Power's Pure Pot Still Whiskey display including photograph of delivery lorry ,original labels & other ephemera.
40cm x 34cm Thomas St Dublin
In 1791 James Power, an innkeeper from Dublin, established a small distillery at his public house at 109 Thomas St., Dublin. The distillery, which had an output of about 6,000 gallons in its first year of operation, initially traded as James Power and Son, but by 1822 had become John Power & Son, and had moved to a new premises at John's Lane, a side street off Thomas Street. At the time the distillery had three pot stills, though only one, a 500-gallon still is thought to have been in use.
Following reform of the distilling laws in 1823, the distillery expanded rapidly. In 1827, production was reported at 160,270 gallons,and by 1833 had grown to 300,000 gallons per annum.
As the distillery grew, so too did the stature of the family. In 1841, John Power, grandson of the founder was awarded a baronet, a hereditary title. In 1855, his son Sir James Power, laid the foundation stone for the O'Connell Monument, and in 1859 became High Sheriff of Dublin.
In 1871, the distillery was expanded and rebuilt in the Victorian style, becoming one of the most impressive sights in Dublin.After expansion, output at the distillery rose to 700,000 gallons per annum, and by the 1880s, had reached about 900,000 gallons per annum, at which point the distillery covered over six acres of central Dublin, and had a staff of about 300 people.
The Still House at John's Lane Distillery, as it looked when Alfred Barnard visited in the 1800s.
During this period, when the Dublin whiskey distilleries were amongst the largest in the world, the family run firms of John Powers, along with John Jameson, William Jameson, and George Roe, (collectively known as the "Big Four") came to dominate the Irish distilling landscape, introducing several innovations. In 1886, John Power & Son began bottling their own whiskey, rather than following the practice customary at the time, of selling whiskey directly to merchants and bonders who would bottle it themselves. They were the first Dublin distillery to do so, and one of the first in the world.A gold label adorned each bottle and it was from these that the whiskey got the name Powers Gold Label.
When Alfred Barnard, the British historian visited John's Lane in the late 1880s, he noted the elegance and cleanliness of the buildings, and the modernity of the distillery, describing it as "about as complete a work as it is possible to find anywhere". At the time of his visit, the distillery was home to five pot stills, two of which with capacities of 25,000 gallons, were amongst the largest ever built.In addition, Barnard was high in his praise for Powers whiskey, noting:"The old make, which we drank with our luncheon was delicious and finer than anything we had hitherto tasted.It was as perfect in flavour, and as pronounced in the ancient aroma of Irish Whiskey so dear to to the hearts of connoisseurs,as one could possibly desire and we found a small flask of it very useful afterwards on our travels."
The last member of the family to sit on the board was Sir Thomas Talbot Power,who died in 1930,and with him the Power's Baronetcy. However, ownership remained in the family until 1966, and several descendants of his sisters remained at work with the company until recent times.
In 1961, a Coffey still was installed in John's Lane Distillery, allowing the production of vodka and gin, in addition to the testing of grain whiskey for use in blended whiskey. This was a notable departure for the firm, as for many years the big Dublin distilling dynasties had shunned the use of Coffey stills, questioning if their output, grain whiskey could even be termed whiskey. However, with many of the Irish distilleries having closed in the early 20th century in part due to their failure to embrace a change in consumer preference towards blended whiskey, Powers were instrumental in convincing the remaining Irish distilleries to reconsider their stance on blended whiskey.
In 1966, with the Irish whiskey industry still struggling following Prohibition in the United States, the Anglo-Irish Trade War and the rise of competition from Scotch whiskey, John Powers & Son joined forces with the only other remaining distillers in the Irish Republic, the Cork Distilleries Company and their Dublin rivals John Jameson & Son, to form Irish Distillers. Soon after, in a bold move, Irish Distillers decided to close all of their existing distilleries, and to consolidate production at a new purpose-built facility in Midleton (the New Midleton Distillery) alongside their existing Old Midleton Distillery. The new distillery opened in 1975, and a year later, production ceased at John's Lane Distillery and began anew in Cork, with Powers Gold Label and many other Irish whiskeys reformulated from single pot stills whiskeys to blends.
In 1989, Irish Distillers itself became a subsidiary of Pernod-Ricard following a friendly takeover.Since the closure of the John's Lane distillery, many of the distillery buildings were demolished. However, some of the buildings have been incorporated into the National College of Art and Design, and are now protected structures. In addition, three of the distillery's pot stills were saved and now located in the college's Red Square.
Origins : Dublin City
Dimensions : 100cm x 70cm 20kg (specially constructed damage proof shipping container)
40cm x 32cm Artane Dublin
Classic Smithwicks Ale Advertising Showcard-(1960s era)-Brewed in Ireland.
The old Smithwicks brewery is on the site of a Franciscan abbey, where monks had brewed ale since the 14th century, and ruins of the original abbey still remain on its grounds. The old brewery has since been renovated and now hosts "The Smithwick's Experience Kilkenny" visitor attraction and centre.At the time of its closure, it was Ireland's oldest operating brewery.
John Smithwick was an orphan who had settled in Kilkenny. Shortly after his arrival, Smithwick went into the brewing business with Richard Cole on a piece of land that Cole had leased from the Duke of Ormond in 1705. Five years later, John Smithwick became the owner of the land. The brewery stayed small, servicing a loyal local following while John Smithwick diversified.
Following John Smithwick's death, the brewery temporarily fell out of family hands. John Smithwick's great grandson, Edmond bought the brewery land back freehold and worked to reshape its future. Edmond concentrated on discovering new markets and successfully building export trade. Drinkers in England, Scotland and Wales developed a taste for Smithwick's brews and output increased fivefold.
As a result of substantial contributions made to St Mary's Cathedral, Edmond became great friends with Irish liberal Daniel O'Connell, who later became godfather to one of his sons. Edmond Smithwick became well known and respected by the people of Kilkenny who elected him town mayor four times.
In 1800, export sales began to fall and the brewing industry encountered difficulty. To combat this, the Smithwick family increased production in their maltings, began selling mineral water and delivered butter with the ale from the back of their drays.By 1900, output was at an all-time low and the then owner James Smithwick was advised by auditors to shut the doors of the brewery. Instead, James reduced the range of beers they produced and set out to find new markets. He secured military contracts and soon after saw output increase again. James' son, Walter, took control in 1930 and steered the brewery to success through the hardships of both World War II and increasingly challenging weather conditions.By January 1950, Smithwick's was exporting ale to Boston.Smithwick's was purchased from Walter Smithwick in 1965 by Guinness and is now, along with Guinness, part of Diageo. Together, Guinness & Co. and Smithwick's developed and launched Smithwick's Draught Ale in 1966. By 1979, half a million barrels were sold each year.In 1980, Smithwick's began exporting to France. In 1993, Smithwick's Draught became Canada's leading imported ale.By 2010, Smithwick's continued to be brewed in Dundalk and Kilkenny with tankers sent to Dublin to be kegged for the on trade market. Cans and bottles were packaged by IBC in Belfast.Production in the Kilkenny brewery finished on 31 December 2013 and Smithwicks brands are now produced in the Diageo St.James' Gate brewery in Dublin.The original Kilkenny site was sold to Kilkenny County Council, with a small portion of the site dedicated to the opening of a visitor's centre, the "Smithwick's Experience Kilkenny".
60cm x 50cm Limerick City
The Proclamation of the Republic (Irish: Forógra na Poblachta), also known as the 1916 Proclamation or the Easter Proclamation, was a document issued by the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising in Ireland, which began on 24 April 1916. In it, the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, styling itself the ’Provisional Government of the Irish Republic’, proclaimed Ireland's independence from the United Kingdom. The reading of the proclamation by Patrick Pearse outside the General Post Office (GPO) on Sackville Street (now called O'Connell Street), Dublin's main thoroughfare, marked the beginning of the Rising. The proclamation was modelled on a similar independence proclamation issued during the 1803 rebellion by Robert Emmet.
Principles of the proclamation
Though the Rising failed in military terms, the principles of the Proclamation to varying degrees influenced the thinking of later generations of Irish politicians. The document consisted of a number of assertions:
that the Rising's leaders spoke for Ireland (a claim historically made by Irish insurrectionary movements);
that the Rising marked another wave of attempts to achieve independence through force of arms;
"the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland"
that the form of government was to be a republic;
a guarantee of "religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens", the first mention of gender equality, given that Irish women under British law were not allowed to vote;
a commitment to universal suffrage, a phenomenon limited at the time to only a handful of countries, not including the UK;
a promise of "cherishing all the children of the nation equally". Although these words have been quoted since the 1990s by children's rights advocates, "children of the nation" refers to all Irish people;
disputes between nationalists and unionists are attributed to "differences carefully fostered by an alien government", a rejection of what was later dubbed two-nations theory.
The printing and distribution of the text
The proclamation had been printed secretly prior to the Rising on a Summit Wharfedale Stop Cylinder Press, located in Liberty Hall, Eden Quay (HQ of the Irish Citizen Army). Because of its secret printing, problems arose which affected the layout and design. In particular, because of a shortage of type, the document was printed in two halves, printing first the top, then the bottom on the same piece of paper. The typesetters were Willie O'Brien, Michael Molloy and Christopher Brady.They lacked a sufficient supply of type in the same size and font, and as a result, some parts of the document use es from a different font, which are smaller and do not quite match.
The language suggested that the original copy of the proclamation had actually been signed by the Rising's leaders. However no evidence has ever been found, nor do any contemporary records mention, the existence of an actually signed copy, though had such a copy existed, it could easily have been destroyed in the aftermath of the Rising by someone (in the British military, a member of the public or a Rising participant trying to destroy potentially incriminating evidence) who did not appreciate its historic importance. Molloy claimed in later life to have set the document from a handwritten copy, with signatures on a separate piece of paper which he destroyed by chewing while in prison, but this was disputed by other participants. Molloy also recalled that Connolly had asked for the document to resemble an auctioneer's notice in general design.
