was originally formed from Protestants living in Ireland. This was only two years after supporters of the deposed King James II had been decisively defeated at the Battle of Aughrim, so the new regiment remained in Ireland on policing duties. In 1704, it was posted to Portugal and Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14). It remained there until its capture at Brihuega in 1710. Following a prisoner exchange, the regiment returned to Ireland, where it disbanded in April 1714. However, the First Jacobite Rebellion triggered its re-formation in July 1715. It went on to fight against both Jacobite Rebellions, but otherwise remained in Ireland from 1715  until 1794. The regiment was designated the 8th Regiment of Dragoons in 1751. It became a light dragoon unit in 1775 and gained the ‘King’s’ prefix two years later.
    Cap badge, other ranks, 8th (King's Royal Irish) Hussars, c1900
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    Cap badge, other ranks, 8th (King's Royal Irish) Hussars, c1900
    Flintlock pistol used by Lieutenant-General Richard St George, Colonel of the 8th Dragoons, c1750
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    Flintlock pistol used by Lieutenant-General Richard St George, Colonel of the 8th Dragoons, c1750
    Quiz
    Which of the following was a nickname of the 8th Hussars?
    The cross bows
    The cross swords
    The cross belts

    War with France

    In 1794, the regiment was posted to the Low Countries during the French Revolutionary War (1793-1802). From 1796, it garrisoned the Cape of Good Hope before sending a detachment to join General Sir Ralph Abercrombie’s force in Egypt in 1801.

    India

    In 1802, it sailed to India, where it stayed for 22 years, fighting in the Second and Third Maratha Wars (1803-05, 1817-18), as well as campaigning against Meer Khan in 1812 and in Nepal in 1814. In 1822, just after its return to Britain, it was renamed and re-equipped as a hussar regiment, keeping order in England and Ireland for the next 30 years.

    Crimea

    It fought against the Russians at Silistra on the Danube, en route to the main theatre of the Crimean War (1854-56). There, it served at the Alma (1854) and took part in the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava (1854). The charge was led by the Earl of Cardigan, who had been an officer in the 8th Hussars from 1824 to 1830.
    Cooking house of the 8th (The King's Royal Irish) Light Dragoons (Hussars), c1855
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    Cooking house of the 8th (The King's Royal Irish) Light Dragoons (Hussars), c1855
    Officers and men of the 8th (The King's Royal Irish) Light Dragoons (Hussars), 1855
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    Officers and men of the 8th (The King's Royal Irish) Light Dragoons (Hussars), 1855

    Return to India

    Only 154 members of the regiment returned from the Crimea in 1856. They were in Ireland for less than a year before being dispatched to deal with the Indian Mutiny (1857-59). One of the regiment’s squadrons fought at Gwalior, where four of its soldiers won the Victoria Cross and a fifth killed the Rani of Jhansi. It then formed part of India’s garrison until 1864, and again from 1878 to 1889, guarding lines of communication between Kabul and Peshawar during the Second Afghan War (1878-80) and fighting against the Shinwarrie tribe. It spent the rest of the 19th century in England and Ireland. And from there, it sailed to the Boer War (1899-1902) in 1900, taking part in the anti-guerrilla operations.
    Signallers of the 8th (King's Royal Irish) Hussars, c1908
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    Signallers of the 8th (King's Royal Irish) Hussars, c1908
    German civilians gather around British tanks in occupied Hamburg, 5 May 1945
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    Tanks of the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars in Hamburg, May 1945

    World Wars

    The regiment spent the First World War (1914-18) on the Western Front, fitting in several engagements including Givenchy (1914) the Second Battle of Ypres (1915) and the Somme(1916). It made its last mounted charge there in 1917. In 1919, it was posted to Iraq and then to Germany in 1926, before moving to Egypt and Palestine from 1933 to 1939. During this period, it was also converted to armoured cars and then light tanks. During the Second World War (1939-45), the regiment saw a lot of action in North Africa(1940-42) and Greece (1941). The former campaign included the Battles of Sidi Barrani, Bardia, Beda Fomm and Sidi Rezegh in 1941, the Gazala battles of May-June 1942 and El Alamein in October 1942. The regiment then returned to Britain to prepare for the invasion of Europe. It landed with its Cromwell tanks two days after D-Day (June 1944), fighting throughout the North West Europecampaign before ending the war near Hamburg. It then joined the occupation forces.
    A tank crew from the 8th (King’s Royal Irish) Hussars make a meal during their service on the Imjin, 1951
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    A tank crew from the 8th (King’s Royal Irish) Hussars make a meal on the Imjin front, 1951

    Legacy

    The regiment’s final campaign was in Korea between 1950 and 1952, which included service on the Imjin River. It then moved to Germany to join the British Army of the Rhine. Due to heavy losses in 1942, the regiment had temporarily merged with the 4th Queen's Own Hussars. This amalgamation was enacted again in October 1958 - this time permanently - to form The Queen's Own Royal Irish Hussars.
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    1994 Republic of Ireland Soccer Team Photograph-You’ll never beat the Irish !

    €120.00
    You'll Never Beat the Irish -Republic of Ireland Autographed Squad Photo circa 1994 en route to the World Cup in USA. Artane   Dublin   70cm x 56cm
    Back in 1986, with Northern Ireland celebrating a second consecutive World Cup qualification, the Republic was the poor relative, in debt, in decline, and with a lot of empty seats and coffers to fill. Step forward Jack Charlton, the nation’s first-ever foreign manager. As Niall Quinn says, “he was big, he was blunt, he was English.” Despite that, Charlton knew he would be accepted very quickly by his new congregation after walking through Dublin’s main thoroughfare in O’Connell Street. “The Irish people are very close in character to the Geordie,” Charlton said. “They are very welcoming to strangers, they’re not false, they like a pint and a laugh and a party.” So began a decade long celebration that lifted the Boys in Green to the top eight teams in the world for one brief but beautiful moment. Charlton had beaten late entrant Bob Paisley, a multiple trophy winner, to the FAI hot seat, and his introduction to the gathered press was a million miles away from the carefully staged managed productions of the modern day. In fact, it almost turned into an impromptu David Haye and Tony Bellew pre-match fight when Charlton challenged hardened journalist and ex-international Eamon Dunphy’s line of questioning. That relationship turned increasingly sour as time went by.

    ‘No nice stuff’

    Shamrock midfielder Pat Byrne recounted to the Irish Times just how unwavering the new manager was about tactics: “He made it very clear that first time on the training ground that ‘we are not going to have any nice stuff here. “It’s going to be very straight; we’re going to play it this way: we’re going to get the ball, we’re going to put it over the full-backs’ head and we’re going to have runners in behind. “We’re going to close everything up and we’re going to turn the whole backline; as soon as they’re turned, we’re on our way.” This was the blueprint – or greenprint – of the Irish national team for the next decade. Former players like Johnny Giles thought this indicated a lack of trust in the ability of players. Charlton saw it as pragmatic. His idea was to keep information and instruction simple.
    There were some aesthetes in the team, most notably an ageing Liam Brady, who were initially unnerved and eventually sidelined by this move away from playing from the back.
    Players such as Brady would send over the free-kicks and corner-kicks that were central to the game plan, while Mick McCarthy could launch a good old long throw into the mixer. Keeper Packie Bonner was told “to kick every ball long, as high as you can into their half of the park.”

    Find Another Irishman

    To make the game work, the new manager needed to find quality players outside of the League of Ireland. “You want me to compete with the best in the World, I’ve got to have the f*****g best in the world. And it’s not here in Ireland that I can find it, I’ve got to go to England to find it.” Players were recruited through notices that were put up around grounds. John Aldridge and Ray Houghton were both gathered from Oxford United. Big Jack’s “Find Another Irishman” policy via the Granny rule was worked to the Mrs Brown bone. After a 1-0 defeat to Wales in his first match in charge, Charlton got to work on qualifying for the 1988 European Championship in West Germany.
    The Republic finished top of their group, ahead of a talented Belgium side who had reached the semi-finals of the ‘86 World Cup. This was Ireland’s first ever appearance at a major championship finals.

