Framed 1964 Listowel Races Advert 28cm x 23cm Ballylongford Co Kerry
The great John B Keane once said: "The Listowel Races is a state of mind." Anyone who has attended the festival will know this statement to be an undeniable truth. Because for one divine week in September, a spotlight from the gods shines on Listowel.
It is a shimmering star, guiding people from all over the country for a week of devilment and roguery - a place where hatred dissolves and inhibitions release.
And for as long as I can remember, I too have been steered by that very light. For a time, I thought I could never love a man the way I loved the Listowel Races.
Unlike romantic relationships, I knew where I stood in the affair. There were no miscommunications or missteps. I asked for the thrill, the passion and the romance, and all the races asked of me was the entrance fee.
Famous son: The late playwright John B Keane in his Listowel pub
Even as a child, I worshipped it. From the moment the festival lights were hung above Church Street, I knew magic was in the air. Any pocket money I had was spent at the Birds Amusements in the mart yard and any tears I had shed, as my mother told me, came when it was time to go home. As I grew older, I discovered another type of magic on the racecourse or 'the island' as it's otherwise known.It is a paradise on the River Feale filled with old friends, new acquaintances and disgruntled punters. Expats return from far-flung countries and wish for the week to never end, wanting one last race, drink or dance because one September evening spent on the island equals a lifetime of memories.This year will mark the 162nd anniversary of the meeting. The first took place in October 1858 and, since then, has moved from a two-day race meeting to a seven-day spectacle filled with music and wren boys. Also known as the Harvest Festival, the meeting traditionally marked the end of the harvest, and farmers came to relax and enjoy the fruits of their labour. While this remains true, Listowel now attracts a variety of attendees from across the country and beyond.The people don't just come for racing anymore. They come for the atmosphere, the people, and the promise of the time of your life. Festivals like Galway and Punchestown may have the hype, but Listowel has the mightiest heart.In 162 years, the island and its high jinks have survived war and politics, but it won't escape the ravages of 2020. Covid-19 restrictions mean the Listowel Races will take place behind closed doors for the first time. Under protocol from the HRI and the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, race meetings are closed to the public.Much-needed boost
'Huge loss': Jerry Behan from the Horseshoe Bar
For Listowel, the impact will be huge. The town is small, with a population of 4,800 people. In 2018, attendance at the festival hit 90,000 for the week.
North Kerry doesn't reap the benefits of tourism as much as the southern half of the county. Killarney and Dingle are hotspots and while north Kerry has its share, tourism is not its main trade. Festivals such as the races provide much-needed boosts to the local economy.It has been a challenging year for the small-town festival in Ireland. From the Willie Clancy week in Miltown Malbay to the Innishannon Steam Rally in Cork, localities have lost out economically and culturally. Earlier in the summer, the famous Writers' Week Festival in Listowel was cancelled, as was the Revival Music Festival in August.The September races complete the trifecta of festivities and are the jewel in the crown. These cancellations only added to the blow caused by the lockdown closures in March for the businesses in the town.Jerry Behan and his son Diarmuid, owner and bar manager of the Horseshoe Bar and Restaurant on William Street, say the trade during the races tides the pubs and restaurants over until year-end."This year is just a complete unknown," Jerry says. "We missed out on Mother's Day, Paddy's Day, Easter, Writers' Week, Revival and now the races. Writers' Week is nearly as big as the races for us, so it's been a huge loss. And what you make during the races would pay the bills until Christmas."In a typical year, the week before the festival would be spent planning and preparing for the influx of punters; Diarmuid admits this is a part he will miss."During this time, we would be looking forward to race week," he explains. "You would be getting in your orders and sorting out staff for the week. It all adds to the build-up. Usually, you would hate to be working during a big event, but I never mind working for the races."The craic is brilliant. But at the end of the day, our health is the most important thing."The Government has given the green light for 'wet pubs' to reopen on Monday after a six-month closure. Reopening on the week of the races is both a blessing and a hindrance to Billy Keane, the Irish Independent columnist and owner of John B Keane's bar, first run by his playwright father."The worst was not knowing when we would open, so when the news came that it would be the 21st, on what happens to be the week of the Listowel Races, it was brilliant news," Keane says."So everyone in town got a great boost from it and hopefully the locals will come out and I can't wait to meet them again, but it's going to be very restricted. During the races, if I had a pub that went all the way to Ballybunion, I'd still need more space."The week equates to around 22pc of my business for the year, but obviously, our numbers will be way down."The change in proceedings isn't just hitting the pubs and restaurants; many other businesses feel the effects. Owner of Coco at The Arcade boutique, Jennifer Scanlan, says fashion is just as big a part of the experience as the racing itself, with Ladies' Day usually attracting a crowd of more than 26,000."For me, the week before and especially the Saturday before the races are usually manic busy with women buying their bits. So I will certainly be losing that revenue."If you don't come from a town or area that holds a festival like this, you might question why locals are so attached. It has such significance that anyone from the town will tell you that a different calendar dictates life. There are no weeks or months, only 'before' and 'after' the races. People in Listowel have grown up with it. It is steeped in tradition and for rural towns, this is important.'It defines us'Scanlan admits it is hard to think that this year will go ahead without the full flow of the festival. "I grew up over the shop here in the centre of town and I could see the Birds Amusements right from my window. The races could never hide from us."It defines us as Listowel people. There really is something special here."Someone who shares this sentiment is horse racing commentator Jerry Hannon, a native Listowel man who discovered his love for the sport on the Island. "That's where I got my love for racing," he explains. "One of my earliest memories was my late dad Joe bringing me over to the island and meeting Charlie Swan, who was top jockey at the time, and the late racing photographer Liam Healy taking a photo of me with him. I saw the crowds and the atmosphere and that whet my appetite. It's like a ritual for those of us from the town."Hannon will commentate on the racing over the seven days, but admits that it is at the festivals when you notice the missing crowds. "It's been disheartening," he explains. "It hit me in places like Killarney and Galway. Now Listowel will be the same when you won't see those crowds crossing the bridge from the town side."Christy Walsh, owner of Christy's Bar in The Square, says the races' influence is far-reaching. "When I became involved in the Harvest Festival, I not only realised what it means for the town, but the whole of north Kerry and beyond. Accommodation is usually booked from Templeglantine, Newcastle West, Abbeyfeale and down into Tralee. Ballybunion and Ballyheigue, both of which are packed from it."Walsh says the town is exercising extreme caution for the week ahead, with people expected to watch the racing in local pubs. "We are still in the throes of a major pandemic," he says. "So just for one year, maybe leave it to the locals and enjoy the races on TG4 at home and wait until we are back in action fully."Because the town is small, community spirit is present even when thousands of people gather there. This quality is why people return year on year and proprietors of the town have come to know the spectators as friends. They look forward to seeing them return in the future."You know on the Monday exactly who you'd meet inside the pub," Walsh says. "They come back year after year and you'd be asking how in the name of God could they do seven days racing. But they do, and most of my enjoyment comes from meeting them. I'll really miss that."This warmth is something Jerry Behan says will forever make the Listowel Races special. "They are like locals," he says. "They walk in as if they've lived here forever. We have a crowd from Newcastle that comes over every year since we opened and on the Sunday when they leave, the hugging and kissing is something else. They always say we can't wait for next year already. Hopefully, we will have it again when everything settles. The town will get through this and it will be back."And so tomorrow for its 162nd year, the island gates will open, the horses will gallop and bets will be made, but the stands will stay silent for the first time. Yet over the bridge on the other side of the River Feale, a town and its people look ahead to better times, remaining forever hopeful for a winner and waiting once more to be back in a Listowel Races state of mind.
Enlarged,framed John Jameson Dublin Whiskey Label from P. J Murray Dunshaughlin Co Meath. 27cm x 54cm Dunshaughlin Co Meath. 26cm x 30cm
John Jameson was originally a lawyer from Alloa in Scotland before he founded his eponymous distillery in Dublin in 1780.Prevoius to this he had made the wise move of marrying Margaret Haig (1753–1815) in 1768,one of the simple reasons being Margaret was the eldest daughter of John Haig, the famous whisky distiller in Scotland. John and Margaret had eight sons and eight daughters, a family of 16 children. Portraits of the couple by Sir Henry Raeburn are on display in the National Gallery of Ireland.
John Jameson joined the Convivial Lodge No. 202, of the Dublin Freemasons on the 24th June 1774 and in 1780, Irish whiskey distillation began at Bow Street. In 1805, he was joined by his son John Jameson II who took over the family business that year and for the next 41 years, John Jameson II built up the business before handing over to his son John Jameson the 3rd in 1851. In 1901, the Company was formally incorporated as John Jameson and Son Ltd.
Four of John Jameson’s sons followed his footsteps in distilling in Ireland, John Jameson II (1773 – 1851) at Bow Street, William and James Jameson at Marrowbone Lane in Dublin (where they partnered their Stein relations, calling their business Jameson and Stein, before settling on William Jameson & Co.). The fourth of Jameson's sons, Andrew, who had a small distillery at Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, was the grandfather of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless telegraphy. Marconi’s mother was Annie Jameson, Andrew’s daughter.
John Jameson’s eldest son, Robert took over his father’s legal business in Alloa. The Jamesons became the most important distilling family in Ireland, despite rivalry between the Bow Street and Marrowbone Lane distilleries.
By the turn of the 19th century, it was the second largest producer in Ireland and one of the largest in the world, producing 1,000,000 gallons annually. Dublin at the time was the centre of world whiskey production. It was the second most popular spirit in the world after rum and internationally Jameson had by 1805 become the world's number one whiskey. Today, Jameson is the world's third largest single-distillery whiskey.
Historical events, for a time, set the company back. The temperance movement in Ireland had an enormous impact domestically but the two key events that affected Jameson were the Irish War of Independence and subsequent trade war with the British which denied Jameson the export markets of the Commonwealth, and shortly thereafter, the introduction of prohibition in the United States. While Scottish brands could easily slip across the Canada–US border, Jameson was excluded from its biggest market for many years.
Historical pot still at the Jameson distillery in Cork
The introduction of column stills by the Scottish blenders in the mid-19th-century enabled increased production that the Irish, still making labour-intensive single pot still whiskey, could not compete with. There was a legal enquiry somewhere in 1908 to deal with the trade definition of whiskey. The Scottish producers won within some jurisdictions, and blends became recognised in the law of that jurisdiction as whiskey. The Irish in general, and Jameson in particular, continued with the traditional pot still production process for many years.In 1966 John Jameson merged with Cork Distillers and John Powers to form the Irish Distillers Group. In 1976, the Dublin whiskey distilleries of Jameson in Bow Street and in John's Lane were closed following the opening of a New Midleton Distillery by Irish Distillers outside Cork. The Midleton Distillery now produces much of the Irish whiskey sold in Ireland under the Jameson, Midleton, Powers, Redbreast, Spot and Paddy labels. The new facility adjoins the Old Midleton Distillery, the original home of the Paddy label, which is now home to the Jameson Experience Visitor Centre and the Irish Whiskey Academy. The Jameson brand was acquired by the French drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard in 1988, when it bought Irish Distillers. The old Jameson Distillery in Bow Street near Smithfield in Dublin now serves as a museum which offers tours and tastings. The distillery, which is historical in nature and no longer produces whiskey on site, went through a $12.6 million renovation that was concluded in March 2016, and is now a focal part of Ireland's strategy to raise the number of whiskey tourists, which stood at 600,000 in 2017.Bow Street also now has a fully functioning Maturation Warehouse within its walls since the 2016 renovation. It is here that Jameson 18 Bow Street is finished before being bottled at Cask Strength.
In 2008, The Local, an Irish pub in Minneapolis, sold 671 cases of Jameson (22 bottles a day),making it the largest server of Jameson's in the world – a title it maintained for four consecutive years.
Superbly framed portrait of JFK
Such was the love and affection for President John F Kennedy in the country of his ancestors, that numerous Irish homes, businesses and pubs displayed photographs, portraits and other memorabilia relating to the Kennedy and Fitzgerald families, who hailed largely from Wexford and Limerick
57cm x 47 cm Dromkeen Co Limerick
President Kennedy greeting Irish crowds while on a state visit to the country in 1963.
55 years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited Ireland, his ancestral home, assuming that his family had mostly come from County Wexford, but new research shows us that JFK had links to many other Irish counties as well.
The President’s family tree, however, indicates that he has the most links to County Limerick, but also has connections to Limerick, Clare, Cork, and Fermanagh as research from Ancestry.com shed light onRussell James, a spokesperson for Ancestry Ireland, commented on how there is a great deal of discussion and research still ongoing about JFK’s roots to Ireland.
“President John F. Kennedy’s family history has been a much-discussed topic over the years with his Irish roots being something that was extremely important to him. Traditionally JFK’s heritage has been closely linked with Wexford but we’re delighted to find records on Ancestry which show he had strong links to other counties across Ireland,” James said.
“These findings will hopefully allow other counties across Ireland to further celebrate the life of the former American President, on the 55th anniversary of his visit to Ireland.”
Limerick, as opposed to Wexford, had the most number of Kennedy’s great-grandparents, with three in total from his mother’s side: Mary Ann Fitzgerald, Michael Hannon, and Thomas Fitzgerald. The Fitzgeralds had come from a small town called Bruff in the eastern part of Limerick, but Hannon had come from Lough Gur.
His great-grandfather, Thomas Fitzgerald, emigrated to the United States in the midst of the Irish famine of 1848 and eventually settled in Boston, Massachusetts.
His Wexford connection is not as strong, given that only two of his great-grandparents came from the county. They were Patrick Kennedy of Dunganstown and Bridget Murphy from Owenduff.
Patrick, when he arrived in the U.S in April 1849, was found to be a minor as shown on his American naturalization papers and had become a citizen three years later. He worked as a cooper in Boston until he died almost 10 years later in 1858.
JFK had visited Dunganstown because his relatives had shared the Kennedy name there, but ultimately his roots lie deeper in Limerick through his mother’s side.
The rest of his great-grandparents are from all over Ireland, with James Hickey from Newcastle-upon-Fergus, County Clare, Margaret M. Field from Rosscarbery, Cork, and Rosa Anna Cox from Tomregan in Fermanagh. Every one of them, though, had eventually emigrated and settled in Massachusetts.
On Wednesday, June 26, 1963, Kennedy had arrived in Ireland, but on the second day, he made the journey to his ancestral home in Wexford, where he spent time with his relatives there and gave speeches in the surrounding area.
While there, America’s first Irish Catholic President took a trip to Dunganstown, Wexford, where he met his extended family at the Kennedy homestead. It was there he made a toast to “all those Kennedys who went and all those Kennedys who stayed.”
The homestead, now a visitor center, is where his great-grandfather lived and is still maintained by the current-day Kennedy family. This land itself was included in a land survey of Wexford in 1853, which shows that John Kennedy, JFK’s two-times great uncle, occupied the property described as having a ‘house, offices, and land’.
There are many chapters in Munster’s storied rugby journey but pride of place remains the game against the otherwise unbeaten New Zealanders on October 31, 1978.
27cm x 32cm Abbeyfeale Co Limerick
In this image from the Limerick Leader Archives,Donal Canniffe the Munster Scrum Half and Captain of the side clears the ball from the All Blacks as Christy Cantillon keeps a watchful look.In a poignant side note,Canniffe's father Dan had passed away during the game whilst listening to the radio commentary and in the immediate aftermath of the final result, joy turned to sorrow as the Munster captain was informed of the sad news.
There were some mighty matches between the Kiwis and Munster, most notably at the Mardyke in 1954 when the tourists edged home by 6-3 and again by the same margin at Thomond Park in 1963 while the teams also played a 3-3 draw at Musgrave Park in 1973. During that time, they resisted the best that Ireland, Ulster and Leinster (admittedly with fewer opportunities) could throw at them so this country was still waiting for any team to put one over on the All Blacks when Graham Mourie’s men arrived in Limerick on October 31st, 1978.
There is always hope but in truth Munster supporters had little else to encourage them as the fateful day dawned. Whereas the New Zealanders had disposed of Cambridge University, Cardiff, West Wales and London Counties with comparative ease, Munster’s preparations had been confined to a couple of games in London where their level of performance, to put it mildly, was a long way short of what would be required to enjoy even a degree of respectability against the All Blacks. They were hammered by Middlesex County and scraped a draw with London Irish.
Ever before those two games, things hadn’t been going according to plan. Tom Kiernan had coached Munster for three seasons in the mid-70s before being appointed Branch President, a role he duly completed at the end of the 1977/78 season.
SEA OF EMOTION: Munster’s players and supporters celebrate a famous victory.
However, when coach Des Barry resigned for personal reasons, Munster turned once again to Kiernan. Being the great Munster man that he was and remains, Tom was happy to oblige although as an extremely shrewd observer of the game, one also suspected that he spotted something special in this group of players that had escaped most peoples’ attention. He refused to be dismayed by what he saw in the games in London, instead regarding them as crucial in the build-up to the All Blacks encounter. He was, in fact, ahead of his time, as he laid his hands on video footage of the All Blacks games, something unheard of back in those days, nor was he averse to the idea of making changes in key positions. A major case in point was the introduction of London Irish loose-head prop Les White of whom little was known in Munster rugby circles but who convinced the coaching team he was the ideal man to fill a troublesome position.