There are about 30 original copies still remaining, one of which can be viewed in the National Print Museum.Reproductions were later made, which have sometimes been misattributed as originals.When the British soldiers recaptured Liberty Hall, they found the press with the type of the bottom of the proclamation still fully set up, and reportedly ran off some copies as souvenirs, leading to a proliferation of these 'half-copies'.James Mosley notes that complete originals rapidly became rare in the chaos, and that over a month later the Dublin police had failed to find one for their files.
The signatories
The signatories (as their names appeared on the Proclamation):
One question sometimes raised is why the first name among the 'signatories' was not Pearse but Tom Clarke, a veteran republican. Had the arrangement of names been alphabetical, Éamonn Ceannt would have appeared on top. Clarke's widow maintained that it was because the plan had been for Clarke, as a famed veteran, to become the President of the Provisional Republic. Such an explanation would certainly explain his premier position. However, others associated with the Rising dismissed her claims, which she made in her memoirs. Later documents issued by the rebels gave Pearse pride of place, though as 'Commanding in Chief the Forces of the Irish Republic, and President of the Provisional Government,not 'President of the Republic'. Whether the plan had ever been to have Clarke as a symbolic head of state and Pearse as head of government or was simply that Pearse was always to be central but with statements ambiguously describing his title, remains a mystery about which historians still speculate.
All seven signatories of the proclamation were executed by the British military (James Connolly who had been wounded in the fighting was executed sitting down in a chair) in the aftermath of the Rising, being viewed as having committed treason in wartime (i.e. the First World War). British political leaders regarded the executions initially as unwise, later as a catastrophe, with the British Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith and later prime minister David Lloyd George stating that they regretted allowing the British military to treat the matter as a matter of military law in wartime, rather than insisting that the leaders were treated under civilian criminal law. Though initially deeply unsympathetic to the Rising (the leading Irish nationalist newspaper, the Irish Independent called for their execution), Irish public opinion switched and became more sympathetic due to the manner of their treatment and executions.Eventually Asquith's government ordered a halt to the executions and insisted that those not already executed be dealt with through civilian, not military, law. By that stage, all the signatories and a number of others had been executed.
The document today
Full copies of the Easter Proclamation are now treated as a revered Irish national icon, and a copy was sold at auction for €390,000 in December 2004.A copy owned (and later signed as a memento) by Rising participant Seán T. O'Kelly was presented by him to the Irish parliament buildings, Leinster House, during his tenure as President of Ireland. It is currently on permanent display in the main foyer. Other copies are on display in the GPO (headquarters of the Rising and the place where the Proclamation was first read), the National Museum of Ireland, the Trinity College Library's Long Room and other museums worldwide. Facsimile copies are sold as souvenirs in Ireland, and copies of the text are often displayed in Irish schools and in Irish pubs throughout the world. The proclamation is read aloud by an Officer of the Irish Defence Forces outside the GPO during the Easter Rising commemorations on Easter Sunday of each year.
Text
POBLACHT NA hÉIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN:
In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.
The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Very old & original Players Navy Cut Cigarettes Showcard (made from cardboard)
35cm x 35cm Virginia Co Cavan
Navy Cut were a brand of cigarettes manufactured by Imperial Brands –formerly John Player & Sons– in Nottingham, England.The brand became "Player's Navy Cut". They were particularly popular in Britain,Ireland and Germany in the late 19th century and early part of the 20th century, but were later produced in the United States. The packet has the distinctive logo of a smoking sailor in a 'Navy Cut' cap.
The phrase "Navy Cut" is according to Player's adverts to originate from the habit of sailors taking a mixture of tobacco leaves and binding them with string or twine. The tobacco would then mature under pressure and the sailor could then dispense the tobacco by slicing off a "cut".The product is also available in pipe tobacco form.
The cigarettes were available in tins and the original cardboard container was a four sided tray of cigarettes that slid out from a covering like a classic matchbox. The next design had fold in ends so that the cigarettes could be seen or dispensed without sliding out the tray. In the 1950s the packaging moved to the flip top design like most brands.
Enamelled metal box for 1 ounce of tobacco
The image of the sailor was known as "Hero" because of the name on his hat band. It was first used in 1883 and the lifebuoy was added five years later. The sailor images were an 1891 artists concept registered for Chester-based William Parkins and Co for their "Jack Glory" brand.Behind the sailor are two ships. The one on the left is thought to be HMS Britannia and the one on the right HMS Dreadnought or HMS Hero.
As time went by the image of the sailor changed as it sometimes had a beard and other times he was clean shaven. In 1927 "Hero" was standardised on a 1905 version. As part of the 1927 marketing campaign John Player and Sons commissioned an oil painting Head of a Sailor by Arthur David McCormick.The Player's Hero logo was thought to contribute to the cigarettes popularity in the 20s and 30s when competitor W.D. & H.O. Wills tried to create a similar image. Unlike Craven A, Navy Cut was intended to have a unisex appeal. Advertisements referred to "the appeal to Eve's fair daughters" and lines like "Men may come and Men may go".
Hero is thought to have originally meant to indicate traditional British values, but his masculinity appealed directly to men and as a potential uncle figure for younger women. One slogan written inside the packet was "It's the tobacco that counts" and another was "Player's Please" which was said to appeal to the perceived desire of the population to be included in the mass market. The slogan was so well known that it was sufficient in a shop to get a packet of this brand.
Player's Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Players and two thirds of these was branded as Players Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Players sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London. The popularity of the brand was mostly amongst the middle class and in the South of England. While it was smoked in the north, other brands were locally more popular. The brand was discontinued in the UK in 2016.
60cm x 80cm. Castlegregory Co Kerry
These unique artefacts of old Irish commercial life will make superb decorative item for any discerning Irish pub or home bar with a distinctive Irish theme.What makes these items of even more historical value and interest is the fact that the majority of them date from the World War 2 Era or what was known as the Emergency in Ireland as its remained somewhat controversially neutral under DeValera's leadership.We can see vividly through these unique items how ordinary people and both small and large businesses alike were presented with an unprecedented set of challenges -rationing,increaseed regulation and of decreased supply and increased demand created by a world in turmoil.
Presented in antique frames, these are the real deal after a number were found in an old suitcase bought at auction. If interested in buying a number of these charming pieces of Irish commercial ephemera, please contact us directly at irishpubemporiu@gmail.com for a special deal !
Dingle Co Kerry 27 cm x 23cm
A short history of Ireland during the Second World War, by John Dorney.
The Second World War was the defining event of the twentieth century. It saw, as well as the deaths of tens of millions and devastation of two continents, the defeat of Hitler and Nazism, the decline of the once dominant European empires and the rise to superpower status of the United State and the Soviet Union.
In the Irish state, popularly known throughout the war years as ‘Eire’ it was also a crucial event, though more for what did not happen than what did.
Ireland did not join the war, but declared neutrality. Indeed the world war, in Ireland, was not referred to as a war at all, but as ‘The Emergency’.
In staying neutral, despite British and latterly American pleas to join the war, Ireland, under Eamon de Valera, successfully asserted the independence of the new state.
However, Irish neutrality was a fraught affair – a delicate balancing act between neutrality and secretly aiding the Allied powers.
Background, incomplete independence
Eamon de Valera.
The independence struggle of 1916-1921 had not resulted, as Irish Republicans had dreamed, in a fully independent all-Ireland Republic.
Instead, the Treaty settlement of 1921 left two states in Ireland. One, the Irish Free State, in 26 of Ireland’s 32 counties was a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. The other 6 counties, Northern Ireland, was a unionist dominated autonomous region of the United Kingdom.
While the Free State was much more independent than Northern Ireland, it was not completely so. As well as symbolic ties to Britain – an oath of fidelity members of parliament had to take to the British monarch and Governor General who represented the King as head of state in Ireland, the British retained three naval bases around the Irish coast, at Cobh, Bearhaven and Lough Swilly.
The acceptance of this settlement tore the unity of the Irish nationalist movement apart, in a bitter Civil War in 1922-23, won by the pro-Treaty faction.
The Irish state stayed neutral during the War to assert its independence from Britain.
The anti-Treaty Republicans never fully accepted their defeat however. What was left of the guerrilla army that had fought British and the Civil War, the IRA, never accepted the Free State. In 1932, the major political party that emerged from the anti-Treaty movement, Fianna Fail, came to power by election.
Under Eamon de Valera, they set about dismantling the Treaty, abolishing the oath to the British monarchy, the Governor General and the Senate and introducing a new constitution in 1937. They also initiated a tariff war with Britain by refusing to pay back the Land Annuities that Britain had granted to subsidise land reform in Ireland in the early twentieth century.
While this satisfied many of de Valera’s supporters, the IRA continued to oppose anything short of a fully independent Irish Republic. De Valera had legalised the organisation in 1933, but he banned them again in 1936, as they would not give up their arms or illegal methods.
De Valera’s new constitution removed the name Irish Free State and stated that the country’s name was ‘Eire, or in the English language Ireland’. The name ‘Eire’ stuck abroad to distinguish the former Free State from Northern Ireland.
By 1938, however, both de Valera and the British government of Neville Chamberlain, were eager to normalise relations with each other. De Valera agreed to pay a lump sum towards the land annuities and in return, Chamberlain lift the onerous tariffs on Irish agricultural imports.
Most importantly though, the British agreed to return to Ireland the three ‘Treaty ports’ on the Atlantic Coast.
The British analysis was that the ports had not been well-maintained, required investment and would be difficult to defend in wartime should the Irish ever try to take them back. But the British thought they were being returned to Ireland on the implicit understanding that British naval forces would be allowed to use them in the event of a European war.
De Valera, on the other hand, had insisted that the return of the ports be unconditional and when war broke out, refused the British request to use the ports as anti-submarine bases.
