Page added on June 4, 2017

History is made! After 44 years ISKCON Finally owns a Little Piece of Dublin!

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One of the first devotees to land on Irish soil in the early seventies did so on a motorbike, with the intention of getting a slot on the famous TV program “The Late Late Show”. That devotee was Tribhuvanatha and being Irish, he knew this would be an excellent opportunity to introduce the fledgling Krishna movement to the people of Ireland. Although unsuccessful in his attempt, it would not be too long before the first group of devotees began to sing and dance on the highways and byways of Ireland.

In the spring of 1973, Prabhavisnu brought a group of devotees to Dublin and they met with a good response, distributing books and chanting on the streets. At first they slept in their van, parked in the hills outside Dublin. Then they rented a bungalow in the suburb of Sutton and on Sundays up to 60 people turned up to chant and honour prasadam with them.

In 1975 a travelling sankirtan party of 4 men from Bhaktivedanta Manor travelled to Ireland. Brahmacaris were always directed towards book distribution in those days, to make devotees, raise laxmi and to please Srila Prabhupada’s wish for mass distribution of his books.

This continued as book distribution was going on randomly in hired transit vans all over the British Isles. Towns and cities developed reputations with the book distributors as being really good, just ok, or very hard to distribute in. The attitude of the local police was also a big factor in how welcome we were, as that varied from really friendly to really angry, getting thrown out of town or even arrested and having to appear in court to pay a fine for soliciting or obstruction.

During 1975 and into 1976 there continued to be a few travelling sankirtan parties to Ireland, but always to the big cities of Dublin, Belfast or Cork and then market days around the bigger towns in other parts of the country.

Ireland had a very good reputation for friendly and pious people, friendly police, but always more tense in the North of Ireland with a combination of army check points, attacks on police stations and even bombings without warnings. It was a lot more dangerous than the UK in that sense, but we had no problem with our identity when being ‘checked out’ by both the local police or the British Army. Even the ‘boys’ who just wanted to make sure we were not their traditional enemy, whether Catholic or Protestant.

In 1976 Amita dasa became the national sankirtan leader under Jayatirtha das, the GBC since 1975 and Vicitravyria dasa the regional secretary, after Amita had been a party leader for a year.

They all worked well together in that they liked to plan and strategise how to spread the sankirtan mission, and maximise book distribution, competing with other major temples around the world.

‘The troubles’ in Northern Ireland were a very real thing in that devotees had to react spontaneously to the realities of the army check points, the national / religious conflict and the bombed out buildings etc. However there was also book distribution in the Republic of Ireland where there was no trouble at all. Still by and large we had no restrictions or problems anywhere, but lots of preaching opportunities such as “there were more than 2 choices in life”, and “we are not these bodies” became a very often used preaching start up to our conversations with the locals.

The people were really curious and friendly everywhere, that was the consistent feedback from the travelling parties over the three previous years. Some of the travelling book distributors were of Irish descent, some were English and others mixed such as West Indian, Turkish, Indian and all had the same favourable experience.

Before meeting the devotees, Amita had also hitchhiked all around Ireland early in 1972, staying at youth hostels, so he knew the country and the people to some extent.

Back to the main story….. The people were really great to preach to, and were generous. They didn’t all have enough money for a book but they would give a donation for charity, for sure. Srila Prabhupada’s books and vinyl record of devotees chanting were by far the main source of income for all temples, particularly for Bhaktivedanta Manor and the Bury place temples in London. So those travelling sankirtan devotees from the UK were not just preaching, they were also raising badly needed funds, to pay the bills, maintain the buildings and the deities etc.

During the weekly or monthly book distribution meetings, the strategy and planning was based on visiting literally every city, town and even village, every dot on the local map. No place was considered too small or a waste of time. After all these devotees were competing against each other, the other travelling parties, and ultimately against every other large temple in the ISKCON world at the time. The scores were assessed both by laxmi and books distributed. Books were translated into book points and we were beginning to outpoint all the other maha large temples around the world such as Los Angeles and New York, The controversial Radha Damodar travelling sankirtan parties in North America and gradually Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy became competitive, then Sao Paulo, Bombay and Vrndavan, etc etc. There was huge emphasis placed on book distribution by Srila Prabhupada himself. He would often say and be reported as saying that book distribution was the most importance service. Book distribution made him feel like a young man and it was the best way to please him. The best way to get his attention was to get your name in the sankirtan newsletter! Only the top few distributors each week, in each temple would get their names and scores published.

