As well as the bi-centenary of the Royal Dublin Society, Dublin has some interesting anniversaries of its own this year. It is a century since the founding of the Zoological Society of Ireland, and in 1831 Paganini took part in a great musical festival in the city. A century earlier there had been opened a "Music Hall" in Crow street - later the site of the famous theatre. In 1531 there was a fierce riot in High street between the soldiers and the city apprentices. It was, however, 1331 that was Dublin's year of wonders. In that year, the chronicler tells us, a severe famine was relieved by a prodigious shoal of fish called "Turlehydes," which were cast ashore at the mouth of the Dodder. These, it is claimed, were from thirty to forty feet in length, and so thick that "men standing on each side of them could not see those on the other side." Fifty years ago some streets were lighted for the first time by electricity, and a hundred years earlier began the building of the Custom House.
The Irish Times, January 3rd, 1931.