    Beating England

    City and town streets were deserted for matches as the tournament got off to the best possible start against England. Nobody does spontaneous parties like the Irish. The winning goal pretty much summed up Eire’s raison d’etre, as described by UEFA: “Kevin Moran took a free-kick and hit it long, Ireland’s main mode of attack. “The ball fell to Tony Galvin, who hooked in a cross that Kenny Sansom inadvertently ballooned up in the air. John Aldridge headed it to Liverpool FC club-mate Ray Houghton, whose own header looped beyond Peter Shilton.” It was like the international version of Liverpool v Wimbledon in the FA Cup final that year. While England staggered to defeat against the USSR and Holland, the Irish matched both teams stride for stride. Houghton described the 1-1 draw against the Soviets as “one of the best performances I’ve ever been involved in with Jack’s teams”.
    The Netherlands eventually broke Irish hearts with what Charlton described as “the greatest fluke of the year” when Wim Kieft headed in a bizarre 82nd-minute winner that was almost Irish in its conception.

    Italia 90

    Even so, Ireland had arrived with a bang. And if Euro 88 was the start of the journey, Italia 90 was the zenith. The qualification group to make it to their first World Cup was straightforward enough, but their defensive resilience proved decisive as they conceded in only one match – the loss against Spain  – while John Aldridge and self-confessed “fake Irishman” Tony Cascarino did the business at the other end. As the team landed in Sardinia, drawn yet again against England for the first match, Larry Mullen from U2 had produced a cracker of a team song called: “Put ‘em Under Pressure”, that topped the Irish charts for 13 weeks. It wasn’t exactly “World in Motion”, but it was a great soundtrack to the joyous march of Jackie’s army. Their modus operandi was to “inflict our game on other people”.
    Ultimately, the music and their fans were a damn sight more appealing than their football. But who cared if they could stay around a bit longer for another Guinness? The England match was a bit of a non-event on the pitch, as Kevin Sheedy cancelled out Gary Lineker’s early goal, and it was followed by another flat performance in a goalless draw against Egypt. Dunphy was openly critical of Charlton’s long-ball tactics, suggesting that “the style of the play didn’t reflect the quality of the players in the side.” That simmering feud continued as the manager refused to take questions from the writer whom he later described as a “bitter little man”. A 1-1 draw with the Dutch meant both teams had identical records as all three of Holland, England and Ireland progressed, with the Irish benefiting from the drawing of lots to qualify as group runners-up After three drab stalemates, the party only truly began in Genoa against Romania in the last 16 – after another goalless game, Bonner saved Romania’s fifth penalty, leaving David O’Leary to take the decisive kick. RTE commentator George Hamilton uttered the most important seven words Irish fans remember: “A nation holds its breath… We’re there!” How ironic that the hero was O’Leary, another more football-minded defender that was often overlooked by Charlton. O’Leary recalled: “There were about 20,000 brilliant Irish supporters behind the goal. They were so still and the eruption of green afterwards when the ball hit the net was absolutely amazing. It’s a fantastic memory.”

    Meeting the Pope

    Things were about to get more surreal as Charlton had promised an audience with the Pope should his team make it to the last eight. Perhaps Pope John Paul II, a goalkeeper in his youth, sought out Bonner about goal-line interventions rather than divine ones, but Ireland’s quarter-final against Italy in Rome was not tinged with any luck for the Celtic keeper, who could only parry Roberto Donadoni’s shot into the path of Golden Boot winner Toto Schillaci. It was a gallant defeat. Skipper Andy Townsend recalled: “As we are all gathering up our bags, Jack turned round to Packie and said: ‘By the way, the f****** Pope would have saved that!’ Ireland’s propensity to draw a large proportion of games (30 out of 93 under Charlton) cost them dearly in the 1992 Euro qualifying group as only eight teams could qualify for Sweden. They finished behind Graham Taylor’s stodgy England team, despite drawing home and away against them. However, the Republic were reaching a new peak, with a young Roy Keane and Denis Irwin introduced to the team. “The worst thing about missing out on Euro 92 was that Denmark won it. It should have been Ireland.” recalled a frustrated manager.

    USA 94

    In his final match as manager of Northern Ireland, Billy Bingham had the chance to prevent the South reaching the Stateside World Cup in ‘94. Bingham inflamed the occasion by branding their players “a bunch of mercenaries”, declaring his intention to “stuff the Republic”. So hostile was the atmosphere that Pompey midfielder Alan McLoughlin later declared that the “safest place to be was on the pitch”. The match finished 1-1 which was enough for the Green Army to secure a front row seat for Diana Ross’s open-goal miss. Charlton confronted Bingham immediately after the match and said: “Up yours too” – although he later apologised. In the USA, the party started early in New York as Italy were beaten in the Big Apple by a Houghton strike. Patrick Barclay summed it up best in The Observer: “Ireland’s blanket defence rendered vain all the creative endeavours of Roberto Baggio, who adorned this marvellous occasion but was not allowed to influence it because for 90 mins Jack Charlton’s sweat-soaked soldiers stayed about as close as ranks can get.” Unfortunately, Ireland’s performances tailed off dramatically for the remainder of the tournament. Such draining tactics were hard to administer in the humidity of Orlando, and the manager was banned from the touchline for venting his fury at officials over the lack of water for his troops against Mexico. After squeezing through the group following a goalless draw with Norway, the Green bus ran out of fuel against the Dutch in the last 16.

    Beginning of the end

    The mid-90s were the beginning of the end for JC’s JCB formation. The Irish finished second in Euro 96 qualifying, just pipping Northern Ireland for a play-off place. Lying in wait, yet again, were their old adversaries, Holland. While the Dutch were winning their last three qualifiers without conceding a goal, the Republic had stumbled through their last five matches, drawing in Liechtenstein and losing 3-1 home and away to Austria and 3-0 to group winners Portugal Anfield was the “neutral” venue for the play-off and the stadium was the backdrop to a pretty decent cover version of Fields of Athenry that evening. Unfortunately, injuries to crucial players like Roy Keane and Steve Staunton stymied the tactics as Charlton packed the midfield with defenders. It didn’t work. The Dutch were comfortable 2-0 winners as a teenage Patrick Kluivert exposed the limitations of the press and punt tactics. The headline in the Irish Times was Ninety Minutes Chasing Shadows. “In my heart of hearts, I knew I’d wrung as much as I could out of the squad I’d got – that some of my older players had given me all they had to give,” Charlton said. Big Jack’s signing-off got the send-off it deserved with rousing renditions of You’ll Never Walk Alone. Ultimately, Charlton, who was made an honorary Irishman, had good memories and very few regrets: “I can’t remember losing with Ireland. All I can recall are victories, celebrations and getting the right results against all the odds.” It is sometimes opined in retrospect that the Republic could have done better with the quality of players at their disposal. They only won one of nine World Cup matches, scoring just four goals. After USA’ 94, Dunphy said: “The minority who know their football well enough to distinguish between fact and fantasy have long since decided that even though the show is great, the football of the Charlton era has been, too often, lousy.” But would liberation have taken away the organisational pragmatism that was central to the Green Wall being breached just 41 times in 93 games? After all, this was a team that also beat Brazil at home and Germany in Hannover. Niall Quinn said: “We were happy as we were – beautiful, skilled losers.” Big Jack made them coarse but clinical winners on the pitch and a lot happier off it. 11 of Jack Charlton’s best quotes: ‘Can we go now please? I’d like a beer’  
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    Ferrars History of Limerick Antique Print- Castleconnell

