Telephone Boxes
Some of the first telephone boxes to grace Dublin’s streets. Installation was in preparation for the thousands of people who descended on the capital from all over Ireland, and from all over the world, for the 31st International Eucharistic Congress in June 1932.
Would love to hear from anyone with more information on telephone boxes in Ireland. According to the excellent Come Here To Me! blog, Dublin’s first telephone kiosk appeared in May 1925.
Thanks very much to woodworker_34 who worked out that these boxes were being installed outside the old Ballast House on O’Connell Bridge. You can actually see them in this 1932 British Pathé newsreel footage: A Million People Kneel in Prayer, at 2:00 to 2:03 mark.
Date: Spring 1932
NLI Ref.: IND_H_1860
Great historic testimony! Thanks!
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/morimai] You’re welcome!
Which one is Clark Kent?
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/66151649@N02] He’s already gone! That’s his overcoat on the railings – it didn’t go with his cloak and tights ensemble…
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/morris_oxford_v] Would assume so. And then pull out the pegs that you can see underneath?
got any idea as to the location in the photo?
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/47290943@N03] Phone boxes were first introduced to the streets of Dublin in 1925 and quickly spread out across the county over the following decades. I think the type pictured above were made of reinforced cast-concrete.
There’s a picture of a phone box of this type here, including the Gaelic font P&T symbol.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/58894288@N07] There’s a nice pic of the very first type of Irish phonebox in Dawson Street, your web-link. Strange that I never noticed it before and will be sure to have a look next time I’m in that part of Dublin. All the best. Stuart.
http://www.britishtelephones.com/histuk.htm
Before the telephone kiosk there was the public call office.
1884 – "They were at first located in ‘silence cabinets’ found in shops, railway stations and other public places."
1922 – "The telephone system in Southern Ireland was transferred to the Eireann Administration (then the Irish Free State); 194 telephone exchanges with 19,037 lines and 553 call offices passed into the control of the new administration."
There is a humorous website about Irish phone boxes.
http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ALandmks/PhoneBoxes.html
I think that that’s in Upper Abbey Street close to where the Irish Life Centre is today?
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/tammybeck] No idea!
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/swordscookie] Had a look on Abbey Street. There are railings, but not the right kind of pillars behind them…
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/morris_oxford_v] Cream and green were the classic colours alright.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland] haha, or Clark O’Kent I suppose 🙂
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/66151649@N02] No, Clarke Kent 🙂
The latest Irish telephone directory online from Ancestry is 1921 Belfast/Dublin/Cork.
You have to be logged in to view.
search.ancestry.co.uk/Browse/View.aspx?dbid=1025&path…
Dublin and Cork Districts begin at image 310
Dublin District Manager was at Crown Alley & Temple Bar.
Are any later Irish phone directories online?
The 1932 directory would mention where the new-fangled telephone boxes were.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackpoolbeach] Would it mention locations of the boxes in the 1932 directory? We have a fairly complete set of phone directories here at Library Towers…
We can only hope that there was an article in the directory about the new service.
The photo is from the Independent newspaper archive, so it should be on microfilm.
http://www.nli.ie/en/newspapers-newsplan-project.aspx
Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack…
One still stands in Foxrock Village, Dublin 18. Its classed as a listed building.
Here’s the Foxrock box in Streetview. I have learned from the
thread that it is called a K1 box.
Thanks [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jnang] for the info, and [http://www.flickr.com/photos/gnmcauley] for the Streetview. Glad you’re learning things!
Thinking of starting a quickfire Flickr quiz every Friday to check that you’re all paying attention! 😀
Some of those are still hanging around!