It is an indisputable fact of human nature that ordinary folk will contrive to live their ordinary lives, no matter what sort of calamity is going on around them. The people of Ireland proved the truth of this observation 80 years ago. The inexorable build-up to civil war in the first half of the year was followed by the horrible reality of the thing itself during the second half. Dreadful deeds were perpetrated as Irishmen did indeed wade through Irish blood, as Eamon de Valera had encouraged them to do, writes Brian Maye
In spite of the murder, arson and pillage, the contempt for human life and law and order - and all pursued in the name of political abstractions - the precious plant of ordinary life continued to be nourished. On August 9th, for example, a short time before the deaths of two of the outstanding figures on one side of the political divide, Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, a new style of shop, a department store called Clery's, was opened on O'Connell Street in Dublin. Its famous clock became a favourite meeting place for romantic rendezvous that led to many a lasting relationship.
Benefits of bridge
A few months later, as the fighting grew even more intensely bitter, The Irish Times carried a most interesting article on the benefits of playing bridge. The anonymous writer advocated the card game as a cure for nervous breakdown.
He (she?) began the piece by dismissing the idea that the game caused financial loss on the grounds that the stakes played for were so small. The one argument against bridge that carried any weight with the writer was that it produced a "card face". While conceding that such a face was not seen much at tables any more, he confessed that it was not a pretty sight but presumed that "only a hardened gambler would sacrifice good looks to cards".
But on to the palliative powers of the game. More than one woman, beset by many cares, had declared to the writer: "By becoming keenly interested in bridge for a few hours every evening I forget all my worries and enjoy complete mental rest." The writer went on to say that bridge did incalculable good by "drawing out of seclusion women who would fall into a rut and become old before their time". The game also brought enjoyment into the lives of hundreds of women who, before they began to play it, "were eating their hearts out with melancholy."
The writer concluded with the claim that cards seemed to provide these women with "their only escape from deadly depression" and so could not be evil. Nevertheless, he conceded that "die-hard" (a word no doubt current in the civil-war context) opponents of the game would argue that the cure was worse than the disease.
With such generally dismal news occupying the headlines day after day in 1922, it must also have been heartening for the dancers of Dublin when this newspaper announced that the new Metropole Ballroom would be opening its doors in early September.
Legging it
The first name of the couple the management had arranged to supervise the inaugural dances - Mr and Mrs Leggett Byrne - must have been very reassuring to potential patrons. In fact the Byrnes had been legging it at most of the principal functions in the city of Dublin for the past 30 years, the paper told its readers. Furthermore, they were "the pioneers of children's dances and ballrooms at the Ballsbridge Fêtes, almost all of which they organised since the great 'Kosmos' Fête of 1893.".
There was no sign of those experienced legs growing weary. The paper had the additional good news about the Leggett Byrnes that they had arranged to reopen their classes for children and adults. Morning and afternoon sessions would be held three days a week during the season. Good news indeed for the war-weary citizens of the capital
Civil War cataclysm
Countries, like people, can undergo an annus horribilis and 80 years ago Ireland surely underwent hers. The cataclysm of civil war swept away so many good men and engendered a bitterness that took a whole generation, if not longer, to be purged from the body politic. Is it not reassuring, then, to know that during these very events department stores made their first appearance in Ireland, bridge playing soothed the nerves of so many Irish women, and the dancers of Dublin went through their paces under the watchful, experienced eyes of the Leggett Byrnes?
Thomas Hardy wrote his poem "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'" in 1915, when the Great War raged in Europe and predictions of the collapse of civilisation were common. The poem affirms Hardy's conviction that mankind would not only survive, but was indestructible.
In three short quatrains, Hardy presented images from country life of simple, powerful beauty: an old horse pulling a harrow; couch-grass being burned, and lovers walking. The most memorable picture is the last: "Yonder a maid and her wight/ Come whispering by./ War's annals will cloud into night/ Ere their story die."