British Symbolism on Buildings in Ireland
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@murphaph wrote:
I love that bulding and I often look up at it and I’ve never noticed that crown either! It’s tiny.
😀 Yeah, I only noticed from zooming into my photographs. There’s actually two crowns there.
Hmmm interesting – never noticed them before either, just assuming them to be the marble baubles usually featured.
The crowns seem to be mutlitonal too – though that could just be the dirt 🙂Archiseek: “modelled on the London head office of Crown Life” – if that says anything…
One of the magnificent heraldic sculptures of the Custom House:
AFAIK, it’s a Deane and Woodward building, which means Freddie O’Dwyer’s fantastic book on them should have a mention of the crown. He’s not a man to miss a detail like that. I’ll check in the library when I have a chance.
(C’mon Freddie, don’t fail me!)As a ‘relative’ of the Crown Life building, might that have something to do with the feature? Was it perhaps a company logo?
I love those sculptures on Custom House aswell, and love getting to see ’em when I go to Dublin. If Sinn Fein had their way, they’d probably be knocked down, crushed, melted and re-made as a 1916 war memorial.
The beading around Hibernia on that one makes it look like an oval pound coin! Great sculpture though-the effort that was put into public buildings back then really showed a sense of pride in them. The unicorn is class. I have a huge soft spot for the CH too, especially by night from across the river at high tide when the water’s still-fantastic reflection; Can’t find a good pic but imagine it from this;
@crc wrote:
I’m not an authority on this, but I think it’s called the ‘English Market’ due to the ethnicity, rather than the language, of its patrons and/or sellers.
To back up this claim, I noticed that there is a sign in Grand Parade pointing to the market. The sign is in Irish and says “Sean Mhargadh na Sacsan”.
There are also several Royal Standards and insignia around UCC, particularly on the old building in the Quad.
The english market was for the protestatnt acendancy, who I suppose still saw themselves or others saw them as english.
The poorer catholic Irish went to the Coal Quay market. Still a bit of a market there on Saturdays and it’s still the poor relation of the two markets.
Nobody seems to have mentioned that King John’s Castle in Limerick has his coat of arms over the gate on Castle Street. Interesting considering that one of the four walls of the castle had been demolished for a social housing project in the 1940’s.
@GrahamH wrote:
Hmmm interesting – never noticed them before either, just assuming them to be the marble baubles usually featured.
The crowns seem to be mutlitonal too – though that could just be the dirt 🙂Archiseek: “modelled on the London head office of Crown Life” – if that says anything…
One of the magnificent heraldic sculptures of the Custom House:
But is this not a representation of the arms of the Kingdom of Ireland? A scaled down version still appears on Irish coinage!
@A-ha wrote:
Youghal in Co. Cork is a very “Anglo” town. Sir Walter Raleigh was mayor of the town in 1588 and Queen Elizabeth I visited his house which still stands today. I went to Youghal a few days back because they are having a historical week type thing. The town was chartered and given a mace like all towns and cities in Ireland, which of course, had the emblem of the United Kingdom and the seal of the monarch at the time. You’ll propably find that all of the old towns like Youghal, Kinsale and many other places all have their own maces, which were given to them by the King or Queen of the time. Ireland will never escape it’s British past, we were part of the United Kingdom for over 500 years…… it won’t all dissappear overnight. Oh and Oliver Cromwell left Ireland for the last time from Youghal Harbour…. hehehe, and people say school is a waste of time!
A-ha!
Here are a few examples of those Cork maces.
The UCC mace made by WIlliam Egan, Patrick’s Street (1910)
The Castlemartyr mace with the arms of James II, c.1685
The mace of the Cork Trade Guilds, by Robert Gobel of Cork 1696
The armorials of Chales I and of the town from the mace of Youghal (1630)I suppose the important thing is that we have developed our own sense of identity as modern Ireland and that we’re now sufficiently self-confident to be able to simply treat those old british symbols as a part of our history and just move on with being modern Ireland without feeling the need to demolish all the post boxes.
It’s just all part of a very rich history of various contacts (good and bad) with neighbouring countries.
As for the RNLI. I find it very odd indeed that both the UK and Ireland effectively have a charity operating our coast guard system!
Surely the RNLI should be getting heafty state funding from both the Republic of Ireland and the UK’s governments!! It’s an absolsutely vital service.
Queen Victoria Statue
Very familiar site if you’ve been to Sydney. The statue of Queen Victoria stood outside Leinster House until 1947, but was given to Australia as a gift in 1987 by the people of Ireland (after being in storage somewhere in Dublin for 50 years). A popular touist destination in Sydney is the Queen Victoria Building, and the statue is right outside that. It was made by an Irish man aswell, but I can’t think of his name.
Thanks for the pics. of all the maces’. I saw them last year in the Crawford when the Cork Silver exhibition was on. Extremely fascinating.
And Mr. X, I totally agree about the RNLI….. how they manage on donations I don’t know. It would be similar to having the fire brigade run on a charitable basis.
Did anyone mention the Royal Cork Yacht Club.@asdasd wrote:
People forget with time, in any case Roman imperialism was not extreme in Britain, at all, and non-existant in Germany. The fact is – too – we celebrate English leaders we like. Gladstone for instance has a few streets named after him – and generally in places where the main street has been changed to an Irish patriot.
( Had the house of lords not rejected his Home Rule proposals, we would almost certainly now be in the UK).
In Cork, for instance, we have Charlotte St., Coburg St., Hanover St., York St., to name but a few, while in Dublin you have Nassau St……
Don’t forget too King Billy’s mush is on the Lord Mayor of Dublin’s gold chain. The Lord Mayor of Dublin’s coach is a briiliant left over too. All these symbols are part of our history and as has already been said shouldn’t be removed. There’s a little part of Brit blood in all of us. The Gaelic revival as wel as partial Irish independence gave precedence to this Gaelic aspect of Irish history to enhance our national identity when we were a somewhat broken and battered isolated people.
@Praxiteles wrote:
But is this not a representation of the arms of the Kingdom of Ireland? A scaled down version still appears on Irish coinage!
Not like you to miss out on a detail Praxiteles ]It’s not necessarily true to say that the Custom House and Four Courts feature elements of British symbolism – the coat of arms and crowns are that of Ireland: not the British Crown as is commonly percieved. The ‘Kingdom of Ireland’ or along those lines.[/QUOTE]
And of course that harp is now the emblem of the IAA.
Many Church of Ireland have military memorials etc too – often overlooked when thinking of crown symbolism
GrahamH wrote:Not like you to miss out on a detail Praxiteles ]The arms on the Custom House are those of the Kingdom of Ireland and are NOT British arms at all.
If you look at the Royal Standard, you will see that it is comprised of the three realms or kingdoms which originally were only uited in the person of the sovereign: in the first quarter is England; in the Second Scotland; in the third England and in the Fourth Ireland.
I would point out, that the present standard of the President of Ireland is that found in the fourth quartering of the Royal Standard.
The second image below is tah of the present standard of the President of Ireland.
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