Patrick Comerford
I am in Dublin this evening for the launch of Professor Salvador Ryan’s new book, Childhood and the Irish, A Miscellany in the Royal Irish Academy. The book, which is being launched by RTÉ’s Miriam O’Callaghan, is published by Wordwell Books and includes two contributions from me.
One of my essays is topical this evening in a way that I never expected it to be when I was subitting my contributions to this new book. ‘In Four boys growing up in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ and a synagogue fire’, I tell the story of how a youthful Chaim Herzog, who lived on Bloomfield Avenue, and three Levitas brothers, Max, Morry and Sol, who lived on Warren Street, all of my father’s generation, almost set fire accidentally to Lennox Street Synagogue late one Saturday 100 years ago, back in 1925.
Chaim Herzog (1918-1997), was born in Belfast but had moved to Dublin in 1919 when his father, Dr Yitzhak Herzog, became the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland. He later went to school in Wesley College, Dublin, and would become the President of Israel (1983-1993). Herzog Park in Dublin was named in his honour during one of his return visits to Dublin. He had fought against the Nazis in World War II, took part in the liberation of several Nazi concentration camps, including Bergen-Belsen, and became involved in left-wing politics as a member of the Labour Party. His son Isaac Herzog is a former leader of the Israeli Labour Party and is the present President of Israel.
The other three boys in the incident, the Levitas brothers, eventually moved to the East End of London, where they became heroes in the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 and the Spanish Civil War.
The councillors who wanted to change the name of Herzog Park at a meeting of Dublin City Council this evening, at the same time as this book is being launched, would do well to remember the true grit of these true Dubs who resisted racism and fascism all this lives. Many of them, however, continue to revere the statue in Fairview Park of the Nazi collaborator Sean Russell.
The new book being launched this evening includes 80 essays from historians, folklorists, archaeologists, theologians, anthropologists, poets, novelists, artists, literature scholars and educationalists, who cast light on the lived experience of children in Ireland.
The contributions range from the scholarly to the deeply personal, with vignettes from almost every county in Ireland. This anthology offers an invaluable resource for all who are interested in the social, cultural and religious history of childhood in Ireland.
The topics include: childhood in early Irish saints’ lives; childhood in medieval Irish literature; remembering the children who died violently during the upheavals of 17th century Ireland; ‘foundlings’ and parish-based care for children in the 19th century; child prisoners; a New York Irish ‘street boy’ in the American Civil War; children and the belief in ‘changelings’; childhood disability; why Manchester City might be considered ‘Monaghan’s best youth club’; the educational experiences of Jewish children and of the children of RIC officers in early 20th century Ireland; the childhood of James Joyce; seasonal migration and childhood farm labour; the origins of the summer Gaeltacht course; the ‘sweet-shop’ culture of Irish childhood; the banbhs who went to the ball in 1930s Offaly; mid-20th century school strike; a Dublin school tour to Lourdes in 1954; childhood among the Travelling community; the evolution of First Communion rituals; a UK-based scholar’s childhood experience of learning different histories in Belfast and Dublin schools; blended family culture in contemporary Ireland; and many more.
Salvador Ryan is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Saint Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth, with an interest in religious and cultural history from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. This is the ninth book I have contributed to that he has either edited or co-edited.
Those other books include Christmas and the Irish (2023), Birth and the Irish (2021), Marriage and the Irish (2019), and Death and the Irish (2016), all from Wordwell Books; We Remember Maynooth: a College across Four Centuries (Dublin: Messenger Publications, 2020); The Cultural Reception of the Bible: explorations in theology, literature and the arts (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2018); Treasures of Ireland, Vol III, To the Ends of the Earth (Dublin: Veritas, 2015); and Tresures of Irish Christianity, Volume II, A People of the Word (Dublin: Veritas, 2013).
He is also the editor of The Irish Theological Quarterly, to which I have contributed often, and the editor of Under Crimblin Hill, Journal of the Dunkerrin Parish History Society – I have contributed a paper to the latest volume (2026), which was launched in the Barack Obama Plaza in Moneygall last Friday night.
Among my friends, Facebook friends, and academic and clerical colleagues who are included in this new collection are Ian d’Alton, Anne Marie D’Arcy, Séamus Dooley, Crawford Gribben, Kevin Hargaden, Mark Humphries, Laurence Kirkpatrick, Michelle McGoff-McCann, Patsy McGarry, Ida Milne, Miriam Moffitt, Father Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB, Thomas O’Loughlin, Pádraig Ó Macháin, Clodagh Tait, Natalie Wynn, and, of course, Salvador Ryan.
In ‘Within the Sound of Church Bells’, my childhood neighbour, the writer, songwriter and broadcaster Max McCoubrey, recalls many details of childhood in Dublin 6 that resonate with me.
My contributions to this book are ‘36. Four Boys Growing up in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ (pp 153-156) and a Synagogue Fire’, and ‘39. The Children of the Holocaust who Called Ireland Home’ (pp 166-170).
I have read through some of the other essays and contributions and browsed through others at the proof-reading stages, and I am looking forward to reading many more after this evening's book lauch. But, more about this book and my two essays in the days or weeks to come. The book is out in time to include on your Christmas presents list.
