MEMORIAL PLAQUE IN LIMERICK AT BROWN’S QUAY – O’DWYER VILLAS
Brown’s Quay was named after a local brewer. It was also the riverside location of Archibald Walker’s Thomondgate Distillery.
“In memory of the deceased relatives of the residents of O’Dwyer Villas”. This plaque is located on a wall at Belfield Court on Brown’s Quay in Limerick.
I cannot determine what this refers to. However, it was really the name “Kevin Kiely” that caught my attention.
Kevin Kiely is an Irish politician and former Mayor of Limerick from 2009–10. He was made a Peace Commissioner in 1983 by the then Fine Gael Minister for Justice, Michael Noonan. He is a member of Fine Gael.
He was first elected to Limerick City Council in 1985. He was re-elected to the council in June 2009. He is a member of the Governing Authority of the University of Limerick. He is Chairman of Limerick City Council Joint Policing and a former Chairman of Limerick City Council Future Planning.[
In November 2009, he called for unemployed European Union nationals to be deported from Ireland. His views led to a debate over racism. This was part of a broader controversy surrounding racist comments from Fine Gael members in Limerick.
In March 2010, he called for a change to the law which bans selling alcohol on Good Friday and Christmas Day, at a time when a rugby match was due to take place in Limerick city. Shortly before leaving office in June 2010, he again was the subject of national news when he called for the re-introduction of capital punishment.
MEMORIAL PLAQUE ON POYNTZ LANE IN KILKENNY – A SAD STORY
In 1934 a number of newspapers reported the following: “Two children were killed and six others were seriously injured on Saturday night when a derelict house in Guard Lane, off the main street of Kilkenny, fell on them. The two killed were Patrick and Christopher Canavan, aged six and eight respectively, the sons of a labourer. They were buried under the debris against a wall opposite the old house. The six children injured are:—Elisabeth Canavan, Garden Row, a cousin of the dead boys; Desmond and John King (brothers), Garden Row ; John Stanch eld, Stephen’s Street; Patrick Keating, Poynta Lane, and Joseph Burke, Stephen’s Street.”
I also came across the following in January 2021: “Horse-free zones expected to be formally approved at next month’s meeting of Kilkenny County Council don’t go far enough according to the Cathaoirleach Andrew McGuinness. Byelaws banning horses from a list of city centre streets will be put forward for approval by members.” A total of 26 streets, including Poyntz Lane” are on the list that was since created by Kilkenny County Council in consultation with Kilkenny Gardai. The new law will prohibit a person from having, keeping, riding or driving a horse in the listed areas at all times and declares the streets to be exclusion areas.
Jerome Connor (23 February 1874 in Coumduff, Annascaul, County Kerry – 21 August 1943 in Dublin) was an Irish sculptor
Connor was a self-taught artist who was highly regarded in the United States where most of his public works can be seen. It was felt he was heavily influenced by the work of Irish American sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens. He used the human figure to give expression to emotions, values and ideals. Many of the commissions he received were for civic memorials and secular figures which he cast in bronze, a pronounced departure from the Irish tradition of stone carved, church sponsored works
Connor is a recognised world class sculptor and his best known work is Nuns of the Battlefield located at the intersection of Rhode Island Ave NW, M St & Connecticut Ave NW in Washington, D.C., United States. Nuns of the Battlefield was surveyed in 1993 by the Smithsonian for their Save Outdoor Sculpture! program. It serves as a tribute to the over six hundreds nuns who nursed soldiers of both armies during the Civil War, and is one of two monuments in the District that represent women’s roles in the American Civil War.[4][5] The sculpture was authorised by Congress on March 29, 1918 with the agreement that the government would not fund it. The Ancient Order of Hibernians, raised $50,000 for the project. Jerome Connor was chosen since he focused on Irish Catholic themes, being one himself. but he ended up suing the Order for nonpayment.
He worked in the United States until 1925 and moved to Dublin where he opened his own studio, but, lack of financial support and patrons caused his work to slow. In 1926 he was contacted by Roycroft and asked to design and cast a statue of Elbert Hubbard who, with his wife Alice, had died in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. It was unveiled in 1930 and today it stands on the lawn of East Aurora’s Middle School across the street from the Roycroft Chapel building.
While working on the Hubbard statue, Connor received a commission to create a memorial for all the Lusitania victims. It was to be erected in Cobh, County Cork where many of the victims were buried. Connor died before the Lusitania memorial was completed and based on Connor’s design its installation fell to another Irish artist.
He died on August 21, 1943 of heart failure and reputably in poverty. There is a now a “Jerome Connor Place” in Dublin and around the corner there is a plaque in his honour on Infirmary Road, overlooking Dublin’s Phoenix Park (his favourite place) with the words of his friend the poet Patrick Kavanagh:
He sits in a corner of my memory With his short pipe, holding it by the bowl, And his sharp eye and his knotty fingers And his laughing soul Shining through the gaps of his crusty wall.
IRIS MURDOCH WAS BORN HERE PLAQUE – BLESSINGTON STREET BASIN PUBLIC PARK
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch DBE (15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, Under the Net, was selected in 1998 as one of Modern Library’s 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Her 1978 novel The Sea, the Sea won the Booker Prize. In 1987, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”.
Her other books include The Bell (1958), A Severed Head (1961), The Red and the Green (1965), The Nice and the Good (1968), The Black Prince (1973), Henry and Cato (1976), The Philosopher’s Pupil (1983), The Good Apprentice (1985), The Book and the Brotherhood (1987), The Message to the Planet (1989), and The Green Knight (1993).
IN MEMORY OF DICKIE BIRD [A HORSE THAT SERVED THE CRIMEAN WAR]
Dickie Bird, a horse that served in the Crimean War in 1854 with the 5th Dragoon Guards and whose bones were found by archaeologists in Dublin at Clancy Barracks is now on display at the National Museum of Ireland.
“Near this spot lies the remains of Dickie Bird B7, Troop Horse 5th Dragoon Guards. Which was foaled in 1850, joined the regiment in 1853 and served throughout the entire Crimean Campaign from May 1854 to Jun 1856. He was shot on the 21st November 1874 by special authority of the Horse Guards, to save him from being sold at auction”.
NOTE: ‘not a dicky-bird’ means ‘not a word’, i.e. silence, especially in the context where a spoken or written word might have been expected – for example, ‘Jack said he would write, but I haven’t heard a dicky-bird from him for weeks.
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