    €90.00
    35cm x 40cm   Limerick City The definitive Ferrars History of Limerick was first published in 1787 There are very few copies still in existence and these 5 prints were generously taken from 16 original engravings in the first edition . Castleconnell, picturesquely situated on a rock overlooking the Shannon, about six miles north of Limerick, became the principal castle of the Bourkes in West Clanwilliam. This was the ancient seat of the O'Conaings, and took their name Caislean-ui-Chonaine. It subsequently fell into the possession of the O'Briens of Thomond. King John made a grant of Castleconnell, with five knights' fees, to William de Burgh, who erected a strong castle there. Walter De Burgh, about the end of the thirteenth century, considerably enlarged and strengthened this castle, which was the chief stronghold of his descendants at the end of the sixteenth century.  
    The History of Limerick by James Ferrar published in 1787 is a history of Limerick city from ancient times until the late 18th century. Limerick was an important medieval stronghold, became an important port and trading centre, was subject to a series of sieges in the 17th century and finally experienced a brief golden age of prosperity during the Georgian period of the late 18th century. Limerick or Luimneach was an ancient settlement long before the Vikings captured it and established their own town there in the 9th century. They used it as a base for trade and also to launch raids up the River Shannon against monastic sites like Clonmacnoise and other wealthy Christian centres. However in the 11th century the last Viking king of Limerick was defeated by King Brian Boru. In 1174, the Norman conquerors who had already seized Dublin , Leinster and Munster captured the city of Limerick . It was given its city charter by King Richard I in 1197 and a castle fortress was built by King John about 1200. The medieval city featured a walled town known as Englishtown on the north side of the River Shannon. Irishtown was inhabited by the Irish and Vikings was on the south side of the river. Both were eventually walled and linked by bridges over the Shannon . Limerick would retain formidable defenses until the 17th century when it experienced four separate sieges during the period of the English Civil War and the Williamite Wars. Catholic rebels forced the English garrison to surrender in 1642 and a Parliamentarian Army in turn forced a Catholic and Royalist garrison to surrender in 1651. It was twice besieged in 1690 and 1691 by the forces of William III of Orange who forced Jacobins fighting on the sides of the Catholic James II to surrender and go into exile. From the late 17th to the 19th centuries an Anglo-Irish Protestant elite controlled Ireland . In Limerick in the late 1700s Limerick merchants prospered and Edmund Pery, 1st Viscount Pery had much of the south side of the city redesigned with a grid of Georgian brick terraces and neo-classical stone buildings. The Georgian area still survives in the 21st century and Prey Square is named in Edmund Prey's honour. Unfortunately the Irish economy declined in the early 19th century as the Irish Parliament was switched from College Green, Dublin to the House of Commons in London and Ireland remained a near feudal agricultural society as Britain rapidly industrialised. Like Dublin , Limerick 's best days were behind it as slums flourished and in the 1840s the city population swelled as the poor fled from the land after the failure of the potato crop.  
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    Ferrars History of Limerick Antique Print-Siege of Limerick 1691

    €90.00
    The Siege of Limerick 1691 from the definitive Ferrars History of Limerick was first published in 1787 There are very few copies still in existence and these 5 prints were generously taken from 16 original engravings in the first edition . 35cm x 40cm  Limerick The Siege of Limerick in western Ireland was a second siege of the town during the Williamite War in Ireland (1689–1691). The city, held by Jacobite forces was able to beat off a Williamite assault in 1690. However, after a second siege in August–October 1691, it surrendered on favourable terms. By the time of the second siege, the military situation had turned against the Jacobites; their main force had been badly defeated at the Battle of Aughrim in July, with over 4,000 killed, including their commander, the Marquis de St Ruth, and thousands more either taken prisoner or deserted. The town of Galway capitulated in July 1691; its Jacobite garrison was accorded 'all the honours of war,' which allowed them to retain their weapons and receive a free pass to Limerick.
    Siege of Limerick 1691, map.
    However, although its defences had been considerably strengthened since 1690, morale was now much lower after a series of defeats and retreats. By now, siege warfare was an exact art, the rules of which were so well understood wagering on their outcome and duration had become a popular craze; the then enormous sum of £200,000 was alleged to have been bet on the siege. The Williamite general Godert de Ginkell surrounded the city and bombarded it, tearing a breach in the walls of English town. A surprise Williamite attack drove the Irish defenders from the earthworks defending Thomond bridge, sending its Irish defenders reeling back towards Limerick. The French defenders of the main gate of the city refused to open it for the fleeing Irish and about 800 of them were cut down or drowned in the river Shannon.

    Capitulation and treaty

    After this point, Patrick Sarsfield ousted the Chevalier de Tessé and the Marquis d'Usson, the French commanders in Limerick, and began negotiations to surrender. He and Ginkel concluded a treaty that promised to respect the civilian population of Limerick, tolerate the Catholic religion in Ireland, guarantee against the confiscation of Catholic-owned land and allow Sarsfield and the fully-armed Jacobite army to withdraw to France. Limerick capitulated under those favourable terms in October 1691. Sarsfield left Ireland with 10,000 soldiers and 4,000 women and children to enter the French service, a journey that has become known as the Flight of the Wild Geese. The terms of the Treaty of Limerick were not honoured by the 1697 Protestant-dominated Irish Parliament, and Catholics were subjected to the continuous oppression of the Penal Laws, which discriminated against them until the early 19th century   The History of Limerick by James Ferrar published in 1787 is a history of Limerick city from ancient times until the late 18th century. Limerick was an important medieval stronghold, became an important port and trading centre, was subject to a series of sieges in the 17th century and finally experienced a brief golden age of prosperity during the Georgian period of the late 18th century. Limerick or Luimneach was an ancient settlement long before the Vikings captured it and established their own town there in the 9th century. They used it as a base for trade and also to launch raids up the River Shannon against monastic sites like Clonmacnoise and other wealthy Christian centres. However in the 11th century the last Viking king of Limerick was defeated by King Brian Boru. In 1174, the Norman conquerors who had already seized Dublin , Leinster and Munster captured the city of Limerick . It was given its city charter by King Richard I in 1197 and a castle fortress was built by King John about 1200. The medieval city featured a walled town known as Englishtown on the north side of the River Shannon. Irishtown was inhabited by the Irish and Vikings was on the south side of the river. Both were eventually walled and linked by bridges over the Shannon . Limerick would retain formidable defenses until the 17th century when it experienced four separate sieges during the period of the English Civil War and the Williamite Wars. Catholic rebels forced the English garrison to surrender in 1642 and a Parliamentarian Army in turn forced a Catholic and Royalist garrison to surrender in 1651. It was twice besieged in 1690 and 1691 by the forces of William III of Orange who forced Jacobins fighting on the sides of the Catholic James II to surrender and go into exile. From the late 17th to the 19th centuries an Anglo-Irish Protestant elite controlled Ireland . In Limerick in the late 1700s Limerick merchants prospered and Edmund Pery, 1st Viscount Pery had much of the south side of the city redesigned with a grid of Georgian brick terraces and neo-classical stone buildings. The Georgian area still survives in the 21st century and Prey Square is named in Edmund Prey's honour. Unfortunately the Irish economy declined in the early 19th century as the Irish Parliament was switched from College Green, Dublin to the House of Commons in London and Ireland remained a near feudal agricultural society as Britain rapidly industrialised. Like Dublin , Limerick 's best days were behind it as slums flourished and in the 1840s the city population swelled as the poor fled from the land after the failure of the potato crop.  
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    Ferrars History of Limerick Antique Print-The Exchange Limerick

    €90.00
    Superb print of The Exchange Limerick from Ferrars History of Limerick,first published in 1787.There are very few copies still in existence and these 5 prints were generously taken from 16 original engravings in the first edition . 35cm x 40cm  Limerick  
    rcaded six-bay single-storey limestone exterior wall forming the remains of the former Exchange, originally built in 1673, rebuilt in 1702 and again in between 1777-78. Forms part of the wall which surrounds Saint Mary's Cathedral graveyard and faces onto Nicholas Street. Historically in use as an evening national school. Now much obscured by vegetative growth. The blind arcade of seven arches is formed by half-engaged Tuscan columns standing on limestone base, breaking to centre arch and end bay to west. Profiled archivolts unseen. Entablature to parapet obscured. Roughly squared and coursed rubble limestone infill between arches. At either end is an ashlar limestone pier engaged with end columns, giving strength of composition to the broad intercolumniation. Plaque to Cathedral wall reads: This Exchange Was Rebuilt At Expense Of The Corporation Of Limerick The First Year Of The Reign Of Queen Anne Anno Dom 1702 William Davis Esquire Mayor Rawley Colroys Robert Wilkinson Sheriffs'.

    Appraisal

    What remains of this impressive architectural composition is an important and enriching palimpsest to the site and complex of Saint Mary's Cathedral. The secular use of which shows the economic importance of the building given its proximity to the cathedral. Henry Denmead was responsible for the reworking in 1777-78. James Pain was paid £432.17s 5d for repairs and alterations in April 1815, while George Richard Pain carried out further repairs in June 1819 to the cost of £182.1s 2½ d. On the 1872 Ordnance Survey the building was in use as a national school, and the floor plan represented was of a single unified space opening onto Nicholas Street and three small secondary rooms to the rear. A passage or corridor to the west appears to have given access to the Church grounds, and the building to the rear looked onto a walled graveyard. A lane, now gone, called Grid Iron Lane, ran along the east side elevation of the structure, returning at right angles to meet Bridge Street.

