Dublin: Did a close relative of Mahatma Gandhi run a grocery store on Moore Street in Dublin? That is what the documents say. When Gandhiji was involved in every phase of Indian freedom movement, this shop in Dublin was then the meeting place of the Indians in Ireland.
Not just Indians, hundreds of Irish people also came forward as a support to the Indian freedom struggle in this shop.
Each and every detail on India’s struggle at that time was known here. Information on Gandhiji’s fasts and congress conferences was received by telegram in Dublin.
Many Indian struggles and campaigns for freedom were planned around this Indian shop on Moore Street. A dharna of Irish women was held at the O’Connell Bridge in Dublin in 1933 to pay tribute to the heroic death of Madanlal Dhingra, a brave patriot who was sentenced to death for the murder of Lord Curzon.
The last words of Dingra who fought against the British rule: (‘I believe that a nation held down by foreign bayonets is in a perpetual state of war. Since open battle is rendered impossible to a disarmed race, I attacked by surprise. Since guns were denied to me I drew forth my pistol and fired. Poor in wealth and intellect, a son like myself has nothing else to offer to the mother but his own blood. And so I have sacrificed the same on her altar. The only lesson required in India at present is to learn how to die, and the only way to teach it is by dying ourselves. My only prayer to God is that I may be reborn of the same mother and I may redie in the same sacred cause till the cause is successful. Vande Mataram! )
Posters were posted on the streets of Dublin at the time.
Although Mahatma Gandhi condemned Curzon’s assassination, Indian sympathizers in Dublin must not have been.
The store, which used to sell Indian products such as tea powder, curry powder, rice, spices, toys and sweets, was later relocated to Dame Street.
The Indian store was rich enough to attract customers by advertising in today’s newspapers. The shop also came forward to support such struggles at a time when the Irish people were calling for the abandonment of British resources.
The ancients say that the Indian shop was in Dublin until India’s independence. Historians in Dublin are searching for more history of this Indian shore, an important center of communication between the Irish people and India before the arrival of an Indian Embassy in Ireland.