After a very successful Christmas marathon in 1976, Sri Sri Radha London Isvara / Radha Gokulananda travelling sankirtan parties were top of the world in the weekly ‘International Sankirtan Newsletter’ that was sent to Srila Prabhupada as well as by post to all the 70-80 temples of the ISKCON world. Those parties won the medium books category with Sri Isopanisads, as well as the highest overall points tally and that did indeed get Srila Prabhupada’s attention.

There were 20 to 25 men travelling all around the British Isles at that time as well 5 to 7 men and around 12 to 15 women in central London. In addition all devotees in the temples were out on book distribution every Saturday and during marathons. That would often total 100 book distributors, and even uninitiated devotees outside the temples were recruited to also distribute books, or sponsor a quantity for the sankirtan devotees to give out “for a small donation”.

So, in early 1977 a 5 man party in one of the 4 orange sankirtan vans, equipped with a gas stove, a gas heater, and a large portable plastic water container, and thousands and thousands of books and vinyl records. A plan was made to use Dublin as a base and try to start a temple there, making local devotees etc. The movement was growing and we needed more temples for all those joining and taking up full time devotional service.

The plan was that the travelling party would travel village to village, dot to dot, during the week and include one big market day in each particular county. Then back to Dublin, do Harinam on O’Connell street every Saturday night, selling BTGs and books as well as handing out invitations for the Sunday Feast. It was a prototype of what was needed all over the UK — concentrate on one area and leave a follow up.

A house in Rathfarnham was then rented (a new housing development on the edge of Dublin). The devotees staying in that house were Amita, Vamsi vadana, one of the very best book distributors we had (Irish parents grew up in London), Dharani Dhara, (English, a great cook,) Tyaga Tony (an Irish born bhakta, dynamic book distributor), and Satyavak (enthusiastic preacher, great kirtaneer). There were a few personal changes from time to time, as they returned to the Manor once a month, for recharging and restocking. The Sunday morning kirtans were explosive and the feasts were incredIble, as the temple devotees spoilt the sankirtan devotees and loved having the energy in the temple from the 40 to 50 full time book distributors thundering around the temple room at Mangal arati and Guru Puja.

Then in late winter back in Dublin we started the Sunday feast and straight away we had 5 to 6 guests for the first one, then the word spread and more came each week. Rathfarnham was the last stop on the bus route, so they had to walk a bit to find the ‘temple’.

The sankirtan devotees followed a flower petal pattern around Ireland each week. Out in one direction and then on Thursday start heading back to Dublin on a parallel route visiting every village on the return roads.

By mid summer, they had covered most of the whole of Ireland, North and South, and they had left at least one copy of Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad Gita everywhere. From the junction of some farm roads where a post office, a pub and butcher filled the space, to a place with a thousand houses, the sankirtan devotees would knock on every door on the main roads and speak to everyone they met on the streets. Distributing Goddess of Fortune, Prabhupada Meditations and then a Change of Heart, a modern series of songs with excellent philosophical lyrics. A rough estimate being — they covered an average of 8 to 10 villages a day plus a medium town, distributing to everyone on the street, in the pub and in the shops.

Then the devotees would pile into the van, kartals and mrdangas in hand and chanting loudly with the van doors open so the cows could hear as well as the trees and the grass! At the same time, unloading all the coins in their bags to lighten the load, then reload with books and records and then descend on another sleepy village! At night they would stop by a stream or a lake, somewhere to wash in the morning, a nice place to chant japa, have a little class and the start again with the next dot on the map.

They had breakfast and dinner but no lunch, heading out at one end of town door to door, down to the other end, dropping off 2 more devotees, then the driver parking in the middle and visiting all the doors and pedestrians.