     
    The History of Limerick by James Ferrar published in 1787 is a history of Limerick city from ancient times until the late 18th century. Limerick was an important medieval stronghold, became an important port and trading centre, was subject to a series of sieges in the 17th century and finally experienced a brief golden age of prosperity during the Georgian period of the late 18th century. Limerick or Luimneach was an ancient settlement long before the Vikings captured it and established their own town there in the 9th century. They used it as a base for trade and also to launch raids up the River Shannon against monastic sites like Clonmacnoise and other wealthy Christian centres. However in the 11th century the last Viking king of Limerick was defeated by King Brian Boru. In 1174, the Norman conquerors who had already seized Dublin , Leinster and Munster captured the city of Limerick . It was given its city charter by King Richard I in 1197 and a castle fortress was built by King John about 1200. The medieval city featured a walled town known as Englishtown on the north side of the River Shannon. Irishtown was inhabited by the Irish and Vikings was on the south side of the river. Both were eventually walled and linked by bridges over the Shannon . Limerick would retain formidable defenses until the 17th century when it experienced four separate sieges during the period of the English Civil War and the Williamite Wars. Catholic rebels forced the English garrison to surrender in 1642 and a Parliamentarian Army in turn forced a Catholic and Royalist garrison to surrender in 1651. It was twice besieged in 1690 and 1691 by the forces of William III of Orange who forced Jacobins fighting on the sides of the Catholic James II to surrender and go into exile. From the late 17th to the 19th centuries an Anglo-Irish Protestant elite controlled Ireland . In Limerick in the late 1700s Limerick merchants prospered and Edmund Pery, 1st Viscount Pery had much of the south side of the city redesigned with a grid of Georgian brick terraces and neo-classical stone buildings. The Georgian area still survives in the 21st century and Prey Square is named in Edmund Prey's honour. Unfortunately the Irish economy declined in the early 19th century as the Irish Parliament was switched from College Green, Dublin to the House of Commons in London and Ireland remained a near feudal agricultural society as Britain rapidly industrialised. Like Dublin , Limerick 's best days were behind it as slums flourished and in the 1840s the city population swelled as the poor fled from the land after the failure of the potato crop.  
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  • Ferrars History of Limerick Antique Print – St Marys Cathedral

    €90.00
    St Marys Cathedral from Ferrars History of Limerick, first published in 1787.There are very few copies still in existence and these 5 prints were generously taken from 16 original engravings in the first edition 35cm x 40cm  Limerick Limerick Cathedral (Saint Mary's) is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and was founded in 1168 and is the oldest building in Limerick which is in use. It has the only complete set of misericords left in Ireland. In 1111, the Synod of Ráth Breasail decided that "Saint Mary's church" would become the cathedral church of the Diocese of Limerick. According to tradition, Domnall Mór Ua Briain, the last King of Munster, founded the present cathedral on the site of his palace on King's Island in 1168.[3] The palace had been built on the site of the Viking meeting place, or "Thingmote" – the Vikings' most westerly European stronghold.[1] This had been the centre of government in the early medieval Viking city. Parts of the palace may be incorporated into the present structure of the cathedral, most prominently the great west door, which is claimed to have been the original main entrance to the royal palace.The west door is now only used on ceremonial occasions. The bishops of Limerick have for centuries knocked on this door and entered by it as part of their installation ceremony. According to tradition, during the many sieges of Limerick the defenders of the city used the stones around the west door to sharpen their swords and arrows, and the marks they made in the stonework can be seen there today. The tower of Saint Mary's Cathedral was added in the 14th century. It rises to 120 feet (36.58 meters), containing a peal of 8 bells, of which 6 were cast by John Taylor & Co, Loughborough, and 2 cast in Whitechapel, London. The tower also contains a stationary service bell, which can be rung from the ground floor.

    Notable burials

    • Bishop Charles Graves The cathedral graveyard contains many graves and tombs of notable people. The physician Samuel Crumpe is buried in the graveyard near the great west door. Prince Milo of Montenegro, Frances Condell (first woman Mayor of Limerick) and Bishop Charles Graves are also interred in the grounds. The last High King of Munster, Domnall was purportedly buried in the cathedral, with the remnants of his stone coffin still visible in the Cathedral chancel. Bishop Cornelius O'Dea is buried alongside several other Bishops of Limerick in what is believed to be an Episcopal vault underneath the chancel itself. Also notable are the Sexton, Barrington, Boyd and Vanderkiste tombs along the south entrance pathway.

    From the Irish Reformation to the 19th century

    Altar of the cathedral
    There are five chandeliers which hang from the ceiling. These are only lit on special occasions. The larger three of the five were made in Dublin and presented in 1759 by the Limerick Corporation. The belfry holds a peal of eight bells, six of which were presented by William Yorke, mayor of Limerick, in 1673. An active team of bell ringers travels the country to compete with other campanologists.Saint Mary's received its organ in 1624, when Bishop Bernard Adams donated one. It has been rebuilt over the centuries and was most recently renovated in 1968 and 2005. In 1620 the English-born judge Luke Gernon, a resident of Limerick, wrote a flattering description of the cathedral: "not large, but lightsome, and by the providence of the Bishop fairly beautified within, and as gloriously served with singing and organs". During the Irish Confederacy wars, the cathedral was briefly transferred to Roman Catholic hands. The bishop of Limerick, Richard Arthur, was buried in the cathedral in 1646.
    Choir misericords
    In 1651, after Oliver Cromwell's forces captured Limerick, the cathedral was used as a stable by the parliamentary army. This misuse was short lived, but was a similar fate to that suffered by some of the other great cathedrals during the Cromwellian campaign in Ireland. The troops also removed the cathedral's original 13 ft Pre-Reformation high altar from the cathedral. The altar was only reinstated in the 1960s. It is the largest such altar in Ireland and the UK, carved from a single limestone block. The altar is used for communion services at major festivals and remains in its historic location in what is now the chapel of the Virgin Mary or Lady Chapel. In 1691, the cathedral suffered considerable damage, particularly on the east end, during the Williamite Siege of Limerick.After the Treaty of Limerick, William granted £1,000 towards repairs. There are cannonball from 1691 in the Glentworth Chapel/Saint George's Chapel inside.

    From the 19th century to the 20th century

    Postage Stamp from 1968
    In 1968, the Irish Government commissioned two postage stamps to commemorate the cathedral's 800 year anniversary. A picture of one of the stamps is displayed on this page. In 1991, there was a large £2.5 million restoration programme which was completed in 1996 with the excavation and re-laying of the floors as well as the installation of underfloor central heating. Restoration continues today to a lesser degree.

