Month: August 2023

September Talk: ‘Balbriggan Stockings, Old Masters and the Bells of Howth: North County Dublin contributions to the 19th century Art & Industry Exhibitions.’ Cora McDonagh

Balbriggan & District Historical Society presents Cora Mc Donagh’s talk on ‘Balbriggan Stockings, Old Masters and the Bells of Howth: North County Dublin contributions to the nineteenth century Art & Industry Exhibitions.’   27th September 2023 at 8pm Bracken Court Hotel.  Admission €5, Members free. All Welcome

Cora is a local resident and PhD student at Maynooth University and her research involves some of the exhibitions and loans that she will be discussing at her talk. She will explore Balbriggan’s involvement with the exhibitions that took place in the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century. She will look at the contributions from the stocking manufacturers especially those at the 1853 Great Industrial Exhibition held in Dublin where Smyth & Co, Glennys, Appleyard and others had stands and over one million people visited this exhibition. Later exhibitions saw other industries at the exhibitions including The Balbriggan Salt Works Co. and the Drogheda Linen Company, Balbriggan.

Other districts in North County Dublin also provided generous loans to the exhibitions especially the Old Masters exhibitions and later the Art & Industry exhibitions. There were contributions from the Cobbes of Newbridge House, Donabate, the Lord Talbots de Malahide, the Viscount Gormanston (the address for Gormanston Castle during this time was given as Balbriggan, Co. Dublin) and many more. Cora will also explain how these loans were of benefit to the artists, the artisans and others during the nineteenth century.

During the final part of the talk Cora will have a brief look at the other exhibitions including the Flower Shows and Horticultural Exhibitions during the early twentieth century that took place at Balbriggan, Malahide, Skerries and Rush. Who knows, you might see the name of an ancestor listed amongst the prizewinners!

Cora Mc Donagh is a PhD candidate at Maynooth University under the supervision of Professor Terence Dooley and Dr Alison FitzGerald. Her thesis ‘Irish Country House art collections, display and dispersal: A social study of Irish loan exhibitions and auctions, 1798-1916’ combines both Irish social history with history of art. Cora has recently been appointed project researcher for the RDS Library & Archives for a stand-alone project in partnership with The Historical Studies Committee of the Royal Irish Academy to mark the 170th anniversary of the Dublin Great Industrial Exhibition of 1853.

August Talk: The rise & fall of John Spicer’s model bakery & shop Balbriggan (1904-1999): an overview of parts 1 & 2′ – Frank Whearity

Balbriggan & District Historical Society presents Frank Whearity-The rise & fall of John Spicer’s model bakery & shop Balbriggan (1904-1999): an overview of parts 1 & 2′ August 30th 8pm Bracken Court Hotel

Admission €5, Members free. All Welcome

Frank Whearity’s story is about the bakery branch opened by John Spicer (a Navan based miller and baker, b.1853-d.1922) in April, 1904, at Drogheda Street Balbriggan. In 1902, Spicer had two flour mills, known as the Boyne and Blackwater Mills, a bakery, and a coal-yard, all at Navan, Co. Meath. When an opportunity arose to expand into the area of north Co. Dublin, by buying out the Cumisky family’s bakery at Drogheda St. Balbriggan, he jumped at the chance. His new bakery revolutionised the breadmaking process in N. Co. Dublin, because he brought up-to-the-minute production methods to an area still making bread by the largely handmade processes of yesteryear. An example of such an establishment was the Old Mill bakery in Skerries, which was owned by Balbriggan man William Ennis of Clonard. Of the seven branch managers at Balbriggan, all came from elsewhere, though a few never left the town being interred there after their time on earth was over. One man, Richard Webster & his wife Dorothy (formerly a daughter of John Spicer), came via Milan, Italy where they had lived from 1911 to 1932. Spicers bread & confectionery were much appreciated by Balbriggan people who relished the loaves & sliced ‘Champion’ & Nutbrown’ sliced pans. When it came to pastries, the most popular was probably the ‘Chocolate eclairs’ made with fresh cream. The culinary highlight of the year was surely the Spicers Christmas cake selection with exotic sounding names like ‘Gala’ ‘Festival’ & ‘Dundee yule’ which whet the appetite simply by thinking about them even at this remove in time. When it came to home baking, the discerning housewive, in 1916, was encouraged to use Spicers flour as it was made the ‘Connoisseur’s bread’. As time went along, the bakery ceased production in 1993, while the shop carried on until 1999 when it too closed down. While it was a sad loss to Balbriggan when it went, there nevertheless remains to this day a fondness for the bakery still felt among a cohort, albeit an older one, of those halcyon days when one could splurge on an eclair and dodge the cream which inevitably came oozing out the sides when eating it. While the Balbriggan branch was the first to go, the end came in 2012 when the whole firm of Spicers in its Navan headquarters went into liquidation. Frank would like to mention his granduncle Eugene ‘Bay’ Melia who became a baker in Spicers, Balbriggan branch in the period 1934 to 1938, when his indenture document was signed by John Spicer’s daughter, Madeleine.