Kiernan was also being confronted by many other difficult issues. The team he envisaged taking the field against the tourists was composed of six players (Larry Moloney, Seamus Dennison, Gerry McLoughlin, Pat Whelan, Brendan Foley and Colm Tucker) based in Limerick, four (Greg Barrett, Jimmy Bowen, Moss Finn and Christy Cantillon) in Cork, four more (Donal Canniffe, Tony Ward, Moss Keane and Donal Spring) in Dublin and Les White who, according to Keane, “hailed from somewhere in England, at that time nobody knew where”.
Always bearing in mind that the game then was totally amateur and these guys worked for a living, for most people it would have been impossible to bring them all together on a regular basis for six weeks before the match. But the level of respect for Kiernan was so immense that the group would have walked on the proverbial bed of nails for him if he so requested. So they turned up every Wednesday in Fermoy — a kind of halfway house for the guys travelling from three different locations and over appreciable distances.
Those sessions helped to forge a wonderful team spirit. After all, guys who had been slogging away at work only a short few hours previously would hardly make that kind of sacrifice unless they meant business.
October 31, 1978 dawned wet and windy, prompting hope among the faithful that the conditions would suit Munster who could indulge in their traditional approach sometimes described rather vulgarly as “boot, bite and bollock” and, who knows, with the fanatical Thomond Park crowd cheering them on, anything could happen. Ironically, though, the wind and rain had given way to a clear, blue sky and altogether perfect conditions in good time for the kick-off.
Surely, now, that was Munster’s last hope gone — but that didn’t deter more than 12,000 fans from making their way to Thomond Park and somehow finding a spot to view the action. The vantage points included hundreds seated on the 20-foot high boundary wall, others perched on the towering trees immediately outside the ground and some even watched from the windows of houses at the Ballynanty end that have since been demolished.
The atmosphere was absolutely electric as the teams took the field, the All Blacks performed the Haka and the Welsh referee Corris Thomas got things under way.
The first few skirmishes saw the teams sizing each other up before an incident that was to be recorded in song and story occurred, described here — with just the slightest touch of hyperbole! — by Terry McLean in his book ‘Mourie’s All Blacks’.
“In only the fifth minute, Seamus Dennison, him the fellow that bore the number 13 jersey in the centre, was knocked down in a tackle. He came from the Garryowen club which might explain his subsequent actions — to join that club, so it has been said, one must walk barefooted over broken glass, charge naked through searing fires, run the severest gauntlets and, as a final test of manhood, prepare with unfaltering gaze to make a catch of the highest ball ever kicked while aware that at least eight thundering members of your own team are about to knock you down, trample all over you and into the bargain hiss nasty words at you because you forgot to cry out ‘Mark’.
Moss Keane recalled the incident: “It was the hardest tackle I have ever seen and lifted the whole team. That was the moment we knew we could win the game.” Kiernan also acknowledged the importance of “The Tackle”.
He said: “Tackling is as integral a part of rugby as is a majestic centre three-quarter break. There were two noteworthy tackles during the match by Seamus Dennison. He was injured in the first and I thought he might have to come off. But he repeated the tackle some minutes later.”
Many years on, Stuart Wilson vividly recalled the Dennison tackles and spoke about them in remarkable detail and with commendable honesty: “The move involved me coming in from the blind side wing and it had been working very well on tour. It was a workable move and it was paying off so we just kept rolling it out. Against Munster, the gap opened up brilliantly as it was supposed to except that there was this little guy called Seamus Dennison sitting there in front of me.
“He just basically smacked the living daylights out of me. I dusted myself off and thought, I don’t want to have to do that again. Ten minutes later, we called the same move again thinking we’d change it slightly but, no, it didn’t work and I got hammered again.”
The game was 11 minutes old when the most famous try in the history of Munster rugby was scored.
Tom Kiernan recalled: “It came from a great piece of anticipation by Bowen who in the first place had to run around his man to get to Ward’s kick ahead. He then beat two men and when finally tackled, managed to keep his balance and deliver the ball to Cantillon who went on to score. All of this was evidence of sharpness on Bowen’s part.”
Very soon it would be 9-0. In the first five minutes, a towering garryowen by skipper Canniffe had exposed the vulnerability of the New Zealand rearguard under the high ball. They were to be examined once or twice more but it was from a long range but badly struck penalty attempt by Ward that full-back Brian McKechnie knocked on some 15 yards from his line and close to where Cantillon had touched down a few minutes earlier. You could sense White, Whelan, McLoughlin and co in the front five of the Munster scrum smacking their lips as they settled for the scrum. A quick, straight put-in by Canniffe, a well controlled heel, a smart pass by the scrum-half to Ward and the inevitability of a drop goal. And that’s exactly what happened.
The All Blacks enjoyed the majority of forward possession but the harder they tried, the more they fell into the trap set by the wily Kiernan and so brilliantly carried out by every member of the Munster team.
The tourists might have edged the line-out contest through Andy Haden and Frank Oliver but scrum-half Mark Donaldson endured a miserable afternoon as the Munster forwards poured through and buried him in the Thomond Park turf.
As the minutes passed and the All Blacks became more and more unsure as to what to try next, the Thomond Park hordes chanted “Munster-Munster–Munster” to an ever increasing crescendo until with 12 minutes to go, the noise levels reached deafening proportions.
And then ... a deep, probing kick by Ward put Wilson under further pressure. Eventually, he stumbled over the ball as it crossed the line and nervously conceded a five-metre scrum. The Munster heel was disrupted but the ruck was won, Tucker gained possession and slipped a lovely little pass to Ward whose gifted feet and speed of thought enabled him in a twinkle to drop a goal although surrounded by a swarm of black jerseys. So the game entered its final 10 minutes with the All Blacks needing three scores to win and, of course, that was never going to happen.
Munster knew this, so, too, did the All Blacks. Stu Wilson admitted as much as he explained his part in Wardy’s second drop goal: “Tony Ward banged it down, it bounced a little bit, jigged here, jigged there, and I stumbled, fell over, and all of a sudden the heat was on me. They were good chasers. A kick is a kick — but if you have lots of good chasers on it, they make bad kicks look good. I looked up and realised — I’m not going to run out of here so I just dotted it down. I wasn’t going to run that ball back out at them because five of those mad guys were coming down the track at me and I’m thinking, I’m being hit by these guys all day and I’m looking after my body, thank you. Of course it was a five-yard scrum and Ward banged over another drop goal. That was it, there was the game”.
The final whistle duly sounded with Munster 12 points ahead but the heroes of the hour still had to get off the field and reach the safety of the dressing room. Bodies were embraced, faces were kissed, backs were pummelled, you name it, the gauntlet had to be walked. Even the All Blacks seemed impressed with the sense of joy being released all about them. Andy Haden recalled “the sea of red supporters all over the pitch after the game, you could hardly get off for the wave of celebration that was going on. The whole of Thomond Park glowed in the warmth that someone had put one over on the Blacks.”
Controversially, the All Blacks coach, Jack Gleeson (usually a man capable of accepting the good with the bad and who passed away of cancer within 12 months of the tour), in an unguarded (although possibly misunderstood) moment on the following day, let slip his innermost thoughts on the game.
“We were up against a team of kamikaze tacklers,” he lamented. “We set out on this tour to play 15-man rugby but if teams were to adopt the Munster approach and do all they could to stop the All Blacks from playing an attacking game, then the tour and the game would suffer.”
It was interpreted by the majority of observers as a rare piece of sour grapes from a group who had accepted the defeat in good spirit and it certainly did nothing to diminish Munster respect for the All Blacks and their proud rugby tradition.
And Tom Kiernan and Andy Haden, rugby standard bearers of which their respective countries were justifiably proud, saw things in a similar light.
“Jack’s comment was made in the context of the game and meant as a compliment,” Haden maintained. “Indeed, it was probably a little suggestion to his own side that perhaps we should imitate their efforts and emulate them in that department.”
Tom Kiernan went along with this line of thought: “I thought he was actually paying a compliment to the Munster spirit. Kamikaze pilots were very brave men. That’s what I took out of that. I didn’t think it was a criticism of Munster.”
And Stuart Wilson? “It was meant purely as a compliment. We had been travelling through the UK and winning all our games. We were playing a nice, open style. But we had never met a team that could get up in our faces and tackle us off the field. Every time you got the ball, you didn’t get one player tackling you, you got four. Kamikaze means people are willing to die for the cause and that was the way with every Munster man that day. Their strengths were that they were playing for Munster, that they had a home Thomond Park crowd and they took strength from the fact they were playing one of the best teams in the world.”
You could rely on Terry McLean (famed New Zealand journalist) to be fair and sporting in his reaction to the Thomond Park defeat. Unlike Kiernan and Haden, he scorned Jack Gleeson’s “kamikaze” comment, stating that “it was a stern, severe criticism which wanted in fairness on two grounds. It did not sufficiently praise the spirit of Munster or the presence within the one team of 15 men who each emerged from the match much larger than life-size. Secondly, it was disingenuous or, more accurately, naive.”
“Gleeson thought it sinful that Ward had not once passed the ball. It was worse, he said, that Munster had made aggressive defence the only arm of their attack. Now, what on earth, it could be asked, was Kiernan to do with his team? He held a fine hand with top trumps in Spring, Cantillon, Foley and Whelan in the forwards and Canniffe, Ward, Dennison, Bowen and Moloney in the backs. Tommy Kiernan wasn’t born yesterday. He played to the strength of his team and upon the suspected weaknesses of the All Blacks.”
You could hardly be fairer than that – even if Graham Mourie himself in his 1983 autobiography wasn’t far behind when observing: “Munster were just too good. From the first time Stu Wilson was crashed to the ground as he entered the back line to the last time Mark Donaldson was thrown backwards as he ducked around the side of a maul. They were too good.”
One of the nicest tributes of all came from a famous New Zealand photographer, Peter Bush. He covered numerous All Black tours, was close friends with most of their players and a canny one when it came to finding the ideal position from which to snap his pictures. He was the guy perched precariously on the pillars at the entrance to the pitch as the celebrations went on and which he described 20 years later in his book ‘Who Said It’s Only a Game?’
“I climbed up on a gate at the end of the game to get this photo and in the middle of it all is Moss Keane, one of the great characters of Irish rugby, with an expression of absolute elation. The All Blacks lost 12-0 to a side that played with as much passion as I have ever seen on a rugby field. The great New Zealand prop Gary Knight said to me later: ‘We could have played them for a fortnight and we still wouldn’t have won’. I was doing a little radio piece after the game and got hold of Moss Keane and said ‘Moss, I wonder if ...’ and he said, ‘ho, ho, we beat you bastards’.
“With that, he flung his arms around me and dragged me with him into the shower. I finally managed to disentangle myself and killed the tape. I didn’t mind really because it had been a wonderful day.”
Dimensions :47cm x 57cm
Cork Dry Gin -Where Good Taste Prevails-Retro advert fashioned from the blood, sweat,tears and spillage of a well used Irish Bar Trays & enamel signs.Using high quality reprographics we have brought every scratch,dent and mark back to life in the shape of this unique series of prints.
Dimensions : 35cm x 48cm Glazed
Cork Dry Gin is an Irish gin. First produced in Cork in the Watercourse Distillery circa 1793. Since 1975, Cork Dry Gin has been manufactured by Irish Distillers, a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard, at their Midleton Distillery. Cork Dry Gin is the largest selling gin brand in Ireland.
Until recently, bottles of Cork Dry Gin still featured the name of the Cork Distilleries Company, which had purchased the Watercourse Distillery in 1867 and owned it until its subsequent merger with two other Irish distilleries to form Irish Distillers in 1966.
Brilliant print capturing some of Micheal "Ó'Muircheartaigh's most famous moments of commentary over the decades.Superb piece for the GAA enthusiast and celebrating one of our greatest ever broadcasters.
Origins : Banagher Co Offaly Dimensions: 52cm x 40cm
Micheal Ó Muircheartaigh (born 20 August 1930)[1] is an Irish Gaelic gamescommentator for the Irish national radio and television, RTÉ. In a career that has spanned six decades he has come to be regarded as the "voice of Gaelic games." His prolific career has earned him a place in Guinness World Records.
Early life
Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh was born in Dún Síon just outside Dingle, County Kerry in 1930.Ó Muircheartaigh grew up on the family farm and was educated locally in Dingle. In September 1945 he began studying at Coláiste Íosagáin in Baile Bhúirne in the County CorkGaeltacht where he was in training to be a teacher. It was at this all-Irish school that his name changed from Michael Moriarty to the Irish version Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. In September 1948 he began the final year of his teacher training at St Patrick's College of Education in Drumcondra, Dublin.
Broadcasting career
In early March 1949 Ó Muircheartaigh, along with ten other students from the college, and several from other colleges, did a test commentary on a hurling game at Croke Park. Each student had to commentate for five minutes in Irish and the most successful would be selected for further commentary work. Ó Muircheartaigh had never seen a game of hurling before in his life. But he knew that those adjudicators judging his commentary were not able to see the game:
'Twas a new game to me. But I knew one person. He was in goal for UCD and his name was Tadhg Hurley. He went to school in Dingle and he had hurling because his father was a bank manager and had spent time in Tipperary or Cork. The moment my minute started, he was saving a fantastic shot. And he cleared it away out, I can still see it, out over the sideline, Cusack Stand side of the field, eighty yards out. But it was deflected out by a member of the opposition. The adjudicators couldn't see that that didn't happen. Who was called out to take the line-ball? The only person I knew, Tadhg Hurley. And he took a beautiful line-ball - Christy Ring never took better. He landed it down in front of the Railway goal, there was a dreadful foul on the full-forward, and there was a penalty. And who was called up to take the penalty? Tadhg Hurley. 'Twas the best individual display ever seen in Croke Park. It took him at least a minute to come from the Canal goal up. And while he was coming up I spoke about his brother Bob, who was in Donal's class, and his sister who used to come out to Dún Síon strand during the summer. So eventually he took the penalty. I've seen DJ Carey, I've seen Nicky Rackard, I've seen Christy Ring. None of them could ever equal the display he gave that day... Sin mar a thosaigh sé!
Ó Muircheartaigh was the one selected and his first assignment was to provide an all-Irish commentary on the 1949 Railway Cup final on St. Patrick's Day.
He graduated from St. Patrick's College a little later and also completed a Bachelor of Arts degree from University College Dublin. He taught economics, accountancy and Irish in both primary and secondary schools throughout Dublin, the majority of which were run by the Christian Brothers. He continued teaching up until the 1980s, when he became a full-time broadcaster with Raidió Teilifís Éireann.
For the early part of his broadcasting career Ó Muircheartaigh commentated on MinorGAA matches, in the Irish language. He also replaced the legendary Micheál O'Hehir when he was not available to commentate. Eventually when O'Hehir was forced to retire in the mid-1980s Ó Muircheartaigh took over as the station's premier radio commentator. He developed his own inimitable style of commentary and his accent is unmistakably that of a native Irish speaker. He is a true lover of Gaelic Athletic Association and it is reflected in the enthusiasm he brings to matches. His unusual turn of phrase has made him a much loved broadcaster and often imitated character. He has become particularly famous in Ireland for his unusual turns of phrase in the heat of the moment while commentating. Today he commentates on RTÉ Radio 1. In 2004 he published his autobiography, 'From Dún Sion to Croke Park'.
Ó Muircheartaigh's commentaries for RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Sport show won him a Jacob's Award in 1992. He was also the Parade Grand Marshal for the 2007 St. Patrick's Festival, having been given the honour by the chairman of the Festival in recognition and appreciation of his unique contribution to Irish culture. He will be the Parade Grand Marshal for the 2011 St. Patrick's Parade in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, also in recognition and appreciation of his unique contribution to Irish culture.
On 16 September 2010 he announced his retirement from broadcasting. The last All-Ireland he commentated on was the 2010 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final on 19 September 2010.On 29 October 2010 it was announced that the 2nd International Rules test at Croke Park would be Ó Muircheartaigh's final broadcast as commentator on RTÉ Radio 1. On 30 October 2010 Micheál commentated his final commentary alongside RTÉ's pundit and former Meath footballer Bernard Flynn.
He is contracted to officiate at the 2011–12 Volvo Ocean Race finish in Galway when he will commentate on the finish to the round the world race, to give it a uniquely Irish conclusion. Sailing has been a long time hobby of O Muircheartaigh.
Ó Muircheartaigh writes a weekly sports column for Foinse, the Irish-language newspaper free with the Irish Independent each Wednesday.
Ó Muircheartaigh was invited to read out a piece in Irish and in English at an event called "Laochra" in Croke Park on 24 April 2016 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising.
Other media
He is the main commentator in the 2005 video game Gaelic Games: Football for the PlayStation 2 and its 2007 sequel
He was featured in the video "Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh - Making a ham sandwich" which was posted on a Reddit forum, noting his "relaxing" voice.
Honours
Mícheál was awarded an honorary doctorate by NUI Galway in 1999 for his lifetime service to broadcasting.
48cm x 59cm Bruff Co Limerick
1973 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final was the 86th All-Ireland Final and the culmination of the 1973 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, an inter-county hurling tournament for the top teams in Ireland. The match was held at Croke Park, Dublin, on 2 September 1973, between Limerick and Kilkenny. The Leinster champions lost to their Munster opponents on a score line of 1-21 to 1-14.
Background
This was Kilkenny's third consecutive appearance in an All-Ireland final. After losing to Tipperary in 1971, 'the Cats' defeated Cork to take their eighteenth championship title in 1972. Limerick, having won the Munster title for the first time since 1955, were lining out in a first All-Ireland final since 1940 when they claimed their sixth championship crown.