    From the 20th century to the 21st century

    Today the cathedral is still used for its original purpose as a place of worship and prayer for everybody. It is also the 3rd biggest tourist attraction in Limerick. It is open to the public every day from 9:00 am to 4:45 pm. For Tourists there is a €5 admission charge upon entry. This money is essential for the upkeep of the building, and without it, the cathedral simply could not function. Following the retirement of the Very Rev'd Maurice Sirr on 24 June 2012, Bishop Trevor Williams announced the appointment of the Reverend Sandra Ann Pragnell as Dean of Limerick and Rector of Limerick City Parish. She was the first female dean of the cathedral and rector of Limerick City Parish, and retired in January 2017. It was announced on 27 August 2017, that the Reverend Canon Niall James Sloane was to become the 63rd Dean of Limerick and the new rector of Limerick City Parish; with his installation and institution taking place on 21 October 2017 in the cathedral. The cathedral grounds holds United Nations Memorial Plaque with the names of all the Irish men who died while serving in the United Nations Peacekeepers.  
    The History of Limerick by James Ferrar published in 1787 is a history of Limerick city from ancient times until the late 18th century. Limerick was an important medieval stronghold, became an important port and trading centre, was subject to a series of sieges in the 17th century and finally experienced a brief golden age of prosperity during the Georgian period of the late 18th century. Limerick or Luimneach was an ancient settlement long before the Vikings captured it and established their own town there in the 9th century. They used it as a base for trade and also to launch raids up the River Shannon against monastic sites like Clonmacnoise and other wealthy Christian centres. However in the 11th century the last Viking king of Limerick was defeated by King Brian Boru. In 1174, the Norman conquerors who had already seized Dublin , Leinster and Munster captured the city of Limerick . It was given its city charter by King Richard I in 1197 and a castle fortress was built by King John about 1200. The medieval city featured a walled town known as Englishtown on the north side of the River Shannon. Irishtown was inhabited by the Irish and Vikings was on the south side of the river. Both were eventually walled and linked by bridges over the Shannon . Limerick would retain formidable defenses until the 17th century when it experienced four separate sieges during the period of the English Civil War and the Williamite Wars. Catholic rebels forced the English garrison to surrender in 1642 and a Parliamentarian Army in turn forced a Catholic and Royalist garrison to surrender in 1651. It was twice besieged in 1690 and 1691 by the forces of William III of Orange who forced Jacobins fighting on the sides of the Catholic James II to surrender and go into exile. From the late 17th to the 19th centuries an Anglo-Irish Protestant elite controlled Ireland . In Limerick in the late 1700s Limerick merchants prospered and Edmund Pery, 1st Viscount Pery had much of the south side of the city redesigned with a grid of Georgian brick terraces and neo-classical stone buildings. The Georgian area still survives in the 21st century and Prey Square is named in Edmund Prey's honour. Unfortunately the Irish economy declined in the early 19th century as the Irish Parliament was switched from College Green, Dublin to the House of Commons in London and Ireland remained a near feudal agricultural society as Britain rapidly industrialised. Like Dublin , Limerick 's best days were behind it as slums flourished and in the 1840s the city population swelled as the poor fled from the land after the failure of the potato crop.  
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    Ferrars History of Limerick Antique Print-Introduction

    €90.00
    Ferrars History of Limerick was first published in 1787.There are very few copies still in existence and these 5 prints were generously taken from 16 original engravings in the first edition .They depict the Siege of Limerick in 1691,St Marys Cathedral,De Burgos Castle in Castleconnell,The Exchange building and the first page of the book. 35cm x 40cm  Limerick  
    The History of Limerick by James Ferrar published in 1787 is a history of Limerick city from ancient times until the late 18th century. Limerick was an important medieval stronghold, became an important port and trading centre, was subject to a series of sieges in the 17th century and finally experienced a brief golden age of prosperity during the Georgian period of the late 18th century. Limerick or Luimneach was an ancient settlement long before the Vikings captured it and established their own town there in the 9th century. They used it as a base for trade and also to launch raids up the River Shannon against monastic sites like Clonmacnoise and other wealthy Christian centres. However in the 11th century the last Viking king of Limerick was defeated by King Brian Boru. In 1174, the Norman conquerors who had already seized Dublin , Leinster and Munster captured the city of Limerick . It was given its city charter by King Richard I in 1197 and a castle fortress was built by King John about 1200. The medieval city featured a walled town known as Englishtown on the north side of the River Shannon. Irishtown was inhabited by the Irish and Vikings was on the south side of the river. Both were eventually walled and linked by bridges over the Shannon . Limerick would retain formidable defenses until the 17th century when it experienced four separate sieges during the period of the English Civil War and the Williamite Wars. Catholic rebels forced the English garrison to surrender in 1642 and a Parliamentarian Army in turn forced a Catholic and Royalist garrison to surrender in 1651. It was twice besieged in 1690 and 1691 by the forces of William III of Orange who forced Jacobins fighting on the sides of the Catholic James II to surrender and go into exile. From the late 17th to the 19th centuries an Anglo-Irish Protestant elite controlled Ireland . In Limerick in the late 1700s Limerick merchants prospered and Edmund Pery, 1st Viscount Pery had much of the south side of the city redesigned with a grid of Georgian brick terraces and neo-classical stone buildings. The Georgian area still survives in the 21st century and Prey Square is named in Edmund Prey's honour. Unfortunately the Irish economy declined in the early 19th century as the Irish Parliament was switched from College Green, Dublin to the House of Commons in London and Ireland remained a near feudal agricultural society as Britain rapidly industrialised. Like Dublin , Limerick 's best days were behind it as slums flourished and in the 1840s the city population swelled as the poor fled from the land after the failure of the potato crop.  
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  • Players Please Advert of the great Racehorse,Triple Crown winner Ormonde

    €100.00
    55cm x 45cm  Doneraile Co Cork Classic Players Please Navy Cut advertising showcard depicting the great Triple Crown Winner Ormonde. Ormonde (1883–1904) was an English Thoroughbred racehorse who won the English Triple Crown in 1886 and retired undefeated. He also won the St. James's Palace Stakes, Champion Stakes and the Hardwicke Stakes twice. At the time he was often labelled as the 'horse of the century'. Ormonde was trained at Kingsclere by John Porter for the 1st Duke of Westminster. His regular jockeys were Fred Archer and Tom Cannon. After retiring from racing he suffered fertility problems, but still sired Orme, who won the Eclipse Stakes twice.

    Background

    Ormonde was a bay colt, bred by Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster and foaled in 1883 at Eaton Stud in Cheshire. Ormonde's sire was The Derby and Champion Stakes winner Bend Or, also bred by the Duke. Bend Or was a successful stallion, his progeny included Kendal, Ossory, Orbit, Orion, Orvieto, Bona Vista and Laveno. Ormonde's dam was Doncaster Cup winner Lily Agnes. She was sired by another Derby winner, Macaroni. Lily Agnes began to experience problems with her lungs as a four-year-old, to the extent that jockey John Osborne said he could hear her approaching before he saw her. The problem did not interfere with her racing ability as she continued to win at four and five. She then became a top broodmare also foaling 1000 Guineas winner Farewell, Ormonde's full-brother Ossory and another full-brother Ornament, who produced the outstanding Sceptre, the only racehorse to win four British Classic Races outright. Ormonde was born at half-past six in the evening of 18 March 1883. The Duke's stud-groom Richard Chapman stated that for several months after foaling, Ormonde was over at the knee. Chapman later said he had never before or since seen a horse with the characteristic so pronounced and that it had seemed impossible for him to ever grow straight. Ormonde did gradually grow out of the problem though and by the time he left the stud to go into training at Kingsclere, trainer John Porter told the Duke he was the best yearling the Duke had sent him. However during the winter of 1884/85, Ormonde had trouble with his knees. The treatment he received for this held his training back considerably, with him only having easy cantering exercises until the summer of 1885. Ormonde grew into a well-built horse standing 16 hands (64 inches, 163 cm) with excellent bone and straight hocks. Porter later said his neck "was the most muscular I ever saw a Thoroughbred possess." He had an excellent shoulder and short powerful hindquarters that led some to call him a racing machine. When galloping, he held his head low and had a notably long stride. He had a kind temperament, healthy appetite and strong constitution. Porter stated the horse was fond of flowers and would even eat the boutonniere from the jacket of anyone within reach.

    Racing career

    1885: Two-year-old season

    Prior to his racecourse debut, Porter ran Ormonde in a trial against Kendal, Whipper-in and Whitefriar. Kendal, carrying one pound less, won the trial by a length from Ormonde. Kendal had already had a number of races by this point and Ormonde was nowhere near fully fit. By this point he stood 16 hands high and had a very muscular neck and strong back. Porter also noted that when extended, Ormonde had a very long stride. The Duke rode him in a couple of canters and remarked "I felt every moment that I was going to be shot over his head, his propelling power is so terrific." As a two-year-old, Ormonde did not race until October when he won the Post Sweepstakes race at Newmarket. He started at 5/4 with the filly Modwena, who had won eight races out of ten that year, the 5/6 favourite. In the heavy going, Ormonde went on to win by a length from Modwena. Ormonde's next racecourse appearance came in the Criterion Stakes, again at Newmarket, where his opposition included Oberon and Mephisto. Starting at 4/6, Ormonde won easily by three lengths from Oberon, with Mephisto a distant third. He then started the Dewhurst Plate as the 4/11 favourite, ridden by Fred Archer. After an even start, Ormonde was positioned just behind the leader. As they neared the closing stages, Archer let Ormonde go and he quickly pulled away from the field to beat his stablemate, Whitefriar, easily by four lengths.The field also included Miss Jummy, who went on to win the 1000 Guineas and Epsom Oaks. These three victories earned him £3008. 1885 was considered to have had the best group of two-year-olds for many years.

