Beckett on Bars: The Session #147

There’s no shortage of mentions and images of Irish pubs and beers in the literature and artworks of this country, so when Phil Cook suggested the theme for this month’s The Session - basically to discuss something beer-related in art or fiction - selecting something to write about wasn’t difficult. The issue was more so to find something that hadn’t been written about before, or at least not to the point of readers skimming past it by it being just another misplaced or misinformed ode-to-the-ode ‘The Pint of Plain’ or another look at the Mr. Spock-like character in Harry Kernoff’s ‘A Bird Never Flew on One Wing.’ Not that these are not important and much-loved works, but they hardly warrant another revisit by me.

And where’s ‘here’? Well, The Session was originally conceived in 2007 by Stan Hieronymus and Jay Brooks as a way of pulling together a collection of blogposts from different beer writers on a single topic once a month, and hosted by a different writer each time who chooses a topic. It finished in 2018 but has since made a revenantial appearance thanks to Alan McLeod - this being #147, or #2.6 depending on whether you see it as a continuation of the old or the start of a new series.

This is my first proper contribution to the collection of writings.

-o-

Around the time when this month’s theme was announced I had acquired a copy of Samuel Beckett’s first novel called ‘More Pricks Than Kicks’ as once more I tried to delve into the works of The Big Irish Writers of the early 20th century. So far, I had failed with Joyce (apart from Dubliners), couldn’t find any huge love for Behan’s fictional work, O’ Casey was too theatrical for my taste, and O’Brien/O’Nolan/Na gCopaleen/etc. had been quite hit and miss. Beckett’s works didn’t seem to hold out any more hope for grabbing and holding on to my clearly substandard intellect but seeing as ‘More Pricks’ was a series of short stories like Dubliners I decided to give it a try.

It is a collection of related tales woven around a character called Belacqua Shuah and is set in and around Dublin, presumably in the early parts of the 20th century. The main protagonist is a somewhat unlovable character - for the reader at least -  who has some unfortunate relationships and a penchant for gorgonzola, mustard and cayenne sandwiches on blackened toast - possibly his most likeable attribute. The book itself would have been classed quite risqué in places at the time it was first published in 1934. Indeed it was seemingly banned in Ireland at that time, which is hardly a shocker given how the country was firmly in the grip of the clergy then as many tried desperately to find an upper level hierarchical body to replace the lost overlords in our relatively new country - quasi-militant Catholicism filled that void quite nicely for some. Even today it might certainly be cancelled for the latent misogyny that appears on occasion in its pages, although that’s not a reason for any rational person to ban, cancel or indeed, burn it.

Anyhow, most of the book is certainly quite readable and entertaining, although in parts it suffers from the same problem I have with the syntax, grammar and wording used by certain Irish writers, where some passages appear to have been translated into a vocally similar sounding but unfamiliar language by one person just using just a dictionary, before being translated back to English by another separate hand who similarly has no knowledge of the language into which they are translating, and who lazily decides to leave a few non-English words in the text to boot. (I am fully convinced that you could read out loud passages of Joyce’s Ulysses, for example, to a non-English speaker in Antwerp and they would nod along enthusiastically to whatever they were apparently hearing in their own dialect, regardless of what it meant in English.) The result is something that you can, at a push, make sense of and understand but it requires a lot of hard work on the reader’s part and can ruin the flow and entertainment that should be derived from reading. (And yes, dear reader, I’m hardly one to talk about jittery, over-punctuated, writing styles and invented words I know …)

But even allowing for my shoddy intellectual capability to understand parts of this book there are flashes of pure brilliance that even I can recognise, and one such passage is the piece of writing I want to highlight for this month’s The Session.

-o-

In the third chapter of the book, titled ‘Ding-Dong,’ our sub-hero is out on the town one evening and having walked up Pearse Street has ‘turned left into Lombard Street’ and ‘entered a public house.’ This may have been the public house now known as The Lombard, whose bar entrance appears to have been just across the road after the turn, but quite possibly was the pub that sat on the site where The Windjammer now is, further down the road at the corner of Townsend Street but with an entrance on Lombard Street. Certainly given Beckett’s description of ‘the rough but kindly habitués of the house, recruited for the most part from among dockers, railwaymen and vague joxers on the dole’ it might perhaps sound like the latter at the time but clues are scarce.