The Treaty ports and Irish unity
The location of the Treaty Ports.
Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany. Ireland immediately declared neutrality.
By the summer of 1940, however the situation had changed dramatically and to the peril of neutral Ireland.
German forces had rolled over most of western Europe, occupying Denmark, Norway the Netherlands, Belgium and most importantly, France. The British Army had only barely escaped annihilation at Dunkirk.
Britain now faced a fight for its life, with the Atlantic Ocean and trade with America as it last lifeline. Now it again desperately needed the use of Atlantic Ports that it had returned to Ireland in 1938, to safeguard the convoys of merchant ships that crossed the Atlantic with food and arms.
Winston Churchill had to be persuaded not to invade Ireland to take Ireland’s Atlantic ports.
At this point Neville Chamberlain was replaced as British Prime Minister by Winston Churchill, who took a far less conciliatory position on Irish neutrality than his predecessor.
Churchill was one of the architects of the Anglo-Irish Treaty back in 1921 and considered that the Irish state only existed as agreed under the Treaty, ‘under the [British] Crown’. He therefore considered Irish neutrality as a breach of the Treaty and that Britain would be within its rights to re-occupy the territory of the Irish Free State.
On numerous occasions he had to be talked out of unilaterally taking back the ‘Treaty Ports’ in Ireland by military action by his cabinet
Churchill however also attempted to lure de Valera into the war by offering him the prospect of Irish unity in return for an end to the policy of neutrality. In popular consciousness this is often held to have been confined to a late night note Churchill fired off to de Valera in which he wrote ‘now or never, a nation once again’.
In reality however, the British offer of a united Ireland was far more concrete than is widely understood. Irish and British teams negotiated for months, and the British under Neville Chamberlian offered de Valera of formal offer of unity on June 28 1940, in return for British troops, planes and ships being allowed to garrison the Treaty Ports.
What decided de Valera against accepting the offer, apart from the innate fears of entering the war, was that a prospective united Ireland would have to be approved in the Northern Ireland Parliament. As long as this was dominated by unionists, this meant that no British offer of unity was likely to come to pass. Ireland and her ports stayed out of the war.
Northern unionists, meanwhile, were outraged at the prospect of a united Ireland negotiated behind their backs between London and Dublin.
Neutral?
The Irish Army in 1930s German style helmets. They were re-kitted with British pattern gear during the War.
Because of Ireland’s stance, many in Britain claimed that Ireland was secretly pro-Axis and rumours, mostly unfounded, abounded of German u-boats docking on Ireland’s west coast.
Pressure increased on Ireland to join the war after the entry of the United State in 1941. The American consul in Dublin David Gray, was extremely hostile to Irish neutrality and consistently reported, erroneously, that Irish neutrality was pro-Axis.
This meant that Ireland had to aid the Allies in order placate Britain, avoid a possible British invasion and to avoid American hostility. At the start of the war, De Valera secretly agreed with the British to share naval and marine intelligence with them.
Dan Bryan, the head of Irish military intelligence, developed particularly close relations with his British counterparts during the war.
The standard practice for neutral countries was to intern any belligerent personnel who landed there. At the start of the war, Ireland followed this practice and detained both Allied and German airmen who crash landed in Ireland.
Despite its neutrality, in practice Ireland aided the Allies in many ways.
However, in 1943, Ireland quietly released all its 33 Allied internees while keeping the Germans incarcerated. About 260 German military, air force and naval personnel, who had mostly crashed landed in Ireland, were interned in Ireland during the war
From this point onwards, when allied airplanes crashed in Irish territory, their surviving crews were secretly escorted across the border, back into British territory. And where possible, their machines were also repaired and returned. The official justification for this was that all allied planes over Ireland were on training missions, whereas the Germans were on combat missions.
From 1941 onwards, Ireland also permitted allied planes to fly over Irish air space in an ‘air corridor’ over County Donegal into Northern Ireland. In 1944, in the run up to the Normandy Landings in France, Irish weather stations provided the allies with secret weather reports that helped the invasion of Europe to go ahead
Northern Ireland, meanwhile, became a major staging post for the United State military, with a naval and Marine Corps base in Derry and thousands of American military personal, including five Army divisions, garrisoned there ahead of the invasion of Europe.
The role of the IRA
The aftermath of an IRA bomb in Coventry in August 1939 that killed 5 civilians.
One of the major headaches for those trying to safeguard Irish neutrality was the IRA, which was determined to get German military aid to overthrow both states in Ireland, north and south.
As well as defying Irish law, the IRA’s actions threatened to undermine Ireland’s neutrality in the war and bring about a confrontation with Britain.
IRA Chief of Staff Sean Russell tried to make contact with the Germans as early as 1936 and IRA leader Tom Barry was brought to Germany as a guest of German intelligence in 1937 and asked about the possibility of the IRA carrying out sabotage against Britain in the event of war.
The IRA sought German aid during the War but was harshly repressed on both sides of the border.
In 1939, starting before war broke out between Britain and Germany, Russell launched a bombing campaign in England, targeting power stations and factories but also cinemas and post offices. The logic of Russell’s campaign was that while Britain was engaged in a world war it might be forced to leave Northern Ireland in order to stop the bombing campaign at home.
Seven English civilians were killed in the bombing campaign. The most dramatic event was a bomb in attack in Coventry that killed five people, for which two IRA members were later hanged.
In Ireland the IRA was also involved in intermittent anti-state activities. In December 1939 they stole one million rounds of ammunition from the Irish Army’s depot at the Magazine Fort in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. They also bombed Garda (police) headquarters at Dublin Castle and shot a number of Garda detectives in various incidents, killing five detectives over the course of the war
In response, the de Valera government interned over 500 IRA members at the Curragh and jailed another 100 for the duration of the war. The Irish government also executed six IRA members between 1940 and 1944 for shooting Gardai or soldiers.
In Northern Ireland, the IRA carried out some attacks from 1942 onwards, killing over the course of the war, six RUC policemen. There too, internment was introduced, 300 IRA men were imprisoned and one IRA man, Tom Williams, was hanged by the Northern government for the killing of an RUC constable in 1942.
German and IRA collaboration
Hermann Goertz, the German agent sent to Ireland to liaise with the IRA.
There was an on-off partnership between the IRA and German military intelligence during the war.
Essentially the Germans wanted two things from Ireland during the Second World War. The first and most important was that Eire would remain neutral and deny the British use of the Treaty Ports on Ireland’s western coast.
Because of this they discouraged the IRA from attacks south of the border.
Their secondary objective and reason for cooperating with the IRA, was to foment a rebellion by nationalists in Northern Ireland to divert British resources from war fronts elsewhere.
In 1940 the Germans also considered invading the south coast of Ireland, in plan known as Operation Green. This would have been intended as a diversionary attack during an invasion of Britain itself. However this never got beyond the planning stage.
Alternatively if the British invaded Eire in order to take the Atlantic ports, Hitler thought that de Valera might ask for German assistance, in which case Germany would invade in support of Irish forces. In fact, while de Valera rebuffed the offers of military aid from the German ambassador Hempel, he did make a working agreement to invite British troops into Ireland in the event of a German invasion.
The Germans wanted to use the IRA to launch an insurrection in Northern Ireland.
Sean Russell, the IRA leader who had pioneered cooperation with Nazi Germany, died of a burst ulcer aboard a u-boat on his way back to Ireland in August 1940. However this was far from the end of the IRA‘s contacts with German intelligence.
The Germans landed over dozen agents in Ireland during the war, the most important of whom was Hermann Goertz, a military intelligence officer, whose job it was to liaise with the IRA.
Stephen Hayes, the IRA Chief of Staff, had a plan drawn up ‘Plan Kathleen’ for a German invasion of Northern Ireland, involving a landing in Derry, which the IRA would have supported through an attack over the border from County Leitrim.
Goertz discussed the plan with Stephen Hayes but was not impressed either with Hayes, the IRA’s capabilities or with the details of the plan.
In fact, the German agent concluded that the IRA was all but useless to German war aims and instead began trying to create a network of informants based on far-right wing sympathisers such as Niall MacNeill, an Irish Army intelligence officer and former Blueshirt leader Eoin O’Duffy
After 18 months in Ireland, Goertz was arrested in November 1941, more or less ending the overt collaboration of the IRA with Nazi Germany.
Despite the Germans’ on-off dealings with the IRA, the Eamon de Valera and the Irish government generally had a cordial relationship with the German ambassador, Eduard Hempel, who was regarded as dealing more respectfully with neutral Ireland than did the British or American representatives in Dublin.
For this reason de Valera consistently refused Allied demands that the German ambassador be expelled.
Bombing
The aftermath of the North Strand bombing.
One of the main reasons for Irish neutrality, apart from the demonstration of independence from Britain it allowed, was that the country would be defenceless against aerial bombing.
And certainly the southern state was spared the fate of Northern Ireland during the war. Belfast in particular was systematically targeted by German bombers in April and May 1941 due to its possession of shipyards and war industries.
During the ‘Belfast Blitz’ – consisting of three large air raids – over 1,000 people were killed and thousands more injured and made homeless.
Dublin was bombed accidentally but Belfast was systematically bombed and over 1,000 civilians were killed.
Southern fire engines were sent north to aid the Northern authorities in the aftermath of the bombings.
While it did not see concerted bombing of that kind, on a number of occasions, the 26 county Irish state was indeed bombed by the Germans, most notably the North Strand area of Dublin in May 1941, in which 28 people were killed. The Germans later apologised for the bombing and paid compensation
While it has been speculated that such bombings were a veiled threat from the Germans as to what would happen if Ireland abandoned neutrality, historian Michael Kennedy judges that they were in fact the result of German bombers dumping their bombs on return flights from unsuccessful mission in Northern Ireland
End of the War
Destruction in Belfast after the Blitz there in 1941.
Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 8 1945 after Adolf Hitler’s suicide. Very controversially, Eamon de Valera paid a courtesy visit to the German ambassador Hempel’s residence to offer his condolences on the death of the Nazi leader.
De Valera maintained that he was merely observing the standard diplomatic protocols on the death of a foreign head of state.
Ireland survived the war more or less unscathed. Strict rationing had to be applied and there were severe shortages of items such as coal and petrol during the war years. Still, this was insignificant compared to the devastation that had been wrought in much of the rest of Europe.
However its neutral stance during the war left it somewhat isolated in the immediate postwar years.
For instance, while other western European countries received free American aid under the Marshall Plan in the 1940s, the Americans queried why neutral Ireland either deserved or needed such aid. In the end Ireland got a loan of £36 million
The sharp contrast between the experience of the war north and south of the border also tended to reinforce the partition of Ireland in the coming decades.
50cm x 60cm Castlelgregory Co Kerry
These unique artefacts of old Irish commercial life will make superb decorative item for any discerning Irish pub or home bar with a distinctive Irish theme.What makes these items of even more historical value and interest is the fact that the majority of them date from the World War 2 Era or what was known as the Emergency in Ireland as its remained somewhat controversially neutral under DeValera's leadership.We can see vividly through these unique items how ordinary people and both small and large businesses alike were presented with an unprecedented set of challenges -rationing,increaseed regulation and of decreased supply and increased demand created by a world in turmoil.
Presented in antique frames, these are the real deal after a number were found in an old suitcase bought at auction. If interested in buying a number of these charming pieces of Irish commercial ephemera, please contact us directly at irishpubemporiu@gmail.com for a special deal !
Dingle Co Kerry 27 cm x 23cm
A short history of Ireland during the Second World War, by John Dorney.
The Second World War was the defining event of the twentieth century. It saw, as well as the deaths of tens of millions and devastation of two continents, the defeat of Hitler and Nazism, the decline of the once dominant European empires and the rise to superpower status of the United State and the Soviet Union.
In the Irish state, popularly known throughout the war years as ‘Eire’ it was also a crucial event, though more for what did not happen than what did.
Ireland did not join the war, but declared neutrality. Indeed the world war, in Ireland, was not referred to as a war at all, but as ‘The Emergency’.
In staying neutral, despite British and latterly American pleas to join the war, Ireland, under Eamon de Valera, successfully asserted the independence of the new state.
However, Irish neutrality was a fraught affair – a delicate balancing act between neutrality and secretly aiding the Allied powers.
Background, incomplete independence
Eamon de Valera.
The independence struggle of 1916-1921 had not resulted, as Irish Republicans had dreamed, in a fully independent all-Ireland Republic.
Instead, the Treaty settlement of 1921 left two states in Ireland. One, the Irish Free State, in 26 of Ireland’s 32 counties was a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. The other 6 counties, Northern Ireland, was a unionist dominated autonomous region of the United Kingdom.
While the Free State was much more independent than Northern Ireland, it was not completely so. As well as symbolic ties to Britain – an oath of fidelity members of parliament had to take to the British monarch and Governor General who represented the King as head of state in Ireland, the British retained three naval bases around the Irish coast, at Cobh, Bearhaven and Lough Swilly.
The acceptance of this settlement tore the unity of the Irish nationalist movement apart, in a bitter Civil War in 1922-23, won by the pro-Treaty faction.
The Irish state stayed neutral during the War to assert its independence from Britain.
The anti-Treaty Republicans never fully accepted their defeat however. What was left of the guerrilla army that had fought British and the Civil War, the IRA, never accepted the Free State. In 1932, the major political party that emerged from the anti-Treaty movement, Fianna Fail, came to power by election.
Under Eamon de Valera, they set about dismantling the Treaty, abolishing the oath to the British monarchy, the Governor General and the Senate and introducing a new constitution in 1937. They also initiated a tariff war with Britain by refusing to pay back the Land Annuities that Britain had granted to subsidise land reform in Ireland in the early twentieth century.
While this satisfied many of de Valera’s supporters, the IRA continued to oppose anything short of a fully independent Irish Republic. De Valera had legalised the organisation in 1933, but he banned them again in 1936, as they would not give up their arms or illegal methods.
De Valera’s new constitution removed the name Irish Free State and stated that the country’s name was ‘Eire, or in the English language Ireland’. The name ‘Eire’ stuck abroad to distinguish the former Free State from Northern Ireland.
By 1938, however, both de Valera and the British government of Neville Chamberlain, were eager to normalise relations with each other. De Valera agreed to pay a lump sum towards the land annuities and in return, Chamberlain lift the onerous tariffs on Irish agricultural imports.
Most importantly though, the British agreed to return to Ireland the three ‘Treaty ports’ on the Atlantic Coast.
The British analysis was that the ports had not been well-maintained, required investment and would be difficult to defend in wartime should the Irish ever try to take them back. But the British thought they were being returned to Ireland on the implicit understanding that British naval forces would be allowed to use them in the event of a European war.
De Valera, on the other hand, had insisted that the return of the ports be unconditional and when war broke out, refused the British request to use the ports as anti-submarine bases.
The Treaty ports and Irish unity
The location of the Treaty Ports.
Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany. Ireland immediately declared neutrality.
By the summer of 1940, however the situation had changed dramatically and to the peril of neutral Ireland.
German forces had rolled over most of western Europe, occupying Denmark, Norway the Netherlands, Belgium and most importantly, France. The British Army had only barely escaped annihilation at Dunkirk.
Britain now faced a fight for its life, with the Atlantic Ocean and trade with America as it last lifeline. Now it again desperately needed the use of Atlantic Ports that it had returned to Ireland in 1938, to safeguard the convoys of merchant ships that crossed the Atlantic with food and arms.
Winston Churchill had to be persuaded not to invade Ireland to take Ireland’s Atlantic ports.
At this point Neville Chamberlain was replaced as British Prime Minister by Winston Churchill, who took a far less conciliatory position on Irish neutrality than his predecessor.
Churchill was one of the architects of the Anglo-Irish Treaty back in 1921 and considered that the Irish state only existed as agreed under the Treaty, ‘under the [British] Crown’. He therefore considered Irish neutrality as a breach of the Treaty and that Britain would be within its rights to re-occupy the territory of the Irish Free State.
On numerous occasions he had to be talked out of unilaterally taking back the ‘Treaty Ports’ in Ireland by military action by his cabinet
Churchill however also attempted to lure de Valera into the war by offering him the prospect of Irish unity in return for an end to the policy of neutrality. In popular consciousness this is often held to have been confined to a late night note Churchill fired off to de Valera in which he wrote ‘now or never, a nation once again’.
In reality however, the British offer of a united Ireland was far more concrete than is widely understood. Irish and British teams negotiated for months, and the British under Neville Chamberlian offered de Valera of formal offer of unity on June 28 1940, in return for British troops, planes and ships being allowed to garrison the Treaty Ports.
What decided de Valera against accepting the offer, apart from the innate fears of entering the war, was that a prospective united Ireland would have to be approved in the Northern Ireland Parliament. As long as this was dominated by unionists, this meant that no British offer of unity was likely to come to pass. Ireland and her ports stayed out of the war.
Northern unionists, meanwhile, were outraged at the prospect of a united Ireland negotiated behind their backs between London and Dublin.
Neutral?
The Irish Army in 1930s German style helmets. They were re-kitted with British pattern gear during the War.
Because of Ireland’s stance, many in Britain claimed that Ireland was secretly pro-Axis and rumours, mostly unfounded, abounded of German u-boats docking on Ireland’s west coast.
Pressure increased on Ireland to join the war after the entry of the United State in 1941. The American consul in Dublin David Gray, was extremely hostile to Irish neutrality and consistently reported, erroneously, that Irish neutrality was pro-Axis.
This meant that Ireland had to aid the Allies in order placate Britain, avoid a possible British invasion and to avoid American hostility. At the start of the war, De Valera secretly agreed with the British to share naval and marine intelligence with them.
Dan Bryan, the head of Irish military intelligence, developed particularly close relations with his British counterparts during the war.
The standard practice for neutral countries was to intern any belligerent personnel who landed there. At the start of the war, Ireland followed this practice and detained both Allied and German airmen who crash landed in Ireland.
Despite its neutrality, in practice Ireland aided the Allies in many ways.
However, in 1943, Ireland quietly released all its 33 Allied internees while keeping the Germans incarcerated. About 260 German military, air force and naval personnel, who had mostly crashed landed in Ireland, were interned in Ireland during the war
From this point onwards, when allied airplanes crashed in Irish territory, their surviving crews were secretly escorted across the border, back into British territory. And where possible, their machines were also repaired and returned. The official justification for this was that all allied planes over Ireland were on training missions, whereas the Germans were on combat missions.
From 1941 onwards, Ireland also permitted allied planes to fly over Irish air space in an ‘air corridor’ over County Donegal into Northern Ireland. In 1944, in the run up to the Normandy Landings in France, Irish weather stations provided the allies with secret weather reports that helped the invasion of Europe to go ahead
Northern Ireland, meanwhile, became a major staging post for the United State military, with a naval and Marine Corps base in Derry and thousands of American military personal, including five Army divisions, garrisoned there ahead of the invasion of Europe.
The role of the IRA
The aftermath of an IRA bomb in Coventry in August 1939 that killed 5 civilians.
One of the major headaches for those trying to safeguard Irish neutrality was the IRA, which was determined to get German military aid to overthrow both states in Ireland, north and south.
As well as defying Irish law, the IRA’s actions threatened to undermine Ireland’s neutrality in the war and bring about a confrontation with Britain.
IRA Chief of Staff Sean Russell tried to make contact with the Germans as early as 1936 and IRA leader Tom Barry was brought to Germany as a guest of German intelligence in 1937 and asked about the possibility of the IRA carrying out sabotage against Britain in the event of war.
