The ah-zoo, original of the species
The Paris Jardin des Plantes zoo was established 41 years later. Next, in 1828, came London Zoo. Dublin, the second city of the British Empire, joined the exclusive club on September 1, 1831, when the Zoological Society of Ireland opened its animal gardens in the Phoenix Park.
The political and social upheavals of the next 150 years would threaten the ‘ah-zoo’ with extinction but it survived to become one of Ireland’s best-loved institutions. A book being launched this evening tells the extraordinary story. Dublin Zoo: An Illustrated History is by Catherine de Courcy, a specialist in the history of zoos.
The Zoological Society of Ireland’s members came from the social and academic elite. When Queen Victoria became its patron, ‘Royal’ was added to the name. There were 48 titled persons among the 283 members in 1833 but the Zoo’s governing body was forward-looking for the time. While access to London Zoo was restricted to members, Dublin welcomed everybody. Entry cost sixpence, a considerable sum in those days, but this was soon reduced to a penny for Sunday visits.
The animal welfare standards of early zoos were appalling. A visitor to the Phoenix Park complained that a shed, ‘25 feet long and 12 feet wide.. housed a leopard and leopardess, a hyena, several monkeys, a squirrel, a pelican, parrots, macaws, a kestrel hawk, herons, birds, tortoises and others’. Animals were routinely taunted and provoked, so visitors were asked to leave their umbrellas and walking-sticks at the gate. A youth was caught giving Lucifer matches to the monkeys. Another tested the thickness of a rhinoceros’s skin with a pin. The bears were often stoned and one lost an eye. A wheelbarrow full of missiles was found near the pit.
During the famine of the 1840s, the zoo’s council decreed that food which could be eaten by people, should not be given to animals; horse-flesh and rough barley became the daily fare. Many animals died but only one, a bear, is said to have starved to death. Visitor numbers fell and the institution almost collapsed.
A pair of lions was purchased in 1855, beginning what became known as the ‘Irish Lion Industry’. Between 1857 and 1876, 92 lions were born in Dublin. It’s often claimed that MGM’s mascot was a Dubliner but de Courcy found little reliable evidence of this. During the Great War, some European zoos destroyed their large animals as a safety precaution against bombing raids and to reduce food demands. In Dublin, however, only an old donkey, some goats and a few dingoes were killed to feed the carnivores. Food and fuel shortages returned during the Second World War. Lloyd Praeger selected 47 trees in the gardens. These were felled and burned to heat the animal houses. A bomb fell close to the zoo on the night of the notorious North Strand air-raid, shattering the windows of the superintendent’s house. Footprints, found the following morning, showed that Sarah, the elephant, had opened her gate, gone down to the lake and returned to her house. Accounts, such as this, of weird behaviour by animals and humans, make de Courcy’s book compelling reading. Until quite recently, the zoo was primarily a social institution, hosting high society balls, winter skating events and ‘members breakfasts’.
Only journalists from Social and Personal magazine were invited to functions during the 1950s. The superintendent and senior management were addressed as ‘mister’ while keepers were called by their surnames.
In the 1980s, the autocratic management regime faced an increasingly disgruntled staff. A wag declared that the zoo council’s ‘greatest scientific achievement would seem to be the successful cloning of further prospective council members to ensure that a lineage established under the patronage of Queen Victoria will continue unbroken, while they superciliously pose as the surrogate parents of the now easily bred Irish Lion’. The ensuing industrial relations storm cleared the air and, over the next two decades, the institution would be transformed.
Today’s Zoo is a thriving institution, nurturing critically endangered species and participating in international research and conservation programmes. De Courcy’s book is a joy to read and worth purchasing for the photographs alone.
Catherine de Courcy’s Dublin Zoo, An Illustrated History (The Collins Press) €20.
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