This plaque honours philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch, who was born on Blessington Street, Dublin, on 15 July 1919.
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This plaque is located temporarily in the Blessington Basin and will be erected at 59 Blessingotn Street in due course.
Read Iris Murdoch’s biography from the Dictionary of Irish Biography
The plaque was unveiled on 11th July 2019, to mark the 100th anniversary of her birth.
On Wednesday, 27th April 2016, a Dublin City Council plaque commemorating labour councillor Richard O’Carroll was unveiled at O’Carroll Villas, Cuffe Street, by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Críona Ní Dhálaigh.
In attendance were relatives of O’Carroll, who spent the last years of his life living at the Bricklayers’ Arms Institute on Cuffe Street, as well as representatives of the Building & Allied Trades’ Union.
An able and forthright councillor who was a bricklayer by trade, O’Carroll was a committed trade unionist and Irish revolutionary. During the 1916 Easter Rising, he was part of Thomas MacDonagh’s Jacob’s Factory Garrison and was mortally wounded by Captain J. C. Bowen-Colthurst on 26th April after his capture. He was subsequently brought to Portobello military hospital where he died on 5th May. O’Carroll was survived by his wife Anne and their seven children, the youngest born shortly after his death.
On 26th April 2016 the Members’ Room at City Hall was renamed the Richard O’Carroll Room, with a bronze plaque unveiled that also commemorates Dublin City Councillors and Aldermen who were either participants in the Easter Rising (William T. Cosgrave, Sean T. O’Ceallaigh and William Partridge) or imprisoned afterwards (Thomas Kelly, Laurence O’Neill, Patrick T. Daly and Patrick V. Mahon).
Those wishing to learn more about the life of Richard O’Carroll should read the 2016 article by Dublin historian Donal Fallon for the Come Here To Me website.
Submitted by historian in residence James Curry.
On the morning of Friday, 5th June 2015, a Dublin City Council commemorative plaque honouring footballer and football manager Patrick O’Connell was unveiled in Drumcondra. The plaque is located at 87 Fitzroy Avenue, where O’Connell lived during his youth, and was unveiled by his grandson Mike O’Connell and Dublin Central T.D. Maureen O’Sullivan.
Patrick O’Connell led a remarkable footballing life. Beginning his professional career with Belfast Celtic, he moved to England in 1909 and played for Sheffield Wednesday, Hull City and Manchester United over the next decade. O’Connell emigrated to Spain in 1922 and coached Racing Santander for seven years, before leading Real Betis to their sole La Liga championship in 1935 and helping to save FC Barcelona from bankruptcy during the Spanish Civil War by bringing them on a tour of Mexico and New York.
Thereafter, O’Connell returned to England and spent his final years living destitute in London, where he passed away in February 1959.
In attendance at the Drumcondra plaque unveiling were former players of Manchester United (Jimmy Nicholl), Glasgow Celtic (Bertie Auld and John Clark) and FC Barcelona (Steve Archibald), as well as Martin Buchan of the Professional Footballer’s Association.
Those wishing to learn more about “Don Patricio O’Connell” can consult the 2016 book The Man Who Saved FC Barcelona: The Remarkable Life of Patrick O’Connell, written by Sue O’Connell (wife of Patrick’s grandson Mike) and issued by Amberley Publishing.
You can also watch the presentation below by Dr James Curry, Dublin City Council historian in residence, which is part of a Plaques of Dublin online lecture series.
Submitted by Historian in Residence, James Curry.
On the afternoon of Monday, 4th May 2016, a Dublin City Council plaque commemorating poet, journalist and 1916 Proclamation Signatory Joseph Mary Plunkett was unveiled at his birthplace and family home in Dublin 2.
Located at 26 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, the plaque was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Críona Ní Dhálaigh, on the centenary of Joseph Plunkett’s execution.
In attendance were several of Plunkett’s relatives, including his nephew Seóirse Plunkett, niece Siobhan Plunkett Gibney, great-grand-niece Honor Ni Brolchoin (who proposed the plaque), and Honor’s daughter Isolde Carmody (who recited some of her ancestor’s poetry at the event).
A member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood’s Military Council who devised the military plan for the Easter Rising, Plunkett was part of the GPO garrison in 1916, with Michael Collins serving as his aide-de-camp. Already dying from tuberculosis, he was executed in the stonebreaker’s yard at Kilmainham Gaol on 4th May 1916, hours after marrying fiancé Grace Gifford in the prison’s chapel. He was 28 years old.
Those wishing to learn more about the subject of the plaque should consult Honor Ni Brolchoin’s biography 16 Lives: Joseph Plunkett (O’Brien Press, 2013).
Submitted by historian in residence James Curry.
On the morning of Thursday, 21st July 2016, a Dublin City Council plaque commemorating Ireland’s first international radio broadcast was unveiled on the city’s main thoroughfare.
