Title: Tales from a Wicklow Tea Room 1898-1960
Speaker: Michael Fewer
Time: @ 7:45 PM
Location: Iona Pastoral Centre

Tales from a Wicklow Tea Room, 1898–1960 tells the story of a tiny cottage in Glencree in the Wicklow Mountains and the tea room run there by the McGuirk family from the 1880s to the 1960s. It is about those who met and took tea at McGuirk’s during the most momentous years of Ireland’s history, and the world they inhabited.

McGuirk’s Visitors books were a unique collection that offered insights into the social, political, and cultural landscape of early twentieth-century Ireland. These books, contained over 13,000 signatures along with comments, poetry, and artwork left by the diverse array of guests.

The tea room served as a gathering place for a wide range of individuals, including poets, artists, writers, scientists, politicians, lawyers, and other influential figures of Irish society. Notable visitors included Arthur Griffith, J.M. Synge, William Beckett, Denis Devlin, Oliver St. John Gogarty, and many more. The entries in these books reflected the rising popularity of the Irish language and culture during that period, with an increasing number of notes written in Gaelic script. The books also shed light on the status of women, the backgrounds of various signatories, and the surprising number of Anglo-Irish individuals who later perished in World War I. McGuirk’s meticulous exploration of these entries revealed fascinating stories and connections, making the Visitors books a valuable historical and cultural resource.

The artist Harry Kernoff was a regular, often in the company of teacher and lexicographer Seán Óg OCaomhánaigh, of whom he left a pencil portrait. On another occasion, he is accompanied by the artist Sean O’Sullivan and Shamrock Trench, the first woman to qualify for a pilot’s licence in Ireland. On this occasion, O’Sullivan left a beautiful sketch of Trench. Among the many poetic offerings in the books are verses by Mervyn Wall, Anthony Cronin and Denis Devlin.

Over this most formative period in Irish history, the cottage became a meeting place for poets, artists, writers, scientists, politicians, lawyers and, indeed, representatives of every aspect of Irish society, including some of early-twentieth-century Ireland’s most influential people. Among the host of visitors were Ellen Duncan, Arthur Griffith, Hugh Lane, J.B. Malone, Constantia Maxwell, Robert Lloyd Praeger, J.M. Synge, Mervyn Wall and Ella Webb.

Source: Micheal Fewer via writing.ie