The Rathfarnham programme built up to 20 to 30 some weeks and they would have kirtan, a lecture, serve the feast, then questions and answers as well as one to one preaching. Everyday was simply blissful. This was a chilled group, no arguments, no fanatics or judgements. Just a sincere desire to serve their guru, Srila Prabhupada

That year (1977), they were all saying to the other sankirtan devotees and to Vicitravyria dasa on their monthly visits to the UK, that they should start a full-time temple in Dublin. The seeds had been planted and people were coming, and they wanted a full-time temple! They suggested some grhastas should stay in the house all week, because they were not using it for more than 2 nights. However when Nara Hari dasa and Adi Karta dasa were sent by Vicitravyria, they planned bigger things and they rented a building on Belvedere Place, in central Dublin. That was sometime in August and they and their wives stayed there while the book distributors continued travelling, returning for harinam on Saturday nights in the capital.

They were able to give the temple devotees an address book full of names, phone numbers and addresses that they had collected from the best of the people they met during each week. Then around 50 Dubliners as well as more who had come from further away, were attending the weekly feast.

Then in Sept 1977 Srila Prabhupada came to the Manor for Janmastami and his Vyasa Puja. Smara Hari dasa was in Vrndavan and he sent a telegram to Nara Hari dasa in Dublin that Srila Prabhupada wanted to travel to the Manor very soon ( to be with the soldiers on the battlefield, where the preaching was strongest, as Tamal Krishna Maharaj was later to tell everyone).

So they all booked their return fare on the boat and drove back to the Manor. Five or so days from the telegram arriving (which Amita still has), Srila Prabhupada arrived at Heathrow and they all waited for him at the Manor. That telegram arrived just as they finished the every town and village strategy, covering literally every settlement on the island of Ireland.

So Srila Prabhupada came in September and Rathfarnham was closed down. Belvedere Place however was only closed while Adi Karta and Nara Hari Came back to the Manor with their wives and one devotee they had recently made. It was from Belvedere Place that Adi Karta first registered the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) as a charity in Ireland.

Those 10 days of Srila Prabhupada’s visit to Bhaktivedanta Manor, Bury Place and his approval of the sight of the new Soho street temple, were very powerful for all the UK devotees. By the time Srila Prabhupada left his body in November, things had moved on and the travelling sankirtan devotees from the UK were now focusing on setting up book distribution in Kenya with Brahmananda Swami.

Still for Ireland, the devotees had finished the whole country, every town and village, every city and agricultural show. In addition they had befriended police, the armies of all sides and a temple was at last up and running in a city that chanted in the streets with them every Saturday night outside the post office on O’Connell St and then across the bridge to Grafton Street.

It wasn’t until many years later that they realised what they had achieved and they allowed themselves to feel satisfied that they had literally planted seeds in all places, for all parts of society. So just one party of five, for about 6 to 8 months, with many boxes of records and UK produced BBT books, had started something that has gone from strength to strength right up to the current day!

However the cities in Ireland have never really got our door to door treatment. Even secondary towns like Drogheda were much too big and the likes of Dingle was about the level we could manage. The bigger towns had more visits, so they were filling in the picture so to speak. Ireland saw a very large number of books distributed there over a short period and lots of fruits have grown from that intensive focus on one place. One country of perhaps 5 million people, was only a little more than half the population of London.

Imagine if the other 12 areas of the UK with a 5 million population were given the same intensive planned preaching. Perhaps some time in the future, some devotees will take up the challenge to continue with Lord Caitanya’s mission, going door to door, in every town and village across the whole of the UK.

So the first major temple in Dublin was located at Belvedere Place which opened in 1978, it was from here that Adi Karta first registered the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) as a charity in Ireland.

Very soon after that Prithu came from Germany and the movement in Ireland began to take root and grow. There was also a high profile TV appearance on the Late Late Show which helped raise the awareness of the devotees in Ireland.

In 1982 the devotees moved from Belvedere Place in the centre of Dublin to Castlefield House in the suburb of Templeogue. The deities, Nitai Sacinandana, originally installed in the Edinburgh temple also moved from Belvedere Place to Templeogue. Castlefield House was surrounded by several acres of grassland, affording guests to the temple a tranquil atmosphere several miles from the city.