Regardless, it was the account of his experience within the establishment that grabbed my attention the most, just before anxiety and despondency hit him as he contemplated the day’s events and his general future:

Sitting in this crapulent den, drinking his drink, he gradually ceased to see its furnishings with pleasure, the bottles, representing centuries of loving research, the stools, the counter, the powerful screws, the shining phalanx of the pulls of the beer-engines, all cunningly devised and elaborated to further the relations between purveyor and consumer in this domain. The bottles drawn and emptied in a twinkling, the casks responding to the slightest pressure on their joysticks, the weary proletarians at rest on arse and elbow, the cash-register that never complains, the graceful curates flying from customer to customer, all this made up a spectacle which Belacqua was used to take delight and chose to see a pleasant instance of machinery decently subservient to appetite. A great major symphony of supply and demand, effect and cause, fulcrate on the middle C of the counter and waxing, as it proceeded, in the charming harmonies of blasphemy and broken glass and all the aliquots of fatigue and ebriety. So that he would say that the place where he could come to anchor and be happy was a low public house and that all the wearisome tactics of gress and dud Beethoven would be done away with if only he could spend his life in such a place. But as they closed at ten, and as residence and good faith were viewed as incompatible, and as in any case he had not means to consecrate his life to stasis, even in the meanest bar, he supposed he must be content to indulge this whim from time to time, and return thanks for such sporadic mercy.*

Although even the latter parts of this passage suffer from the 'Flemishisation' that I mentioned earlier, it is pure prose and poetry combined. Something perhaps that should be studied and discussed by students in schools throughout this and other lands. We have poetic parts such as the ‘charming harmonies of blasphemy and broken glass’ and an almost religious aspect to his thoughts and feelings as he sat drinking his porter. It is descriptive to an extreme in how it portrays an early 20th century urban public house, with mentions of beer engines, cork-pullers, bar staff known as ‘graceful curates’ and customers ‘at rest on arse and elbow.’ The wording keenly reflects how this pub was seen to be a refuge and place of escape, albeit with some reservations, at that time. Superb stuff. 

I am not sure it requires much more discussion, perhaps just a second reading and maybe a third For me it is probably the best written piece on drinking and public houses that I have so far encountered, and it is worth nothing that I first read the passage in a public house on a quiet Saturday afternoon, at rest on arse and elbow.

So, I shall say no more, just go back and read it again, and again ...

Liam

*I quote this piece from the book purely for educational and non-commercial reasons, some hopefully I will not get in trouble with the executors of Beckett’s estate!?

Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. The quoted piece from Beckett's More Pricks than Kicks appears on pages 39 & 40 of the Picador 1974 edition. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!

A Shot of Beer History #8: The Case of a Naggin Too Much ...

A curious case presented itself in the village of Moneygall in Offaly in 1869 and was reported in the local newspaper, where an inspector of weights and measures found that there were many cases where the volumes of measures used in certain public houses for serving ale and porter to the customer were incorrect, but not in favour of the publican - in most cases the loss was on the side of the seller. Nevertheless, the publicans were summoned to appear in front of the local magistrates and as examples, a pair of half-gallon measures were produced belonging to two publicans, a Mr. McDonnell and a Mrs. Wafer. Both measures had been found to be correct six months previous but now held a naggin more than they previously did according to the inspector. This would equate to over 4% extra liquid per measure, which would amount to a moderate but notable loss to the publican over time.

The magistrates were at a loss as to how this could happen, but the puzzle was solved when a tinman called Mr. Waters took to the stand and gave the following explanation. He described how 'when the "buys" called for "a half gallon," and finished it, they were in the habit of "drivin' down the bottom with the butt of a whip," in order that the next "measurement" might be larger.' This could certainly be achieved quite easily with measures that had an inset rim around the base, which most certainly did by way of manufacture. He also confessed that 'when he made the vessels he did "hansell" them' himself. (A 'hansel' appears to be an old and obsolete name for the handle of a flail, so possibly also a whip.) So this seems to have been a common practice - in Moneygall anyhow - and a good reason to bring your whip on your drinking sessions!

The session chairman joked that Mr. Waters should not be allowed to make vessels for the houses in which he was in the habit of drinking, much to the laughter of the assembled audience, before another magistrate - a Captain Garvey, who appears to be a bit of a spoilsport - interjected to point out that a heavy penalty could be imposed on any person who sold unjust measures.

The bench eventually dismissed all the cases where the loss was with the seller, as no fraud on their part could possibly be intended, although all measures were to be readjusted to the satisfaction of the inspector.

Perhaps the publicans kept a closer eye on the bases of their measures and those who carried whips or flails into their house after that, but it was certainly an ingenious way of getting a larger pour of porter!

