Locations Marked by the Daughters Of Ireland
Many locations are referenced in the play, Dublin by Lamplight, where the Daughters of Ireland rioted for the independence of their nation, and their own independence as women. These locations include the Mansion house where the Daughters delivered their petition to the King, the Trinity college where Eva chained herself to the building with the assistance of William, and finally in some ways, the Abbey theater which was to suffice as a home for the Daughters of Ireland but never did. One location that was heavily influencial to the development of the Daughters, and fails to be mentioned in the play, is Phoenix Park.On the day of her arrival, the Queen of England attempted to woo the children of Dublin by hosting a picnic in Phoenix Park in her own honour. Maud Gonne, the leader of the Daughters, was very unhappy with the Queen’s plans to throw a party due to the stressed relationship that existed between the Irish and the British. In response to this, she invited all of the children to a picnic that was sponsored by the Daughters of Ireland. The picnic was a huge success and attracted every single child in Dublin. Phoenix Park is located 3km West of Dublin and is one of the largest enclosed city parks in Europe.
Wikipedia. Phoenix Park. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 25 February, 2008. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Park> March 12, 2008.All images were taken from www.google.ca-Amanda Martinali
Dublin’s Pubs and Cafes
Bewley’ Oriental Cafe
We encounter Bewley’s Oriental Cafe in Scene Twelve, where Willy, dining on a lonely sausage, decides to pawn his watch. (page reference to go here) Bewley’s, a chain of Irish cafes owned by the Campbell-Bewley Group, had been a Dublin institution since its creation in 1840. (RTÉ News) We find Willy in the cafe located at 12 Westmoreland Street, which runs south of Sackville Street and through Fleet Street. In 1904, this cafe was notable for being a sort of meeting ground for Dublin’s literati; it was frequented by James Joyce, among others (this is just one of the many allusions to Joyce that pepper Dublin By Lamplight). (Costello 67-8) This particular cafe was closed in late 2004. (RTÉ News) The Grafton Street location remains open, albeit in a different format. (Bewley’s)
The Palace Bar
(open with description of how/where The Palace fits into DBL) The Palace bar was located at No. 21 Fleet Street, and was first licensed in 1848. (The Palace Bar) Like its London namesake, Fleet Street was a haven for the Irish literati and arts community, and The Palace became its nexus. It was, in the words of Flann O’Brien, “the main resort of newspapermen, writers, painters, and every known breed of artist and intellectual.” Certainly, many of the characters of Dublin by Lamplight would have felt at home one of its barstools. Said Cyril Connolly of The Palace: “The Palace Bar is perhaps the last place of its kind in Europe, a Cafe Litteraire, where one can walk in to have an intelligent discussion with a stranger, listen to Seumas O’Sullivan on the early days of Joyce, or discuss the national problem with the giant Hemingwayesque editor of the Irish Times.” (Costello 60-4) Though Connolly wrote this some time later than 1904, the look and feel of the pub had not changed much, and, indeed, still remains much the same – the Palace Bar’s website touts itself as “internationally famous for our intellectual refreshments,” and “untarnished and unspoiled by the passage of time.” (The Palace Bar)
Image of the interior of the Palace Bar: http://www.thepalacebar.com/palace_inside_stain.jpg - Adam Wray
Dublin’s Parks and Squares
St. Stephen’s Green
(begin by outlining relevance to DBL) St. Stephen’s Green is located in the heart of downtown Dublin, nestled between 
Grafton Street, Harcourt Street, Leeson Street, and Baggot Street. (Living Dublin) It is one of Dublin’s “ancient commons.” The area was first levelled and walled in the late seventeenth century, and was a private residential area. But, in 1880, Sir Arthur Guiness bought out the lease on the Green and had it landscaped extensively, adding gardens and a lake, and had all 22 acres of the park opened to the public. St. Stephen’s Green features many memorials and statues, including a W.B. Yeats memorial garden, a bust of James Joyce, and a memorial to the great famine of the mid-nineteenth century, located on the Merrion Row corner. (Kilfeather, 92-) The Green is still frequented heavily Dubliners. (Living Dublin)
Image of St. Stephen’s Green: http://images.dublintourist.com/premises/286/1.jpg
College Green
(open with page references to College Green from DBL)
College Green, formerly known as Hoggen Green, is a square located in the heart of Dublin. Important landmarks in College Green include the Bank of Ireland, located on the north side, which was formerly the Irish House of Parliament, Trinity College, a constituent college of the University of Dublin, and Dame Street, which enters the square from the west side.
