Transparencies, Broken and Disloyal: Counter Demonstrations and the Royal Jubilee in Dublin (1897)

The occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 was not universally celebrated. In Dublin the event was marked by what has been called an 'imaginative programme of resistance' - a series of counter demonstrations involving mock funeral parades, subversive versions of the official decorations, the public projection of magic lantern slides, and an outbreak of rioting directed particularly at the windows and displays of loyalist establishments. This paper examines these events in relation to the urban context - its meanings, forms and scripts - within and against which they were played out. How did they figure and reconfigure a topography of power in Dublin? How far do these events provide a pre-history for the attacks on major monuments that were a feature of the troubles of 1916-1922? The paper also addresses some larger issues. How does architecture relate to, and how is it mobilized by, popular protests? And, finally, what does the discipline of architectural history offer for a disorderly account of the city?