Liam K

Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. Newspaper research was thanks to The British Newspaper Archive and the quoted article appears in The Kings County Chronicle of 3rd February 1869. The photo of the measure - and the measure itself - is the author's own. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!

100 Years of Irish Brewing in 50 Objects: #18 - ‘International Bar’ Half-Pint Tankard (c. 1902)

… to run “as dim eyed animals do, towards any glittering object, were it but a scoured tankard, and mistake it for a solar luminary” …

Memoirs of the Life of Scott – London and Westminster Review 1838 – Thomas Carlyle

There is something extremely appealing about public house drinkware. Even an item that has been maimed and repurposed like this once-tankard are a comforting joy when held in hand and raised ritualistically to the drinker’s lips. This vessel is certainly enigmatic in many ways, from the material it’s made from to its exact provenance, it asks more questions than it can answer. Much like a lot of our public house and brewing history it is possible to find out some information from records and writeups but sadly, much is also down to half-educated guess work and assumption. But there are some clues to its past be found on the piece itself, which at least answer some of the more basic questions it poses ... 

-o-

This tumblerised tankard carries the word ‘1/2 Pint’ as well as the term ‘Masonoid Silver.’ It has a rubbed Edwardian stamp showing a crown flanked by a very faint later E plus an R, with the Uniform Verification Number 6 below the crown denoting it was verified in Birmingham, where it was manufactured. There is also a tiny M to the right of the verification mark whose purpose is unclear although it may reflect a date, but that Edwardian stamp puts its manufacturing firmly prior to 1910 and probably post 1902. At some point someone has removed the handle, which would have been rounded and C-shaped, and the surface is also covered in roughish scratches which means the engraved name showing the words ‘International Bar’ in, and on, a belt and buckle design is almost obliterated. Perhaps it had become damaged in use and repurposed, but as the heavier and deeper gouges are very much focussed on the engraved bar name in order to obliterate it, it would appear that the tankard may have been taken from the bar by somebody for a specific purpose, which has become lost to history.

The belt and buckle device is in fact a 'garter' and appears to have originated from the emblem of The Most Noble Order of the Garter, with the garter in question being a part of a knight's wardrobe for securing parts of the armour together or to the body. This motif turns up in many logos, decorations, and trademarks in the late 19th and early 20th century, perhaps as a way of adding an air of ostentation to a brand, company or object without it being actually connected to the order.

Masonoid Silver was a durable, bright metal alloy developed by Samuel Mason in Birmingham around or prior to 1887, when it first starts to appear under that name in publications. It was originally available in two colours, one as a replacement for silver or silver plate and another as a replacement for copper or brass. It was possibly a type of Nickel Silver, which contains mostly copper with nickel and zinc, but more was more likely similar to an early version of a more expensive alloy patented as Monel in 1906 and composed mostly of nickel with less copper than Nickel Silver and with small amounts of iron, manganese, carbon and other elements. Masonoid was used for many products, particularly those that revolve around the drinks trade such as beer engines and taps, as well as bicycle parts and other applications. The company went through a number of name changes and partnerships, such as The Masonoid Silver and Midland Rolling Mills in 1898, before disappearing from historical mentions by the end of the second decade of the twentieth century and is now only remembered in objects like this.

-o-

It is tricky to ascertain exactly which International Bar this tankard was made for as there appears to have been at least three public houses bearing that name on the island in the very early 1900s. There are newspaper mentions that reference an International Bar on Market Street in Derry, which was operating around the same time and had a reopening in 1907, which certainly ties in with the date of the tankard. There also appears to have been a pub of the same name in Newtownards and perhaps one in Belfast. It is quite possible that this object relates to any of those bars but it is equally conceivable that the tankard came from The International Bar in Dublin. (Especially given that it was discovered in a shop that specialises in house clearances from the Dublin area.) This bar still exists and appears to have been quite a salubrious spot since the very late 1890s, so it would certainly suit as an establishment that had commissioned its own personalised tankards, but sadly there is no recorded proof of this in the common sources.

