From top: Grosvenor Square, Rathmines, Dublin 6; A Cheetah
‘sup?
A huge, exotic, hungry cat prowls Dublin 6.
Only Cecil can stop him.
Rarr.
Sibling of Daedalus writes:
No one expects to meet a Big Cat in the leafy suburbs of south Dublin, but that’s what happened to Mr Cecil A. Graves at Grosvenor Square, Rathmines on March 3, 1913.
Mr Graves, described in contemporaneous news reports as a very important official in the Customs House, encountered the stray cheetah in the course of his evening constitutional.
Fortunately the customs official was also a man of action and – ably assisted in his defence by his loyal terrier – clubbed the feline interloper with a stick before stabbing it to death with his penknife.
No satisfactory explanation as to how a cheetah came to be prowling around Dublin 6 was ever forthcoming, although some suggested it might have been a pet of one of the soldiers stationed in nearby Portobello (now Cathal Brugha) Barracks.
The animal’s unclaimed carcass was ultimately appropriated by Mr Graves himself either as a trophy of the field or an illegal import. He subsequently sent it to a taxidermist to be stuffed.
The Natural History Museum in Merrion Square contains a very fine specimen of a cheetah. Perhaps it’s the same one?
Anyone?
Tales Of Old Dublin (Sibling of Daedalus)
Pics: Google Maps, pbase