The two teams last met in a major game in the semi-final of the 1971-1972 National Hurling League. Limerick were the winners on that occasion with a score line of 3-13 to 2-13. Both teams last met in the championship in the 1940 All-Ireland final when Limerick won. The 1973 All-Ireland final was the sixth championship clash between the two. Limerick had three victories - the All-Ireland finals of 1897, 1936 and 1940 - while Kilkenny defeated Limerick in the finals of 1933 and 1935.
All-Ireland final
Overview
Sunday 2 September was the date of the 1973 All-Ireland senior hurling final at Croke Park. Limerick were playing at the famous stadium for the first time in eighteen years, while for Kilkenny Croke Park was regarded as a home away from home due to the frequency of their visits.
Limerick undoubtedly started the game as rank outsiders against a Kilkenny team regarded as one of the greatest of all-time; however, ‘the Cats’ suffered an amazing streak of bad luck. Between the Leinster and All-Ireland deciders Kilkenny lost many of their key players for one reason or another. Éamonn Morrissey was forced to emigrate to Australia, Jim Treacy was ruled out due to injury, Kieran Purcell couldn’t play because of appendicitis and star forward Eddie Keher couldn’t play because of a broken collar bone. Limerick saw their chance and made a masterful selectorial decision. With Keher and Purcell sidelined Pat Delaney would take up the mantle as Kilkenny’s chief scorer. Delaney was an exceptional half-forward who was far too quick for most defenders. Instead of using a defender to mark him the Limerick selectors moved Éamonn Cregan from the forwards back to centre-back where he was charged with the task of nullifying the Kilkenny marksman. Limerick also had serious losses that day. Mickey Graham, who broke his leg in the National League Final that year, was thus a spectator. Jim O'Donnell, was also injured and was man of the match in the first round v Clare that year and Mick O'Loughlin who would have been their first choice corner back, but could not commit himself to the cause that year were also out. Leonard Enright, who would subsequently win 3 All Stars in his early thirties was engaged in other sports in '73 and thus also unavailable.
The weather on the day of the final was wet, with heavy showers falling before and during the match. Because of this the pitch was extremely slippery while the sliotar was also difficult to control.
Match report
At 3:15pm Mick Slattery of Clare threw in the sliotar and the game was on. The opening forty minutes saw Kilkenny set the standard. Pat Delaney, in spite of Éamonn Cregan doing an excellent man-marking job, scored the opening goal of the game to give Kilkenny the lead. Twice Limerick fell behind in the opening half and twice they fought back. At one stage they trailed by 1-5 to 0-3, however, they held Kilkenny scoreless for two nine-minute spells in the first-half. At the short whistle Limerick were very much on top and left the pitch leading by 0-12 to 1-7.
Five minutes after the restart Kilkenny levelled the scores courtesy of points by Claus Dunne and Liam ‘Chunky’ O’Brien. A minute later ‘the Cats’ went a point ahead when Limerick ‘keeper Séamus Horgan brought off a remarkable save from a palmed shot by Mick Crotty. Although the attempt on goal was blocked, the sliotar flew over the bar for a Kilkenny point. Shortly afterwards Richie Bennis had the sides level when he converted a free from forty yards out. A minute later Limerick secured the match-winning score. A puck-out from Kilkenny ‘keeper Noel Skehan was quickly sent back in his direction by Liam O'Donoghue. Skehan saved the shot but Mossie Dowling and Ned Rea were waiting for the rebound. Dowling became the Limerick hero as he turned the sliotar past Skehan and into the net. Although the match was far from over this was the vital score that gave Limerick the title. The entire second-half saw Limerick show their supremacy. Kilkenny were held scoreless for twenty-three minutes during the second-half while Limerick went on a point-scoring spree for the final quarter. Midfield marshal Richie Bennis finished the game with ten points to his name as Limerick claimed their seventh All-Ireland crown with a 1-21 to 1-14 victory.
Really beautiful Murphys Stout Mirror with imagery of the Ladys Well Brewery and various awards won.
Origins :Bandon Co Cork Dimensions : 80cm x 55xcm
JAMES J. MURPHY
Born on November 1825, James Jeremiah Murphy was the eldest son of fifteen children born to Jeremiah James Murphy and Catherine Bullen. James J. served his time in the family business interest and was also involved in the running of a local distillery in Cork. He sold his share in this distillery to fund his share of the set up costs of the brewery in 1856. James J. was the senior partner along with his four other brothers. It was James who guided to the brewery to success in its first forty years and he saw its output grow to 100,000 barrels before his death in 1897. James J. through his life had a keen interest in sport, rowing, sailing and GAA being foremost. He was a supporter of the Cork Harbour Rowing Club and the Royal Cork Yacht Club and the Cork County Board of the GAA. James J. philanthropic efforts were also well known in the city supporting hospitals, orphanages and general relief of distress in the city so much so on his death being described as a ‘prince in the charitable world’. It is James J. that epitomises the Murphy’s brand in stature and quality of character.
1854
OUR LADY’S WELL BREWERY
In 1854 James J. and his brothers purchased the buildings of the Cork foundling Hospital and on this site built the brewery. The brewery eventually became known as the Lady’s Well Brewery as it is situated adjacent to a famous ‘Holy Well’ and water source that had become a famous place of devotion during penal times.
1856
THE BEGINNING
James J. Murphy and his brothers found James J. Murphy & Co. and begin brewing.
1861
FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
In 1861 the brewery produced 42,990 barrels and began to impose itself as one of the major breweries in the country.
1885
A FRIEND OF THE POOR, HURRAH
James J. was a much loved figure in Cork, a noted philanthropist and indeed hero of the entire city at one point. The ‘Hurrah for the hero’ song refers to James J’s heroic efforts to save the local economy from ruin in the year of 1885. The story behind this is that when the key bank for the region the ‘Munster Bank’ was close to ruin, which could have led to an economic disaster for the entire country and bankruptcy for thousands, James J. stepped in and led the venture to establish a new bank the ‘Munster and Leinster’, saving the Munster Bank depositors and creditors from financial loss and in some cases, ruin. His exploits in saving the bank, led to the writing of many a poem and song in his honour including ‘Hurrah for the man who’s a friend of the poor’, which would have been sung in pubs for many years afterwards.
1889
THE MALT HOUSE
In 1889 a Malt House for the brewery was built at a cost of 4,640 pounds and was ‘built and arranged on the newest principle and fitted throughout with the latest appliances known to modern science”. Today the Malthouse is one of the most famous Cork landmarks and continues to function as offices for Murphy’s.
1892
MURPHY’S GOLD
Murphy’s Stout wins the Gold medal at the Brewers and Allied Trades Exhibition in Dublin and again wins the supreme award when the exhibition is held in Manchester in 1895. These same medals feature on our Murphy’s packaging today. Murphy’s have continued it’s tradition of excellence in brewing winning Gold again at the Brewing Industry International awards in 2002 and also gaining medals in the subsequent two competitions.
1893
MURPHY’S FOR STRENGTH
Eugen Sandow the world famous ‘strongman’, endorses Murphy’s Stout: “From experience I can strongly recommend Messrs JJ Murphy’s Stout”. The famous Murphy’s image of Sandow lifting a horse was then created.
1906
THE JUBILEE
The Brewery celebrates its 50th anniversary. On Whit Monday the brewery workforce and their families are treated to an excursion by train to Killarney. Paddy Barrett the youngest of the workforce that day at 13 went on to become head porter for the brewery and could recall the day vividly 50 years later.
1913
SWIMMING IN STOUT
In the year of 1913 the No.5 Vat at ‘Lady’s Well’ Brewery burst and sent 23,000 galleons of porter flooding through the brewey and out on to Leitrim Street. The Cork Constitution, the local newspaper of the time wrote that “a worker had a most exciting experience and in the onrush of porter he had to swim in it for about 40 yards to save himself from asphyxiation”
1914
JOINING UP
The First World War marked an era of dramatic change both in the countries fortune and on a much smaller scale that of the Brewery’s. On the 13 August James J. Murphy and Co. joined the other members of the Cork Employers Federation in promising that ‘all constant employees volunteering to join any of his Majesties forces for active service in compliance with the call for help by the Government will be facilitated and their places given back to them at the end of the war’. Eighteen of the Brewery’s workers joined up including one sixteen year old. Ten never returned.
1915
THE FIRST LORRY IN IRELAND
James J. Murphy & Co. purchase the first petrol lorry in the country.
1920
THE BURNING OF CORK
On the 11-12th December the centre of Cork city was extensively damaged by fire including four of the company’s tied houses (Brewery owned establishments). The company was eventually compensated for its losses by the British government.
1921
MURPHY’S IN A BOTTLE
In 1921 James J. Murphy and Co. open a bottling plant and bottle their own stout. A foreman and four ‘boys’ were installed to run the operation and the product quickly won ‘good trade’.
1924
THE FIRST CAMPAIGNS
In 1924 the Murphy’s Brewery began to embrace advertising. In the decades prior to this the attitude had been somewhat negative with one director stating ‘We do not hope to thrive on pushing and puffing; our sole grounds for seeking popular favour is the excellence of our product’.
1940
WWII
In 1940 at the height of the London Blitz the Murphy’s auditing firm is completely destroyed. The war which had indirectly affected the firm in terms of shortages of fuel and materials now affected the brewery directly.
1953
LT. COL JOHN FITZJAMES
In 1953 the last direct descendant of James J. takes over Chairmanship of the firm. Affectionately known in the Brewery as the ‘Colonel’ he ran the company until 1981.
1961
THE IRON LUNG
Complete replacement of old wooden barrels to aluminium lined vessels (kegs) known as ‘Iron lungs’ draws to an end the era of ‘Coopers’ the tradesmen who built the wooden barrels on site in the Brewery for so many decades.
1979
MURPHY’S IN AMERICA
Murphy’s reaches Americans shores for the first time winning back many drinkers lost to emigration and a whole new generation of stout drinkers.
1985
MURPHY’S GOES INTERNATIONAL
Murphy’s Launched as a National and International Brand. Exports included UK, US and Canada. Introduction of the first 25cl long neck stout bottle.
1994
MURPHY’S OPEN
Murphy’s commence sponsorship of the hugely successful Murphy’s Irish Open Golf Championship culminating in Colm Montgomery’s ‘Monty’s’ famous third win at ‘Fota Island’ in 2002.
2005
MURPHY’S GOLD
Murphy’s wins Gold at the Brewing Industry International Awards a testament to it’s superior taste and quality. Indeed 2003 was the first of three successive wins in this competition.
2006
150 YEARS OF BREWING LEGEND
The Murphy Brewery celebrates 150 years of brewing from 1856 to 2006 going from strength to strength; the now legendary stout is sold in over 40 countries and recognised worldwide as superior stout. We hope James J. would be proud.
Classic old tin advertising sign dating from the 1920s.Prizes won by the much lauded Murphy's Brewery of Ladys Well,Cork are mentioned on the sign such as from the Dublin Exhibition of 1892 and its Manchester Counterpart from 1895.
40cm x 60cm Schull Co Cork
JAMES J. MURPHY
Born on November 1825, James Jeremiah Murphy was the eldest son of fifteen children born to Jeremiah James Murphy and Catherine Bullen. James J. served his time in the family business interest and was also involved in the running of a local distillery in Cork. He sold his share in this distillery to fund his share of the set up costs of the brewery in 1856. James J. was the senior partner along with his four other brothers. It was James who guided to the brewery to success in its first forty years and he saw its output grow to 100,000 barrels before his death in 1897. James J. through his life had a keen interest in sport, rowing, sailing and GAA being foremost. He was a supporter of the Cork Harbour Rowing Club and the Royal Cork Yacht Club and the Cork County Board of the GAA. James J. philanthropic efforts were also well known in the city supporting hospitals, orphanages and general relief of distress in the city so much so on his death being described as a ‘prince in the charitable world’. It is James J. that epitomises the Murphy’s brand in stature and quality of character.
1854
OUR LADY’S WELL BREWERY
In 1854 James J. and his brothers purchased the buildings of the Cork foundling Hospital and on this site built the brewery. The brewery eventually became known as the Lady’s Well Brewery as it is situated adjacent to a famous ‘Holy Well’ and water source that had become a famous place of devotion during penal times.
1856
THE BEGINNING
James J. Murphy and his brothers found James J. Murphy & Co. and begin brewing.
1861
FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
In 1861 the brewery produced 42,990 barrels and began to impose itself as one of the major breweries in the country.
1885
A FRIEND OF THE POOR, HURRAH
James J. was a much loved figure in Cork, a noted philanthropist and indeed hero of the entire city at one point. The ‘Hurrah for the hero’ song refers to James J’s heroic efforts to save the local economy from ruin in the year of 1885. The story behind this is that when the key bank for the region the ‘Munster Bank’ was close to ruin, which could have led to an economic disaster for the entire country and bankruptcy for thousands, James J. stepped in and led the venture to establish a new bank the ‘Munster and Leinster’, saving the Munster Bank depositors and creditors from financial loss and in some cases, ruin. His exploits in saving the bank, led to the writing of many a poem and song in his honour including ‘Hurrah for the man who’s a friend of the poor’, which would have been sung in pubs for many years afterwards.
1889
THE MALT HOUSE
In 1889 a Malt House for the brewery was built at a cost of 4,640 pounds and was ‘built and arranged on the newest principle and fitted throughout with the latest appliances known to modern science”. Today the Malthouse is one of the most famous Cork landmarks and continues to function as offices for Murphy’s.
1892
MURPHY’S GOLD
Murphy’s Stout wins the Gold medal at the Brewers and Allied Trades Exhibition in Dublin and again wins the supreme award when the exhibition is held in Manchester in 1895. These same medals feature on our Murphy’s packaging today. Murphy’s have continued it’s tradition of excellence in brewing winning Gold again at the Brewing Industry International awards in 2002 and also gaining medals in the subsequent two competitions.
1893
MURPHY’S FOR STRENGTH
Eugen Sandow the world famous ‘strongman’, endorses Murphy’s Stout: “From experience I can strongly recommend Messrs JJ Murphy’s Stout”. The famous Murphy’s image of Sandow lifting a horse was then created.
1906
THE JUBILEE
The Brewery celebrates its 50th anniversary. On Whit Monday the brewery workforce and their families are treated to an excursion by train to Killarney. Paddy Barrett the youngest of the workforce that day at 13 went on to become head porter for the brewery and could recall the day vividly 50 years later.
1913
SWIMMING IN STOUT
In the year of 1913 the No.5 Vat at ‘Lady’s Well’ Brewery burst and sent 23,000 galleons of porter flooding through the brewey and out on to Leitrim Street. The Cork Constitution, the local newspaper of the time wrote that “a worker had a most exciting experience and in the onrush of porter he had to swim in it for about 40 yards to save himself from asphyxiation”
1914
JOINING UP
The First World War marked an era of dramatic change both in the countries fortune and on a much smaller scale that of the Brewery’s. On the 13 August James J. Murphy and Co. joined the other members of the Cork Employers Federation in promising that ‘all constant employees volunteering to join any of his Majesties forces for active service in compliance with the call for help by the Government will be facilitated and their places given back to them at the end of the war’. Eighteen of the Brewery’s workers joined up including one sixteen year old. Ten never returned.
1915
THE FIRST LORRY IN IRELAND
James J. Murphy & Co. purchase the first petrol lorry in the country.
1920
THE BURNING OF CORK
On the 11-12th December the centre of Cork city was extensively damaged by fire including four of the company’s tied houses (Brewery owned establishments). The company was eventually compensated for its losses by the British government.
1921
MURPHY’S IN A BOTTLE
In 1921 James J. Murphy and Co. open a bottling plant and bottle their own stout. A foreman and four ‘boys’ were installed to run the operation and the product quickly won ‘good trade’.
1924
THE FIRST CAMPAIGNS
In 1924 the Murphy’s Brewery began to embrace advertising. In the decades prior to this the attitude had been somewhat negative with one director stating ‘We do not hope to thrive on pushing and puffing; our sole grounds for seeking popular favour is the excellence of our product’.
1940
WWII
In 1940 at the height of the London Blitz the Murphy’s auditing firm is completely destroyed. The war which had indirectly affected the firm in terms of shortages of fuel and materials now affected the brewery directly.
1953
LT. COL JOHN FITZJAMES
In 1953 the last direct descendant of James J. takes over Chairmanship of the firm. Affectionately known in the Brewery as the ‘Colonel’ he ran the company until 1981.
1961
THE IRON LUNG
Complete replacement of old wooden barrels to aluminium lined vessels (kegs) known as ‘Iron lungs’ draws to an end the era of ‘Coopers’ the tradesmen who built the wooden barrels on site in the Brewery for so many decades.
1979
MURPHY’S IN AMERICA
Murphy’s reaches Americans shores for the first time winning back many drinkers lost to emigration and a whole new generation of stout drinkers.
1985
MURPHY’S GOES INTERNATIONAL
Murphy’s Launched as a National and International Brand. Exports included UK, US and Canada. Introduction of the first 25cl long neck stout bottle.
1994
MURPHY’S OPEN
Murphy’s commence sponsorship of the hugely successful Murphy’s Irish Open Golf Championship culminating in Colm Montgomery’s ‘Monty’s’ famous third win at ‘Fota Island’ in 2002.