The Dublin based International Bar began its beverage selling life on a slightly smaller scale than its current footprint, as it was originally focussed on the side of the building that sits on 8 St. Andrew Street, although with some frontage also on to Wicklow Street as it sat on that corner. As far back as 1827 a Mrs. B Cavenagh (also spelled Kavanagh) had a grocery, tea, wine and spirit warehouse on the site, and a possibly related James Kavanagh of the same address was declared insolvent in 1838, having let the license go into arrears the previous year and the building go into a state of disrepair, so the lease was up for sale at that point. The premises was taken over by a John Hoyne in that year and repairs were made to the building before he was granted a publican’s license, although it was opposed by some local people on the grounds that there were already 19 public houses on nearby Exchequer Street alone! A wonderfully, Joycean named person called Stephen Pidgeon applied for a license for the premises in 1839 and 1840, before it was taken on by John Dunne in 1843. Mr. Dunne appears to have ran it as a spirit grocers until his death in 1880, and by 1885 it was being operated by a John Cox. In 1887 Michael O’ Donohoe, a Cavan native, applied for a license to retail alcohol at 8 St. Andrew Street and was also leasing the 23 Wicklow Street building around the corner by 1892. (That address also appears to have been occupied by a tailor’s shop and then a jeweller and clockmaker, which overlap slightly with the O’Donohoe lease dates, but that might have been on the upper levels of the building or it may have been sublet.) In 1897 Mr. O’Donohoe applied for a new licence to sell alcohol on that attached building on Wicklow Street, it now being an extension of his original business. But big changes were afoot …

On Friday the 5th of August 1898 the International Bar, as it was then named and as it appears today, was opened as a completely new build on the two sites acquired by Mr. O’ Donohoe. A newspaper advertisement from this time reads thus:

THE INTERNATIONAL

ST. ANDREW ST. & WICKLOW ST.
___ 

M. O’DONOHOE

Begs to inform his Friends and the Public that his New Premises,

THE INTERNATIONAL BAR,
WILL BE OPENED
ON
NEXT FRIDAY, the 5th inst.

This Establishment has been fitted up throughout with the Electric Light, generated on the premises by powerful electric generator, worked gas engine of Crossley Bros, Warrington, and has already been pronounced by competent judges one of the finest of its class to be found either home or on the Continent.

In point Architectural Design and Beauty it stands second none. The art decorations and ornamentation are of the most modern and up-to-date style. The plans were designed by George O’Connor. Esq, MRIAI, and the building was carried out under his personal supervision. The Sanitary arrangements are of the most Modern Type, and ate complete In every respect.

The International has been built and fitted up regardless of expense.

It is intended it should occupy a foremost place amongst the Establishment class in this city, where Gentlemen from every part the world will find every accommodation and their requirements catered for in the best manner under the personal supervision of the Proprietor.

The Refreshments, both Home and Foreign, will all of the very best manufactured, and no inferior qualities will kept slock.
___ 

THE BRANDIES, CHAMPAGNES, WHISKIES, AND WINES,
OF ALL KINDS, TOGETHER WITH
ALES. BEERS, PORTER, STOUT, AND MINERALS, &c., &c.,
HAVE BEEN SUPPLIED BY THE LEADING MANUFACTURERS,
And will found fully Matured, and in the finest. Condition.
The CIGARS, &c., are all selected from the Best Brands.
Mr. O’D. Cordially Invites the Public to Visit his ESTABLISHMENT,

and he guarantees them every attention and courtesy.
___ 

LUNCHEONS OFF JOINTS A SPECIALITY.
___ 

NOTE ...

THE INTERNATIONAL
ST. ANDREW AND WICKLOW STREET
M. O’DONOHOE, Proprietor

Another advertisement from later in the month is of a similar vein and includes the following paragraph:

The proprietor begs to inform his numerous friends and customers and the public generally that this magnificent establishment - the finest in the city - is now in full swing and worthy the attention of connoisseurs.

THE BEST OF EVERYTHING SUPPLIED
___

J.J. & SON'S WHISKIES,

GUINNESS'S STOUT,

BASS'S ALE,

Etc, Etc, Etc

It is certainly a fine building of excellent design and sits very handsomely to this day on that site. No expense appears to have been spared with its build and fit out so it is hardly surprising that shiny new tankards may have been purchased for the premises a few years later, engraved with the bars name. 

Mr. O’Donohoe died in October 1904, and his funeral was attended by most of the other licensed traders in Dublin, a sign surely of how well he was thought of by his peers.

-o-

It could be argued that this object is more connected to beer serving and public houses than with actual Irish brewing history, but both are of course intrinsically linked so it is impossible to have a conversation about one without involving the other.

Irish pubs have always been an essential part of Irish brewery history, albeit with their former fondness for English-brewed Bass et al., and their present dalliances with foreign lager brands – although at least, as with an iteration of Bass at one time, many are brewed in Irish breweries.