The IRA sought German aid during the War but was harshly repressed on both sides of the border.
In 1939, starting before war broke out between Britain and Germany, Russell launched a bombing campaign in England, targeting power stations and factories but also cinemas and post offices. The logic of Russell’s campaign was that while Britain was engaged in a world war it might be forced to leave Northern Ireland in order to stop the bombing campaign at home.
Seven English civilians were killed in the bombing campaign. The most dramatic event was a bomb in attack in Coventry that killed five people, for which two IRA members were later hanged.
In Ireland the IRA was also involved in intermittent anti-state activities. In December 1939 they stole one million rounds of ammunition from the Irish Army’s depot at the Magazine Fort in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. They also bombed Garda (police) headquarters at Dublin Castle and shot a number of Garda detectives in various incidents, killing five detectives over the course of the war
In response, the de Valera government interned over 500 IRA members at the Curragh and jailed another 100 for the duration of the war. The Irish government also executed six IRA members between 1940 and 1944 for shooting Gardai or soldiers.
In Northern Ireland, the IRA carried out some attacks from 1942 onwards, killing over the course of the war, six RUC policemen. There too, internment was introduced, 300 IRA men were imprisoned and one IRA man, Tom Williams, was hanged by the Northern government for the killing of an RUC constable in 1942.
German and IRA collaboration
Hermann Goertz, the German agent sent to Ireland to liaise with the IRA.
There was an on-off partnership between the IRA and German military intelligence during the war.
Essentially the Germans wanted two things from Ireland during the Second World War. The first and most important was that Eire would remain neutral and deny the British use of the Treaty Ports on Ireland’s western coast.
Because of this they discouraged the IRA from attacks south of the border.
Their secondary objective and reason for cooperating with the IRA, was to foment a rebellion by nationalists in Northern Ireland to divert British resources from war fronts elsewhere.
In 1940 the Germans also considered invading the south coast of Ireland, in plan known as Operation Green. This would have been intended as a diversionary attack during an invasion of Britain itself. However this never got beyond the planning stage.
Alternatively if the British invaded Eire in order to take the Atlantic ports, Hitler thought that de Valera might ask for German assistance, in which case Germany would invade in support of Irish forces. In fact, while de Valera rebuffed the offers of military aid from the German ambassador Hempel, he did make a working agreement to invite British troops into Ireland in the event of a German invasion.
The Germans wanted to use the IRA to launch an insurrection in Northern Ireland.
Sean Russell, the IRA leader who had pioneered cooperation with Nazi Germany, died of a burst ulcer aboard a u-boat on his way back to Ireland in August 1940. However this was far from the end of the IRA‘s contacts with German intelligence.
The Germans landed over dozen agents in Ireland during the war, the most important of whom was Hermann Goertz, a military intelligence officer, whose job it was to liaise with the IRA.
Stephen Hayes, the IRA Chief of Staff, had a plan drawn up ‘Plan Kathleen’ for a German invasion of Northern Ireland, involving a landing in Derry, which the IRA would have supported through an attack over the border from County Leitrim.
Goertz discussed the plan with Stephen Hayes but was not impressed either with Hayes, the IRA’s capabilities or with the details of the plan.
In fact, the German agent concluded that the IRA was all but useless to German war aims and instead began trying to create a network of informants based on far-right wing sympathisers such as Niall MacNeill, an Irish Army intelligence officer and former Blueshirt leader Eoin O’Duffy
After 18 months in Ireland, Goertz was arrested in November 1941, more or less ending the overt collaboration of the IRA with Nazi Germany.
Despite the Germans’ on-off dealings with the IRA, the Eamon de Valera and the Irish government generally had a cordial relationship with the German ambassador, Eduard Hempel, who was regarded as dealing more respectfully with neutral Ireland than did the British or American representatives in Dublin.
For this reason de Valera consistently refused Allied demands that the German ambassador be expelled.
Bombing
The aftermath of the North Strand bombing.
One of the main reasons for Irish neutrality, apart from the demonstration of independence from Britain it allowed, was that the country would be defenceless against aerial bombing.
And certainly the southern state was spared the fate of Northern Ireland during the war. Belfast in particular was systematically targeted by German bombers in April and May 1941 due to its possession of shipyards and war industries.
During the ‘Belfast Blitz’ – consisting of three large air raids – over 1,000 people were killed and thousands more injured and made homeless.
Dublin was bombed accidentally but Belfast was systematically bombed and over 1,000 civilians were killed.
Southern fire engines were sent north to aid the Northern authorities in the aftermath of the bombings.
While it did not see concerted bombing of that kind, on a number of occasions, the 26 county Irish state was indeed bombed by the Germans, most notably the North Strand area of Dublin in May 1941, in which 28 people were killed. The Germans later apologised for the bombing and paid compensation
While it has been speculated that such bombings were a veiled threat from the Germans as to what would happen if Ireland abandoned neutrality, historian Michael Kennedy judges that they were in fact the result of German bombers dumping their bombs on return flights from unsuccessful mission in Northern Ireland
End of the War
Destruction in Belfast after the Blitz there in 1941.
Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 8 1945 after Adolf Hitler’s suicide. Very controversially, Eamon de Valera paid a courtesy visit to the German ambassador Hempel’s residence to offer his condolences on the death of the Nazi leader.
De Valera maintained that he was merely observing the standard diplomatic protocols on the death of a foreign head of state.
Ireland survived the war more or less unscathed. Strict rationing had to be applied and there were severe shortages of items such as coal and petrol during the war years. Still, this was insignificant compared to the devastation that had been wrought in much of the rest of Europe.
However its neutral stance during the war left it somewhat isolated in the immediate postwar years.
For instance, while other western European countries received free American aid under the Marshall Plan in the 1940s, the Americans queried why neutral Ireland either deserved or needed such aid. In the end Ireland got a loan of £36 million
The sharp contrast between the experience of the war north and south of the border also tended to reinforce the partition of Ireland in the coming decades.
47cm x 60cm. Castlegregpry Co Kerry
These unique artefacts of old Irish commercial life will make superb decorative item for any discerning Irish pub or home bar with a distinctive Irish theme.What makes these items of even more historical value and interest is the fact that the majority of them date from the World War 2 Era or what was known as the Emergency in Ireland as its remained somewhat controversially neutral under DeValera's leadership.We can see vividly through these unique items how ordinary people and both small and large businesses alike were presented with an unprecedented set of challenges -rationing,increaseed regulation and of decreased supply and increased demand created by a world in turmoil.
Presented in antique frames, these are the real deal after a number were found in an old suitcase bought at auction. If interested in buying a number of these charming pieces of Irish commercial ephemera, please contact us directly at irishpubemporiu@gmail.com for a special deal !
Dingle Co Kerry 27 cm x 23cm
A short history of Ireland during the Second World War, by John Dorney.
The Second World War was the defining event of the twentieth century. It saw, as well as the deaths of tens of millions and devastation of two continents, the defeat of Hitler and Nazism, the decline of the once dominant European empires and the rise to superpower status of the United State and the Soviet Union.
In the Irish state, popularly known throughout the war years as ‘Eire’ it was also a crucial event, though more for what did not happen than what did.
Ireland did not join the war, but declared neutrality. Indeed the world war, in Ireland, was not referred to as a war at all, but as ‘The Emergency’.
In staying neutral, despite British and latterly American pleas to join the war, Ireland, under Eamon de Valera, successfully asserted the independence of the new state.
However, Irish neutrality was a fraught affair – a delicate balancing act between neutrality and secretly aiding the Allied powers.
Background, incomplete independence
Eamon de Valera.
The independence struggle of 1916-1921 had not resulted, as Irish Republicans had dreamed, in a fully independent all-Ireland Republic.
Instead, the Treaty settlement of 1921 left two states in Ireland. One, the Irish Free State, in 26 of Ireland’s 32 counties was a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. The other 6 counties, Northern Ireland, was a unionist dominated autonomous region of the United Kingdom.
While the Free State was much more independent than Northern Ireland, it was not completely so. As well as symbolic ties to Britain – an oath of fidelity members of parliament had to take to the British monarch and Governor General who represented the King as head of state in Ireland, the British retained three naval bases around the Irish coast, at Cobh, Bearhaven and Lough Swilly.
The acceptance of this settlement tore the unity of the Irish nationalist movement apart, in a bitter Civil War in 1922-23, won by the pro-Treaty faction.
The Irish state stayed neutral during the War to assert its independence from Britain.
The anti-Treaty Republicans never fully accepted their defeat however. What was left of the guerrilla army that had fought British and the Civil War, the IRA, never accepted the Free State. In 1932, the major political party that emerged from the anti-Treaty movement, Fianna Fail, came to power by election.
Under Eamon de Valera, they set about dismantling the Treaty, abolishing the oath to the British monarchy, the Governor General and the Senate and introducing a new constitution in 1937. They also initiated a tariff war with Britain by refusing to pay back the Land Annuities that Britain had granted to subsidise land reform in Ireland in the early twentieth century.
While this satisfied many of de Valera’s supporters, the IRA continued to oppose anything short of a fully independent Irish Republic. De Valera had legalised the organisation in 1933, but he banned them again in 1936, as they would not give up their arms or illegal methods.
De Valera’s new constitution removed the name Irish Free State and stated that the country’s name was ‘Eire, or in the English language Ireland’. The name ‘Eire’ stuck abroad to distinguish the former Free State from Northern Ireland.
By 1938, however, both de Valera and the British government of Neville Chamberlain, were eager to normalise relations with each other. De Valera agreed to pay a lump sum towards the land annuities and in return, Chamberlain lift the onerous tariffs on Irish agricultural imports.
Most importantly though, the British agreed to return to Ireland the three ‘Treaty ports’ on the Atlantic Coast.