    1886: Three-year-old season

    Going into the 1886 season, Ormonde was one of the favourites for the Derby. He was priced at 11/2, similar to Minting, Saraband and The Bard.

    2000 Guineas

    Ormonde started off his three-year-old campaign in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket. The race was considered a clash between Ormonde, the unbeaten Middle Park winner Minting and Saraband. In a small field of six, Minting was sent off the 11/10 favourite, Saraband at 3/1 and Ormonde at 7/2. This time Ormonde was ridden by George Barrett, with Fred Archer riding Saraband. The horses ran almost in line in the early stages. Saraband began to struggle and was beaten with two furlongs to run. At this point Ormonde and Minting took over the lead from St. Mirin. Ormonde then went on to record as easy 2 length victory over Minting, with Mephisto a further 10 lengths back in third, who in turn was two lengths ahead of Saraband.
    Engraving of the closing stages of the 1886 Derby, with Ormonde leading The Bard

    The Derby

    After his Newmarket performance, Ormonde was the favourite for the Derby with Fred Archer back as his jockey. A small field of 9 went to post, with Ormonde the 40/85 favourite and his main opposition, The Bard, at 7/2 who. The Bard was also undefeated and had won many races as a two-year-old. The start was not even, with outsider Coracle almost 6 lengths clear of Ormonde, who was a similar distance clear of the rest. Ormonde and The Bard took over the lead at Tattenham corner and the two raced up the straight. The Bard got a neck in front, but when Archer asked Ormonde for an effort, he pulled in front to win by 1½ lengths from The Bard, with St. Mirin a further 10 lengths back in third.

    Royal Ascot

    At Royal Ascot against just two opponents, Ormonde lined up as the 3/100 favourite for the St. James's Palace Stakes. He won easily by ¾ length from Calais. Three days later he faced a stronger field in the Hardwicke Stakes including 1885 Derby and St Leger winner Melton. Ormonde, the 30/100 favourite, won easily again though, beating Melton by 2 lengths. He then had a break from the racecourse. After Ascot Ormonde was already as short as 1/2 for the St Leger.

    Autumn

    While Ormonde was galloping one morning shortly before the St Leger Stakes, Porter noticed him making a whistling noise.In spite of this infirmity, Ormonde started the final classic of the year as the 1/7 favourite. Ridden again by Archer, he pulled away half a mile out and won easily by 4 lengths from St. Mirin, without even being asked for an effort. The win made him the fourth winner of the English Triple Crown. He next ran in the Great Foal Stakes at Newmarket, again winning easily by three lengths from Mephisto.[13] He then won the Newmarket St Leger in a walkover and the Champion Stakes as the 1/100 favourite by a length from Oberon. Ormonde then entered a free handicap at Newmarket. Starting the 1/7 favourite and carrying 9 st 2 lb, he won by eight lengths from Mephisto, to whom he was conceding 28 lbs. At the same meeting he won a private sweepstakes in a walkover. The sweepstakes was an originally scheduled as a match race between Ormonde, The Bard, Melton and possibly Bendigo, the 1886 Eclipse winner. Bendigo was not nominated from the race in the end. The Bard and Melton were though and both forfeited £500 to Ormonde's connections. Throughout the end of the season, Ormonde's breathing had become progressively louder until he was labelled a roarer.

    1887: Four-year-old season

    Ormonde did not race until June 1887. His return was assisted by an experimental treatment involving "galvanic shocks" being applied daily to his chest and throat.His reappearance came at Royal Ascot in the Rous Memorial Stakes, where his opposition included Kilwarlin, who went on to win the season's St. Leger Stakes. Ormonde was conceding 25 pounds to Kilwarin and before the race Kilwarin's owner Captain Machell said to Porter, "The horse was never foaled that could give Kilwarin 25 pounds and beat him." After Fred Archer's suicide, Tom Cannon was now Ormonde's jockey. He led the race throughout and won easily by six lengths from Kilwarlin, with Agave a distant third. Upon seeing Captain Machell in the paddock after the race Porter said, "Well, what did you think of it now?" Machell replied, "Ormonde is not a horse at all; he's a damned steam-engine." He raced again the next day in the Hardwicke Stakes, where he faced a strong field including Minting and Eclipse Stakes winner Bendigo. Minting's trainer Matt Dawson was confident that his horse could win this time due to Ormonde's breathing problems. As the four runners made their way to the starting post he remarked to Porter "You will be beaten today, John. No horse afflicted with Ormonde's infirmity can hope to beat Minting."Indeed, Porter himself admitted he was not overly confident of victory. During the race George Barrett, aboard Phil, impeded Ormonde and he was made to struggle for the first time in his career. During the closing stages, Ormonde and Minting battled with each other and Ormonde just came out on top, winning by a neck, with Bendigo in third. In his final race, he won the 6 furlong Imperial Gold Cup at Newmarket. Starting at 30/100 he made all the running and won by two lengths from Whitefriar. Ormonde was then retired as the most celebrated horse of his era. He was sent by train to Waterloo Station, then walked to Grosvenor House in Mayfair, where he was the guest of honor at a garden party to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

    Race record

    Date Race name D(f) Course Prize (£) Odds Runners Place Margin Runner-up Time Jockey
    14 October 1885 Post Sweepstakes 6 Newmarket 500 5/4 3 1 1 Modwena Fred Archer
    26 October 1885 Criterion Stakes 6 Newmarket 906 4/6 6 1 3 Oberon Fred Archer
    28 October 1885 Dewhurst Stakes 7 Newmarket 1602 4/11 11 1 4 Whitefriar Fred Archer
    28 April 1886 2000 Guineas 8 Newmarket 4000 7/2 6 1 2 Minting 1:46.8 George Barrett
    26 May 1886 Epsom Derby 12 Epsom Downs 4700 40/85 9 1 1.5 The Bard 2:45.6 Fred Archer
    10 June 1886 St. James's Palace Stakes 8 Ascot 1500 3/100 3 1 0.75 Calais Fred Archer
    13 June 1886 Hardwicke Stakes 12 Ascot 2438 30/100 5 1 2 Melton 2:43 George Barrett
    15 September 1886 St Leger Stakes 14.5 Doncaster 4475 1/7 7 1 4 St Mirin 3:21.4 Fred Archer
    29 September 1886 Great Foal Stakes 10 Newmarket 1140 1/25 3 1 3 Mephisto Fred Archer
    1 October 1886 Newmarket St Leger 16 Newmarket 475 N/A 1 1 Walkover Walkover Fred Archer
    15 October 1886 Champion Stakes 10 Newmarket 1212 1/100 3 1 1 Oberon 2:19 Fred Archer
    28 October 1886 Free Handicap 10 Newmarket 650 1/7 3 1 8 Mephisto 2:22 Fred Archer
    29 October 1886 Private Sweepstakes 10 Newmarket 1000 N/A 1 1 Walkover Walkover Fred Archer
    9 June 1887 Rous Memorial Stakes 8 Ascot 920 1/4 1 6 Kilwarlin Tom Cannon
    12 June 1887 Hardwicke Stakes 12 Ascot 2387 4/5 4 1 0.25 Minting 2:44.4 Tom Cannon
    16 July 1887 Imperial Gold Cup 6 Newmarket 590 30/100 3 1 2 Whitefriar 1:18 Tom Cannon

    Assessment

    Ormonde is generally considered one of the greatest racehorses ever. At the time he was often labelled as the 'horse of the century'. His achievements are even more impressive considering the strength of some of the other horses foaled in 1883. It is said that both Minting and The Bard were good enough to have won The Derby nine out of ten years. In early 1888 Minting, the horse Ormonde beat easily in the 2000 Guineas, was rated 15 pounds superior to the 1887 Derby winner Merry Hampton and the 1887 St Leger winner Kilwarlin.

    Stud record

    Ormonde went to the Duke of Westminster's Eaton Stud in 1888, where he sired seven foals from the sixteen mares he covered, including Goldfinch and Orme. In 1889, he was moved to Moulton Paddocks in Newmarket, but became sick and could only cover a few mares, with only one live foal produced in 1890. He was subsequently returned to Eaton Stud but his fertility never recovered. To the astonishment of many, Ormonde was then sold overseas. Both he and his dam were roarers, and the Duke felt this could weaken English bloodstock. Ormonde was sold to Senor Bocau of Argentina for £12,000, and then in 1893 to William O'Brien Macdonough, of California for £31,250. He stood at the Menlo Stock Farm in California for several years, where he sired 16 foals. including Futurity Stakes winner Ormondale.

