A well know photograph that many in Ireland and those that study the Easter Rising would recognise instantly. The burnt out remains of Clanwilliam House, held by Irish Volunteers against Sherwood Foresters.
At the far end, generally ignored, sits a small building housing the offices of Collen Brothers, a building company operating in Dublin and Portadown. They would submit a claim to the 1916 Property Losses Committee for damage to the houses sitting between their office and Clanwilliam House, as well as damage to their depot in the East Wall area of Dublin.
The Property Losses Committee records have been digitized by the National Archives of Ireland but the site is currently down for maintenance.
The Collen Brothers lost a son/employee during the first day of the landing at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli a few months before the Rising :
William Stewart Collen, killed August 1915
The landings at Suvla Bay would be followed by intense fighting around Hill 60 and Scimitar Hill as attempts were made to join up the position at Suvla Bay with that of Anzac Cove.
In the early 1950s the company constructed a terrace at the Canal End of Croke Park - looking across to what had been dubbed "Hill 60", a terrace that had acquired the name of the Gallipoli hill. The Hill 60 "terrace" was a simple mound and in wet weather it took on the look of a WW1 battlefield - the name wasn't meant as a compliment or as a remembrance of events in Gallipoli. Today much of what was Hill 60 forms part of Dineen Hill 16 and the Cusack Stand.
GAA photograph of the mound after Bloody Sunday, 1920
UCC stylised map of Croke Park, Bloody Sunday 1920
The Collen Brother archives were acquired by Trinity College, Dublin who have made some photographs and information available online. Amongst the snippets - if a location in Ireland has a Bailey bridge installed post WW2 nearby, it was probably put there as a result of Collen Brothers.
Collen Brothers archive on Google Culture
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