An image of College green. The pillared building in the distance is the Bank of Ireland.
Image from: http://www.libraryireland.com/Atlas/Dublin-College-Green.jpg
- Adam Wray
Main Streets of Dublin
“Eva met Martyn as arranged on Grafton Street. [...] They plunged into the crowds.”-Act1; Scene 13 of Dublin by Lamplight
The city’s north-south axis runs from the western side of St. Stephen’s Green down Grafton Street and through College Green to the Liffey, across O’Connell Bridge to the river’s northern bank, and then along O’Connell Street to Parnell Square. Grafton Street, long Dublin’s premier shopping district, was made pedestrian-only in the 1990s, and it has become a lively thoroughfare hosting street entertainers. It emerges onto College Green between the University of Dublin (Trinity College) and the 1729 Parliament House, which is now the privately run Bank of Ireland’s headquarters.
-”Dublin.” Encyclopedia Britannica.2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 5 Feb. 2008 http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-60381
Grafton Street, 1880
Named after the first Duke of Grafton (1663-1690) who owned land in this area and developed by the Dawson family in 1708 . He was the illegitimate son of Charles II. He was Lord Lieutenent of Ireland between 1715-1723 .The Street began it’s life as a country lane connecting what was then a Mediaeval Commons of Stephens Green with Hoggen Street. – http://irishdancedresscanada.homestead.com/myDublin.html
Nassau Street
“Maggie was on her eighth room in the Nassau Hotel. [...] And the wind and sun among the leaves in the trees in College Park caught her eye. She saw crowds lining the streets, hoping for a glimpse of the King.”
- Act 1; Scene 8 of Dublin by Lamplight
Nassau Street, Dublin, circa 1900. Photo: from the Fadographs of aYestern Scene exhibition at the National Photographic Archive – The Irish Times: http://www.ireland.com/events/bloomsday/story2.htm
Sackville Street (now Upper O’Connell Street)
Willy: What has this country come to if we must cower in the alleys of our national citadel?
-Act 1; Scene 19, Dublin by Lamplight
Photograph taken from the top of Nelson’s Pillar in the 1890s, overlooking Upper Sackville Street (O’Dwyer, 5)
Sackville Street was begun in 1749 by the Right Honble. Luke Gardiner. In constructing this great central road, Gardiner acquired and demolished the houses on both sides of the upper part of Drogheda Street, between Henry Street and Great Britain (now Parnell) Street, and widened it westward to create the new Sackville Streets, named after Lionel Cranfield Sackville (‘Dwyer, 5).
-Tricia Riley
The Abbey Theatre
In 1904, Annie Horniman funded the acquisition of the old Mechanics Institute of Dublin as a permanent home for the Irish National Theatre Society, on the advice of Willie Fay with regards to choice of site. It was renamed “for no other reason it appears than that its shabby Georgian façade was on Abbey Street” (MacAnna 89-90). The Mechanics Institute had been used as a playing space before by various amateur theatre organisations, including Young Ireland groups and later the Fenians, earning it the nickname ‘People’s Music Hall’ (MacAnna 90). Over the course of the renovations supervised by Fay, the Mechanics Institute was combined with a neighbouring building on Malborough St., whose history of use inspired the following anonymous ballad on the Abbey Theatre (qtd. in MacAnna 90):
It had many a life before it was a Theatre
It was once a Savings Bank and a Morgue sometime later
And the critics remarked with an air of great sufferance
That as far as they saw there was never any great difference
Will ye come, won’t ye, will ye?
Won’t ye come to the Abbey?
In Dublin by Lamplight‘s “parallel universe” (Project Dublin), the site has not been renovated, and still being used as a morgue. At the beginning of 3.7, when he is going there to identify the body, Willy describes it as “the forbidding square building at the corner of Malborough and Abbey Streets” (63).
Photo: “The Abbey Theatre,” taken from http://updatecentre.britannica.com.
- Jonathan Khaiat