    English foals

    c = colt, f = filly
    Foaled Name Sex Notable wins Wins Prize money
    1889 Goldfinch c Biennial Stakes, New Stakes 2 £2,464
    1889 Kilkenny f 1 £164
    1889 Llanthony c Ascot Derby 4 £3,139
    1889 Orme c Middle Park Plate, Dewhurst Plate, Eclipse Stakes (twice), Sussex Stakes, Champion Stakes, Limekiln Stakes, Rous Memorial Stakes, Gordon Stakes 14 £32,528
    1889 Orontes II f 0
    1889 Orville c 0
    1889 Sorcerer c 1 £229
    1890 Glenwood c Aylesford Foal Plate 2 £1,726
    Despite only siring eight horses in England, Ormonde had a signficant impact at stud. Orme was the leading sire in Great Britain and Ireland when he sired another Triple Crown winner, Flying Fox, who went on to be a leading sire in France. Orme also sired Epsom Derby winner Orby and 1000 Guineas winner Witch Elm. Goldfinch sired 1000 Guineas winner Chelandry. After being sold and moving to California, Goldfinch sired Preakness Stakes winner Old England. In America, his son Ormondale went on to sire Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Purchase. Ormonde died in 1904 at age 21 at Rancho Wikiup in Santa Rosa, California. His disarticulated skeleton/skull were later returned to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London.His male line survives mainly through Teddy, grandson of Flying Fox. Orby does still have a sire line as well. Ormonde may have been the model for the fictional horse Silver Blaze in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short story "The Adventure of Silver Blaze" (1892).
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  • Beautiful Desert Orchid Tribute

    €140.00
    Although Dessie had no Irish connection whatsoever ,we love a good horse in Ireland and by God Desert Orchid was some horse.Its said his appearance in Fairhouse when he own the Irish Grand National was akin to JFK or the Pope arriving ! Trim Co Meath.   62cm x 50cm
    Desert Orchid
    Desertorchid.jpg
    Sire Grey Mirage
    Grandsire Double-U-Jay
    Dam Flower Child
    Damsire Brother
    Sex Gelding
    Foaled 11 April 1979 in Goadby, Leicestershire, England.
    Country Great Britain
    Colour Grey
    Breeder James Burridge
    Owner James Burridge, Midge Burridge, Richard Burridge, Simon Bullimore
    Trainer David Elsworth at Whitsbury Manor Racing Stables, Fordingbridge, Wiltshire
    Record 70: 34-11-8
    Earnings £654,066
    Major wins
    Tolworth Hurdle (1984) Kingwell Hurdle (1984) Hurst Park Novices' Chase (1985) King George VI Chase (1986, 1988, 1989, 1990) Gainsborough Chase (1987, 1989, 1991) Martell Cup (1988) Whitbread Gold Cup (1988) Tingle Creek Chase (1988) Victor Chandler Chase (1989) Cheltenham Gold Cup (1989) Racing Post Chase (1990) Irish Grand National (1990)
    Awards
    Timeform rating: 187
    Honours
    The Desert Orchid Chase at Wincanton Desert Orchid Chase at Kempton Park Racecourse Statue, ashes, headstone - Kempton Park Racecourse
    Desert Orchid (11 April 1979 – 13 November 2006), known as Dessie, was an English racehorse. The grey achieved a revered and esteemed status within National Hunt racing, where he was much loved by supporters for his front-running attacking style, iron will and extreme versatility. He was rated the fifth best National Hunt horse of all time by Timeform. During his racing career he was partnered by five different jump jockeys: Colin Brown, Richard Linley, Simon Sherwood, Graham Bradley and Richard Dunwoody.

    Early career

    Desert Orchid's first race occurred in 1983 and during his early career his regular rider was Colin Brown, who partnered him 42 times in all, winning 17. He fell heavily at the last in a Kempton novice hurdle and took such a long time to get to his feet that it seemed his first race might be his last. Desert Orchid had a successful novice hurdle career in the 1983/84 season winning several races in a row including the Kingwell Pattern Hurdle, a long established Champion Hurdle trial, at Wincanton. Desert Orchid started favourite for the 1984 Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, the race was won by Dawn Run. David Elsworth's grey was no longer eligible for novice hurdles in 1984/85 and struggled to recapture his early form. He won one of his eight starts this season, in February at Sandown Park. He was pulled up in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham Racecourse, the Welsh Champion Hurdle, and on his final outing of the season fell at Ascot.

    Steeplechase career

    Desert Orchid was then switched to steeplechasing, still partnered by his regular hurdles jockey Colin Brown, and ran up a sequence of four wins in a row at Devon and Exeter, Sandown and Ascot (twice) before unseating at Ascot. He did not win again that season despite three further placed efforts. He was well clear in his final race of the season at Ascot only to make a very serious mistake which stopped his momentum. He eventually finished fifth. Back at Ascot, he won over 2 miles before returning to Kempton Park for the King George VI Chase, where he ran out a 15 length winner over Door Latch, easily defeating stars such as Wayward Lad, Forgive n'Forget, Combs Ditch and Bolands Cross. The quality of the field can be indicated by Desert Orchid's starting price of 16/1—though the price was also influenced by fears that this speedy front runner would not stay the 3 mile trip. This was jockey Simon Sherwood's first ride on Desert Orchid, the start of a partnership that was successful nine times in their ten races together. Colin Brown, who rode Desert Orchid in more than half his races, partnered his better-fancied stablemate Combs Ditch instead. Desert Orchid followed up with wins at Sandown and Wincanton, before finishing third in the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham, three lengths behind Pearlyman. He returned to win over 2½ miles at Ascot before being pulled up in the Whitbread Gold Cup on his final outing of the 1986/87 season. A string of places followed in 1987, second at Sandown (2 miles), second in the King George, and places at Sandown, Wincanton and Cheltenham. Desert Orchid got his head in front on his last two starts of the 1987/88 season taking the Martell Cup at Aintree, which was his first win on a left-handed track, and the Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown. One of Desert Orchid's greatest efforts took place in the 1989 Victor Chandler Handicap Chase, where he took on four rivals, including the top-class Panto Prince and Vodkatini, who fell badly on the back straight. He gave the former 22 pounds and the latter 23 pounds. Desert Orchid just got back up after being headed to beat Panto Prince by a head. Desert Orchid was then stepped up to 3 miles and 2 furlongs (5.23 km) for the Cheltenham Gold Cup—he had previously been considered a two-miler. The rain and snow which had fallen relentlessly at Cheltenham made the racecourse going heavy. These were conditions hardly suited to Desert Orchid, especially at this left-handed course which he never particularly favoured. A crowd of over 58,000 witnessed Desert Orchid's effort to overhaul the mud-loving Yahoo in the final stages of the race. After his one and a half length victory, Desert Orchid's rider, Simon Sherwood said: "I've never known a horse so brave. He hated every step of the way in the ground and dug as deep as he could possibly go". Three cheers were called as Desert Orchid was unsaddled, surrounded by thousands of fans. The race was voted best horse race ever by readers of the Racing Post. After eight consecutive wins, Desert Orchid then fell in the Martell Cup, which he had won the previous year (and which on this occasion was won by the Gold Cup runner-up, Yahoo). This was the first time Desert Orchid had run and failed to win since the 1988 Queen Mother Champion Chase over a year earlier. In 1989, Desert Orchid again won at Wincanton, this time with a new jockey, Richard Dunwoody. After a second in the Tingle Creek Chase, he headed for Kempton, where he took his third King George, this time as the 4/6 favourite. He followed up with a win at Wincanton and then took the Racing Post Chase at Kempton. The Racing Post Chase of that year included many top-class handicappers and graded horses but Desert Orchid, carrying the huge weight of 12 stone & 3 pounds (77.6 kg), beat the opposition, led by the top-class Delius - a feat the official handicapper said could not be done on ratings. A third in the Cheltenham Gold Cup preceded Desert Orchid's convincing win in the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse. He was given top weight of 12 stone (76.2 kg), but was even money favourite and won by twelve lengths. This was despite an uncharacteristic bad jump at the final fence. Desert Orchid did not reappear until November 1990, finishing second in the Haldon Gold Cup. A fourth in the Tingle Creek followed before the King George VI Chase, which he won for the fourth time. Desert Orchid had three more races in the 1990/91 season, his last ever victory coming in the Agfa Diamond Chase at Sandown on 2 February 1991. His final start of the season was a 15-length third to Garrison Savannah in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. In his last season, he was beaten in his first outing at Wincanton, the race he had made his own and which now bears his name. He finished third in the Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon before falling in his last race, the 1991 King George at Kempton, where he was attempting his fifth win. His record at right-handed tracks such as Kempton was always substantially better than his record at left-handed tracks such as Cheltenham. He had a tendency to jump to his right especially when tired. This meant that at tracks such as Cheltenham he would lose lengths by drifting to the outside. This tendency can be seen by his runs in the 1987 and 1988 Queen Mother Champion Chase and 1989 and 1990 Cheltenham Gold Cup. On each occasion he entered the home straight wide of his rivals. He only raced left-handed on thirteen occasions. However, all were either early in his career or in top-class races. He raced more times at both Sandown (19) and Ascot (15) than he did left-handed. His part-owner Richard Burridge has stated that it was for this reason that Desert Orchid would have struggled in the Grand National: connections felt he could do himself serious injury at the ninety-degree Canal Turn especially on the second circuit (ref. Richard Burridge: The Grey Horse: The True Story of Desert Orchid). The official handicapper gave Desert Orchid a rating of 187. Whilst a very high rating, it could have been much higher had his performances on left-handed tracks matched those on right. His performances on left-handed tracks like Cheltenham, where, despite this aversion, he never finished out of the first three in a chase, are recognised as generally below par. No horse since Desert Orchid has repeatedly and successfully conceded weight to his rivals at the highest level. Desert Orchid won 34 of his 70 starts, amassing £654,066 in prize money.