Then in 1983, the deities Sri Sri Radha Madhava, now residing in Leicester, were installed and Castlefield House became the first Radha Krishna temple in Ireland. However within a year or so, ISKCON’s charity status was removed due to the prevailing mood at the time in Ireland, where the growing number of shaven headed, saffron robed devotees were viewed with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. Devotees feared, rightly or wrongly, that forces with far more influence than themselves, had swayed the decision makers as far as the removal of ISKCON’s charity status was concerned.

As a result of this uncertainty, the devotees chose not to purchase property in the Republic of Ireland at that time, even though with the help of international scholars and several sympathetic politicians, the decision to revoke our charitable status was eventually rescinded under the guidance of Saunaka Rsi.

Soon after a downtown centre was set up in Dawson Lane and when Castlefield House was closed in 1985, the devotees rented a house in Clontarf, still tending every day to the preaching centre at Dawson Lane. A little while later the devotees left Clontarf and for a brief period moved to an organic farm in Navan Co. Meath, traveling each day to the Dawson Lane centre. Yet again though, after a short period, a new devotee base was established in Dunlaoire.

That also did not last long and after another short stay in a rented house in Stillorgan, we opened our first restaurant, “The Golden Avatara”, which was situated on Crow street in the Temple Bar area of the city, this became both a temple and a residence for the devotees. The Sunday feast attendance increased to over 120 again, as it had done in both Belvedere Place and Castlefield House and it seemed the risk taken to rent such a high profile location was fully justified.

Unfortunately, owing to very high overheads and changing personnel, the project had to be dropped in 1988 and the devotees were on the move again, this time to Ratoath Co. Meath. A hall was hired each week in Dublin city centre for the Sunday Program.

A little over a year after the closure of the temple/restaurant in Crow St, a new Temple was opened, one street down in Temple Bar and aptly named Temple Lane. For over two years, festivals and events were hosted there and this attracted a new but veteran preacher to Dublin, Tribhuvanatha. After the lease was finished in Temple Lane in 1992, Tribhuvanatha began another centre a few yards up the street, this time on the more high profile Dame St., at its intersection with Georges St. Hence thousands of cars and pedestrians passed each day witnessing the huge lettering of “Hare Krishna Centre” thus many people got their first experience of the movement.

However, by 1995 we were out of a lease again and devotees searched around for yet another location for our wandering congregation. By Govardhana Puja that year we were in that new location on South William St and for 18 months, under the stewardship of Mahotsaha we set up a temple again. After 18 months however, we were on the road yet again and after a short occupancy at a property in Ringsend, owned by John and Abhaya Leader, it was clear a new approach was initiated.

On the 1st of April 1998 that new approach resulted in Praghosa and Goloka opening our first Govindas restaurant on 4 Aungier Street in the city centre of Dublin and this restaurant proved to be very popular and successful and is still thriving today. The Sunday program continued there for about 7 years but on the back of the success of this restaurant, Praghosa and Goloka were able to acquire our second Govindas on Abbey Street. This property though had 3 floors above the restaurant and thus we were able to establish a temple there and it soon became evident that this would be our most stable temple ever established in Dublin.

The basic formula being that the restaurants would subsidise the temple, allowing the temple devotees to be relieved of the pressure of having to generate laksmi for maintenance. Thus freeing them to utilise their full energy in spreading the message of Krishna consciousness.

Praghosa and Goloka then opened a third restaurant on Merrion Row, as well as a full renovation project being undertaken by Praghosa to update the existing temple in Abbey Street into the lovely temple it is today, with our beautiful Sri Sri Panca Tattva presiding.

However although the situation was more stable due to a long term lease being in place on our Abbey Street restaurant and temple, the fact remained that since 1973 to the present day, ISKCON had never owned a property in Dublin’s fair city.

So it is with huge delight and excitement that we can announce, as of June 2017 that after 14 years of leasing and paying rent on our Abbey Street restaurant and temple, we now own it! Yes with the help of our bank and ISKCON UK (Bhaktivedanta Manor & Soho) we have been able to raise all the funds needed (1.1 million euro) and therefore after 44 years of preaching in Dublin, ISKCON owns some prime real estate.

For all who have participated in whatever way over the last 44 years we thank you deeply and seek your blessings for the ongoing future success of spreading Lord Caitanya’s and Srila Prabhupada’s mission in the capital of the emerald isle!

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