2005
MURPHY’S GOLD
Murphy’s wins Gold at the Brewing Industry International Awards a testament to it’s superior taste and quality. Indeed 2003 was the first of three successive wins in this competition.
2006
150 YEARS OF BREWING LEGEND
The Murphy Brewery celebrates 150 years of brewing from 1856 to 2006 going from strength to strength; the now legendary stout is sold in over 40 countries and recognised worldwide as superior stout. We hope James J. would be proud.
This small but distinctive mirror advertises Ireland’s original gin manufacturer. Thanks to Gins recent renaissance, Corks very own variety has been joined by a number of new gin distilleries in most notably Dingle etc,
35cm x 25cm. Cork
Gin has moved on from it’s “mother’s ruin” image to become the drink of choice for the younger set.
Gin has a very mixed history. Traditionally the G&T has been the favoured tipple of middle-class Ireland, consumed in golf and yacht clubs throughout the country. More recently it has become very fashionable with a younger age-group as the base for exotic cocktails dreamed up by mixologists in trendy bars and night clubs. But historically it has a more dubious reputation, once known as “Mother’s Ruin”.
The man credited with inventing gin is 17th-century Dutch physician Franciscus Sylvius, although flavoured spirits had been used by monks as medical treatments for centuries before. Gin became popular first with Dutch soldiers, and then English mercenaries, seeking reassurance before battle, hence the phrase Dutch courage. It was brought back to England, but only really became popular under the reign of William of Orange. At that time, the British parliament passed laws permitting anyone to distil gin, at the same time increasing duties on French brandy. Gin rapidly became the binge drink of its day, with the infamous gin palaces of London serving the spirit, often in very crude form and at very cheap prices. It is estimated that there may have been 15,000 such establishments in London alone, famously celebrated in Hogarth’s engravings.
Rare post WW2 Fianna Fáil election manifesto poster advertising De Valeria’s leadership credentials .Fianna Fail,The Republican Party was founded in 1926 by Eamon De Valera and his supporters after they split from Sinn Fein on the issue of abstentionism, in the aftermath of the Irish Civil War.
Eamon de Valera, first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera;14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent statesman and political leader in 20th-century Ireland. His political career spanned over half a century, from 1917 to 1973; he served several terms as head of government and head of state. He also led the introduction of the Constitution of Ireland.
Prior to de Valera's political career, he was a Commandant at Boland's Mill during the 1916 Easter Rising, an Irish revolution that would eventually contribute to Irish independence. He was arrested, sentenced to death but released for a variety of reasons, including the public response to the British execution of Rising leaders. He returned to Ireland after being jailed in England and became one of the leading political figures of the War of Independence. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, de Valera served as the political leader of Anti-Treaty Sinn Fein until 1926, when he, along with many supporters, left the party to set up Fianna Fáil, a new political party which abandoned the policy of abstentionism from Dáil Éireann.
From there, de Valera would go on to be at the forefront of Irish politics until the turn of the 1960s. He took over as President of the Executive Councilfrom W. T. Cosgrave and later Taoiseach, with the passing of Bunreacht Na hEireann (Irish constitution) in 1937. He would serve as Taoiseach on 3 occasions; from 1937 to 1948, from 1951 to 1954 and finally from 1957 to 1959. He remains the longest serving Taoiseach by total days served in the post. He resigned in 1959 upon his election as President of Ireland. By then, he had been Leader of Fianna Fáil for 33 years, and he, along with older founding members, began to take a less prominent role relative to newer ministers such as Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney. He would serve as President from 1959 to 1973, two full terms in office.
De Valera's political beliefs evolved from militant Irish republicanism to strong social, cultural and economic conservatism.He has been characterised by a stern, unbending, devious demeanor. His roles in the Civil War have also portrayed him as a divisive figure in Irish history. Biographer Tim Pat Coogan sees his time in power as being characterised by economic and cultural stagnation, while Diarmaid Ferriter argues that the stereotype of de Valera as an austere, cold and even backward figure was largely manufactured in the 1960s and is misguided.
Origins: Co Clare
Dimensions : 50cm x 40cm
Brilliantly conceived Murphys Stout advertisement depicting a Blues harmonica player
Cobh Co Cork 68cm x 48cm
JAMES J. MURPHY
Born on November 1825, James Jeremiah Murphy was the eldest son of fifteen children born to Jeremiah James Murphy and Catherine Bullen. James J. served his time in the family business interest and was also involved in the running of a local distillery in Cork. He sold his share in this distillery to fund his share of the set up costs of the brewery in 1856. James J. was the senior partner along with his four other brothers. It was James who guided to the brewery to success in its first forty years and he saw its output grow to 100,000 barrels before his death in 1897. James J. through his life had a keen interest in sport, rowing, sailing and GAA being foremost. He was a supporter of the Cork Harbour Rowing Club and the Royal Cork Yacht Club and the Cork County Board of the GAA. James J. philanthropic efforts were also well known in the city supporting hospitals, orphanages and general relief of distress in the city so much so on his death being described as a ‘prince in the charitable world’. It is James J. that epitomises the Murphy’s brand in stature and quality of character.
1854
OUR LADY’S WELL BREWERY
In 1854 James J. and his brothers purchased the buildings of the Cork foundling Hospital and on this site built the brewery. The brewery eventually became known as the Lady’s Well Brewery as it is situated adjacent to a famous ‘Holy Well’ and water source that had become a famous place of devotion during penal times.
1856
THE BEGINNING
James J. Murphy and his brothers found James J. Murphy & Co. and begin brewing.
1861
FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
In 1861 the brewery produced 42,990 barrels and began to impose itself as one of the major breweries in the country.
1885
A FRIEND OF THE POOR, HURRAH
James J. was a much loved figure in Cork, a noted philanthropist and indeed hero of the entire city at one point. The ‘Hurrah for the hero’ song refers to James J’s heroic efforts to save the local economy from ruin in the year of 1885. The story behind this is that when the key bank for the region the ‘Munster Bank’ was close to ruin, which could have led to an economic disaster for the entire country and bankruptcy for thousands, James J. stepped in and led the venture to establish a new bank the ‘Munster and Leinster’, saving the Munster Bank depositors and creditors from financial loss and in some cases, ruin. His exploits in saving the bank, led to the writing of many a poem and song in his honour including ‘Hurrah for the man who’s a friend of the poor’, which would have been sung in pubs for many years afterwards.
1889
THE MALT HOUSE
In 1889 a Malt House for the brewery was built at a cost of 4,640 pounds and was ‘built and arranged on the newest principle and fitted throughout with the latest appliances known to modern science”. Today the Malthouse is one of the most famous Cork landmarks and continues to function as offices for Murphy’s.
1892
MURPHY’S GOLD
Murphy’s Stout wins the Gold medal at the Brewers and Allied Trades Exhibition in Dublin and again wins the supreme award when the exhibition is held in Manchester in 1895. These same medals feature on our Murphy’s packaging today. Murphy’s have continued it’s tradition of excellence in brewing winning Gold again at the Brewing Industry International awards in 2002 and also gaining medals in the subsequent two competitions.
1893
MURPHY’S FOR STRENGTH
Eugen Sandow the world famous ‘strongman’, endorses Murphy’s Stout: “From experience I can strongly recommend Messrs JJ Murphy’s Stout”. The famous Murphy’s image of Sandow lifting a horse was then created.
1906
THE JUBILEE
The Brewery celebrates its 50th anniversary. On Whit Monday the brewery workforce and their families are treated to an excursion by train to Killarney. Paddy Barrett the youngest of the workforce that day at 13 went on to become head porter for the brewery and could recall the day vividly 50 years later.
1913
SWIMMING IN STOUT
In the year of 1913 the No.5 Vat at ‘Lady’s Well’ Brewery burst and sent 23,000 galleons of porter flooding through the brewey and out on to Leitrim Street. The Cork Constitution, the local newspaper of the time wrote that “a worker had a most exciting experience and in the onrush of porter he had to swim in it for about 40 yards to save himself from asphyxiation”
1914
JOINING UP
The First World War marked an era of dramatic change both in the countries fortune and on a much smaller scale that of the Brewery’s. On the 13 August James J. Murphy and Co. joined the other members of the Cork Employers Federation in promising that ‘all constant employees volunteering to join any of his Majesties forces for active service in compliance with the call for help by the Government will be facilitated and their places given back to them at the end of the war’. Eighteen of the Brewery’s workers joined up including one sixteen year old. Ten never returned.
1915
THE FIRST LORRY IN IRELAND
James J. Murphy & Co. purchase the first petrol lorry in the country.
1920
THE BURNING OF CORK
On the 11-12th December the centre of Cork city was extensively damaged by fire including four of the company’s tied houses (Brewery owned establishments). The company was eventually compensated for its losses by the British government.
1921
MURPHY’S IN A BOTTLE
In 1921 James J. Murphy and Co. open a bottling plant and bottle their own stout. A foreman and four ‘boys’ were installed to run the operation and the product quickly won ‘good trade’.
1924
THE FIRST CAMPAIGNS
In 1924 the Murphy’s Brewery began to embrace advertising. In the decades prior to this the attitude had been somewhat negative with one director stating ‘We do not hope to thrive on pushing and puffing; our sole grounds for seeking popular favour is the excellence of our product’.
1940
WWII
In 1940 at the height of the London Blitz the Murphy’s auditing firm is completely destroyed. The war which had indirectly affected the firm in terms of shortages of fuel and materials now affected the brewery directly.
1953
LT. COL JOHN FITZJAMES
In 1953 the last direct descendant of James J. takes over Chairmanship of the firm. Affectionately known in the Brewery as the ‘Colonel’ he ran the company until 1981.
1961
THE IRON LUNG
Complete replacement of old wooden barrels to aluminium lined vessels (kegs) known as ‘Iron lungs’ draws to an end the era of ‘Coopers’ the tradesmen who built the wooden barrels on site in the Brewery for so many decades.
1979
MURPHY’S IN AMERICA
Murphy’s reaches Americans shores for the first time winning back many drinkers lost to emigration and a whole new generation of stout drinkers.
1985
MURPHY’S GOES INTERNATIONAL
Murphy’s Launched as a National and International Brand. Exports included UK, US and Canada. Introduction of the first 25cl long neck stout bottle.
1994
MURPHY’S OPEN
Murphy’s commence sponsorship of the hugely successful Murphy’s Irish Open Golf Championship culminating in Colm Montgomery’s ‘Monty’s’ famous third win at ‘Fota Island’ in 2002.
2005
MURPHY’S GOLD
Murphy’s wins Gold at the Brewing Industry International Awards a testament to it’s superior taste and quality. Indeed 2003 was the first of three successive wins in this competition.
2006
150 YEARS OF BREWING LEGEND
The Murphy Brewery celebrates 150 years of brewing from 1856 to 2006 going from strength to strength; the now legendary stout is sold in over 40 countries and recognised worldwide as superior stout. We hope James J. would be proud.
55cm x 48cm
he Coward family settled in Dungarvan c. 1925 and Henry Coward worked for Thomas Power producing his Blackwater Cider.
Power's stopped production and the Coward family started their own cider business in Stephen Street, Dungarvan where they also had an iron foundry.
40cm x 37cm
Michael Collins (16 October 1890 – 22 August 1922) was an Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician who was a leading figure in the early-20th century struggle for Irish independence.During the War of Independence he was Director of Intelligence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a government minister of the self-declared Irish Republic. He was then Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 and commander-in-chief of the National Army from July until his death in an ambush in August 1922, during the Civil War.
Collins was born in Woodfield, County Cork, the youngest of eight children. He moved to London in 1906 to become a clerk in the Post Office Savings Bank at Blythe House. He was a member of the London GAA, through which he became associated with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Gaelic League. He returned to Ireland in January 1916 and fought in the Easter Rising. He was taken prisoner and held in the Frongoch internment camp as a prisoner of war, but he was released in December 1916.
Collins subsequently rose through the ranks of the Irish Volunteers and Sinn Féin. He was elected as a Teachta Dála for South Cork in December 1918. Sinn Féin's elected members formed an Irish parliament, the First Dáil, in January 1919 and declared the independence of the Irish Republic. Collins was appointed Minister for Finance. In the ensuing War of Independence, he was Director of Organisation and Adjutant General for the Irish Volunteers, and Director of Intelligence of the IRA. He gained fame as a guerrilla warfare strategist, planning many successful attacks on British forces together with 'the Squad', such as the "Bloody Sunday" assassinations of key British intelligence agents in November 1920.
After the July 1921 ceasefire, Collins was one of five plenipotentiaries sent by the Dáil cabinet at the request of Éamon de Valera, to negotiate peace terms in London. The resulting Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed in December 1921, would establish the Irish Free State but depended on an oath of allegiance to the Crown. This was the clause in the treaty de Valera and other republican leaders found hardest to accept. Collins viewed the treaty as offering "the freedom to achieve freedom", and helped persuade a majority of the Dáil to ratify the treaty. A provisional government was formed under his chairmanship in early 1922. During this time he secretly provided support for an IRA offensive in Northern Ireland. It was soon disrupted by the Irish Civil War, in which Collins was commander-in-chief of the National Army. He was shot and killed in an ambush by anti-Treaty forces on 22 August 1922
33cm x 57cm
In the winter of 1893, prospectors Patrick (Paddy) Hannan, Tom Flanagan, and Dan Shea were travelling to Mount Youle, when one of their horses cast a shoe. During the halt in their journey, the men noticed signs of gold in the area around the foot of what is now the Mount Charlotte gold mine, located on a small hill north of the current city, and decided to stay and investigate. On 17 June 1893, Hannan filed a Reward Claim, leading to hundreds of men swarming to the area in search of gold, and Kalgoorlie, originally called Hannan's Find, was born.
Hannan Street in September 1930; the Exchange Hotel is at the centre, with the Palace Hotel on the right.
The population of the town was 2,018 (1,516 males and 502 females) in 1898.
The mining of gold, along with other metals such as nickel, has been a major industry in Kalgoorlie ever since, and today employs about one-quarter of Kalgoorlie's workforce and generates a significant proportion of its income. The concentrated area of large gold mines surrounding the original Hannan's find is often referred to as the Golden Mile, and was sometimes referred to as the world's richest square mile of earth.
In 1901, the population of Kalgoorlie was 4,793 (3,087 males and 1,706 females) which increased to 6,790 (3,904 males and 2,886 females) by 1903.
The 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow-gauge GovernmentEastern Goldfields Railway line reached Kalgoorlie station in 1896, and the main named railway service from Perth was the overnight sleeper train The Westland, which ran until the 1970s. In 1917, a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in(1,435 mm) standard gaugerailway line was completed, connecting Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta, South Australia, across 2,000 kilometres (1,243 mi) of desert, and consequently the rest of the eastern states. The standardisation of the railway connecting Perth (which changed route from the narrow-gauge route) in 1968 completed the Sydney–Perth railway, making rail travel from Perth to Sydney possible; the Indian Pacific rail service commenced soon after. During the 1890s, the Goldfields area boomed as a whole, with an area population exceeding 200,000, composed mainly of prospectors. The area gained a reputation for being a "wild west", notorious for its bandits and prostitutes. This rapid increase in population and claims of neglect by the state government in Perth led to the proposition of the new state of Auralia, but with the sudden diaspora after the Gold Rush, these plans fell through.
Places, famous or infamous, for which Kalgoorlie is noted include its water pipeline, designed by C. Y. O'Connor and bringing in fresh water from Mundaring Weir near Perth, its Hay Street brothels, its two-up school, the goldfields railway loopline, the Kalgoorlie Town Hall, the Paddy Hannan statue/drinking fountain, the Super Pit, and Mount Charlotte lookout. Its main street is Hannan Street, named after the town's founder. One of the infamous brothels also serves as a museum and is a major national attraction.
Paddy Hannan was the son of John Hannan and Bridget Lynch, and was baptised on 26 April 1840 in the town of Quin, County Clare, Ireland. His baptismal record shows that his godparents (sponsors) were Margaret Lynch and John O'Brien. Many of the people in his family emigrated to Australia from 1852 onwards, and close ties were maintained. Two of Hannan's nieces would welcome Hannan into their house for the last years of his life.
Hannan emigrated to Australia when he was 22, arriving in Melbourne on 23 December 1862 aboard the Henry Fernie from Liverpool. He is recorded in the passenger list as Pat Hannan, a labourer.
Prospecting success
Hannan's Western Australian miner's right, 1893
In 1893 in Western Australia, Hannan and his partners were the first to find gold near Mount Charlotte, less than 40 kilometres from the existing Coolgardie Goldfields. Hannan, Flanagan and Shea were following a large number of prospectors who set out for a rumoured new prospect at Mount Youle.
One version of the story of the find has it that on the night of 14 June 1893, Hannan found gold in a gully. Not wanting to cause a rush, he concealed the find. During the night the trio moved one of their horses into the scrub. The following morning Hannan informed the main party they were going to stay behind to find their lost horse. After the main group moved off east, the three men started to pick up the gold and peg out their lease.
Amongst the various counter-claims to emerge over the years, one lively version of the story was told in 1909 by Fred Dugan (another prospector, who was present at the time) relating how Thomas Flanagan found the first nuggets, and covered his find with brushwood to conceal it until the following day.
By law, those finding "payable" gold were required to report the fact to the warden's office within seven days, so Hannan set off for Coolgardie to register their find, doing so on 17 June 1893.
