The Bird Flanagan (born 1867, died 1925)
was a practical joker of early 20th century Dublin.
[O'Connor, 1963]
describes him as
"an elaborate practical joker, with a rich father who could afford to pay for
the results of his son's exploits".
Here is a list of his jokes (some may be urban legends):
[Myles na gCopaleen, 1962]
says:
"The Bird's heyday seems largely to have coincided with
the reign of King Edward"
[1901-1910].
"It is said that when His Majesty, attending an important race meeting at the
Curragh,
strolled with
Castle
worthies to drop the flag at the starting post,
he was approached there by the Bird and touched (successfully) for a
fiver."
He famously rode his horse in the doors of the
Gresham Hotel,
O'Connell St, Dublin, and asked for a drink.
"It's after hours, sir", replied a porter.
"It's not for me, you fool, it's for the horse!"[Ulick O'Connor]
says this was in 1907.
The story goes that once he got into the bar,
he jumped his horse over the bar counter, and then jumped back again.
This was for a bet.
[Gogarty, 1954, Ch.10]
says he got the name from
arriving at
Earlsfort Terrace roller skating rink,
Dublin, dressed as the
Holy Ghost,
where he
laid an "egg" the size of a football,
before being expelled.
[O'Connor, 1963]
says this happened in Mar 1909,
but he says it was
"a rival jester" (i.e. not The Bird) who laid the egg,
"before the mob fell upon him and chased him, wings askew, from the arena".
The Irish Times when producing the statue of The Bird
said: "His nickname arose when on attending a fancy dress ball as a bird,
he failed to get a prize, and pretended to lay an egg
and throw it at the judges."
Shay Duffin
said that his father George Duffin, The Bird's groom and steward,
"actually drove the horse and dray through the streets of Dublin with the large specially built bird-cage on it, with the Bird dressed as a yellow bird inside it swinging on a swing. He won no prize at the ball, and laid an egg onstage, (a rugby ball) and tossed it at the judges. The following year [he] took the cage to the Edinburgh Festival and won."
(This last bit cannot be true.
The
Edinburgh Festival
only started in 1947.)
He once rode his horse across the stage of a Dublin theatre
from one wing to the other, during a performance
[Watchorn, 1985].
Once during a performance at the
Olympia Theatre,
Dublin, during
WWI,
he stood up in the middle of the show and took off his overcoat,
revealing himself to be dressed as the
Kaiser.
[Watchorn, 1985]
tells the story of The Bird giving
a new football to a young Crumlin boy.
"A brand new football, in those hard times,
was enough to make any poor lad wild with excitement.
"Don't tell anyone I gave that to you", said the Bird ..
But when the poor unfortunate lad arrived at the playing field,
a gang of his pals were there
waiting for him.
"The Bird was here. .. He says he gave you a ball for the team."
There was no match that day, but there was one hell of a fight".
Liam Cosgrave remembers The Bird getting
a grip of his brother Míceál
(born 1922) and telling him:
"Say Damn",
and the Alderman annoyed:
"Don't be teaching them to curse".
Shay Duffin
said:
"He once gave [Shay's brother] 5-year old Kevin a shilling and told him to run inside the house and tell his mother "that he just saw a fucking policeman on a horse." Kevin got a clip in the ear for cursing and the shilling was taken from him."
The Bird and Tommy O'Brien's
father Paddy O'Brien were out driving in a cart one day,
coming towards them was a string of horse-driven farm carts
from the Flanagan farm
carrying a load of female workers.
The Bird says: "Oh Paddy, take the reins,
we're going to have fun".
He stopped the driver, who knew him.
"All right Mick, I'll take the carts, you go home".
The driver was reluctant, but surrendered.
The Bird got the horses trotting, into a gallop.
Paddy turned the pony, followed to watch.
Over humpback bridge, ladies screaming murder,
down the S Circular Rd,
into Grafton St,
pulled up outside Neary's pub,
Chatham St
(still there).
Emptied the ladies out, brought them all in,
bought them drinks.
Sheila Meyers, huntswoman of the S Co.Dublin Harriers,
wrote of her childhood c.1920 (her age c.10):
"A well known Dublin man known as the Bird Flanagan
had a grey colt which I hunted.
He decided to run him at the Fingal Harriers Point-to-Point. ..
The crowds and bookies had all arrived when we got in
and the Bird came up to me and wanted me to have some soup,
but the thought of it made me sick! ..
Having refused the soup, he wanted me to have brandy and raw eggs.
Thereupon I left him - the soup was bad enough but that finished me.
I found the groom and the colt in a stable yard.
The groom was standing on a manure heap
with a bottle of brandy and eggs pouring it into the colt
who seemed to me to be enjoying it to no end.
Eventually we started and I could not hold one end of the animal
and kept finding myself in front.
I swear he was a little inebriated as he kept falling on his knees
when landing over a fence
and the others came up with me.
This went on for what seemed like hours until I found we were within
sight of the winning post. I was still pulling for all I was worth
when we passed the post - I had won!"[Norton, 1991]
Perhaps The Bird's most famous
trick was he would pay for a turkey (or a ham, accounts vary) at a stall,
ask for it to be left on an outside hook and he would collect it later.
Then he would wait for a policeman, and act suspiciously,
make sure the policeman was watching him, then suddenly gallop past the stall,
snatch the turkey from the hook and race away.
"After a chase by the police, for a considerable
distance, he would then produce the receipt"[Watchorn, 1985].
See letter,
part 1 and
part 2,
from Oscar Love
on
January 3, 1966.
This says that "the ham incident" happened at Peter Murphy's shop
on South Great George's St.
The 1966 letter from Oscar Love above
says that the famous incident of The Bird pretending to steal the ham happened at Peter Murphy's shop
on South Great George's St, Dublin.
Above shows the shop in
[Thom's, 1910].
The Bird is famous for stealing an African baby at the 1907
Irish International Exhibition.
This was held for several months,
4 May 1907
to 9 Nov 1907,
at grounds in Ballsbridge
that afterwards would become
Herbert Park.
At the show
was a "Somali village",
which "exhibited" native people from
Somalia,
including a native family with a baby.
The Bird stole the baby,
causing chaos, as the natives and show organisers looked for the child.
[Myles na gCopaleen, 1962]
says The Bird stole the baby
"and smuggled it into the snug of a pub in Ballsbridge".
[O'Connor, 1963]
says he left the baby in the French pavilion at the show,
"as a gesture against the decline in the French birth-rate."
The 1966 letter from Oscar Love above
says that when The Bird abducted "the Black Baby",
"He wrapped the baby in a mackintosh
and on reaching Nelson Pillar left it in a tramcar".
Posters appeared with "Black Baby Kidnapped".
Whatever he did with the baby,
one would have to say that, if you consider the distress of the child's mother,
then this "joke" doesn't seem very funny.
Plan of 1907 Irish International Exhibition,
showing Somali village, top RHS.
See full size.
From Irish Times, May 6, 1907.
N is pointing down to the left (see compass).
1887 to 1913 map
shows the "Herbert Park" road is not yet completed through the park.
N is up.
The Somali village, 1907 Irish International Exhibition.
From "Come here to me!" blog.
From Neil Moxham.
The Long Mile Road is
said to be named after a horse race
along the route by the Bird Flanagan.
The course was "a long mile".
Shay Duffin
said that his father George Duffin, The Bird's groom and steward,
was
"as far as I know, ... the one that rode the long mile."
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