dublinzoo

His uncle

Just fabulous !

Jean-Christophe Curtet I wonder if they were sad to be parted... :)

From the 58th annual meeting of the Royal Zoological society of Ireland in January 1890, as reported in Freeman's Herbivore House - The original sum of £300 from the Natural History Society of Dublin wasn't enough, so an appeal was made which raised: Royal Dublin Society - £100 Public Subscription £217-19s £450 was spent on the building, 'and the remainder in the purchase of the animals and in the execution of much-needed repairs to other houses' Its first residents were Moose, Stag Wapiti, 2 red deer hinds, and male and female sambur.

John Spooner And here is a Sambur Deer...

This moggy might want something more substantial than a saucer of milk!

Patrick Castelli I'm sure if Mr Flood had his sleeves rolled up, we'd see some scratches alright...

I'll bet Dublin Zoo could tell you more, including the name of the cat! Lovely image, Mr Flood looks like he would prefer to leave the cat down soon!!!

what a great picture .. i love looking what they used to wear .. when you first see Mr Flood he looks quite smart don't you think? till you study his clothes and they are all filthy

Brian Mulligan Got Mr Flood's name from the Irish Independent - that's where the photo originally appeared.

If I remember rightly, it was still like that in the early '70s and would have been here: maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,712863,735325,7,9

I think that's the Albert Tower that the elephants are in front of.

From a similar picture in the Northside Pimple: "Dublin Zoo c.1950. Children stand very close, looking in awe at the large Indian elephant, Sara (1932 – 62), who was the last elephant used to give rides for children, and the smaller Ceylonese elephant Komali. The building on the right is the Elephant House or ‘Albert Tower’, which was built in 1845-6 to house a giraffe. On the death of the giraffe the elephants moved into the house. It was designed by George Wilkinson, who was also the architect for Harcourt Street Station"

Freeman's disagrees about the architect. The architect of the Albert Tower, Charles Sherrie, died "from the effects of an accident sustained by falling off a car whilst driving up from Holywood to Belfast ... He was also architect of several other important structures in this town, and at present had charge of the new Royal Theatre which is being erected in Belfast" (Freeman's April 11 1871). Admission fees for the Albert Tower in 1854-5 amounted to £1 13s 1d (AGM of the Royal Zoological Society reported in Freeman's May 2 1855). I couldn't help noticing that amongst other sources of income was "manure £14 13s 6d". I imagine elephants made a not insubstantial contribution

There seems to be some difference of opinion as to who the architect was. My quote above is from a "From the Archives" page so I've no idea when it was originally written, other than that it was sometime after 1950. It does have a few design elements also found on Harcourt street station.