It has been suggested that Hannan, rather than Flanagan or Shea, was chosen to officially register the claim because only he could read and write, but there is evidence that Flanagan was literate, since, in 1864, he had clearly signed the official death certificate of his brother John Flanagan, and had written his own place of residence at the time - White Hills (in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia).
The other possible reasons for Hannan going alone to the office at Coolgardie are set out by Martyn Webb,who relates that:
The fact that Flanagan and Shea were able to secure another 100 ounces while Hannan was away registering their claim at Coolgardie might help to explain why Hannan was chosen ... simply because they were better at specking than he was – it needs good eyesight. On the other hand, since the journey was arduous and had to be done as quickly as possible, Hannan might have been chosen because, as Uren and others suggest, he was the youngest and the fittest of the three. … The most likely reason … was that he was the undisputed leader of the party.
— Webb, p. 103
Hannan registered the claim in Flanagan's name as well as his own. Within hours a stampede began. It was estimated that about 400 men were prospecting in the area within three days, and over 1,000 within a week.
Final years
Hannan's grave in Melbourne Central Cemetery, Section Y
In 1904, at the age of sixty-four, Hannan was granted an annual pension of £150 by the Government of Western Australia.
Having searched for gold throughout his adult life, he did not cease his prospecting activities until after 1910, his seventieth year. At that time he went to live with two of his nieces in Fallon Street, Brunswick, Victoria (close to the city of Melbourne).
He died there in 1925 and was buried in Melbourne Central Cemetery, in the Catholic section, near the North Gate.
In 1993 his grave was restored by the citizens of Kalgoorlie, led by Tess Thomson, as a part of the celebration of the 100-year anniversary of the original find by Hannan, Flanagan and Shea.
Legacy
1929 statue of Paddy Hannan in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
In memory of a man who is regarded as the founder of Kalgoorlie, the main street and a suburb in Kalgoorlie both bear Hannan's name, and in 1929 a statue of him by the sculptor John MacLeod was erected there.
The city boasts several commemorative plaques to the three Irishmen, Hannan, Flanagan and Shea. A popular Irish pub at the Burswood Entertainment Complex was also named after Hannan.
In Ireland there is a plaque dedicated to his memory opposite Quin Abbey, Quin, County Clare, and there is a bust with an explanatory dedication on display inside the DeValera Library in Ennis, County Clare.
47cm x 35cm
Barry's Tea is an Irish tea company founded in 1901 by James J. Barry in Cork. Until the 1960s, tea was sold from a shop in Prince's Street, but thereafter the company expanded its wholesaling and distribution operations.
By the mid-1980s Barry's Tea had become a national brand. According to their website, they are currently responsible for 38% of all tea sales in the Irish market (which is worth an estimated €85 million annually). Today, Barry's Tea is also available in the United Kingdom, Spain, and in some areas of Canada, Australia, France, Luxembourg and the United States where there are significant Irish immigrant communities.
Members of the Barry family been elected representatives for Fine Gael: the founder's son Anthony Barry (TD 1954–57 and 1961–65), Anthony's son Peter Barry (TD 1969–97) and Peter's daughter Deirdre Clune (TD 1997–2001 and 2007–11, and MEP since 2014).
40cm x 34cm
July 19, 1972, Muhammad Ali fought Al 'Blue' Lewis at Croke Park in Dublin, causing quite a stir in Ireland.Decades later, an Irish documentary recounting the epic fight not only won awards but also won the approval of Ali's daughter Jamilah Ali.
"When Ali Came to Ireland" is an Irish documentary that details Muhammad Ali's trip to Dublin for a fight against Al 'Blue' Lewis at Croke Park. In 2013 the film was screened at the Chicago film festival, where Jamilah Ali was in attendance.
TheJournal.ie reported that following the screening, Jamilah said "I've seen so much footage of my father over the years but the amazing thing about watching this film was that I had seen none of the footage of him in Ireland... I loved the film from the beginning to the end."
The film highlights a moment in Ali's career where he was set to stage a world comeback. He had been recently released from prison after refusing to join the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector.
His opponent Al Lewis had also just been released on parole after serving time in Detroit for a murder charge, and he intended to use his boxing career as "a path to a new life."
The movie that won an IFTA in 2013 documents the spectacle in Croke Park, Ali's presence in Ireland and how the public reacted to his being there. It also demonstrates how Ali came to be in Dublin for a fight in the first place, highlighting the involvement of "former Kerry strongman"Michael "Butty" Sugrue.
Sugrue's story also proved to be revelatory to his family- in a quote from Ross Whittaker, co-director of the film, he speaks about how Sugrue's grandchildren had never had the chance to meet him.
"We were amazed when we screened the film in London to find that Butty Sugrue's granddaughters had never heard their grandfather speak. He had died before they were born and they'd never seen footage of him in which he had spoken."
After their 1972 meeting, however, Sugrue and Ali's fortunes took two divergent paths. Ali returned to the ring in America to further glories and fanfare before his retirement, while Sugrue lost a small fortune on the Dublin fight and after dying in London was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in his hometown of Killorglin, Co Kerry.
The Louisville Lip was also incredibly proud of his County Clare roots. Today we recall the man's star quality and his Irish ancestry.
The death of boxing legend Muhammad Ali at 74 in June 2016, from Parkinson’s, would have brought back many glorious memories of the greatest athlete of our times.
At the height of his career, Ali was the most graceful, talented, and brilliant heavyweight boxer who ever stepped inside the ropes.
Though incapacitated by Parkinson's in later life, he always managed to retain the star power and unique presence that always distinguishes the greatest.
I remember seeing him enter the room at the American Ireland Fund dinner in 2011 and grown men, including the Irish leader Enda Kenny, were simply awestruck that they were in the presence of the greatest living legend.
Ali was more than a boxer, of course, he was a fighter who refused to become cannon fodder in the Vietnam War, the greatest mistaken war America entered until the invasion of Iraq. He was also a poet, a showman, a lover of many women, a devout Muslim, and simply a legend.
Ali's stance to end the Vietnam War when he refused to be drafted cost us the best years of his sporting life. He came back still a brilliant boxer, but the man who could float like a butterfly could never quite recover that greatness.
Still, the fights with Joe Frazier, the rope-a-dope that saw him defeat George Foreman in Zaire in the "Rumble in the Jungle" will forever enshrine his name in history.
Muhammad Ali's Irish roots explained
The astonishing fact that he had Irish roots, being descended from Abe Grady, an Irishman from Ennis, County Clare, only became known later in life.
He returned to Ireland where he had fought and defeated Al “Blue” Lewis in Croke Park in 1972 almost seven years ago in 2009 to help raise money for his non–profit Muhammad Ali Center, a cultural and educational center in Louisville, Kentucky, and other hospices.
He was also there to become the first Freeman of the town.
The boxing great is no stranger to Irish shores and previously made a famous trip to Ireland in 1972 when he sat down with Cathal O’Shannon of RTE for a fascinating television interview.
What’s more, genealogist Antoinette O'Brien discovered that one of Ali’s great-grandfathers emigrated to the United States from County Clare, meaning that the three-time heavyweight world champion joins the likes of President Obama and Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as prominent African-Americans with Irish heritage.
In the 1860s, Abe Grady left Ennis in County Clare to start a new life in America. He would make his home in Kentucky and marry a free African-American woman.
The couple started a family, and one of their daughters was Odessa Lee Grady. Odessa met and married Cassius Clay, Sr. and on January 17, 1942, Cassius junior was born.
Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali when he became a Muslim in 1964.
Ali, an Olympic gold medalist at the 1960 games in Rome, has been suffering from Parkinson's for some years but was committed to raising funds for his center
During his visit to Clare, he was mobbed by tens of thousands of locals who turned out to meet him and show him the area where his great-grandfather came from.
Tracing Muhammad Ali's roots back to County Clare
Historian Dick Eastman had traced Ali’s roots back to Abe Grady the Clare emigrant to Kentucky and the freed slave he married.
Eastman wrote: “An 1855 land survey of Ennis, a town in County Clare, Ireland, contains a reference to John Grady, who was renting a house in Turnpike Road in the center of the town. His rent payment was fifteen shillings a month. A few years later, his son Abe Grady immigrated to the United States. He settled in Kentucky."
Also, around the year 1855, a man and a woman who were both freed slaves, originally from Liberia, purchased land in or around Duck Lick Creek, Logan, Kentucky. The two married, raised a family and farmed the land. These free blacks went by the name, Morehead, the name of white slave owners of the area.
Odessa Grady Clay, Cassius Clay's mother, was the great-granddaughter of the freed slave Tom Morehead and of John Grady of Ennis, whose son Abe had emigrated from Ireland to the United States. She named her son Cassius in honor of a famous Kentucky abolitionist of that time.
When he changed his name to Muhammad Ali in 1964, the famous boxer remarked, "Why should I keep my white slavemaster name visible and my black ancestors invisible, unknown, unhonored?"
Ali was not only the greatest sporting figure, but he was also the best-known person in the world at his height, revered from Africa to Asia and all over the world.
To the end, he was a battler, shown rare courage fighting Parkinson’s Disease, and surviving far longer than most sufferers from the disease.
He was the third leader of Fianna Fáil from 1966 until 1979, succeeding the hugely influential Seán Lemass. Lynch was the last Fianna Fáil leader to secure (in 1977) an overall majority in the Dáil for his party. Historian and journalist T. Ryle Dwyer has called him "the most popular Irish politician since Daniel O'Connell."
Before his political career Lynch had a successful sporting career as a dual player of Gaelic games. He played hurlingwith his local club Glen Rovers and with the Cork senior inter-county team from 1936 until 1950. Lynch also played Gaelic football with his local club St Nicholas' and with the Cork senior inter-county team from 1936 until 1946.
In a senior inter-county hurling career that lasted for fourteen years he won five All-Ireland titles, seven Munster titles, three National Hurling League titles and seven Railway Cup titles. In a senior inter-county football career that lasted for ten years Lynch won one All-Ireland title, two Munster titles and one Railway Cup title. Lynch was later named at midfield on the Hurling Team of the Century and the Hurling Team of the Millennium
47cm x 37cm Limerick
Ireland has always been known for their hard tobaccos, often very stout and topped or cased with an exotic flavour.
The plug form is hands down my fave, and I've tried to research its origins and evolution, but there ain't much out there documenting the historical arc.
This is sorta like a supplemental edition of Antiquarian Nicotiana Brittanica - in hopes of giving people an idea of this glorious old baccy.
This is primarily a visual gallery as mentioned earlier, textual traces are difficult to track, but at least I've been able to scavenge enough sufficient imagery off the vast cultural detritus known as the world wide web to at least give the viewer/reader a generalized approximation of what was what and how was how.
Back then, you usually knew what you were getting if you knew the country of origin of your tobacco, it was fairly easy to know what to expect, unlike today's over-homogenized market where the lines are very blurry.
We'll start this off with an American newspaper article from 1940, and it deftly illustrates the renowned, legendary, far-famed, and celebrated characteristics of what is Irish plug tobacco.
:
Another thing I've been highly interested in, but unable to find any concrete info about, are the steam-jacketed presses which were unique to Great Britain and Ireland.
I do think that a SJPress is a crucial instrument in creating their ultra-compressed and raven black distinctive properties.
For many years past the Meadow Foundry Company has devoted considerable attention to perfecting the various appliances in use by tobacco manufacturers, and in this direction have made their speciality, the "Mansfield" Steam Stoving Press, known as "The Mansfield Stove." This system is now applied by tobacco manufacturers throughout the world, and is acknowledged by the leading houses and the representative journal of the trade to be the only stove which meets every requirement for stoving, pressing and curing every kind of hard tobacco, ensuring solidity without loss in weight, a jet-black colour without blister, and perfect keeping quality. These stove presses are equally well adapted to large and small manufacturers, giving a greater heat, uniformly distributed, than any other stoving plan, and perform the work at less cost and in shorter time than any other system.
There were quite a good number of different Tobacco Houses, in differing regions, that made the plugs.
Here's a short rundown of what was available at one time:
P. J. Carroll & Co. Ltd.
Dundalk
______________________________
Mick McQuaid Plug
Anti-Combine Plug (A.C.P.)
Bog Oak Plug
Tug-o-War Plug
Donegal Plug
Carroll's Golden Bar
Dundalk Bar
Striker brown Long Squares
Spearman brown Long Squares
:
Wm. Clarke & Son
Cork
______________________________
Galtee More Plug (Flavoured and
Full)
Nugget Plug
Nugget Plug Special
Perfect Plug
Walnut Plug
Cherokee Circular Plug
Square Tack
Onyx Bar
:
Gallaher Ltd.
Dublin
______________________________
War Horse Bar
Army & Navy Plug
Wrestler Plug
HammerHead Plug
Condor Bar
A.1. Plug
Sixpenny Plug
:
John Clune Ltd.
Limerick
______________________________
Kincora Plug
Sarsfield Plug
Thomond Plug
Honeybee Long square
:
Murray Ltd.
Belfast
______________________________
Warrior Plug
Erinmore Plug
Yachtsman Plug
Luckmore Plug
Maple Plug
Crowbar Long Square
:
Wm. Ruddell Ltd.
Dublin
______________________________
Velvan Plug
Curragh Plug
Derby Plug
Potomac Plug
Best Virginia Plug
Holdfast Bar
Ruddell's Golden Virginia Bar
:
G. Spillane & Co. Ltd.
Limerick
______________________________
Garryowen Plug
Hazelnut Plug
Poplar Plug
Treaty Plug
Warship Long Square
:
W. & M. Taylor Ltd.
Dublin
______________________________
Bendigo Plug
Patland Plug
Taylor's Navy PLug
Farrier Bar
Handy Plug
Sixpenny Plug
:
M. & P. O'Sullivan Ltd.
Cork
______________________________
Erin's Pride Plug
Coupon Plug
Take-me Plug
:
Lambkin Bros. Ltd.
Cork
______________________________
Cordangan Plug
Exhibition Plug
Kentucky Plug
Shandon Plug
Oaknut Plug
:
Grant Bros. Ltd.
Buncrana,
Co.Donegal
______________________________
Crana Plug
Ploughman Plug
:
Fairweather & Sons, Ltd.
Dundee
_____________________________
Rose Plug
Kara Bar
:
T.P. & R. Goodbody Ltd.
Dublin
____________________________
Patriotic Plug
Cora Plug
37cm x 47cm Limerick
Sullivan’s Brewing Company opened for business over three hundred years ago in The Maltings on James’s Street, smack bang in the middle of Kilkenny City.
Up until the early 1700s, brewing on a large scale was a rarity, this resulted in many small breweries springing up all around the country, with little or no consistency in the beer that was being produced. Back then, to guarantee that each pint was as good as the last, required brewing on a bigger, more exacting scale.
Enter Mr. Sullivan, a man of high morals, integrity and a good nose for great beer. Through his belief and hard work he established a brewery the likes of which had never been seen in Kilkenny. He only used the very best local ingredients and the very best brewing methods to ensure that every barrel of Sullivan’s Red Ale that left his brewery was as good as the one that had gone before.
Richard Sullivan was elected to represent the people of Kilkenny in the 1820s. This supposedly put one well-known Irish political figure’s nose well and truly out of joint – Daniel O’Connell.
After one particularly heated parliamentary quarrel, O’Connell even called a boycott of Sullivan’s Ale by the people of Kilkenny. But you’ll know if you’ve ever had a pint of Sullivan’s Red Ale in front of you that it can be very hard to resist, and the boycott was soon called off.
Despite this rocky start, Richard and Daniel went on to become firm friends. So good in fact, that when O’Connell was stripped of his seat in Parliament due to some underhand dealings, Sullivan was one of the few who had his back. He wrote to Daniel and offered him his seat to ensure that O’Connell’s Catholic Emancipation Act would get through Parliament.
1802
MIXING BUSINESS AND POLITICS
GOOD WILL,
KINDNESS AND
HOT SOUP
1845 was a dark year for Ireland, and we aren’t just talking about the weather – it’s always been like that.
The year marked the beginning of the Great Potato Famine, a dark chapter in the country’s history that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and the emigration of millions more.
By day Richard Sullivan continued to brew his by-then world famous ale, but at mealtimes and in the evenings, the brewery transformed into one of Kilkenny’s largest soup kitchens. Brewery staff served tasty, nutritious meals to those most in need, using many of the same ingredients essential to the making of Sullivan’s Red Ale – and giving a whole new meaning to the expression of being ‘On The Soup’.
This gesture of goodwill and kindness was never forgotten by the people of Kilkenny and it’s a big part of the reason why the Sullivan Family is held in high esteem in the city to this day.
1880 was the year of ‘The Great Sullivan’s Brewery Fire’, a day that has gone down in legend among the people of Kilkenny.
The story goes that the Sullivan Family took the day off brewing to attend the funeral of a recently departed family friend in a Kilkenny hilltop chapel. Leaving a funeral before all the formalities were completed was the height of bad manners. The Sullivans could see the brewery ablaze from the hillside, but could do nothing about it.
As the first flames began to lick the outside of the brewery, the alarm was raised and the local fire brigade was sent for. But The Kilkenny Fire Brigade consisted of a few volunteers, a horse and a cart and a useless, leaking hose. Due to all their good deeds over the years, the Sullivans were a tremendously popular family in Kilkenny, so men, women and children from far and wide rallied together and grabbed the nearest buckets, pales and pots, filling them with water and battling the fire. Within an hour the fire was under control and the brewery was saved, all because a community came together.
