How an escaped lioness in Dublin became world news

In our health and safety obsessed age it seems implausible that anybody would keep three lions in a cage at the back of a suburban Dublin garage.

In the early 1950s there was no prohibition in Ireland on keeping wild animals so Bill Stephens kept his lions in a Nissen hut off Merville Avenue, Fairview. He lived in a caravan on site.

Stephens was a lion tamer at a time when they were an integral part of every circus and circuses were big business. Dublin was also world-renowned for breeding lions in captivity especially ones with luxuriant manes – most famously the MGM lion which came from Dublin Zoo.

Stephens would take his lions for a walk on a chain through Fairview Park. At first locals were astonished but they soon became used to it.

On Sunday November 11th, 1951, one of his lionesses escaped from her cage and roamed around Fairview. The incident became world-famous after it was picked up by the Reuters News Agency, the 1950s equivalent of Twitter.

The story of the escaped lioness has been made into a documentary Fortune's Wheel by filmmaker Joe Lee. His friend Bill Whelan, who produces the documentary documentary and grew up in the area, was haunted by the folk memory of the incident though he was just a toddler at the time. As a child he dreamt of being eaten by a lion.

The escaped lioness mauled a teenager, Anthony Massey, who was fixing the wheel of a car. "It was a lion," he told a Radio Éireann reporter. The reporter was puzzled: "I thought it was a lioness?"

Massey replied: “Listen mister, if you were putting up a wheel and something hit you, you wouldn’t care if it was a lion or a lioness.”

Stephens rescued the teenager by hitting the lioness with a lump of horse meat, but she escaped down Merville Avenue. By now news of the incident had spread.

Her owner tried to corner her but the lioness mauled him severely and jumped a high wall just as children were coming out of the local cinema. They had been to see, of all films , Jungle Stampede about a lion mauling a hunter. The children were locked into the cinema.

By this time the gardaí had arrived. Stephens pleaded with them not to shoot her as “it’s my main source of livelihood”.

He cornered and tried to tame her. She lay down for him, but the lioness was startled by youngsters shouting and jeering. The lioness attacked her trainer and dragged him eight foot with his legs in her mouth. Stephens knew the game was up as the lioness had now scented blood.

She was shot with a Lee Enfield. 303, but it took seven shots to kill her. Later a photograph appeared in the newspapers with dozens of excited children gathered around the dead animal. Many snipped off her hair to take away as souvenirs.

Stephens was taken to Jervis Street Hospital where he was photographed sitting up in bed reading The Irish Times account of the incident.

After he recovered, he was determined to cash in on his fame. He bought himself a notoriously unpredictable lion from Dublin Zoo called Pasha, but Stephens believed the whiff of danger would make his show more popular. His circus act included sticking his head in a lion’s mouth.

He dreamed of making it in the United States. While auditioning for two American visitors, he was killed by Pasha in January 1953. He was just 29. His funeral was attended by the Lord Mayor of Dublin Alfie Byrne and much of the Irish showbiz and circus fraternity at that time.

Fortune's Wheel will be shown at the Irish Film Institute (IFI) from Friday, June 5th until Thursday, June 11th. See www.ifi.ie