    Retirement

    Desert Orchid retired in December 1991 and survived a life-threatening operation for colic a year later. He took his summer holidays with the Burridge family at Ab Kettleby, and spent the winter with David Elsworth leading out the 2 year olds and getting ready for his many public appearances. He returned every year to Kempton to lead out the parade of runners for the King George VI Chase. During his retirement, he raised thousands of pounds for charity, and his presence at charity events attracted large crowds. His fan club was run by part owner Midge Burridge and family friend John Hippesley. In the 17 years that the fan club ran, they raised over £40,000 for charity through sales of Desert Orchid merchandise, especially his racing calendar. When David Elsworth left Whitsbury after 25 years, Desert Orchid packed up and went with him to Egerton House Stables in Newmarket, Suffolk. But the home of champions and stallions welcomed the old gelding and his trainer with open arms and Newmarket racecourses held their annual press day in 2006 on Desert Orchid's 27th birthday at his stable. He also paraded at the course to the delight of his fans. Desert Orchid was no longer ridden due to his age, and David announced that his appearances would be fewer, and nearer to home, as he was now such a senior citizen. Desert Orchid's last public appearance was on 1 October at his fan club open day, which was held at the National Stud in conjunction with stallion parades. It was clear that Desert Orchid was now frail. In the week of 6 November, he began to have trouble with coordination and those close to him were summoned to say goodbye. A vet was on standby should his assistance be needed. Last seen by those who loved him best at Egerton, he was lying down but nibbling his hay. One hour later at 6:05am, Monday 13 November, Desert Orchid died. Desert Orchid's ashes were buried in a private ceremony at Kempton Park Racecourse near his statue the week prior to the King George. The inaugural running of the Desert Orchid Chase on the 27th was preceded by the unveiling of the headstone for his grave, videos of his finest hours at the track, and a moment's silence in his honour. The race was won by Voy Por Ustedes, trained by Alan King and owned by Sir Robert Ogden.
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  • 1889 Home Rule Caricature -“The Cabinet Question” Original Print

    €300.00
    Original,multi faceted,interesting historical caricature by the artist Tom Merry,surrounding the complex Home Rule Question which dominated political discourse both in Ireland and in London for much of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century,right up to the outbreak of WW1.This supplement came with the United Irishman publication and is a fascinating insight into the politics of the period, in particular emphasising Parnells obstructionist tactics in Westminster. Abbeyleix  Co Laois  54cm x 74cm   hat was Home Rule? Home Rule was the demand that the governance of Ireland be returned from Westminster to a domestic parliament in Ireland. Ireland had had its own parliament up to 1800 when the Act of Union ended Irish representation at the parliament sitting at College Green in Dublin. Under the Union, MPs elected for Irish constituencies went over to Westminster and sat alongside English, Scottish, and Welsh MPs in a legislature that had jurisdiction over the whole of both islands as well as the colonies of the British Empire. When was the Home Rule movement established? The idea of Home Rule dates from 1870 but it should be viewed as part of a longer tradition which aimed at revising the Anglo-Irish relationship by constitutional methods. The first attempt to repeal the Act of Union was made by Daniel O’Connell in the 1840s. This was ultimately a failure and Irish politics in the mid-nineteenth century was dominated by MPs acting as Irish representatives of the Liberal and Tory parties. In 1870, Isaac Butt, a barrister and former Tory MP, founded the Irish Home Government Association. The movement combined a powerful cross section of progressive landowners, tenant rights activists, and supporters and sympathisers of the failed Fenian uprising of 1867 to create a third way in Irish politics. By 1874, styled as the Home Rule League, Butt’s nascent party succeeded in gaining the loose allegiance of 59 out of 103 Irish MPs. What about Parnell? The most significant event to occur in the emergence of a more powerful Home Rule movement was in 1880 when Charles Stewart Parnell was elected chairman of the party. Parnell was a master organiser. He ran the party like a machine from parish level to parliament and by coupling the demand for Home Rule with the intensifying agitation for tenant rights in Ireland, Home Rule became an extremely powerful force in politics. Between the land question and the demand for Home Rule, Irish issues consumed a large proportion of parliamentary time at Westminster during the 1880s and intermittently thereafter. Did the Home Rule movement achieve anything? On three occasions, a Home Rule bill was introduced to the House of Commons. In 1886, Prime Minister William E. Gladstone introduced the first Home Rule bill. However, this move split his governing Liberal Party and the bill was defeated in the House of Commons. In 1893, a second Home Rule bill managed to pass through the House of Commons but it was thrown out by the House of Lords. Once more, in 1912, a Home Rule bill passed the House of Commons. The powers of the House of Lords had been curtailed in 1911 and, under the new parliamentary mechanisms, the Lords could only delay rather than reject the bill. At the beginning of 1913, the Liberal Lord Crewe, former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, opened the debates on the bill in the Lords. The rejection of Home Rule by the Lords was a fait accompli but, with only the power of delay remaining to them, the real danger to the passage of the bill came from outside of Parliament, where Unionist Ulster was organising in earnest its resistance to the imposition of the bill on the North East. Why did British governments agree to introduce Home Rule bills to parliament? On all three of the occasions when Home Rule bills were introduced to the House of Commons, Home Rulers held the balance of power between the Liberal and Conservative parties which were roughly evenly split. Finding themselves in this position, Home Rulers were able to negotiate for the introduction of a Home Rule bill in exchange for supporting the Liberal Party, traditionally a sympathetic ally on the Irish question. This support gave the Liberals the required majority to form a government. The exact same situation exists in Westminster today where Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats hold the balance between the Labour and Conservative parties, and David Cameron’s government requires the support of the Liberal Democrats to stay in power. How does Home Rule fit into the wider British context? Home Rule was an extremely important concept in the British Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To fully appreciate its significance, it must be viewed in an imperial rather than a purely Irish concept. Before the outbreak of the First World War, the nature of government in the British Empire was changing. Greater independence and forms of domestic governance were granted to Canada, Australia, and South Africa in 1867, 1900, and 1909 respectively. Thus, Britain can be seen to have been gradually liberalising its system of imperial governance, at least for ‘civilised’ components of the empire. This contrasts starkly with the disorderly and chaotic nature of de-colonisation that was experienced by Britain, France, and other European powers following the Second World War.
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Irish Pub at Home & Abroad

The Pub has been at the forefront and epicentre of Irish life for hundreds of years. Often humble but always unpretentious, it has served many and varied functions.  A place where strangers become friends and friendships are solidified. A refuge from the stresses of everyday life, the headquarters of local life.

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