Dublin Zoo is a historic part of Dublin for many reasons. Between school trips, childhood summers, tourist visits and so on, it holds many memories for former guests both at home and abroad.
Yet its history goes back much further than living memory. Opened in 1831, it's one of the oldest zoos in the world - and has been on the global map for quite some time.
In her 1918 book Herself - Ireland, Elizabeth Paschal O'Connor, writer and wife of Irish politician T. P. O'Connor, wrote a fascinating entry on Dublin Zoo in the early 1900s. She claimed that the tamed and trained behaviour of its wild animals was unseen anywhere else.
Read more: Things you could do in 1970s Dublin that you can’t do now
"I have been to Zoological Gardens in America, in England, in Germany, in France, in Holland, in Italy," she wrote. "And nowhere in the world have I found captive creatures so 'domesticated' as in Dublin."
From the staff to the animals to the things you could do, Dublin Zoo has changed in many ways. Have a gander at some of the craziest elements and characters of the zoo's history below (all images and footage captured at Dublin Zoo).
The Lion King
Ireland once had its very own big cat tamer that would've made Joe Exotic look like a pussycat. Lion keeper Christopher Flood worked at Dublin Zoo for 53 years before his death in 1933.
During his time at the zoo, Flood became regarded as one of the most successful European zoo keepers to raise and train big cats in captivity. To O'Connor, he said his success in getting them to follow command and perform tricks was down to understanding the diversity of the animals.
"Lions vary as much in constitution and character as human beings," O'Connor quotes him as saying. "One animal is sulky and morbid, a second is stupid, a third is subject to sudden fits of rage, a fourth is timid, and a fifth curious. There are lions and lionesses who can only be trained by a woman — others can only be trained by a man."
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Big and still growing, born in the wild and zoo-born, team players and loners, friendly and unfriendly - Dublin Zoo has seen it all in big cats over the years. While the zoo may have undergone plenty of changes, the popularity of these lads has always remained stayed the same.
One former resident group you'll no longer see at the zoo, however, are bears. Once home to polar bears, brown bears, black bears, koalas and even to pandas on a brief visit from China, now the only bears you'll find at Dublin Zoo are the teddy bears in the gift shop.
Monkey business
There's no context for this image, other than the fact that it was taken in November 1933 and the monkey's name is Peter. We don't know why Peter is dressed, driving or smoking a pipe, but more power to him.
The elephant in the room
O'Connor said that if anyone could rival Flood's lion taming at the zoo, it was the elephant keepers. In Herself - Ireland, she recalls meeting two of the zoo's elephants, General and Captain, who were "as well trained as the usual performing animals of a circus".
She writes that the pair were able to play the mouth organ, but only had one between them, which the small elephant played softly and the large played boldly. She gifted them a second mouth organ, and the two learned to perform duets together.
On top of being home to musically gifted elephants, Dublin Zoo used to host elephant rides. In the 40s, 50s and 60s, kids were able to hop up on the animal's back and be taken for a walk around the grounds.
Hipp-notising
The early 1900s may have had instrument-playing elephants and trick-performing lions and tigers, but the mid-1900s had a messer of a hippo. In the 60s, zoo-goers were scared by a prank regularly played by Hilda the hippopotamus, who even got her keeper in on the act.
The prank involved Hilda opening her huge jaws when zoo keeper Matthew Wilson would visit her enclosure and turn his back on her. To any witness, the scene would look like the hippo was about to eat an unsuspecting staffer, but Wilson was in on the joke (and kept a careful eye on her, just in case).
Dublin Zoo staff said in 1969: "Ever since we got Hilda from a zoo in Rotterdam in 1962, she has shown she loves playing tricks. We know she is only joking when she opens her mouth, but those teeth make strangers think otherwise."
We wonder if Hilda was also the hippo featured in this mad fashion spread for Sunbeam Wolsey's Autumn 1970 campaign, taken at the zoo? Pranking and modelling makes for quite a repertoire...
Do you remember Hilda, the bears or any other animal no longer at Dublin Zoo? Let us know in the comments below.
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