1880
A COMMUNITY WORKING TOGETH
1918
BLACK SHEEP
AND THE LOST
WAGER
Not every member of the Sullivan Family always did the right thing – most families have a black sheep, but in the case of the Sullivans it was a black horse.
The hard work and backbreaking toil of Master Sullivan’s predecessors had left a thriving and profitable business to inherit, but he did not care much for the art of brewing. His passions were for the dice.
It was at Deauville Racecourse, France on a fateful day in
August 1918, that the shot of the starting pistol sent shock waves all the way back to Kilkenny. Legend has it that, in an attempt to impress a beautiful young lady from an aristocratic French family, Master Sullivan made a wager with a rival Venetian Count for her hand through a high-stakes bet on a horse. And as his horse lost spectacularly, Master Sullivan knew he was in a spot of bother.
Faced with either paying the Count in full or facing the count in a duel, Sullivan – more a lover than a fighter – went with the first option and within a year the doors shut on Sullivan’s Brewery.
After Sullivan’s Brewery closed for the final time in the early 1900s the tales of the good deeds of this Sullivan Family began to fade into memory.
Over the coming decades, the independent breweries that were once synonymous with Kilkenny began to drop off one by one, until its final working brewery sadly closed its doors in 2013. However, there wasn’t long to wait for a change of fortunes for Kilkenny-brewed ale, as 2016 saw two great families coming together to return traditional Irish brewing to its spiritual home.
The Smithwick Family in partnership with direct descendants of the Sullivan Family had a vision to re-open the once-great brewery in the city where it all began. They enlisted the help of Ian Hamilton, one of Ireland’s most eminent contemporary master-brewers. Together they are bringing artisan brewing back to Kilkenny.
If people thought that brewing in Kilkenny was dead and buried, they are in for a rude awakening…
40cm x 34cm Limerick
In 1929, Limerick city was the home to two large of tobacco factories Spillane’s and Clune’s who imported tobacco from the United States, Egypt and Turkey as well as locally grown tobacco to produce their famed products.
Spillane’s Tobacco Factory on Sarsfield Street was started by John Spillane in 1829 and was known as ‘The House of Garryowen’. A hundred years later they were employing a hundred people. The famous Garryowen plug formed 80 per cent of the factories output while they had other products including Popular and Treaty bar plugs, Hazel Nut plug, Special Flake, Handy Cut Flake, snuffs, Cashel, High Toast, White Top and Craven A cigarettes. To meet a special demand from the North of Ireland the factory produced a type of plug known as Long Square. Spillane’s closed in 1958 with the loss of 150 jobs after the building was purchased by Murray Ltd, of Dublin the year previous. Their building is where the old Dunnes Stores building stands today. William Spillane who was the Mayor of Limerick in 1885 built the Spillane Tower which today is better known as the ‘Snuff Box’ on the banks of the Shannon river at Corkanree.
Spillane’s Two Flakes from Limerick Museum
The other large factory was Clune’s Tobacco Factory on Denmark Street. It opened in the late 1872 and had about 60 employees in 1929. The firm specialised in Big Bar Plug, every two ounces of which is stamped Thomond. They also excelled in the Far-Famed Limerick Twist. They were also known for Kincora Plug, Sarsfield Plug, Home Rule, Hibernian, Target, Ireland’s Pride and Two Flake.
A popular item associated with tobacco factories are the cigarette cards. Cigarette cards were originally produced as a small piece of card which was designed to protect the individual cigarettes from being squashed as the original packaging was paper and not the card boxes that we know today.
We must not forget M.Cahill’s of Wickham Street which housed a snuff factory in 1870 in the basement of the building and operated for over sixty years. The business was founded by Michael Cahill (c.1846-1918) who was also the director of the Limerick Race Company. Cahill’s became Ireland’s longest running tobacco store and is still in operation offering a selection of cigar, teas and “gentleman’s gifts” including Swiss army knives, hipflasks and pipes.
46cm x 37cm.
John Jameson was originally a lawyer from Alloa in Scotland before he founded his eponymous distillery in Dublin in 1780.Prevoius to this he had made the wise move of marrying Margaret Haig (1753–1815) in 1768,one of the simple reasons being Margaret was the eldest daughter of John Haig, the famous whisky distiller in Scotland. John and Margaret had eight sons and eight daughters, a family of 16 children. Portraits of the couple by Sir Henry Raeburn are on display in the National Gallery of Ireland.
John Jameson joined the Convivial Lodge No. 202, of the Dublin Freemasons on the 24th June 1774 and in 1780, Irish whiskey distillation began at Bow Street. In 1805, he was joined by his son John Jameson II who took over the family business that year and for the next 41 years, John Jameson II built up the business before handing over to his son John Jameson the 3rd in 1851. In 1901, the Company was formally incorporated as John Jameson and Son Ltd.
Four of John Jameson’s sons followed his footsteps in distilling in Ireland, John Jameson II (1773 – 1851) at Bow Street, William and James Jameson at Marrowbone Lane in Dublin (where they partnered their Stein relations, calling their business Jameson and Stein, before settling on William Jameson & Co.). The fourth of Jameson's sons, Andrew, who had a small distillery at Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, was the grandfather of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless telegraphy. Marconi’s mother was Annie Jameson, Andrew’s daughter.
John Jameson’s eldest son, Robert took over his father’s legal business in Alloa. The Jamesons became the most important distilling family in Ireland, despite rivalry between the Bow Street and Marrowbone Lane distilleries.
By the turn of the 19th century, it was the second largest producer in Ireland and one of the largest in the world, producing 1,000,000 gallons annually. Dublin at the time was the centre of world whiskey production. It was the second most popular spirit in the world after rum and internationally Jameson had by 1805 become the world's number one whiskey. Today, Jameson is the world's third largest single-distillery whiskey.
Historical events, for a time, set the company back. The temperance movement in Ireland had an enormous impact domestically but the two key events that affected Jameson were the Irish War of Independence and subsequent trade war with the British which denied Jameson the export markets of the Commonwealth, and shortly thereafter, the introduction of prohibition in the United States. While Scottish brands could easily slip across the Canada–US border, Jameson was excluded from its biggest market for many years.
Historical pot still at the Jameson distillery in Cork
The introduction of column stills by the Scottish blenders in the mid-19th-century enabled increased production that the Irish, still making labour-intensive single pot still whiskey, could not compete with. There was a legal enquiry somewhere in 1908 to deal with the trade definition of whiskey. The Scottish producers won within some jurisdictions, and blends became recognised in the law of that jurisdiction as whiskey. The Irish in general, and Jameson in particular, continued with the traditional pot still production process for many years.In 1966 John Jameson merged with Cork Distillers and John Powers to form the Irish Distillers Group. In 1976, the Dublin whiskey distilleries of Jameson in Bow Street and in John's Lane were closed following the opening of a New Midleton Distillery by Irish Distillers outside Cork. The Midleton Distillery now produces much of the Irish whiskey sold in Ireland under the Jameson, Midleton, Powers, Redbreast, Spot and Paddy labels. The new facility adjoins the Old Midleton Distillery, the original home of the Paddy label, which is now home to the Jameson Experience Visitor Centre and the Irish Whiskey Academy. The Jameson brand was acquired by the French drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard in 1988, when it bought Irish Distillers. The old Jameson Distillery in Bow Street near Smithfield in Dublin now serves as a museum which offers tours and tastings. The distillery, which is historical in nature and no longer produces whiskey on site, went through a $12.6 million renovation that was concluded in March 2016, and is now a focal part of Ireland's strategy to raise the number of whiskey tourists, which stood at 600,000 in 2017.Bow Street also now has a fully functioning Maturation Warehouse within its walls since the 2016 renovation. It is here that Jameson 18 Bow Street is finished before being bottled at Cask Strength.
In 2008, The Local, an Irish pub in Minneapolis, sold 671 cases of Jameson (22 bottles a day),making it the largest server of Jameson's in the world – a title it maintained for four consecutive years.
Framed 1964 Listowel Races Advert 28cm x 23cm Ballylongford Co Kerry The great John B Keane once said: "The Listowel Races is a state of mind." Anyone who has attended the festival will know this statement to be an undeniable truth. Because for one divine week in September, a spotlight from the gods shines on Listowel. It is a shimmering star, guiding people from all over the country for a week of devilment and roguery - a place where hatred dissolves and inhibitions release. And for as long as I can remember, I too have been steered by that very light. For a time, I thought I could never love a man the way I loved the Listowel Races. Unlike romantic relationships, I knew where I stood in the affair. There were no miscommunications or missteps. I asked for the thrill, the passion and the romance, and all the races asked of me was the entrance fee.Even as a child, I worshipped it. From the moment the festival lights were hung above Church Street, I knew magic was in the air. Any pocket money I had was spent at the Birds Amusements in the mart yard and any tears I had shed, as my mother told me, came when it was time to go home. As I grew older, I discovered another type of magic on the racecourse or 'the island' as it's otherwise known. It is a paradise on the River Feale filled with old friends, new acquaintances and disgruntled punters. Expats return from far-flung countries and wish for the week to never end, wanting one last race, drink or dance because one September evening spent on the island equals a lifetime of memories. This year will mark the 162nd anniversary of the meeting. The first took place in October 1858 and, since then, has moved from a two-day race meeting to a seven-day spectacle filled with music and wren boys. Also known as the Harvest Festival, the meeting traditionally marked the end of the harvest, and farmers came to relax and enjoy the fruits of their labour. While this remains true, Listowel now attracts a variety of attendees from across the country and beyond. The people don't just come for racing anymore. They come for the atmosphere, the people, and the promise of the time of your life. Festivals like Galway and Punchestown may have the hype, but Listowel has the mightiest heart. In 162 years, the island and its high jinks have survived war and politics, but it won't escape the ravages of 2020. Covid-19 restrictions mean the Listowel Races will take place behind closed doors for the first time. Under protocol from the HRI and the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, race meetings are closed to the public. Much-needed boostFamous son: The late playwright John B Keane in his Listowel pub
20cm x 15cmThomas Power & Co of Dungarvan was established in 1880,a date which appeared on their promotional literature.
As spirit merchants Power’s of Dungarvan had access to the freshest fortified wine casks, and in this letter we can see a distillery requesting access to that stock.
The records of Thomas Power & Company are far from complete, but as you can see below even in the late 50’s Power’s were importing hogsheads full of wine from Portugal.
As well as importing barrels of wine and fortified wines, Power’s clearly had a need for the finest empty port pipes from Sandeman.
Power’s bottled a lot of Guinness, and until the mid-1950’s the stout traveled to Dungarvan in wooden barrels.
Now as then, it’s cheaper to buy new make, but that puts a drain on cash flow, so as you can see from this letter, Power’s were probably bulking out their own mature stock with whiskey bought in for blending purposes. The original Velvet Cap, in common with the vast majority of Irish whiskies in the first half of the 20th century was probably a pot still (made with around 15% oat and 5% rye). But this is not made clear on any invoice I have seen, where purchased stock is simply referred to as ‘whiskey’. In the end though whether Velvet Cap works or not largely comes down to repeat business and that is mostly about taste. We like the direction in which this Irish whiskey is going, but let us know what you think. Batch One is now on sale here or there for the first 150 purchasers, it can be got with a signed copy of my book The Whiskeys of Ireland and a tour of Blackwater Distillery here. #DrinkResponsibly
Declan Gill
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Enlarged,framed John Jameson Dublin Whiskey Label from P. J Murray Dunshaughlin Co Meath. 27cm x 54cm Dunshaughlin Co Meath. 26cm x 30cm John Jameson was originally a lawyer from Alloa in Scotland before he founded his eponymous distillery in Dublin in 1780.Prevoius to this he had made the wise move of marrying Margaret Haig (1753–1815) in 1768,one of the simple reasons being Margaret was the eldest daughter of John Haig, the famous whisky distiller in Scotland. John and Margaret had eight sons and eight daughters, a family of 16 children. Portraits of the couple by Sir Henry Raeburn are on display in the National Gallery of Ireland. John Jameson joined the Convivial Lodge No. 202, of the Dublin Freemasons on the 24th June 1774 and in 1780, Irish whiskey distillation began at Bow Street. In 1805, he was joined by his son John Jameson II who took over the family business that year and for the next 41 years, John Jameson II built up the business before handing over to his son John Jameson the 3rd in 1851. In 1901, the Company was formally incorporated as John Jameson and Son Ltd. Four of John Jameson’s sons followed his footsteps in distilling in Ireland, John Jameson II (1773 – 1851) at Bow Street, William and James Jameson at Marrowbone Lane in Dublin (where they partnered their Stein relations, calling their business Jameson and Stein, before settling on William Jameson & Co.). The fourth of Jameson's sons, Andrew, who had a small distillery at Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, was the grandfather of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless telegraphy. Marconi’s mother was Annie Jameson, Andrew’s daughter. John Jameson’s eldest son, Robert took over his father’s legal business in Alloa. The Jamesons became the most important distilling family in Ireland, despite rivalry between the Bow Street and Marrowbone Lane distilleries. By the turn of the 19th century, it was the second largest producer in Ireland and one of the largest in the world, producing 1,000,000 gallons annually. Dublin at the time was the centre of world whiskey production. It was the second most popular spirit in the world after rum and internationally Jameson had by 1805 become the world's number one whiskey. Today, Jameson is the world's third largest single-distillery whiskey. Historical events, for a time, set the company back. The temperance movement in Ireland had an enormous impact domestically but the two key events that affected Jameson were the Irish War of Independence and subsequent trade war with the British which denied Jameson the export markets of the Commonwealth, and shortly thereafter, the introduction of prohibition in the United States. While Scottish brands could easily slip across the Canada–US border, Jameson was excluded from its biggest market for many years.The introduction of column stills by the Scottish blenders in the mid-19th-century enabled increased production that the Irish, still making labour-intensive single pot still whiskey, could not compete with. There was a legal enquiry somewhere in 1908 to deal with the trade definition of whiskey. The Scottish producers won within some jurisdictions, and blends became recognised in the law of that jurisdiction as whiskey. The Irish in general, and Jameson in particular, continued with the traditional pot still production process for many years.In 1966 John Jameson merged with Cork Distillers and John Powers to form the Irish Distillers Group. In 1976, the Dublin whiskey distilleries of Jameson in Bow Street and in John's Lane were closed following the opening of a New Midleton Distillery by Irish Distillers outside Cork. The Midleton Distillery now produces much of the Irish whiskey sold in Ireland under the Jameson, Midleton, Powers, Redbreast, Spot and Paddy labels. The new facility adjoins the Old Midleton Distillery, the original home of the Paddy label, which is now home to the Jameson Experience Visitor Centre and the Irish Whiskey Academy. The Jameson brand was acquired by the French drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard in 1988, when it bought Irish Distillers. The old Jameson Distillery in Bow Street near Smithfield in Dublin now serves as a museum which offers tours and tastings. The distillery, which is historical in nature and no longer produces whiskey on site, went through a $12.6 million renovation that was concluded in March 2016, and is now a focal part of Ireland's strategy to raise the number of whiskey tourists, which stood at 600,000 in 2017.Bow Street also now has a fully functioning Maturation Warehouse within its walls since the 2016 renovation. It is here that Jameson 18 Bow Street is finished before being bottled at Cask Strength. In 2008, The Local, an Irish pub in Minneapolis, sold 671 cases of Jameson (22 bottles a day),making it the largest server of Jameson's in the world – a title it maintained for four consecutive years.
Historical pot still at the Jameson distillery in Cork
Superbly framed portrait of JFK Such was the love and affection for President John F Kennedy in the country of his ancestors, that numerous Irish homes, businesses and pubs displayed photographs, portraits and other memorabilia relating to the Kennedy and Fitzgerald families, who hailed largely from Wexford and Limerick 57cm x 47 cm Dromkeen Co LimerickPresident Kennedy greeting Irish crowds while on a state visit to the country in 1963.
There are many chapters in Munster’s storied rugby journey but pride of place remains the game against the otherwise unbeaten New Zealanders on October 31, 1978. 27cm x 32cm Abbeyfeale Co Limerick In this image from the Limerick Leader Archives,Donal Canniffe the Munster Scrum Half and Captain of the side clears the ball from the All Blacks as Christy Cantillon keeps a watchful look.In a poignant side note,Canniffe's father Dan had passed away during the game whilst listening to the radio commentary and in the immediate aftermath of the final result, joy turned to sorrow as the Munster captain was informed of the sad news. There were some mighty matches between the Kiwis and Munster, most notably at the Mardyke in 1954 when the tourists edged home by 6-3 and again by the same margin at Thomond Park in 1963 while the teams also played a 3-3 draw at Musgrave Park in 1973. During that time, they resisted the best that Ireland, Ulster and Leinster (admittedly with fewer opportunities) could throw at them so this country was still waiting for any team to put one over on the All Blacks when Graham Mourie’s men arrived in Limerick on October 31st, 1978. There is always hope but in truth Munster supporters had little else to encourage them as the fateful day dawned. Whereas the New Zealanders had disposed of Cambridge University, Cardiff, West Wales and London Counties with comparative ease, Munster’s preparations had been confined to a couple of games in London where their level of performance, to put it mildly, was a long way short of what would be required to enjoy even a degree of respectability against the All Blacks. They were hammered by Middlesex County and scraped a draw with London Irish. Ever before those two games, things hadn’t been going according to plan. Tom Kiernan had coached Munster for three seasons in the mid-70s before being appointed Branch President, a role he duly completed at the end of the 1977/78 season.
