Across the Divide
Page 16
James Larkin’s union, the Irish Transport and General Workers Union [ITGWU], although defeated in the Lockout, recovered quickly and eventually went on to merge with other unions and become SIPTU, currently the largest trade union in Ireland.
The groups of men who had banded together to protect the striking workers from attacks by the police grew into the Citizen Army, which would go on to take a leading part in the 1916 Rising, under the command of James Connolly, who was executed after the Rising.
All the songs that the characters sing were the actual songs that people loved in 1913 – the pop songs of the era. The tango melodies that Nora and Liam were so keen to hear were part of a genuine musical craze that swept Europe around that time.
The Fr Mathew Hall in Church Street, where feiseanna were held over many years, is still standing, but has been converted into an office building.
In the wider world, the Panama Canal, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, had its final section cleared by a controlled explosion, exactly as described.
In 1913, Prime Minister Asquith of Britain was lobbied, unsuccessfully, to build a tunnel linking England and France, and it wasn’t until 1994 that the Channel Tunnel was opened. The Eurostar high speed train that runs through the tunnel can now bring passengers from London to Paris in less than two hours, thirty minutes.
Sir Almroth Wright’s book The Unexpurgated Case against Woman Suffrage, which Nora tried to argue against, was a real publication that attacked the ideas of the Suffragette movement. The suffragettes were criticised, arrested, sent to jail and even force-fed during hunger strikes. Eventually their determination paid off, however, and in 1918 women were granted the vote.
The barge on which Liam travelled was of a type used extensively in Ireland to transport goods such as barley, coal, turf and beer. Aunt Molly’s Hazelwood Farm is imaginary, but Ballinacargy is a real village, and in the past it was an important halting point on the Royal Canal.
You can still enjoy a night’s entertainment at the Gaiety Theatre, just as Nora did. Although now closed, Bewleys Café in Westmoreland Street, where Liam, Nora and the choir members had their coffee and cakes, was a real place, as are Skerries, Torquay, Leeson Park and the other locations that feature in the story.
Brian Gallagher
Dublin, 2010.
About the Author
Brian Gallagher is a full-time writer whose plays and short stories have been produced in Ireland, Britain and Canada. He has written extensively for radio and television and for many years was one of the scriptwriters on RTÉ’s Fair City.
He collaborated with composer Shaun Purcell on the musical, Larkin, for which he wrote the book and lyrics, and on Winds of Change for RTÉ’s Lyric FM. He lives with his family in Dublin.
Copyright
This eBook edition first published 2013 by The O’Brien Press Ltd,
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First published 2010
eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–382–9
Copyright for text © Brian Gallagher 2010
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