Ltd edition of 300, 100% silk twill with a handrolled edge, 130cm x 130cm.
This never was my town,
I was not born or bred
Nor schooled here and she will not
Have me alive or dead
But yet she holds my mind
With her seedy elegance,
With her gentle veils of rain
And all her ghosts that walk
And all that hide behind
Her Georgian facades.’
From ‘Dublin’ by Louis MacNeice.
This part of MacNeice’s poem sums up my feelings about Dublin. It is not my town, it is my mother’s town & as such has a very special hold on me. My whole life has been spent making trips to Dublin, for decades to visit family & in more recent times, also to work. The city has been very good to me.
As a child in the 80s Dublin was a magical place. Coming from a small seaside town, and at the time spending very little time in Belfast, this was really the only city I knew. The scale, the beautiful buildings, the Georgian architecture like dolls houses with brightly coloured doors, the lights, the museums, the crowds, the shops. Heading into town with my granny on a 27a bus from the Harmonstown Rd to Talbot Street, my purse full of punts pressed into my hands by generous aunts & uncles. Being amongst the eldest grandkids of a big Dublin family we were spoilt rotten. Back then I only wanted to go to toy & book shops.. Banba books sticks in my mind. But before we get there, there are many obstacles. Guineys. Clerys. Dunnes. Moore Street.
Moore street was chaotic & noisy to my young ears. A sea of bustling women in headscarves. The calls of the stall holders ‘four for a pound’, mingled with strong market smells.. meat, fish, veg, flowers. I was always amazed by the ladies with the old fashioned prams pileup with strawberries, bananas & Toblerone. The bright colours of the striped awnings, the flowers, fruit & veg. The dragon gargoyle atop number 55. The iconic blue mosaic on the ground outside the butchers. So many butchers! I hated queueing up there, joints of meat hanging in the window. (I became a very young vegetarian) My granny would get the messages & we’d finally head to the bookshops, picking up an apple tart from Ann’s on Mary Street or North Earl Street on the way home.
A few decades earlier, a small blonde girl lived in a tenement in Coleraine Street in inner city Dublin with her parents & a couple of brothers. Her granny & uncles lived above. She loved the city & loved having her granny upstairs. In the late 50s the tenements were cleared, the girl & her parents & brothers were moved to a brand new house in Raheny. It had a garden in the back & a whole football field out front but the girl missed her granny who had been moved to Chancery House near the Four Courts. The girl’s father would bring her into town to visit her granny, passing Moore Street on the way. She remembers the animals being herded down Moore street from Smithfield, to the abattoirs along the side streets. Around Christmas time she would hear the sounds of ‘get yer Cheeky Charlies heeee-arrrr’ from the stall holders selling the iconic little toy monkeys.
As she got a bit older she’d get the train into town herself to go to school, Kings Inn Street. On the way home she’d walk down Moore St with her pals & if they could scrape sixpence together they’d share a plate of chips in Woolworths. She remembers one Tuesday morning in 1966 walking by the rubbly remains of Nelson’s Column on O’Connell St after it had been blown up.
That little girl was my mum, and as I kid I loved hearing her stories about the ‘olden days’. Now when we are in Dublin together I love hearing her memories of the different parts of the city as we dander about, with the context of time & a love of social history they are as fascinating to me now as they were back then. A history we don’t often hear. Women’s history. Working class history. The day to day things, how people lived. The details. The nuances. The kind of things I like to celebrate in my work.
Visiting Moore Street now is a very different experience. The market is much smaller of course but I have a deep appreciation of it, the women of the market & the history. I go there to buy flowers for my aunts, who I try to see as often as I can when I’m in Dublin or if I’m on the other side of the city I’ll buy blooms from the traders on Grafton Street. When I’m at the market now I marvel at the produce & wonder how it would fare over a five hour two train journey home & always regretfully decide not to chance it.
Looking at the market with older eyes I think of the centuries of history here, from the original Georgian market that served the big houses of Mountjoy Square, Dominick Street & Henrietta Street. Through the 19th century with the changes brought about by the Acts of Union, as all power shifted to London many of the big Georgian house residents relocated there. Dublin’s population doubled over that century, with the Great Famine leading many people to flee the countryside to the city during the 1840s. The once grand Georgian houses became tenements, but still Moore St served the residents. In the 20th century it played its part in the Easter Rising, local lore tells us that’s how the little dragon atop number 55 lost his wings, stray bullets. Through the centuries the market has remained, looking after the residents of Dublin & beyond.
This print is a celebration of Moore Street, markets & street traders across Dublin & the communities that gather around them. I asked some of my own community, family & friends, to choose flowers from an imaginary flower stall so I could draw them into my print. The coins in the print are the original Irish Free State coins, designed by Percy Metcalfe with a Committee headed by WB Yeats. It was recommended that the coins feature a series of native animals because of their central importance to the mainly agricultural
economy of Ireland. In this print the pigs & salmon are also a nod to the meat & fish at the market, with the hare for a bit of magic.
‘Me Aul Flower’ and ‘Me Aul Segotia’ are old Dublin terms of endearment, both terms my granny used on us. Me Aul Flower fits the theme of the print but Me Aul Segotia is very close to my heart. The text pays homage to the many ghost signs you see in Dublin City Centre, the faded names of businesses long gone on a sign or painted onto the walls of a building. The stripes are a nod to the stall & shop awnings & the background displays a faded maps of old Dublin.
I hope you love your blooms & my story Me Aul Segotia x
Please note that due to the nature of silk and with the scarves being printed in small batches that colours can vary slightly, although we try our best to ensure continuity. Due to this and computer/ phone screen settings the colours can look a little different to above.