December 8th, 1954: It had been a stormy and wet week all over Europe. Éanna Brophy writes.
The Shannon had already flooded some farmland a few days earlier, but there was nothing unusual about that. International tensions involving China preoccupied some Irish newspapers, while others headlined the continuing illness of Pope Pius XII - and conjectured as to whether he would be well enough to lead the closing ceremonies of the Marian Year on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. (And, at this point may we interject a big hello to all the Marians in Ireland who reached 50 this year.)
It rained and rained on Wednesday, December 8th - and there were gale-force winds. Midland farms suffered extensive flooding, as did several suburbs in Dublin north and south. But nobody was prepared for what happened on the North Strand Road when the Tolka swelled to a raging torrent, finally bursting its banks at about 1.30 a.m. on December 9th.
Within minutes, a vast area that included Fairview Park and Ballybough was under water, but the people worst affected were those who lived in terraced cottages on the little streets that slope between the busy North Strand Road and the high railway embankment to the east. In the dark, the waters came swirling, first a few inches deep, then - as one rescued resident recalled later - reaching the height of the door-knocker, and eventually, in some houses, ceiling height.
Some 250 people were evacuated from St Brigid's Avenue, James Street North, Bessborough Avenue and Stoney Road. Babies were handed out through windows to rescuers such as William Waldron and Herbie Ellis, who were quickly on the scene with boats. William told of "two old men" in Bessborough Avenue who could not get out of their house but who insisted they were "all right". Herbie, meanwhile, rescued Betty, Kay, Marie and Ann Finglas, and Ann Ward from No. 51, where the water had reached the ceiling. Mr and Mrs O'Hagan of St Brigid's cottages credited their survival to the barking of their Labrador dog.
Evacuees were ferried to Amiens Street Station, where the GNR's station master, Mr G.S. Farrelly, won high praise for calling in all his staff to help the rescue operation - and for making hot food and drink available to all. Others were bedded down for the night (and several more to come) in Marlborough Street Schools and in an emergency centre at Charleville Mall (on the edge of the open space that had been left after the North Strand bombing of 1941).
The Tolka wasn't finished its night's work yet: at 4.30 a.m. it washed away the railway bridge that carries the Belfast line. The debris partly blocked the river mouth.
The bridge was replaced, some months later, by a Bailey bridge which, reportedly, had previously been used by the Allied forces to span the Rhine following the D-Day landings. Until the new temporary bridge was in place, Dublin's northern rail terminal was at Clontarf (not the present location: the earlier Clontarf station was on the Howth Road).
Aerial photographs published next day in the fledgling Evening Press (edited by a certain Douglas Gageby) showed the extent of the floods: Fairview Park was a lake, and access to the city centre from the north-eastern suburbs was virtually impossible unless you had a boat or an Army lorry.
Only one person died in the floods: Mrs Brigid O'Brien, aged 70, was later found dead in her home at St Brigid's Avenue. A neighbour had knocked, got no answer and thought she had already been rescued. Another woman, Mrs Kathleen McDermott, aged 79, died of a heart attack four days after being pulled from her flooded home.
A striking sidelight on how times have changed is the fact that, as well as some pups and poultry, a pig, a donkey and 12 cows also died in the floods. The cows belonged to a dairy roundsman, Joseph Byrne of North James Street, who had 18 cattle housed in a shed there.
A fund started by the Lord Mayor raised more than £20,000. The Abbey Theatre donated a night's proceeds from its successful production of Joseph Tomelty's new play Is The Priest At Home?, and Sir John Barbirolli and celebrated Hallé Orchestra from Manchester made plans to give a fund-raising performance at the Theatre Royal in January.
Rumours soon spread that, even while the rescue was going on, raiders had been breaking in and helping themselves to the contents of gas meters. These were later refuted by the Gas Company, whose workers had gone from house to house turning off the gas for safety reasons - and collecting the money from the meters before anyone got the bright idea of looting them.
The mouth of the Tolka river was widened considerably the following year, coinciding with the building of a new permanent railway bridge. But the Tolka still floods, of course - as the residents of nearby Ballybough learned to their cost just two years ago when the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, turned up and posed for photographs. This led some wags to suggest he was looking for floating voters. One memorable picture seemed to suggest he could walk on water. If so, he would have been a very handy man to have around the North Strand 50 years ago this week.