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THIS IS THE description of a national festival promoted by Irish tourist chiefs and government to boost visitor numbers here:
“(It) will be a time of pageantry and national rejoicing in which the Irish clans from far and near come together in joyful reunion.”
The Gathering? No – this is the description attributed by President Seán T O’Kelly in 1953 on the opening of An Tóstal festival with a parade on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.
(Click here to see the British Pathé newsreel of the parade).
It had its own flag and EVERYTHING. The flag bore the same harp symbol as the official commemorative stamps of the time, which were designed by Fergus O’Ryan from Limerick. The harp itself was designed by a Dutchman, Guss Melai, who used the Book of Kells and the Brian Boru harp of Ireland as his inspiration:
These stamps are up for auction right now on ebay.ie
The idea came from an airline boss
The initial prompt for An Tóstal came originally from the president of Pan American Airlines who thought Ireland should take inspiration from the 1951 Festival of Britain. (Presumably, the thought that it might lead to more transatlantic flight bookings didn’t cross his mind).
It was particularly aimed at the Irish diaspora in the United States and Bord Fáilte Éireann and the government realised that it would be a good campaign to promote more visits to Ireland in the off-peak season. As such, it was pitched as a springtime festival and the opening parade was on Easter Sunday, 5 April, 1953.
Selection of posters from ebay.ie
Trout fishing, hairdressing and soap box races
Several spectacles were arranged to draw in the crowds over the three weeks of the festival. There was the world trout fly-fishing tournament on Lough Mask. It was won by a Mr J Stack from Westport, Co Mayo who won a large cup and £250. A soap box derby and the best parade we’ve ever seen tore up the streets of Limerick.
There was also An Tóstal Hairdressing Competition. Fantastic commentary in the video clip at that link.
An Tóstal has gone to the heads of many Dubliners.
Classic.
There was also a major fashion show in the Gresham – all this beautifying must surely have led to…
…The Rose of Tralee
The Tóstal festival was held every year until 1958, when it was phased out (it was not as successful as it had been hoped it would be at causing a major boost to off-peak tourism numbers). But before it did, it gave inspiration to the founding of the Rose of Tralee festival whcih would attract ‘Roses’ from ex-patriate communities.
So it was that the first Rose of Tralee festival went ahead in 1959 with Roses from Tralee, London, Dublin, Birmingham and New York. At the time each Rose had to be a native of Tralee – this was expanded by 1967 to having some Irish birth or blood in you to qualify.
The sash and accessories worn by the first Rose of Tralee (Dublin won) went on display at the Kerry County Museum:
Image: Rose of Tralee International Festival/Facebook
The Cork Film Festival and the Dublin Theatre Festival also owe their genesis to that founding year of 1953. The Cork Film Festival was originally called An Tóstal, and was founded by Dermot Breen who was also general organiser of An Tóstal festival as a whole. The Dublin Theatre Festival came later, in 1957, as a new feature on that year’s An Tóstal calendar.
The book Interactions: Dublin Theatre Festival, 1957-2007, edited by Nicholas Grene, Patrick Lonergan and Lilian Chambers, records a satirical verse made up at the time by a Mr RBD French, a student of English at Trinity, about the new festival:
In the City of Dublin, at no distant date,We resolved on a Tóstal – a sort of a fete -
In the culture of Europe we wished to take part
So we made it a feast of theatrical art!
Tooralay, tooraloo,
And we got a few bob from the Fáilte Bórd too…
As well as putting on local events, towns and villages around Ireland cleaned up their act for the expected visitors. By 1958, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government decided to encourage the spring cleans with the…
…Tidy Towns competition
The first winner was Glenties in Co Donegal. This is Glenties now. Still looking good, folks.
Image: Glenties/Facebook
There’s always one
There was a small controversy – tiny, really – about what the choice of title for the festival. On 16 June, 1953, Dan Desmond – a Labour TD from Cork South - asked if the Department for Education had been consulted on the choice of the word ‘Tóstal’. He said people were wondering what it meant and that some school teachers of his acquaintance seemed to think it means “at home”. He added:
Now strange to say I have been checking on an old Irish-English dictionary, by O’Reilly, published here in Dublin in 1821 and the word “Tóstal” comes into it, and the only English definition for the word “Tóstal” in that dictionary is “arrogance, pride, envy”. The word “Tostallach” also appears and is the only word in connection with it, and the English definition is “presumptuous, presuming, and arrogant”.I think it is totally unfair that any other Department of State should be prepared to use titles for any of our boards without consulting the Department of Education and their responsible officials. That is all I have to say on it but I should be glad if the Minister would tell us about Irish meanings and whether such words were used without his authority or the authority of his Department.
No-one else seemed too bothered in the rest of that Dáil debate, which you can read here.
You can still attend An Tóstal… in Leitrim (and Salthill)
The name lives on in a surviving festival held in Drumshanbo, Co Leitrim. As this piece from RTÉ Radio One’s The History Show explains, the pageant continued largely through the efforts of the parents of Senator Paschal Mooney, who is himself the honorary President of the An Tóstal Committee.
A bit of craic from the 2009 parade. The theme was Christmas. (It was held in June):
via DrumshanboLive/Youtube
There is also an An Tóstal currach racing event off the coast at Salthill, Galway which returned in 2011 after a hiatus of over half a century. It was first included as part of the Galway programme for the 1953 An Tóstal campaign.
Sadly, the Bowl of Light didn’t stay on
The excellent ComeHereToMe.com notes that a public monument was erected on O’Connell Bridge to mark the opening of An Tóstal in 1953. It was a massive copper bowl which would have held a flame to welcome home the visitors.
