Dublin Pub Life and Lore – An Oral History of Dublin’s Traditional Irish Pubs

Recognising the social changes, publicans began to install attractive lounges with comfortable furniture where couples could drink together. After wives became accepted in pubs, single women gradually appeared on the scene. During the 1960s and 1970s segregated pubs toppled like dominoes. Those local neighbourhood pubs which continued to bar women were condemned, and sometimes even picketed, by feminist groups as dark dens of male chauvinism as the regulars were viewed as a mean pack of sexist Neanderthals. Walsh’s public house in Stoneybatter was probably the last truly segregated pub in Dublin. Tom Ryan, head barman at Walsh’s for fifty years, still refused to seat women at the bar in 1988 when he confidently proclaimed, “It’s a male preserve. Men prefer to be on their own. I know this from experience. Women just wouldn’t fit in.” Ironically, a woman owned the pub. In 1990 she sold the public house to new owners who opened the establishment to women on an equal basis—and Ryan decided the time had finally come to retire

Some of the safest IRA pubs, he reveals, were the following: Kirwan’s, the Seven Stars, and Phil Ennis’s pubs in Parnell Street, Backhand pub in Coleraine Street, Macken’s in Church Street, “Big Macken’s” pub in North King Street, McGowan’s in Francis Street in the Liberties and Walsh’s pub in Stoneybatter which was a “notorious” house for harbouring IRA men on the run. Other well-known safe pubs back in the 1920s and 1930s were O’Hagan’s in Cumberland Street, the Barrel in Benburb Street and Leach’s on Drumcondra Road. All had pub staff who were active in the Movement which gave them their “safe” status

there was a network of “safe pubs” in Dublin where IRA activists regularly met to exchange information, plan missions and stash weapons. Historically, these public houses played a significant role in the political life of the city. Oral testimony from surviving IRA members, publicans and regulars who personally participated in or observed these manoeuvres in old pubs confirm their value to the Movement. Most such public houses were in the poor tenement neighbourhoods around the northside, Monto and Liberties. Among the lower classes there was much anti-British sentiment and support for the “cause”. Here, in the local pubs, IRA men felt safe in their dealings

Bosses were usually willing to financially support a loyal barman in buying his own pub. However, the publican expected him to first save up a hefty down payment on his own

It was common practice that barmen started out at small “backstreet” pubs in working-class neighbourhoods and gradually worked their way up to the prestigious central city houses like Mooney’s or Madigan’s.

Barmen needed to possess most of the same skills and social traits as a publican

Fifty years ago the trade was dominated by publicans from Counties Tipperary, Cavan and Limerick. “Tipperary men were probably 50 per cent of the Dublin trade at that time”, speculates Michael Gill, 66, “and Cavan was next.” Apprentices tended to be relatives or sons of friends who showed a strong country work ethic and were regarded as honest and friendly. Typically 14 or 15 years of age, they were put on a bus or train by their parents and sent off to Dublin for the first time in their lives to begin their apprenticeship

Tom Bourke, at age 86 the oldest publican in Dublin still behind the bar, began his apprenticeship at 14 in a pub in Parnell Street back in the 1920s, “my wages . . . I had nothing at all the first year! Only my food. But I was glad to have the job”

Real regulars develop a daily visitation pattern that is like a sacred ritual. “You’d know they’d be in at a certain time”, avers publican Liam Hynes, 47, “and you could nearly put their drink on the counter.”

Tony Morris, 52, over thirty years at O’Dowd’s pub in Stoneybatter, typifies the habitual regular:

“I come in normally twice a day, fourteen times a week. It would be fair to say that I spend a good portion of my life here. Some days there could be fifteen of us together. We discuss our problems