Paper Mache castles and duck-feeding-ceasefires – a brief history of Dublin in an afternoon

Paper Mache castles and duck-feeding-ceasefires – a brief history of Dublin in an afternoon

Situated on the same street as the world-famous Shelbourne Hotel, a Huguenot cemetery and overlooking St. Stephen’s Green, stands The Little Museum of Dublin (http://www.littlemuseum.ie). This hidden gem launched in 2011, is a three-storey  Georgian-era building within walking distance of Grafton Street; Dublin’s fashionable main shopping thoroughfare. Tours are hourly and like the building, pack the history of the city, from the late nineteenth century to the modern, vibrant metropolis of today, into a small time frame,

The ground floor on my tour was dedicated to the work of Christy Brown who was portrayed by Daniel Day Lewis in the Oscar winning film ‘My left foot.’ Born in a working class suburb, Brown was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, but overcame his condition and his modest beginnings, to become an accomplished writer, poet and artist. The archive footage of Christy’s television interviews for the state broadcaster; RTE, along with his preserved materials not only gives an overview of his remarkable achievements, but also the landscape of Dublin in the 1950’s and 60’s which he inhabited.

The first floor is divided between two rooms. The front room overlooking the Green, the horse-drawn cabs and people going about their every-day business, gives a sense of how the very privileged lived prior to the revolution that split Ireland from the British Empire. Not a scrap of space is available on the wall, shelves and mantelpieces where 5000 objects donated by Dubliners vie for attention. Flags, photographs, lino cuts and everyday objects from late-Victorian to early Edwardian era are crammed into every nook and cranny. A photograph of Queen Victoria arriving in Dublin in 1900 leads to the tour guide telling the visitors of the fact that on her arrival into Dublin City, Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) had a huge Paper Mache castle built, so her carriage could enter the main street through the paper portcullis.

During the Easter rising of 1916, the entrenched rebels and the British forces sent in to deal with the rebellion, dug in on either side of Stephen’s Green, ceased fire twice a day; once in the morning and once in the evening to allow the Park Ranger to feed the ducks at their usual time. Once he had done this, hostilities merrily recommenced. As you look around the room, the rebel leaders; Eamon De Valera, James Connolly, Padraig Pearse and Michael Collins, stand side-by-side with images of Churchill and the London negotiators and the treaty signatures that led to a bloody civil war and Collins’ assassination.

The back room is dedicated to the mid-twentieth century upto the present day. For anyone who grew up in Dublin, it’s like a step back in time; who’d have thought an international phone card would now be a museum piece? Signed film studio portraits of Maureen O’Hara sit beside Aer Lingus advertisements, and the famous faces of Dublin – Brendan Behan poses with British realist artist Lucien Freud (Behan once described himself as ‘a drinker with a writing problem’), Alfie Byrne- the ten-time elected mayor of Dublin, the wonderful Luke Kelly, The Dubliners  and Phil Lynott’s Thin Lizzy. On the next wall, Gas masks from the ‘Emergency’ (the rest of the planet called this World War II) stand above the lectern that President John F Kennedy used to address The Dail (The Irish parliament) in 1963. Our own politicians – some good, some bad, some downright notorious, grin and gurn on old election posters  and the final image you are directed to before leaving the room is the framed cover of ‘Nouveau Magazine’- the one and only edition of the bling magazine, before the Celtic Tiger was shot, stuffed and mounted.

Standing guard over the third floor is a life-size cardboard cut-out of Mrs Browne, the anarchist Irish Mammy figure created by comedian Brendan O’Carroll. Once past her disapproving stare and on the right, is the U2 Room. The band has donated guitars, photographs, framed disks, posters and costumes. The posters of where they started playing in The Dandelion market to where they are today, are like the sign-posts of adolescence to adulthood.

The last room is dedicated to the one-time doyen of D’Olier Street – The Irish Times. An editor’s desk has paper, ink and printing blocks where you can sit and create your own headlines, while looking at the pages of Irish and world history pinned to the walls. This brings you to the end of the tour.

The Little Museum of Dublin is one of those rarities where leaving the building, you immediately want to run back in pay the admission price and have another tour.

The Museum also runs a “meet a tourist” volunteer programme, where local volunteers, who are passionate about Dublin and its history, are paired with visitors.  They have an opportunity to chat over a coffee or pint in one of the local establishments and get a Dubliner’s view of Dublin.

Check out the website and also follow the links to FaceBook and Twitter.

You could do far, far worse for an hour of your time.

Robert Craven