Screenshot with kind permission of ComeHeretoMe.com
Now we have the Monument of Light. (The Spire’s official title). Which would you prefer?
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Deleted my fb account around 6 yr ago. Would never go back on it. If you want me simply ring or text. Cant understand people who put their whole lives online on fb.
@shellakybooky: because humans get insecure and seek out companionship and interactions…SM these days has been wired into people brains via silly sounds via alerts flashing lights etc…..to brake this link is not easy but can be done.
@shellakybooky: The old fashioned media hit out at the new form of media as it is hurting their profits. Politicians hit out at facebook because they are not able to have their relationships and control that they had with our newspapers and the newspaper owners that they have currently.
We can expect a lot more attacks of this type on Facebook over the years as facebook allows people to communicate en-mass and destabilizes the status quo of politicians being in close relationships with those in the media company ownership.
I would trust facebook a hell of a lot more then I would trust our national newspapers or any one in RTE.
@brian boru: I understand what you are saying, probably agree with most of it. BUT it needs to be regulated you can’t have Facebook regulating themselves and then moaning when they make an almighty mess of it.
@brian boru: Naive if you trust Facebook. No social media can be trusted & papers never refuse ink
@PaddyOverABarrel:
Classic……use social media to brag that you don’t use social media!…..
@shellakybooky: same here
@Ger Healy: …news alert – this is not a social media site! lmao
@PaddyOverABarrel: there’s no companionship on Facebook though. It’s anti social media.
@UK Hurling Bloke:
Social Media is not just Facebook or Instagram.
I also deleted my Facebook account a few months ago and don’t miss it at all.
It always puzzled me when people would add you as a friend on fb and then walk past you In the street.
No way I would ever go back
@Alex smith: I remember some ex workmate friended me on facebook. When I started talking to him I got back 2 – 3 word sentences. I mean it was this numpty that friended me and not the other way round ffs. Facebook friends are NOT friends!
@Alex smith: We need less friends and more friendship.
Facebook is a prime example of a company that grew too fast. Normal companies grow steadily for years and the owners and staff have a good handle on it. Everyone sings from the same hymn sheet, and the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.
Companies as large as FB and Google are simply too big, and don’t have the standards in place to begin with. They have to retrospectively introduce policy and standards that most other companies, which developed slowly but surely, have in their DNA.
Not to take way from their incredible success to date and revolutionary product, but I wont be letting my kids near it.
@niall: like A.I.B or …..
@Paul Powell: AIB has 10.5K employees and is 60 years old at this point. .FB has 25K directly employed and many, many more contractors and is barely a decade old. So yeah, grew too fast.
@niall: Yeap, they even said dozens of times we grew to fast too keep up.
@niall: Facebook doesn’t make anything of any note. It’s addicted to advertising revenue which will lead it to ending badly I predict.
He’s looking more and more like data from Star Trek .
@Murph11: he is certainly the archetypal Nerd looking at the photo.
This may be perceived as toxic (6.6/10) apparently, so I’d steer well clear of him
Yet someone burning or tearing up a fictional book such as the Bible or Quran will be immediately banned. Go figure…
@Good Early: Eh????
@Margate: just this week a Pakistani ex-muslim posted a video of himself burning the Qur’an on an Atheist page. It was taken down within the hour.
Got real friends, why would I need fake FB ones?
@Graham: Cos unlike you- the ‘ real thing’, many people act fake anyway in their pretend, little, false worlds..
Are Retail Excellence a newsworthy organisation or is this just an opportunistic PR stunt?
@alphanautica: especially with Lorraine Higgins (failed politician) as their CEO….
@alphanautica: They do represent some 2,000 businesses across Ireland.
@alphanautica: there would be a very ethical ethos there now under the current management. All credit to them for taking this step, but where are all the other organisations that should be doing the same?
@John Mulligan: true, I expect Retail Excellence should release a blacklist of service providers evaluated using the same criteria they have challenged Facebook with.
Will rogue retailers who continue to use Facebook for marketing purposes be released from their annual subscription to Retail Excellence and have their membership and representation cancelled?
Ethics demand it. Retail Excellence should forego any income from such rogues.
@alphanautica: I doubt any organisation has the resources to do something like that. What they did was essentially a statement disassociating themselves from fb’s bad practices. A good step that should be emulated by other groups.
So we will continue to be able to see Paddy and John Paul beat two shades of poo of each other in bare-Knuckle Fights or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWTIf-_SnnA
Surely anyone who sees a serious crime like child abuse has a duty to report it, whether they are an employee or contractor of FB or not?
If the report is made to the Corporate Entity the duty continues, it does not diminish, to the persons within FB and upto the top.
The Gardai or other Police force should be hammering on FB’s door with warrants and axes to get the IP addresses and locations.
Any lawyers or Zuckerbergs that obstruct or stand in their way should be thrown in the back of the wagon, and left there until the more important matter is taken care of by the authorities, politicians have a duty to ensure this happens.
The state should recoup the costs from the “Social Network” and slap punative and exemplary fines on them until they stop making ad money from misery.
Good idea. Wish others would use their brain and do the same.
Pity the Journal wouldn’t follow suit.
Fair play Retail Excellence, hopefully more will follow then FB will finally get its act together.
The man looks like ‘Data’ from Star Trek..
I find FB great for keeping in touch with extended family and also for news and special interests science pages etc.
@Mark Fitzmaurice: Likewise FB finds you great for providing them with detailed information about your family, their and your network of associates, political persuasion, special interests, family photos, WiFi passwords, contacts, what you’ve been watching on Netflix, what books you like to read etc. etc. etc.
He is definately one of the lizard people.
have your say