As most readers will know, the logo of the City of Dublin (and by extension the name of an excellent podcast on the capital’s history) is “three castles burning”.
Why? Well, your guess is as good as mine. It’s also as good as the city council’s, which can’t say for sure even whether the castles are castles (as opposed to watchtowers or wall-gates) and why there should be three of them, burning or otherwise.
One of the official theories is that the featured building is indeed Dublin Castle, rendered in triplicate “because of the mystical significance of the number three”.
Okay, maybe. But why are they on fire? Nobody seems to know that either. I have read one suggestion that they’re not really on fire and that the flames are merely metaphorical, “to symbolise the zeal and readiness of the citizens of Dublin to defend their city”.
The spirit of 1965 – Kevin Rafter on Ireland’s first television election
Grief and remembrance – Ronan McGreevy on Dublin’s Armistice Day in 1924
The Night Mayor – Oliver O’Hanlon on Jimmy Walker, New York’s colourful political kingpin
A Head of its time – Frank McNally on the bicentenary of Howth Road and more about wakes
This, however, strikes me as neither plausible nor advisable as a message to be sending people, especially these days.
While searching The Irish Times archive on the subject, I found a 1977 report on the cost of vandalism back then – £3 million annually – about which a Dublin Corporation official commented “that the city’s symbol of three burning castles was becoming more appropriate each year”.
Those were innocent times in retrospect. Now that, half a century later, self-styled patriots think arson is a legitimate form of protest against immigration policies, Dublin’s logo looks even more dubious.
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Perhaps Neil Young can shed some light on the logo’s meaning. In the chorus of a 1970 song, after all, he wrote: “Don’t let it bring you down/It’s only castles burning”. The rest of the lyrics are somewhat cryptic. But they seem to be about the need for stoicism in a troubled world, accepting the things you can’t change and trying to be cheerful.
Mind you, when Young played at Slane in 1993, two years after the castle there had been gutted by a fire, he wisely thought better of having Don’t Let it Bring You Down on the set-list.
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I was writing recently about how Drury Street has become the coolest place in Dublin, at least on balmy summer evenings. But as I was reminded during an architecturally-themed walking tour earlier this week, it was also once the hottest place in the city, or part of it.
On August 27th, 1892, the South City Markets – of which Drury Street was the eastern boundary – caught fire and were badly damaged.
It could have been even worse, however. Because that cavernous underground carpark now on the northern end of Drury Street was then a giant whiskey warehouse.
And whiskey’s flammable qualities were all too well remembered at the time, thanks to great Dublin Whiskey Fire of 1875, which had started at another spirit warehouse in the nearby Liberties.
Happily, the heroics of the fire brigade prevented Drury’s underground reservoir from fuelling the conflagration. Even as it was, the markets still had to be extensively rebuilt.
In the circumstances, it is interesting to note – as pointed out by our tour guide Arran Henderson – that the city logo at the market entrance on Fade Street is a more sensible version than usual. It has the standard three castles but no sign of any flames.
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I chanced upon a public rally at one of the gates of Dublin Castle recently. There were no fires there either, but plenty of fiery invective from the protestors, who wanted to reclaim the city’s streets for cyclists and pedestrians.
Mind you, the fieriest person present was a counter protester who, despite being on a bike himself, harangued the speakers and various members of the audience as “green nutters” who would destroy businesses.
The Castle gate was incidental to the venue, of course. The protesters’ real target was the adjoining City Hall, where a council meeting was in session.
And the catalyst was an apparent climb-down by Dublin’s still-new CEO Richard Shakespeare on the City Centre Traffic Plan, which he has since said will go ahead with modifications.
Shakespeare’s term promises many dramatic twists, as you’d expect. Whether the final plot will be Much Ado About Cycling or The Taming of the Car-park Lobby remains to be seen. Either way, it must be hoped that the CEO has better luck than previous Shakespearian Richards.
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In discussing the 1961 RTÉ national anthem video earlier this week (Diary, Thursday), “a trains, planes, and combined harvesters’ tribute to the practical patriotism of Sean Lemass’s Ireland”, it seems I may have exaggerated slightly.
That was indeed an era of great progress in Irish life, but there were limits to what even the Lemass-Whitaker economic plans could achieve.
As readers have pointed out, the plane seen taking off at the end of the film could not have been an “Aer Lingus DC10″. For one thing, the DC10 wouldn’t be invented until 1971. For another, even when it was, Aer Lingus never had one.