The British analysis was that the ports had not been well-maintained, required investment and would be difficult to defend in wartime should the Irish ever try to take them back. But the British thought they were being returned to Ireland on the implicit understanding that British naval forces would be allowed to use them in the event of a European war.
De Valera, on the other hand, had insisted that the return of the ports be unconditional and when war broke out, refused the British request to use the ports as anti-submarine bases.
The Treaty ports and Irish unity
The location of the Treaty Ports.
Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany. Ireland immediately declared neutrality.
By the summer of 1940, however the situation had changed dramatically and to the peril of neutral Ireland.
German forces had rolled over most of western Europe, occupying Denmark, Norway the Netherlands, Belgium and most importantly, France. The British Army had only barely escaped annihilation at Dunkirk.
Britain now faced a fight for its life, with the Atlantic Ocean and trade with America as it last lifeline. Now it again desperately needed the use of Atlantic Ports that it had returned to Ireland in 1938, to safeguard the convoys of merchant ships that crossed the Atlantic with food and arms.
Winston Churchill had to be persuaded not to invade Ireland to take Ireland’s Atlantic ports.
At this point Neville Chamberlain was replaced as British Prime Minister by Winston Churchill, who took a far less conciliatory position on Irish neutrality than his predecessor.
Churchill was one of the architects of the Anglo-Irish Treaty back in 1921 and considered that the Irish state only existed as agreed under the Treaty, ‘under the [British] Crown’. He therefore considered Irish neutrality as a breach of the Treaty and that Britain would be within its rights to re-occupy the territory of the Irish Free State.
On numerous occasions he had to be talked out of unilaterally taking back the ‘Treaty Ports’ in Ireland by military action by his cabinet
Churchill however also attempted to lure de Valera into the war by offering him the prospect of Irish unity in return for an end to the policy of neutrality. In popular consciousness this is often held to have been confined to a late night note Churchill fired off to de Valera in which he wrote ‘now or never, a nation once again’.
In reality however, the British offer of a united Ireland was far more concrete than is widely understood. Irish and British teams negotiated for months, and the British under Neville Chamberlian offered de Valera of formal offer of unity on June 28 1940, in return for British troops, planes and ships being allowed to garrison the Treaty Ports.
What decided de Valera against accepting the offer, apart from the innate fears of entering the war, was that a prospective united Ireland would have to be approved in the Northern Ireland Parliament. As long as this was dominated by unionists, this meant that no British offer of unity was likely to come to pass. Ireland and her ports stayed out of the war.
Northern unionists, meanwhile, were outraged at the prospect of a united Ireland negotiated behind their backs between London and Dublin.
Neutral?
The Irish Army in 1930s German style helmets. They were re-kitted with British pattern gear during the War.
Because of Ireland’s stance, many in Britain claimed that Ireland was secretly pro-Axis and rumours, mostly unfounded, abounded of German u-boats docking on Ireland’s west coast.
Pressure increased on Ireland to join the war after the entry of the United State in 1941. The American consul in Dublin David Gray, was extremely hostile to Irish neutrality and consistently reported, erroneously, that Irish neutrality was pro-Axis.
This meant that Ireland had to aid the Allies in order placate Britain, avoid a possible British invasion and to avoid American hostility. At the start of the war, De Valera secretly agreed with the British to share naval and marine intelligence with them.
Dan Bryan, the head of Irish military intelligence, developed particularly close relations with his British counterparts during the war.
The standard practice for neutral countries was to intern any belligerent personnel who landed there. At the start of the war, Ireland followed this practice and detained both Allied and German airmen who crash landed in Ireland.
Despite its neutrality, in practice Ireland aided the Allies in many ways.
However, in 1943, Ireland quietly released all its 33 Allied internees while keeping the Germans incarcerated. About 260 German military, air force and naval personnel, who had mostly crashed landed in Ireland, were interned in Ireland during the war
From this point onwards, when allied airplanes crashed in Irish territory, their surviving crews were secretly escorted across the border, back into British territory. And where possible, their machines were also repaired and returned. The official justification for this was that all allied planes over Ireland were on training missions, whereas the Germans were on combat missions.
From 1941 onwards, Ireland also permitted allied planes to fly over Irish air space in an ‘air corridor’ over County Donegal into Northern Ireland. In 1944, in the run up to the Normandy Landings in France, Irish weather stations provided the allies with secret weather reports that helped the invasion of Europe to go ahead
Northern Ireland, meanwhile, became a major staging post for the United State military, with a naval and Marine Corps base in Derry and thousands of American military personal, including five Army divisions, garrisoned there ahead of the invasion of Europe.
The role of the IRA
The aftermath of an IRA bomb in Coventry in August 1939 that killed 5 civilians.
One of the major headaches for those trying to safeguard Irish neutrality was the IRA, which was determined to get German military aid to overthrow both states in Ireland, north and south.
As well as defying Irish law, the IRA’s actions threatened to undermine Ireland’s neutrality in the war and bring about a confrontation with Britain.
IRA Chief of Staff Sean Russell tried to make contact with the Germans as early as 1936 and IRA leader Tom Barry was brought to Germany as a guest of German intelligence in 1937 and asked about the possibility of the IRA carrying out sabotage against Britain in the event of war.
The IRA sought German aid during the War but was harshly repressed on both sides of the border.
In 1939, starting before war broke out between Britain and Germany, Russell launched a bombing campaign in England, targeting power stations and factories but also cinemas and post offices. The logic of Russell’s campaign was that while Britain was engaged in a world war it might be forced to leave Northern Ireland in order to stop the bombing campaign at home.
Seven English civilians were killed in the bombing campaign. The most dramatic event was a bomb in attack in Coventry that killed five people, for which two IRA members were later hanged.
In Ireland the IRA was also involved in intermittent anti-state activities. In December 1939 they stole one million rounds of ammunition from the Irish Army’s depot at the Magazine Fort in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. They also bombed Garda (police) headquarters at Dublin Castle and shot a number of Garda detectives in various incidents, killing five detectives over the course of the war
In response, the de Valera government interned over 500 IRA members at the Curragh and jailed another 100 for the duration of the war. The Irish government also executed six IRA members between 1940 and 1944 for shooting Gardai or soldiers.
In Northern Ireland, the IRA carried out some attacks from 1942 onwards, killing over the course of the war, six RUC policemen. There too, internment was introduced, 300 IRA men were imprisoned and one IRA man, Tom Williams, was hanged by the Northern government for the killing of an RUC constable in 1942.
German and IRA collaboration
Hermann Goertz, the German agent sent to Ireland to liaise with the IRA.
There was an on-off partnership between the IRA and German military intelligence during the war.
Essentially the Germans wanted two things from Ireland during the Second World War. The first and most important was that Eire would remain neutral and deny the British use of the Treaty Ports on Ireland’s western coast.
Because of this they discouraged the IRA from attacks south of the border.
Their secondary objective and reason for cooperating with the IRA, was to foment a rebellion by nationalists in Northern Ireland to divert British resources from war fronts elsewhere.
In 1940 the Germans also considered invading the south coast of Ireland, in plan known as Operation Green. This would have been intended as a diversionary attack during an invasion of Britain itself. However this never got beyond the planning stage.
Alternatively if the British invaded Eire in order to take the Atlantic ports, Hitler thought that de Valera might ask for German assistance, in which case Germany would invade in support of Irish forces. In fact, while de Valera rebuffed the offers of military aid from the German ambassador Hempel, he did make a working agreement to invite British troops into Ireland in the event of a German invasion.
The Germans wanted to use the IRA to launch an insurrection in Northern Ireland.
Sean Russell, the IRA leader who had pioneered cooperation with Nazi Germany, died of a burst ulcer aboard a u-boat on his way back to Ireland in August 1940. However this was far from the end of the IRA‘s contacts with German intelligence.
The Germans landed over dozen agents in Ireland during the war, the most important of whom was Hermann Goertz, a military intelligence officer, whose job it was to liaise with the IRA.
Stephen Hayes, the IRA Chief of Staff, had a plan drawn up ‘Plan Kathleen’ for a German invasion of Northern Ireland, involving a landing in Derry, which the IRA would have supported through an attack over the border from County Leitrim.
Goertz discussed the plan with Stephen Hayes but was not impressed either with Hayes, the IRA’s capabilities or with the details of the plan.
In fact, the German agent concluded that the IRA was all but useless to German war aims and instead began trying to create a network of informants based on far-right wing sympathisers such as Niall MacNeill, an Irish Army intelligence officer and former Blueshirt leader Eoin O’Duffy
After 18 months in Ireland, Goertz was arrested in November 1941, more or less ending the overt collaboration of the IRA with Nazi Germany.
Despite the Germans’ on-off dealings with the IRA, the Eamon de Valera and the Irish government generally had a cordial relationship with the German ambassador, Eduard Hempel, who was regarded as dealing more respectfully with neutral Ireland than did the British or American representatives in Dublin.
For this reason de Valera consistently refused Allied demands that the German ambassador be expelled.
Bombing
The aftermath of the North Strand bombing.
One of the main reasons for Irish neutrality, apart from the demonstration of independence from Britain it allowed, was that the country would be defenceless against aerial bombing.
And certainly the southern state was spared the fate of Northern Ireland during the war. Belfast in particular was systematically targeted by German bombers in April and May 1941 due to its possession of shipyards and war industries.
During the ‘Belfast Blitz’ – consisting of three large air raids – over 1,000 people were killed and thousands more injured and made homeless.
Dublin was bombed accidentally but Belfast was systematically bombed and over 1,000 civilians were killed.
Southern fire engines were sent north to aid the Northern authorities in the aftermath of the bombings.