Many years on, Stuart Wilson vividly recalled the Dennison tackles and spoke about them in remarkable detail and with commendable honesty: “The move involved me coming in from the blind side wing and it had been working very well on tour. It was a workable move and it was paying off so we just kept rolling it out. Against Munster, the gap opened up brilliantly as it was supposed to except that there was this little guy called Seamus Dennison sitting there in front of me.
“He just basically smacked the living daylights out of me. I dusted myself off and thought, I don’t want to have to do that again. Ten minutes later, we called the same move again thinking we’d change it slightly but, no, it didn’t work and I got hammered again.”
The game was 11 minutes old when the most famous try in the history of Munster rugby was scored.
Tom Kiernan recalled: “It came from a great piece of anticipation by Bowen who in the first place had to run around his man to get to Ward’s kick ahead. He then beat two men and when finally tackled, managed to keep his balance and deliver the ball to Cantillon who went on to score. All of this was evidence of sharpness on Bowen’s part.”
Very soon it would be 9-0. In the first five minutes, a towering garryowen by skipper Canniffe had exposed the vulnerability of the New Zealand rearguard under the high ball. They were to be examined once or twice more but it was from a long range but badly struck penalty attempt by Ward that full-back Brian McKechnie knocked on some 15 yards from his line and close to where Cantillon had touched down a few minutes earlier. You could sense White, Whelan, McLoughlin and co in the front five of the Munster scrum smacking their lips as they settled for the scrum. A quick, straight put-in by Canniffe, a well controlled heel, a smart pass by the scrum-half to Ward and the inevitability of a drop goal. And that’s exactly what happened.
The All Blacks enjoyed the majority of forward possession but the harder they tried, the more they fell into the trap set by the wily Kiernan and so brilliantly carried out by every member of the Munster team.
The tourists might have edged the line-out contest through Andy Haden and Frank Oliver but scrum-half Mark Donaldson endured a miserable afternoon as the Munster forwards poured through and buried him in the Thomond Park turf.
As the minutes passed and the All Blacks became more and more unsure as to what to try next, the Thomond Park hordes chanted “Munster-Munster–Munster” to an ever increasing crescendo until with 12 minutes to go, the noise levels reached deafening proportions.
And then ... a deep, probing kick by Ward put Wilson under further pressure. Eventually, he stumbled over the ball as it crossed the line and nervously conceded a five-metre scrum. The Munster heel was disrupted but the ruck was won, Tucker gained possession and slipped a lovely little pass to Ward whose gifted feet and speed of thought enabled him in a twinkle to drop a goal although surrounded by a swarm of black jerseys. So the game entered its final 10 minutes with the All Blacks needing three scores to win and, of course, that was never going to happen.
Munster knew this, so, too, did the All Blacks. Stu Wilson admitted as much as he explained his part in Wardy’s second drop goal: “Tony Ward banged it down, it bounced a little bit, jigged here, jigged there, and I stumbled, fell over, and all of a sudden the heat was on me. They were good chasers. A kick is a kick — but if you have lots of good chasers on it, they make bad kicks look good. I looked up and realised — I’m not going to run out of here so I just dotted it down. I wasn’t going to run that ball back out at them because five of those mad guys were coming down the track at me and I’m thinking, I’m being hit by these guys all day and I’m looking after my body, thank you. Of course it was a five-yard scrum and Ward banged over another drop goal. That was it, there was the game”.
The final whistle duly sounded with Munster 12 points ahead but the heroes of the hour still had to get off the field and reach the safety of the dressing room. Bodies were embraced, faces were kissed, backs were pummelled, you name it, the gauntlet had to be walked. Even the All Blacks seemed impressed with the sense of joy being released all about them. Andy Haden recalled “the sea of red supporters all over the pitch after the game, you could hardly get off for the wave of celebration that was going on. The whole of Thomond Park glowed in the warmth that someone had put one over on the Blacks.”
Controversially, the All Blacks coach, Jack Gleeson (usually a man capable of accepting the good with the bad and who passed away of cancer within 12 months of the tour), in an unguarded (although possibly misunderstood) moment on the following day, let slip his innermost thoughts on the game.
“We were up against a team of kamikaze tacklers,” he lamented. “We set out on this tour to play 15-man rugby but if teams were to adopt the Munster approach and do all they could to stop the All Blacks from playing an attacking game, then the tour and the game would suffer.”
It was interpreted by the majority of observers as a rare piece of sour grapes from a group who had accepted the defeat in good spirit and it certainly did nothing to diminish Munster respect for the All Blacks and their proud rugby tradition.
“Jack’s comment was made in the context of the game and meant as a compliment,” Haden maintained. “Indeed, it was probably a little suggestion to his own side that perhaps we should imitate their efforts and emulate them in that department.” Tom Kiernan went along with this line of thought: “I thought he was actually paying a compliment to the Munster spirit. Kamikaze pilots were very brave men. That’s what I took out of that. I didn’t think it was a criticism of Munster.” And Stuart Wilson? “It was meant purely as a compliment. We had been travelling through the UK and winning all our games. We were playing a nice, open style. But we had never met a team that could get up in our faces and tackle us off the field. Every time you got the ball, you didn’t get one player tackling you, you got four. Kamikaze means people are willing to die for the cause and that was the way with every Munster man that day. Their strengths were that they were playing for Munster, that they had a home Thomond Park crowd and they took strength from the fact they were playing one of the best teams in the world.” You could rely on Terry McLean (famed New Zealand journalist) to be fair and sporting in his reaction to the Thomond Park defeat. Unlike Kiernan and Haden, he scorned Jack Gleeson’s “kamikaze” comment, stating that “it was a stern, severe criticism which wanted in fairness on two grounds. It did not sufficiently praise the spirit of Munster or the presence within the one team of 15 men who each emerged from the match much larger than life-size. Secondly, it was disingenuous or, more accurately, naive.” “Gleeson thought it sinful that Ward had not once passed the ball. It was worse, he said, that Munster had made aggressive defence the only arm of their attack. Now, what on earth, it could be asked, was Kiernan to do with his team? He held a fine hand with top trumps in Spring, Cantillon, Foley and Whelan in the forwards and Canniffe, Ward, Dennison, Bowen and Moloney in the backs. Tommy Kiernan wasn’t born yesterday. He played to the strength of his team and upon the suspected weaknesses of the All Blacks.” You could hardly be fairer than that – even if Graham Mourie himself in his 1983 autobiography wasn’t far behind when observing: “Munster were just too good. From the first time Stu Wilson was crashed to the ground as he entered the back line to the last time Mark Donaldson was thrown backwards as he ducked around the side of a maul. They were too good.” One of the nicest tributes of all came from a famous New Zealand photographer, Peter Bush. He covered numerous All Black tours, was close friends with most of their players and a canny one when it came to finding the ideal position from which to snap his pictures. He was the guy perched precariously on the pillars at the entrance to the pitch as the celebrations went on and which he described 20 years later in his book ‘Who Said It’s Only a Game?’And Tom Kiernan and Andy Haden, rugby standard bearers of which their respective countries were justifiably proud, saw things in a similar light.“With that, he flung his arms around me and dragged me with him into the shower. I finally managed to disentangle myself and killed the tape. I didn’t mind really because it had been a wonderful day.” Dimensions :47cm x 57cm“I climbed up on a gate at the end of the game to get this photo and in the middle of it all is Moss Keane, one of the great characters of Irish rugby, with an expression of absolute elation. The All Blacks lost 12-0 to a side that played with as much passion as I have ever seen on a rugby field. The great New Zealand prop Gary Knight said to me later: ‘We could have played them for a fortnight and we still wouldn’t have won’. I was doing a little radio piece after the game and got hold of Moss Keane and said ‘Moss, I wonder if ...’ and he said, ‘ho, ho, we beat you bastards’.
Cork Dry Gin -Where Good Taste Prevails-Retro advert fashioned from the blood, sweat,tears and spillage of a well used Irish Bar Trays & enamel signs.Using high quality reprographics we have brought every scratch,dent and mark back to life in the shape of this unique series of prints. Dimensions : 35cm x 48cm Glazed Cork Dry Gin is an Irish gin. First produced in Cork in the Watercourse Distillery circa 1793. Since 1975, Cork Dry Gin has been manufactured by Irish Distillers, a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard, at their Midleton Distillery. Cork Dry Gin is the largest selling gin brand in Ireland. Until recently, bottles of Cork Dry Gin still featured the name of the Cork Distilleries Company, which had purchased the Watercourse Distillery in 1867 and owned it until its subsequent merger with two other Irish distilleries to form Irish Distillers in 1966.
Brilliant print capturing some of Micheal "Ó'Muircheartaigh's most famous moments of commentary over the decades.Superb piece for the GAA enthusiast and celebrating one of our greatest ever broadcasters. Origins : Banagher Co Offaly Dimensions: 52cm x 40cm Micheal Ó Muircheartaigh (born 20 August 1930)[1] is an Irish Gaelic games commentator for the Irish national radio and television, RTÉ. In a career that has spanned six decades he has come to be regarded as the "voice of Gaelic games." His prolific career has earned him a place in Guinness World Records.
48cm x 59cm Bruff Co Limerick 1973 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final was the 86th All-Ireland Final and the culmination of the 1973 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, an inter-county hurling tournament for the top teams in Ireland. The match was held at Croke Park, Dublin, on 2 September 1973, between Limerick and Kilkenny. The Leinster champions lost to their Munster opponents on a score line of 1-21 to 1-14.
Really beautiful Murphys Stout Mirror with imagery of the Ladys Well Brewery and various awards won. Origins :Bandon Co Cork Dimensions : 80cm x 55xcm
Born on November 1825, James Jeremiah Murphy was the eldest son of fifteen children born to Jeremiah James Murphy and Catherine Bullen. James J. served his time in the family business interest and was also involved in the running of a local distillery in Cork. He sold his share in this distillery to fund his share of the set up costs of the brewery in 1856. James J. was the senior partner along with his four other brothers. It was James who guided to the brewery to success in its first forty years and he saw its output grow to 100,000 barrels before his death in 1897. James J. through his life had a keen interest in sport, rowing, sailing and GAA being foremost. He was a supporter of the Cork Harbour Rowing Club and the Royal Cork Yacht Club and the Cork County Board of the GAA. James J. philanthropic efforts were also well known in the city supporting hospitals, orphanages and general relief of distress in the city so much so on his death being described as a ‘prince in the charitable world’. It is James J. that epitomises the Murphy’s brand in stature and quality of character.1854
In 1854 James J. and his brothers purchased the buildings of the Cork foundling Hospital and on this site built the brewery. The brewery eventually became known as the Lady’s Well Brewery as it is situated adjacent to a famous ‘Holy Well’ and water source that had become a famous place of devotion during penal times.1856
James J. Murphy and his brothers found James J. Murphy & Co. and begin brewing.1861
In 1861 the brewery produced 42,990 barrels and began to impose itself as one of the major breweries in the country.1885
James J. was a much loved figure in Cork, a noted philanthropist and indeed hero of the entire city at one point. The ‘Hurrah for the hero’ song refers to James J’s heroic efforts to save the local economy from ruin in the year of 1885. The story behind this is that when the key bank for the region the ‘Munster Bank’ was close to ruin, which could have led to an economic disaster for the entire country and bankruptcy for thousands, James J. stepped in and led the venture to establish a new bank the ‘Munster and Leinster’, saving the Munster Bank depositors and creditors from financial loss and in some cases, ruin. His exploits in saving the bank, led to the writing of many a poem and song in his honour including ‘Hurrah for the man who’s a friend of the poor’, which would have been sung in pubs for many years afterwards.1889
In 1889 a Malt House for the brewery was built at a cost of 4,640 pounds and was ‘built and arranged on the newest principle and fitted throughout with the latest appliances known to modern science”. Today the Malthouse is one of the most famous Cork landmarks and continues to function as offices for Murphy’s.1892
Murphy’s Stout wins the Gold medal at the Brewers and Allied Trades Exhibition in Dublin and again wins the supreme award when the exhibition is held in Manchester in 1895. These same medals feature on our Murphy’s packaging today. Murphy’s have continued it’s tradition of excellence in brewing winning Gold again at the Brewing Industry International awards in 2002 and also gaining medals in the subsequent two competitions.1893
Eugen Sandow the world famous ‘strongman’, endorses Murphy’s Stout: “From experience I can strongly recommend Messrs JJ Murphy’s Stout”. The famous Murphy’s image of Sandow lifting a horse was then created.1906
The Brewery celebrates its 50th anniversary. On Whit Monday the brewery workforce and their families are treated to an excursion by train to Killarney. Paddy Barrett the youngest of the workforce that day at 13 went on to become head porter for the brewery and could recall the day vividly 50 years later.1913
In the year of 1913 the No.5 Vat at ‘Lady’s Well’ Brewery burst and sent 23,000 galleons of porter flooding through the brewey and out on to Leitrim Street. The Cork Constitution, the local newspaper of the time wrote that “a worker had a most exciting experience and in the onrush of porter he had to swim in it for about 40 yards to save himself from asphyxiation”1914
The First World War marked an era of dramatic change both in the countries fortune and on a much smaller scale that of the Brewery’s. On the 13 August James J. Murphy and Co. joined the other members of the Cork Employers Federation in promising that ‘all constant employees volunteering to join any of his Majesties forces for active service in compliance with the call for help by the Government will be facilitated and their places given back to them at the end of the war’. Eighteen of the Brewery’s workers joined up including one sixteen year old. Ten never returned.1915
James J. Murphy & Co. purchase the first petrol lorry in the country.1920
On the 11-12th December the centre of Cork city was extensively damaged by fire including four of the company’s tied houses (Brewery owned establishments). The company was eventually compensated for its losses by the British government.1921
In 1921 James J. Murphy and Co. open a bottling plant and bottle their own stout. A foreman and four ‘boys’ were installed to run the operation and the product quickly won ‘good trade’.1924
In 1924 the Murphy’s Brewery began to embrace advertising. In the decades prior to this the attitude had been somewhat negative with one director stating ‘We do not hope to thrive on pushing and puffing; our sole grounds for seeking popular favour is the excellence of our product’.1940
In 1940 at the height of the London Blitz the Murphy’s auditing firm is completely destroyed. The war which had indirectly affected the firm in terms of shortages of fuel and materials now affected the brewery directly.1953
In 1953 the last direct descendant of James J. takes over Chairmanship of the firm. Affectionately known in the Brewery as the ‘Colonel’ he ran the company until 1981.1961
Complete replacement of old wooden barrels to aluminium lined vessels (kegs) known as ‘Iron lungs’ draws to an end the era of ‘Coopers’ the tradesmen who built the wooden barrels on site in the Brewery for so many decades.1979
Murphy’s Launched as a National and International Brand. Exports included UK, US and Canada. Introduction of the first 25cl long neck stout bottle.1994
Murphy’s commence sponsorship of the hugely successful Murphy’s Irish Open Golf Championship culminating in Colm Montgomery’s ‘Monty’s’ famous third win at ‘Fota Island’ in 2002.2005
Murphy’s wins Gold at the Brewing Industry International Awards a testament to it’s superior taste and quality. Indeed 2003 was the first of three successive wins in this competition.2006
The Murphy Brewery celebrates 150 years of brewing from 1856 to 2006 going from strength to strength; the now legendary stout is sold in over 40 countries and recognised worldwide as superior stout. We hope James J. would be proud.