Located at the Grand Central Bar, 10-11 O’Connell Street, the plaque was unveiled by Denis Naughten, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. Minister Naughten praised Joseph Plunkett’s foresight in recognising the power of radio, and the courage of Irish Volunteers such as Liam Daly and John “Blimey” O’Connor in erecting the aerial and apparatus necessary for the radio transmission under heavy fire.
Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha spoke on behalf of Dublin City Council’s Commemorative Naming Committee, with broadcaster Eugene Murphy also taking part in the unveiling ceremony.
On 25th April 1916, a morse code message written by James Connolly was transmitted from what was then the Wireless School of Telegraphy, declaring to the world that a Republic had been declared in Dublin and the country of Ireland was “rising”.
The plaque was proposed by the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, RTÉ Radio and the Boys and Girls creative agency as part of the celebration to mark the centenary of broadcasting in Ireland.
Those wishing to learn more about the subject of the plaque should consult Eddie Bohan’s booklet Rebel Radio: Ireland’s First International Radio Station 1916 (Kilmainham Tales, 2016).
Submitted by historian in residence James Curry.
This plaque honours renowned uileann piper, pipe maker, and teacher Leo Rowsome, and is at the corner of Beltorn Park Road and Collins Avenue, Dublin 9.
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Born into a piping family in Harold’s Cross, Leo Rowsome went on to become a teacher, pipe-maker, and performer. As a performer he played all over the world, including at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Joining the Municipal School of Music, Chatham Row, as a teacher at the age of 17, he went on to teach generations of uilleann pipers, including Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains, and Liam Óg Ó Floinn.
A founding member of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Éireann, Leo Rowsome was also one of the founders of Na Píobairí Uilleann
The Rowsome family lived at 9 Belton Park Road, Donnycarney, and Leo Rowsome’s workshop was in the back garden.
The plaque was unveiled on 4th June 2021.
This plaque commemorates those who fought in the 1916 Rising at the Royal COllege of Surgeons on Saint Stephen’s Green.
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The plaque was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Críona Ní Dhálaigh, and was the fifth in a series of 1916 Rising garrison plaques unveiled by Dublin City Council in 2016.
This plaque at Dublin Castle, Ship Street, commemorates suffragette Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, who smashed windows at the Castle in the campaign for women’s suffrage.
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Read Hanna Sheehy Skeffington’s biography in the Dictionary of Irish Biography.
The plaque was unveiled by President Michael D. Higgins on 13th June 2018.
On Friday, 4th September 2015, a Dublin City Council plaque commemorating the founding of Shelbourne Football Club was unveiled in Dublin 4.
The plaque is located outside Slattery’s Public House (at the junction of Shelbourne Road and Bath Avenue) and was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Críona Ní Dhálaigh, and Chairman of Shelbourne Football Club, Joe Casey, with the ceremony hosted by broadcaster Ray Kennedy. Also in attendance were Kevin Humphreys T.D, Minister of State at the Department of Social Protection, local councillor Paddy McCartan, and members and supporters of Shelbourne Football Club.
It is widely believed that it was in Slattery’s (then known as Nolan’s) that a group of young men who lived in the Bath Avenue area of southeast inner-city Dublin founded Shelbourne F.C in 1895. Spurred on by successful local performances during the next two years, Shelbourne joined the senior ranks of Irish football in 1897, and in 1905 became professional.
Based at Drumcondra’s Tolka Park since 1989, Shelbourne have won the League of Ireland (of which they were a founding member in 1921) championship thirteen times and are one of only three teams to have won both the Irish Football Association Cup and the Football Association of Ireland Cup.
Those wishing to learn more about the history of one of Ireland’s oldest football teams should consult Christopher Sands’s book Shels. A Grand Old Team to Know. A History of Shelbourne Football Club since 1895 (Dublin, 2016).
You can also watch the presentation below by Dr James Curry, Dublin City Council historian in residence, which is part of a Plaques of Dublin online lecture series.
Submitted by Historian in Residence, James Curry.
On Saturday, 13th February 2016, a Dublin City Council plaque commemorating 1916 Easter Rising casualty Edward Walsh was unveiled in Dublin 2.
The plaque is located outside the Royal Exchange Hotel, Parliament Street, and was unveiled by relatives of Edward Walsh and councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha, who in his speech described the Dublin carter as “a brave Irish patriot, a man who fought for and died for the freedom of the Irish people 100 years ago”.
Locate this plaque on Google maps.
A member of the Hibernian Rifles, Walsh was mortally wounded in the stomach at the beginning of the Easter Rising, close to the spot where the plaque is located. He was 43 years old and left behind a pregnant wife and two young children, who lived nearby at 8 Lower Dominick Street. Walsh’s wife Ellen gave birth to a third son, Edward Pearse Walsh, months after her husband had been buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
The plaque ceremony was attended by four of Edward Walsh’s granddaughters and a great-grandson.
Those wishing to learn more about the marginal nationalist militia with which Walsh fought during the Easter Rising should consult Padraig Og O’Ruairc’s article ‘A Short History of the Hibernian Rifles 1912-1916’ for The Irish Story website.
Submitted by Historian in Residence, James Curry.