While it did not see concerted bombing of that kind, on a number of occasions, the 26 county Irish state was indeed bombed by the Germans, most notably the North Strand area of Dublin in May 1941, in which 28 people were killed. The Germans later apologised for the bombing and paid compensation
While it has been speculated that such bombings were a veiled threat from the Germans as to what would happen if Ireland abandoned neutrality, historian Michael Kennedy judges that they were in fact the result of German bombers dumping their bombs on return flights from unsuccessful mission in Northern Ireland
End of the War
Destruction in Belfast after the Blitz there in 1941.
Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 8 1945 after Adolf Hitler’s suicide. Very controversially, Eamon de Valera paid a courtesy visit to the German ambassador Hempel’s residence to offer his condolences on the death of the Nazi leader.
De Valera maintained that he was merely observing the standard diplomatic protocols on the death of a foreign head of state.
Ireland survived the war more or less unscathed. Strict rationing had to be applied and there were severe shortages of items such as coal and petrol during the war years. Still, this was insignificant compared to the devastation that had been wrought in much of the rest of Europe.
However its neutral stance during the war left it somewhat isolated in the immediate postwar years.
For instance, while other western European countries received free American aid under the Marshall Plan in the 1940s, the Americans queried why neutral Ireland either deserved or needed such aid. In the end Ireland got a loan of £36 million
The sharp contrast between the experience of the war north and south of the border also tended to reinforce the partition of Ireland in the coming decades.
Nice little reproduced Dunvilles mirror.
40cm x 20cm
Dunville & Co. was a tea and spirits merchant company, based in Belfast, County Antrim. The company initially gained success as an Irish whiskey blender, but later produced and marketed its own whiskey, having constructed its own distillery. The company was founded by John Dumvill who joined William Napier of Napier & Co. The spelling of Dumvill was changed to Dunville and in 1825 the company name became Dunville & Co. In 1837, Dunville began producing its most popular whisky Dunville's VR.
Dunville's was the main brand name of Dunville & Co, and was used in advertisements, on pub windows and pub mirrors such as the beautiful example featured here on the irishpubemporium.com and on whisky dispensers, water jugs, trays, match strikers, ash trays and playing cards.Although Dunville & Co was established and based in Ireland, before the Partition of Ireland, and Irish whiskey is normally spelt with an 'e' in 'whiskey', Dunville's Whisky was always spelt without an 'e' in 'Whisky'.In 2013, almost 80 years after the last Dunville's was distilled, the Echlinville Distillery revived the Dunville's brand, and began distilling at their facility in the Ards Peninsula. Previously they had purchased spirits from other distillers and aged it themselves. Dunville's VR Old Irish Whiskey and Dunville's Three Crowns Irish Whiskey from The Echlinville Distillery came on the market in 2016.
Having gained success as a whiskey blender, Dunville & Co. constructed their own distillery, the Royal Irish Distilleries, on the edge of Belfast in 1869. When built, the distillery occupied an impressive four-storey red-brick building, and was amongst the most modern in Ireland.With production from five pot stills, and later a Coffey still, at its peak the distillery had a capacity of over 2.5 million gallons per annum, making it amongst the largest in the country.Much of the distillery's output was used in the company's whiskey blends, Dunville's VR and Dunville's Three Crowns.
Although, like other Irish distilleries, Prohibition caused Dunville to lose access to the important American market, Dunville ended the 1920s in good financial health. However, when the last heir and chairman of Dunville, Robert Lambart Dunville, died in 1931, the company began to flounder, and left to its directors, in 1936 Dunville & Co. was liquidated. Incredibly, and almost uniquely amongst the Irish distilleries that closed in the 20th century, liquidation was not forced upon the firm, as Dunville was actually still profitable when it was wound up.The main brand name of Dunville & Co. was used in advertisements, on pub windows and pub mirrors, and on whisky dispensers, water jugs, trays, match strikers, ash trays and playing cards. Although Dunville & Co was established and based in Ireland, before the Partition of Ireland, and Irish whiskey is normally spelt with an 'e' in 'whiskey', Dunville's Whisky was always spelt without an 'e' in 'Whisky'.
In 2013, almost 80 years after the last Dunville's was distilled, the Echlinville Distillery revived the Dunville's brand, and began distilling at their facility in the Ards Peninsula. Previously they had purchased spirits from other distillers and aged it themselves. Dunville's VR Old Irish Whiskey and Dunville's Three Crowns Irish Whiskey from The Echlinville Distillery came on the market in 2016.
42cm x 48cm Limerick
Fascinating Draught plan of the country around Limerick taken in 1752 by William Eyres Map Maker - the scale is at 320 yards to one inch.
34cm x 54cm
Spectacular print of the Co Kildare Hunt in full cry including a stylish lady riding side saddle.
The Kildare Hunt Club was formally born in 1804, with Sir Fenton Aylmer of Donadea as its first master. Hunting had flourished in the 17th century but became a more formal entity by 1726 when the Ponsonbys of Bishopscourt established what might well constitute the original ‘Kildare Hunt’. The Conollys of Castletown House and the Kennedy’s of Johnstown both had a private pack of foxhounds by the 1760s.There were also packs at Castlemartin, Ballynure, Castlewarden, Donadea and Straffan. The Leinster Harriers were established at Kilmorony House near Athy in 1812 while the Naas Harriers were kennelled at Jigginstown from 1920 until 2000. Another keen hunting family were the Burghs of Oldtown, Naas; TJ and Ulick Burgh both took part in the cavalry charge at the battle of Tel el Kebir in Egypt in 1882.In the early 19th century, hunt members simply ‘improvised some modest little meeting at which gentlemen and farmers alike could indulge their taste for riding over a typical bit of Kildare country’. And yet the sport transcended religion and class to such an extent that, in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin, it was said that hunting amongst the Catholic clergy was widespread.
You'll Never Beat the Irish -Republic of Ireland Autographed Squad Photo circa 1994 en route to the World Cup in USA.
Artane Dublin 70cm x 56cm
Back in 1986, with Northern Ireland celebrating a second consecutive World Cup qualification, the Republic was the poor relative, in debt, in decline, and with a lot of empty seats and coffers to fill.
Step forward Jack Charlton, the nation’s first-ever foreign manager. As Niall Quinn says, “he was big, he was blunt, he was English.”
Despite that, Charlton knew he would be accepted very quickly by his new congregation after walking through Dublin’s main thoroughfare in O’Connell Street.
“The Irish people are very close in character to the Geordie,” Charlton said. “They are very welcoming to strangers, they’re not false, they like a pint and a laugh and a party.”
So began a decade long celebration that lifted the Boys in Green to the top eight teams in the world for one brief but beautiful moment.
Charlton had beaten late entrant Bob Paisley, a multiple trophy winner, to the FAI hot seat, and his introduction to the gathered press was a million miles away from the carefully staged managed productions of the modern day.
In fact, it almost turned into an impromptu David Haye and Tony Bellew pre-match fight when Charlton challenged hardened journalist and ex-international Eamon Dunphy’s line of questioning. That relationship turned increasingly sour as time went by.
‘No nice stuff’
Shamrock midfielder Pat Byrne recounted to the Irish Times just how unwavering the new manager was about tactics: “He made it very clear that first time on the training ground that ‘we are not going to have any nice stuff here.
“It’s going to be very straight; we’re going to play it this way: we’re going to get the ball, we’re going to put it over the full-backs’ head and we’re going to have runners in behind.
“We’re going to close everything up and we’re going to turn the whole backline; as soon as they’re turned, we’re on our way.”
This was the blueprint – or greenprint – of the Irish national team for the next decade.
Former players like Johnny Giles thought this indicated a lack of trust in the ability of players. Charlton saw it as pragmatic. His idea was to keep information and instruction simple.
There were some aesthetes in the team, most notably an ageing Liam Brady, who were initially unnerved and eventually sidelined by this move away from playing from the back.
Players such as Brady would send over the free-kicks and corner-kicks that were central to the game plan, while Mick McCarthy could launch a good old long throw into the mixer. Keeper Packie Bonner was told “to kick every ball long, as high as you can into their half of the park.”
Find Another Irishman
To make the game work, the new manager needed to find quality players outside of the League of Ireland.
“You want me to compete with the best in the World, I’ve got to have the f*****g best in the world. And it’s not here in Ireland that I can find it, I’ve got to go to England to find it.”
Players were recruited through notices that were put up around grounds. John Aldridge and Ray Houghton were both gathered from Oxford United.
Big Jack’s “Find Another Irishman” policy via the Granny rule was worked to the Mrs Brown bone.
After a 1-0 defeat to Wales in his first match in charge, Charlton got to work on qualifying for the 1988 European Championship in West Germany.
The Republic finished top of their group, ahead of a talented Belgium side who had reached the semi-finals of the ‘86 World Cup. This was Ireland’s first ever appearance at a major championship finals.
Beating England
City and town streets were deserted for matches as the tournament got off to the best possible start against England. Nobody does spontaneous parties like the Irish.
The winning goal pretty much summed up Eire’s raison d’etre, as described by UEFA: “Kevin Moran took a free-kick and hit it long, Ireland’s main mode of attack.
“The ball fell to Tony Galvin, who hooked in a cross that Kenny Sansom inadvertently ballooned up in the air. John Aldridge headed it to Liverpool FC club-mate Ray Houghton, whose own header looped beyond Peter Shilton.”
It was like the international version of Liverpool v Wimbledon in the FA Cup final that year.
While England staggered to defeat against the USSR and Holland, the Irish matched both teams stride for stride. Houghton described the 1-1 draw against the Soviets as “one of the best performances I’ve ever been involved in with Jack’s teams”.
The Netherlands eventually broke Irish hearts with what Charlton described as “the greatest fluke of the year” when Wim Kieft headed in a bizarre 82nd-minute winner that was almost Irish in its conception.
Italia 90
Even so, Ireland had arrived with a bang. And if Euro 88 was the start of the journey, Italia 90 was the zenith.
The qualification group to make it to their first World Cup was straightforward enough, but their defensive resilience proved decisive as they conceded in only one match – the loss against Spain – while John Aldridge and self-confessed “fake Irishman” Tony Cascarino did the business at the other end.