Classic old tin advertising sign dating from the 1920s.Prizes won by the much lauded Murphy's Brewery of Ladys Well,Cork are mentioned on the sign such as from the Dublin Exhibition of 1892 and its Manchester Counterpart from 1895. 40cm x 60cm Schull Co Cork
This small but distinctive mirror advertises Ireland’s original gin manufacturer. Thanks to Gins recent renaissance, Corks very own variety has been joined by a number of new gin distilleries in most notably Dingle etc, 35cm x 25cm. Cork
Rare post WW2 Fianna Fáil election manifesto poster advertising De Valeria’s leadership credentials .Fianna Fail,The Republican Party was founded in 1926 by Eamon De Valera and his supporters after they split from Sinn Fein on the issue of abstentionism, in the aftermath of the Irish Civil War. Eamon de Valera, first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera;14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent statesman and political leader in 20th-century Ireland. His political career spanned over half a century, from 1917 to 1973; he served several terms as head of government and head of state. He also led the introduction of the Constitution of Ireland. Prior to de Valera's political career, he was a Commandant at Boland's Mill during the 1916 Easter Rising, an Irish revolution that would eventually contribute to Irish independence. He was arrested, sentenced to death but released for a variety of reasons, including the public response to the British execution of Rising leaders. He returned to Ireland after being jailed in England and became one of the leading political figures of the War of Independence. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, de Valera served as the political leader of Anti-Treaty Sinn Fein until 1926, when he, along with many supporters, left the party to set up Fianna Fáil, a new political party which abandoned the policy of abstentionism from Dáil Éireann. From there, de Valera would go on to be at the forefront of Irish politics until the turn of the 1960s. He took over as President of the Executive Councilfrom W. T. Cosgrave and later Taoiseach, with the passing of Bunreacht Na hEireann (Irish constitution) in 1937. He would serve as Taoiseach on 3 occasions; from 1937 to 1948, from 1951 to 1954 and finally from 1957 to 1959. He remains the longest serving Taoiseach by total days served in the post. He resigned in 1959 upon his election as President of Ireland. By then, he had been Leader of Fianna Fáil for 33 years, and he, along with older founding members, began to take a less prominent role relative to newer ministers such as Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney. He would serve as President from 1959 to 1973, two full terms in office. De Valera's political beliefs evolved from militant Irish republicanism to strong social, cultural and economic conservatism.He has been characterised by a stern, unbending, devious demeanor. His roles in the Civil War have also portrayed him as a divisive figure in Irish history. Biographer Tim Pat Coogan sees his time in power as being characterised by economic and cultural stagnation, while Diarmaid Ferriter argues that the stereotype of de Valera as an austere, cold and even backward figure was largely manufactured in the 1960s and is misguided. Origins: Co Clare Dimensions : 50cm x 40cm
Brilliantly conceived Murphys Stout advertisement depicting a Blues harmonica player Cobh Co Cork 68cm x 48cm
40cm x 37cm Michael Collins (16 October 1890 – 22 August 1922) was an Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician who was a leading figure in the early-20th century struggle for Irish independence.During the War of Independence he was Director of Intelligence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a government minister of the self-declared Irish Republic. He was then Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 and commander-in-chief of the National Army from July until his death in an ambush in August 1922, during the Civil War. Collins was born in Woodfield, County Cork, the youngest of eight children. He moved to London in 1906 to become a clerk in the Post Office Savings Bank at Blythe House. He was a member of the London GAA, through which he became associated with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Gaelic League. He returned to Ireland in January 1916 and fought in the Easter Rising. He was taken prisoner and held in the Frongoch internment camp as a prisoner of war, but he was released in December 1916. Collins subsequently rose through the ranks of the Irish Volunteers and Sinn Féin. He was elected as a Teachta Dála for South Cork in December 1918. Sinn Féin's elected members formed an Irish parliament, the First Dáil, in January 1919 and declared the independence of the Irish Republic. Collins was appointed Minister for Finance. In the ensuing War of Independence, he was Director of Organisation and Adjutant General for the Irish Volunteers, and Director of Intelligence of the IRA. He gained fame as a guerrilla warfare strategist, planning many successful attacks on British forces together with 'the Squad', such as the "Bloody Sunday" assassinations of key British intelligence agents in November 1920. After the July 1921 ceasefire, Collins was one of five plenipotentiaries sent by the Dáil cabinet at the request of Éamon de Valera, to negotiate peace terms in London. The resulting Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed in December 1921, would establish the Irish Free State but depended on an oath of allegiance to the Crown. This was the clause in the treaty de Valera and other republican leaders found hardest to accept. Collins viewed the treaty as offering "the freedom to achieve freedom", and helped persuade a majority of the Dáil to ratify the treaty. A provisional government was formed under his chairmanship in early 1922. During this time he secretly provided support for an IRA offensive in Northern Ireland. It was soon disrupted by the Irish Civil War, in which Collins was commander-in-chief of the National Army. He was shot and killed in an ambush by anti-Treaty forces on 22 August 1922
33cm x 57cm In the winter of 1893, prospectors Patrick (Paddy) Hannan, Tom Flanagan, and Dan Shea were travelling to Mount Youle, when one of their horses cast a shoe. During the halt in their journey, the men noticed signs of gold in the area around the foot of what is now the Mount Charlotte gold mine, located on a small hill north of the current city, and decided to stay and investigate. On 17 June 1893, Hannan filed a Reward Claim, leading to hundreds of men swarming to the area in search of gold, and Kalgoorlie, originally called Hannan's Find, was born.The population of the town was 2,018 (1,516 males and 502 females) in 1898. The mining of gold, along with other metals such as nickel, has been a major industry in Kalgoorlie ever since, and today employs about one-quarter of Kalgoorlie's workforce and generates a significant proportion of its income. The concentrated area of large gold mines surrounding the original Hannan's find is often referred to as the Golden Mile, and was sometimes referred to as the world's richest square mile of earth. In 1901, the population of Kalgoorlie was 4,793 (3,087 males and 1,706 females) which increased to 6,790 (3,904 males and 2,886 females) by 1903. The 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow-gauge Government Eastern Goldfields Railway line reached Kalgoorlie station in 1896, and the main named railway service from Perth was the overnight sleeper train The Westland, which ran until the 1970s. In 1917, a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in(1,435 mm) standard gauge railway line was completed, connecting Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta, South Australia, across 2,000 kilometres (1,243 mi) of desert, and consequently the rest of the eastern states. The standardisation of the railway connecting Perth (which changed route from the narrow-gauge route) in 1968 completed the Sydney–Perth railway, making rail travel from Perth to Sydney possible; the Indian Pacific rail service commenced soon after. During the 1890s, the Goldfields area boomed as a whole, with an area population exceeding 200,000, composed mainly of prospectors. The area gained a reputation for being a "wild west", notorious for its bandits and prostitutes. This rapid increase in population and claims of neglect by the state government in Perth led to the proposition of the new state of Auralia, but with the sudden diaspora after the Gold Rush, these plans fell through. Places, famous or infamous, for which Kalgoorlie is noted include its water pipeline, designed by C. Y. O'Connor and bringing in fresh water from Mundaring Weir near Perth, its Hay Street brothels, its two-up school, the goldfields railway loopline, the Kalgoorlie Town Hall, the Paddy Hannan statue/drinking fountain, the Super Pit, and Mount Charlotte lookout. Its main street is Hannan Street, named after the town's founder. One of the infamous brothels also serves as a museum and is a major national attraction. Paddy Hannan was the son of John Hannan and Bridget Lynch, and was baptised on 26 April 1840 in the town of Quin, County Clare, Ireland. His baptismal record shows that his godparents (sponsors) were Margaret Lynch and John O'Brien. Many of the people in his family emigrated to Australia from 1852 onwards, and close ties were maintained. Two of Hannan's nieces would welcome Hannan into their house for the last years of his life. Hannan emigrated to Australia when he was 22, arriving in Melbourne on 23 December 1862 aboard the Henry Fernie from Liverpool. He is recorded in the passenger list as Pat Hannan, a labourer.
Hannan Street in September 1930; the Exchange Hotel is at the centre, with the Palace Hotel on the right.
Hannan's Western Australian miner's right, 1893
Hannan's grave in Melbourne Central Cemetery, Section Y
1929 statue of Paddy Hannan in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
47cm x 35cm Barry's Tea is an Irish tea company founded in 1901 by James J. Barry in Cork. Until the 1960s, tea was sold from a shop in Prince's Street, but thereafter the company expanded its wholesaling and distribution operations. By the mid-1980s Barry's Tea had become a national brand. According to their website, they are currently responsible for 38% of all tea sales in the Irish market (which is worth an estimated €85 million annually). Today, Barry's Tea is also available in the United Kingdom, Spain, and in some areas of Canada, Australia, France, Luxembourg and the United States where there are significant Irish immigrant communities. Members of the Barry family been elected representatives for Fine Gael: the founder's son Anthony Barry (TD 1954–57 and 1961–65), Anthony's son Peter Barry (TD 1969–97) and Peter's daughter Deirdre Clune (TD 1997–2001 and 2007–11, and MEP since 2014).
40cm x 34cm July 19, 1972, Muhammad Ali fought Al 'Blue' Lewis at Croke Park in Dublin, causing quite a stir in Ireland.Decades later, an Irish documentary recounting the epic fight not only won awards but also won the approval of Ali's daughter Jamilah Ali. "When Ali Came to Ireland" is an Irish documentary that details Muhammad Ali's trip to Dublin for a fight against Al 'Blue' Lewis at Croke Park. In 2013 the film was screened at the Chicago film festival, where Jamilah Ali was in attendance. TheJournal.ie reported that following the screening, Jamilah said "I've seen so much footage of my father over the years but the amazing thing about watching this film was that I had seen none of the footage of him in Ireland... I loved the film from the beginning to the end." The film highlights a moment in Ali's career where he was set to stage a world comeback. He had been recently released from prison after refusing to join the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector. His opponent Al Lewis had also just been released on parole after serving time in Detroit for a murder charge, and he intended to use his boxing career as "a path to a new life." The movie that won an IFTA in 2013 documents the spectacle in Croke Park, Ali's presence in Ireland and how the public reacted to his being there. It also demonstrates how Ali came to be in Dublin for a fight in the first place, highlighting the involvement of "former Kerry strongman"Michael "Butty" Sugrue. Sugrue's story also proved to be revelatory to his family- in a quote from Ross Whittaker, co-director of the film, he speaks about how Sugrue's grandchildren had never had the chance to meet him. "We were amazed when we screened the film in London to find that Butty Sugrue's granddaughters had never heard their grandfather speak. He had died before they were born and they'd never seen footage of him in which he had spoken." After their 1972 meeting, however, Sugrue and Ali's fortunes took two divergent paths. Ali returned to the ring in America to further glories and fanfare before his retirement, while Sugrue lost a small fortune on the Dublin fight and after dying in London was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in his hometown of Killorglin, Co Kerry. The Louisville Lip was also incredibly proud of his County Clare roots. Today we recall the man's star quality and his Irish ancestry. The death of boxing legend Muhammad Ali at 74 in June 2016, from Parkinson’s, would have brought back many glorious memories of the greatest athlete of our times. At the height of his career, Ali was the most graceful, talented, and brilliant heavyweight boxer who ever stepped inside the ropes. I remember seeing him enter the room at the American Ireland Fund dinner in 2011 and grown men, including the Irish leader Enda Kenny, were simply awestruck that they were in the presence of the greatest living legend. Ali was more than a boxer, of course, he was a fighter who refused to become cannon fodder in the Vietnam War, the greatest mistaken war America entered until the invasion of Iraq. He was also a poet, a showman, a lover of many women, a devout Muslim, and simply a legend. Ali's stance to end the Vietnam War when he refused to be drafted cost us the best years of his sporting life. He came back still a brilliant boxer, but the man who could float like a butterfly could never quite recover that greatness. Still, the fights with Joe Frazier, the rope-a-dope that saw him defeat George Foreman in Zaire in the "Rumble in the Jungle" will forever enshrine his name in history.
Classic Irish Fair Day scene from Ennistymon Co Clare circa 1960s. cm x cm
Classic Irish Fair Day scene from Ennistymon Co Clare circa 1960s. cm x cm
47cm x 37cm Limerick Ireland has always been known for their hard tobaccos, often very stout and topped or cased with an exotic flavour. The plug form is hands down my fave, and I've tried to research its origins and evolution, but there ain't much out there documenting the historical arc. This is sorta like a supplemental edition of Antiquarian Nicotiana Brittanica - in hopes of giving people an idea of this glorious old baccy. This is primarily a visual gallery as mentioned earlier, textual traces are difficult to track, but at least I've been able to scavenge enough sufficient imagery off the vast cultural detritus known as the world wide web to at least give the viewer/reader a generalized approximation of what was what and how was how. Back then, you usually knew what you were getting if you knew the country of origin of your tobacco, it was fairly easy to know what to expect, unlike today's over-homogenized market where the lines are very blurry. We'll start this off with an American newspaper article from 1940, and it deftly illustrates the renowned, legendary, far-famed, and celebrated characteristics of what is Irish plug tobacco. : Another thing I've been highly interested in, but unable to find any concrete info about, are the steam-jacketed presses which were unique to Great Britain and Ireland. I do think that a SJPress is a crucial instrument in creating their ultra-compressed and raven black distinctive properties.
37cm x 47cm Limerick Sullivan’s Brewing Company opened for business over three hundred years ago in The Maltings on James’s Street, smack bang in the middle of Kilkenny City.
40cm x 34cm Limerick In 1929, Limerick city was the home to two large of tobacco factories Spillane’s and Clune’s who imported tobacco from the United States, Egypt and Turkey as well as locally grown tobacco to produce their famed products. Spillane’s Tobacco Factory on Sarsfield Street was started by John Spillane in 1829 and was known as ‘The House of Garryowen’. A hundred years later they were employing a hundred people. The famous Garryowen plug formed 80 per cent of the factories output while they had other products including Popular and Treaty bar plugs, Hazel Nut plug, Special Flake, Handy Cut Flake, snuffs, Cashel, High Toast, White Top and Craven A cigarettes. To meet a special demand from the North of Ireland the factory produced a type of plug known as Long Square. Spillane’s closed in 1958 with the loss of 150 jobs after the building was purchased by Murray Ltd, of Dublin the year previous. Their building is where the old Dunnes Stores building stands today. William Spillane who was the Mayor of Limerick in 1885 built the Spillane Tower which today is better known as the ‘Snuff Box’ on the banks of the Shannon river at Corkanree.The other large factory was Clune’s Tobacco Factory on Denmark Street. It opened in the late 1872 and had about 60 employees in 1929. The firm specialised in Big Bar Plug, every two ounces of which is stamped Thomond. They also excelled in the Far-Famed Limerick Twist. They were also known for Kincora Plug, Sarsfield Plug, Home Rule, Hibernian, Target, Ireland’s Pride and Two Flake. A popular item associated with tobacco factories are the cigarette cards. Cigarette cards were originally produced as a small piece of card which was designed to protect the individual cigarettes from being squashed as the original packaging was paper and not the card boxes that we know today. We must not forget M.Cahill’s of Wickham Street which housed a snuff factory in 1870 in the basement of the building and operated for over sixty years. The business was founded by Michael Cahill (c.1846-1918) who was also the director of the Limerick Race Company. Cahill’s became Ireland’s longest running tobacco store and is still in operation offering a selection of cigar, teas and “gentleman’s gifts” including Swiss army knives, hipflasks and pipes.
46cm x 37cm. John Jameson was originally a lawyer from Alloa in Scotland before he founded his eponymous distillery in Dublin in 1780.Prevoius to this he had made the wise move of marrying Margaret Haig (1753–1815) in 1768,one of the simple reasons being Margaret was the eldest daughter of John Haig, the famous whisky distiller in Scotland. John and Margaret had eight sons and eight daughters, a family of 16 children. Portraits of the couple by Sir Henry Raeburn are on display in the National Gallery of Ireland. John Jameson joined the Convivial Lodge No. 202, of the Dublin Freemasons on the 24th June 1774 and in 1780, Irish whiskey distillation began at Bow Street. In 1805, he was joined by his son John Jameson II who took over the family business that year and for the next 41 years, John Jameson II built up the business before handing over to his son John Jameson the 3rd in 1851. In 1901, the Company was formally incorporated as John Jameson and Son Ltd. Four of John Jameson’s sons followed his footsteps in distilling in Ireland, John Jameson II (1773 – 1851) at Bow Street, William and James Jameson at Marrowbone Lane in Dublin (where they partnered their Stein relations, calling their business Jameson and Stein, before settling on William Jameson & Co.). The fourth of Jameson's sons, Andrew, who had a small distillery at Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, was the grandfather of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless telegraphy. Marconi’s mother was Annie Jameson, Andrew’s daughter. John Jameson’s eldest son, Robert took over his father’s legal business in Alloa. The Jamesons became the most important distilling family in Ireland, despite rivalry between the Bow Street and Marrowbone Lane distilleries. By the turn of the 19th century, it was the second largest producer in Ireland and one of the largest in the world, producing 1,000,000 gallons annually. Dublin at the time was the centre of world whiskey production. It was the second most popular spirit in the world after rum and internationally Jameson had by 1805 become the world's number one whiskey. Today, Jameson is the world's third largest single-distillery whiskey. Historical events, for a time, set the company back. The temperance movement in Ireland had an enormous impact domestically but the two key events that affected Jameson were the Irish War of Independence and subsequent trade war with the British which denied Jameson the export markets of the Commonwealth, and shortly thereafter, the introduction of prohibition in the United States. While Scottish brands could easily slip across the Canada–US border, Jameson was excluded from its biggest market for many years.The introduction of column stills by the Scottish blenders in the mid-19th-century enabled increased production that the Irish, still making labour-intensive single pot still whiskey, could not compete with. There was a legal enquiry somewhere in 1908 to deal with the trade definition of whiskey. The Scottish producers won within some jurisdictions, and blends became recognised in the law of that jurisdiction as whiskey. The Irish in general, and Jameson in particular, continued with the traditional pot still production process for many years.In 1966 John Jameson merged with Cork Distillers and John Powers to form the Irish Distillers Group. In 1976, the Dublin whiskey distilleries of Jameson in Bow Street and in John's Lane were closed following the opening of a New Midleton Distillery by Irish Distillers outside Cork. The Midleton Distillery now produces much of the Irish whiskey sold in Ireland under the Jameson, Midleton, Powers, Redbreast, Spot and Paddy labels. The new facility adjoins the Old Midleton Distillery, the original home of the Paddy label, which is now home to the Jameson Experience Visitor Centre and the Irish Whiskey Academy. The Jameson brand was acquired by the French drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard in 1988, when it bought Irish Distillers. The old Jameson Distillery in Bow Street near Smithfield in Dublin now serves as a museum which offers tours and tastings. The distillery, which is historical in nature and no longer produces whiskey on site, went through a $12.6 million renovation that was concluded in March 2016, and is now a focal part of Ireland's strategy to raise the number of whiskey tourists, which stood at 600,000 in 2017.Bow Street also now has a fully functioning Maturation Warehouse within its walls since the 2016 renovation. It is here that Jameson 18 Bow Street is finished before being bottled at Cask Strength. In 2008, The Local, an Irish pub in Minneapolis, sold 671 cases of Jameson (22 bottles a day),making it the largest server of Jameson's in the world – a title it maintained for four consecutive years.
