The other Year of the French – Oliver O’Hanlon on the French Festival of 1962

French gendarmes on the streets of Dublin. This is not speculation about what might have been had the French fleet landed in Bantry Bay in 1796. This is what actually happened a little over 60 years ago during the imaginatively titled French Festival.

For two weeks in spring 1962, a Gallic spirit resonated in the capital as France displayed its cultural and industrial prowess. The festival was officially opened by taoiseach Seán Lemass on April 26th, 1962. Using a golden scissors, he cut a ribbon decorated with the French and Irish tricolours at the entrance of the Round Room of the Mansion House.

After discussions with the taoiseach, the French government minister who attended the opening stated that France would support Ireland’s application to join the Common Market. As well as these top-level bilateral meetings, ordinary citizens were presented with examples of what French industry was producing and what its celebrated artists had given to the world.

Beforehand, it was estimated that 100,000 people would attend the main exhibition in the Mansion House and that the French would spend over £35,000 on the events that made up the festival. This included, on the cultural side, an art exhibition in the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (now the Hugh Lane), a Debussy concert in the Shelbourne Hotel and a ballet at the Olympia Theatre.

Blowing a Gaskin – Frank McNally on gasconades, gasúns, and Ireland’s Bay of Naples

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In the long run – Alison Healy on the bizarre Olympic marathon of 1904

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Valour invalidated – Frank McNally on a mysterious Irish anti-hero: the “Great Gaiscí”

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Frank McNally on royal typos, Tennyson’s Tories, and the mystery of ‘Operation Sonnet’

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On the industrial side, there was a display of the latest agricultural machinery, building materials, bicycles, electronic household items, cutlery, ecclesiastical items, telecommunications equipment, and cars in the Mansion House. Photographs of French industrial plants and models of new hangars at Orly airport were also displayed.

Dublin’s department stores got into the spirit of the festival. Brown Thomas installed a French market place where it sold goods from Galeries Lafayette. There was even an employee from the exclusive Paris retailer on hand to assist customers with their purchases. Fashion shows in the Mansion House featuring French-designed and manufactured garments were sponsored by Roches Stores.

Arnotts settled on a Breton theme which began before customers entered the store as its window featured a recreation of a Breton street. Inside, there was a Breton wine stall along with wares from Brittany on sale. The restaurant’s waitresses even wore Breton costume.

Switzers displayed French merchandise in its windows and had a French exhibition on the ground floor with everything from cloths to clothes, jewellery and umbrellas on sale.

Now vanished stores such as Pim’s on South Great George’s Street and Walpole’s on Suffolk Street sold the latest French fashions and fabrics, while many other shops in the capital participated in a window-dressing competition.

One of the more unusual shops to get in on the act was Mackey’s Seeds store on O’Connell Street. Its manager was a Frenchman and he noted that having encouraged people to grow vegetables for 185 years, the company had never shown them how to cook them before. Five Frenchwomen living in Dublin put on daily demonstrations of how to cook vegetables the French way and how to toss a salad with French dressing.

Another unusual component of the festival was the four gendarmes who travelled from Paris to Dublin. Photographed directing traffic on Baggot Street, their presence added a tinge of pomp and ceremony.

Wearing full dress uniform with képi and white gauntlet gloves, they stood alongside Seán Lemass at the opening. As well as being present at official engagements and meeting their Irish confreres, the Frenchmen had time to enjoy a match at Croke Park. Afterwards, they said it was “magnifique”.

Food and wine were big talking points during the fortnight with wine tastings taking place twice daily. The two-shilling entry fee to the main exhibition included admittance to the wine and spirit exhibition with some of the money taken in at the door going to charity.

It was nearly a wineless festival, however, as 600 bottles including Bordeaux, Burgundy, Anjou, Touraine, and Alsace, were held up in customs. It seems that Irish customs officials insisted on examining one sample from each crate. It is not clear whether they wanted to simply look at the bottles or actually sample the contents.

After a five-day delay at the docks, the consignment was released with one hour to go to the opening of the wine exhibition, which was performed by Kilian Hennessy, scion of the Cognac firm of the same name.

The festival garnered positive coverage in the Irish press, with one minor exception. The Cork Examiner occasionally adopted a less sanguine attitude towards this large-scale charm offensive by the French.

The plain-speaking writer of the paper’s “Dublin Letter” column called it a “concerted French invasion of the capital”. This could have been on account of the scale of the undertaking, but the journalist bluntly added that the French were “after more business in Ireland”.