As the team landed in Sardinia, drawn yet again against England for the first match, Larry Mullen from U2 had produced a cracker of a team song called: “Put ‘em Under Pressure”, that topped the Irish charts for 13 weeks.
It wasn’t exactly “World in Motion”, but it was a great soundtrack to the joyous march of Jackie’s army. Their modus operandi was to “inflict our game on other people”.
Ultimately, the music and their fans were a damn sight more appealing than their football. But who cared if they could stay around a bit longer for another Guinness?
The England match was a bit of a non-event on the pitch, as Kevin Sheedy cancelled out Gary Lineker’s early goal, and it was followed by another flat performance in a goalless draw against Egypt.
Dunphy was openly critical of Charlton’s long-ball tactics, suggesting that “the style of the play didn’t reflect the quality of the players in the side.”
That simmering feud continued as the manager refused to take questions from the writer whom he later described as a “bitter little man”.
A 1-1 draw with the Dutch meant both teams had identical records as all three of Holland, England and Ireland progressed, with the Irish benefiting from the drawing of lots to qualify as group runners-up
After three drab stalemates, the party only truly began in Genoa against Romania in the last 16 – after another goalless game, Bonner saved Romania’s fifth penalty, leaving David O’Leary to take the decisive kick.
RTE commentator George Hamilton uttered the most important seven words Irish fans remember: “A nation holds its breath… We’re there!”
How ironic that the hero was O’Leary, another more football-minded defender that was often overlooked by Charlton.
O’Leary recalled: “There were about 20,000 brilliant Irish supporters behind the goal. They were so still and the eruption of green afterwards when the ball hit the net was absolutely amazing. It’s a fantastic memory.”
Meeting the Pope
Things were about to get more surreal as Charlton had promised an audience with the Pope should his team make it to the last eight.
Perhaps Pope John Paul II, a goalkeeper in his youth, sought out Bonner about goal-line interventions rather than divine ones, but Ireland’s quarter-final against Italy in Rome was not tinged with any luck for the Celtic keeper, who could only parry Roberto Donadoni’s shot into the path of Golden Boot winner Toto Schillaci. It was a gallant defeat.
Skipper Andy Townsend recalled: “As we are all gathering up our bags, Jack turned round to Packie and said: ‘By the way, the f****** Pope would have saved that!’
Ireland’s propensity to draw a large proportion of games (30 out of 93 under Charlton) cost them dearly in the 1992 Euro qualifying group as only eight teams could qualify for Sweden.
They finished behind Graham Taylor’s stodgy England team, despite drawing home and away against them.
However, the Republic were reaching a new peak, with a young Roy Keane and Denis Irwin introduced to the team.
“The worst thing about missing out on Euro 92 was that Denmark won it. It should have been Ireland.” recalled a frustrated manager.
USA 94
In his final match as manager of Northern Ireland, Billy Bingham had the chance to prevent the South reaching the Stateside World Cup in ‘94.
Bingham inflamed the occasion by branding their players “a bunch of mercenaries”, declaring his intention to “stuff the Republic”.
So hostile was the atmosphere that Pompey midfielder Alan McLoughlin later declared that the “safest place to be was on the pitch”.
The match finished 1-1 which was enough for the Green Army to secure a front row seat for Diana Ross’s open-goal miss. Charlton confronted Bingham immediately after the match and said: “Up yours too” – although he later apologised.
In the USA, the party started early in New York as Italy were beaten in the Big Apple by a Houghton strike.
Patrick Barclay summed it up best in The Observer: “Ireland’s blanket defence rendered vain all the creative endeavours of Roberto Baggio, who adorned this marvellous occasion but was not allowed to influence it because for 90 mins Jack Charlton’s sweat-soaked soldiers stayed about as close as ranks can get.”
Unfortunately, Ireland’s performances tailed off dramatically for the remainder of the tournament.
Such draining tactics were hard to administer in the humidity of Orlando, and the manager was banned from the touchline for venting his fury at officials over the lack of water for his troops against Mexico.
After squeezing through the group following a goalless draw with Norway, the Green bus ran out of fuel against the Dutch in the last 16.
Beginning of the end
The mid-90s were the beginning of the end for JC’s JCB formation.
The Irish finished second in Euro 96 qualifying, just pipping Northern Ireland for a play-off place.
Lying in wait, yet again, were their old adversaries, Holland. While the Dutch were winning their last three qualifiers without conceding a goal, the Republic had stumbled through their last five matches, drawing in Liechtenstein and losing 3-1 home and away to Austria and 3-0 to group winners Portugal
Anfield was the “neutral” venue for the play-off and the stadium was the backdrop to a pretty decent cover version of Fields of Athenry that evening.
Unfortunately, injuries to crucial players like Roy Keane and Steve Staunton stymied the tactics as Charlton packed the midfield with defenders. It didn’t work.
The Dutch were comfortable 2-0 winners as a teenage Patrick Kluivert exposed the limitations of the press and punt tactics. The headline in the Irish Times was Ninety Minutes Chasing Shadows.
“In my heart of hearts, I knew I’d wrung as much as I could out of the squad I’d got – that some of my older players had given me all they had to give,” Charlton said.
Big Jack’s signing-off got the send-off it deserved with rousing renditions of You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Ultimately, Charlton, who was made an honorary Irishman, had good memories and very few regrets: “I can’t remember losing with Ireland. All I can recall are victories, celebrations and getting the right results against all the odds.”
It is sometimes opined in retrospect that the Republic could have done better with the quality of players at their disposal. They only won one of nine World Cup matches, scoring just four goals.
After USA’ 94, Dunphy said: “The minority who know their football well enough to distinguish between fact and fantasy have long since decided that even though the show is great, the football of the Charlton era has been, too often, lousy.”
But would liberation have taken away the organisational pragmatism that was central to the Green Wall being breached just 41 times in 93 games? After all, this was a team that also beat Brazil at home and Germany in Hannover.
Niall Quinn said: “We were happy as we were – beautiful, skilled losers.”
Big Jack made them coarse but clinical winners on the pitch and a lot happier off it.
11 of Jack Charlton’s best quotes: ‘Can we go now please? I’d like a beer’
The Still House at John's Lane Distillery, as it looked when Alfred Barnard visited in the 1800s.
Charlton had beaten late entrant Bob Paisley, a multiple trophy winner, to the FAI hot seat, and his introduction to the gathered press was a million miles away from the carefully staged managed productions of the modern day.
In fact, it almost turned into an impromptu David Haye and Tony Bellew pre-match fight when Charlton challenged hardened journalist and ex-international Eamon Dunphy’s line of questioning. That relationship turned increasingly sour as time went by.
This was the blueprint – or greenprint – of the Irish national team for the next decade.
Former players like Johnny Giles thought this indicated a lack of trust in the ability of players. Charlton saw it as pragmatic. His idea was to keep information and instruction simple.
After a 1-0 defeat to Wales in his first match in charge, Charlton got to work on qualifying for the 1988 European Championship in West Germany.
While England staggered to defeat against the USSR and Holland, the Irish matched both teams stride for stride. Houghton described the 1-1 draw against the Soviets as “one of the best performances I’ve ever been involved in with Jack’s teams”.
A 1-1 draw with the Dutch meant both teams had identical records as all three of Holland, England and Ireland progressed, with the Irish benefiting from the drawing of lots to qualify as group runners-up
After three drab stalemates, the party only truly began in Genoa against Romania in the last 16 – after another goalless game, Bonner saved Romania’s fifth penalty, leaving David O’Leary to take the decisive kick.
RTE commentator George Hamilton uttered the most important seven words Irish fans remember: “A nation holds its breath… We’re there!”
How ironic that the hero was O’Leary, another more football-minded defender that was often overlooked by Charlton.
O’Leary recalled: “There were about 20,000 brilliant Irish supporters behind the goal. They were so still and the eruption of green afterwards when the ball hit the net was absolutely amazing. It’s a fantastic memory.”
Ireland’s propensity to draw a large proportion of games (30 out of 93 under Charlton) cost them dearly in the 1992 Euro qualifying group as only eight teams could qualify for Sweden.
They finished behind Graham Taylor’s stodgy England team, despite drawing home and away against them.
However, the Republic were reaching a new peak, with a young Roy Keane and Denis Irwin introduced to the team.
“The worst thing about missing out on Euro 92 was that Denmark won it. It should have been Ireland.” recalled a frustrated manager.
In the USA, the party started early in New York as Italy were beaten in the Big Apple by a Houghton strike.
Patrick Barclay summed it up best in The Observer: “Ireland’s blanket defence rendered vain all the creative endeavours of Roberto Baggio, who adorned this marvellous occasion but was not allowed to influence it because for 90 mins Jack Charlton’s sweat-soaked soldiers stayed about as close as ranks can get.”
Unfortunately, Ireland’s performances tailed off dramatically for the remainder of the tournament.
Such draining tactics were hard to administer in the humidity of Orlando, and the manager was banned from the touchline for venting his fury at officials over the lack of water for his troops against Mexico.
After squeezing through the group following a goalless draw with Norway, the Green bus ran out of fuel against the Dutch in the last 16.
It is sometimes opined in retrospect that the Republic could have done better with the quality of players at their disposal. They only won one of nine World Cup matches, scoring just four goals.
After USA’ 94, Dunphy said: “The minority who know their football well enough to distinguish between fact and fantasy have long since decided that even though the show is great, the football of the Charlton era has been, too often, lousy.”
But would liberation have taken away the organisational pragmatism that was central to the Green Wall being breached just 41 times in 93 games? After all, this was a team that also beat Brazil at home and Germany in Hannover.
Niall Quinn said: “We were happy as we were – beautiful, skilled losers.”
Big Jack made them coarse but clinical winners on the pitch and a lot happier off it.