The Irish brewing industry should - rightly - evolve, improve, and embrace the new, but Ireland has lost most of its breweries over the last couple of centuries. They became hollowed out brands within the portfolios of drink corporations, detached and rebooted as one-off, one-dimensional beers, with their history discarded, disfigured, and diluted. But many of the public houses that served the beer from lost breweries still exist in one form or another, and they are entangled in our brewing provenance and 'heritage,' to use an overused word. Many of the public houses of Ireland have now become the historical repositories of our relatively recent beer-laded past, as they have become aesthetics-driven exhibitions of artefacts and ephemera from that now-lost era, even though they lack perhaps the knowledge, the interest, or the want to communicate any of this history to their customers. Understandably, many focus on their own history – sometimes scribbled on the back of a beer mat over a few pints after closing time it appears – but not on the actual libations they pulled and poured over previous decades or centuries.

A cynic might say that there is little point in trying to communicate history of any type to those who don’t care, but in many cases it is how that information is communicated is the key. Irish bars are certainly good at storytelling, but for today's audience they need something more than just words, they need something tangible and ‘real,’ a touchable connection to our brewing past that will engage the customer and stimulate some conversation. It might be that framed letterhead from Mountjoy Brewery, or the beer label on the wall for D’Arcy’s Stout. It could be an old, embossed bottle from a famous Sligo brewhouse sitting on a shelf, or a price list from a Kilkenny brewery listing all of its beers.

It might even be a worn and damaged tankard that may in the past have been filled with a half pint of plain porter or a pale ale in a newly built bar in a busy city.

These stories need telling, before all of our history is completely worn away …

Liam K

Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. The photograph and tankard itself are the authors own and the image cannot be used elsewhere without the author's permission. Newspaper research was thanks to The British Newspaper Archive. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!

Opinion: On Pubs & Provenance

My local town has history.

It has a castle that dates to the early 13th century, which probably replaced a structure from before that period. The town sprang up just east of the castle on a piece of high ground that rose above the boggy land by the river that separated it from the fortress on its hill that gave the town its name. A community grew and developed around the intersection of two roads, that eventually turned into busy streets as it became a prosperous place, and a stopping place for travellers heading west and south from Dublin and back again. It was once protected by walls and guarded gates that have long since disappeared leaving no trace apart from some lines in recorded history and perhaps the occasional unearthed foundation stones.  

The land for miles around the town is littered with megalithic structures dating back to a time before we as a people could record anything in any real or modern sense of the term. The pre-history of this area was most likely passed on orally from generation to generation until that too was lost, misunderstood or mistranslated, and the meanings and true purpose of the dolmens, raths and standing stones that erupt from the earth was corrupted and changed over time into places where the fairies, magic - and sometimes evil - dwelt. That invented history remained for centuries around these sites and became actual history in the mouths of the storytellers and the ears of those who listened - and then repeated it.

These days we know better, and archaeology, research and rationality have replaced folklore, fear and myth for the majority of our people. Although we do still have a love for a good story, as do the visitors who travel to this island, to our towns, streets and buildings, and many – just like those who live here – are particularly drawn to public houses and the tales that are stored in their walls and floors, having seeped in over lots of years of telling and retelling by many generations.

-o-

A part of me has always wanted to own an old pub. Not the clever part, not the financially astute part, not the curmudgeonly introvert part - but another part that every so often rises up in a fit of manic enthusiasm while I preach my own tales of pub and brewing history from the altar of cool marble that doubles as a bar countertop. I have written about my perfect pub* before. but this would be somewhat different as this would be a place I would own and run, not just visit to sate an appetite for company or reclusiveness depending on my mood, safely ensconced on the right side of that counter.

And it would need to function as a living entity in order to be a viable business.

True public houses really do live in the truest meaning of the term, although we function within them in a symbiotic relationship of a sort and give them that life. We receive sustenance, plus succour and fulfilment and in return the public house can grow and change and be gainful, an evolving being that functions as part of our interdependency. These places are as real as those stone and earth structures from our prehistory that had purpose because of us, because of people. We cause these things to exist, not the stones, bricks, and timber of which they are composed.

So then why do we judge these component parts to be important? Why is the date of an old brick significant? Why if a carved name on a timber windowsill the reason for a place being worthy? Why would a supposed ancient section ceiling and a few found old coins mean that one public house is superior to another?

In truth these features matter little, as a public house's history can be invented, skewed and moulded into a marketable commodity where that history – whether true or false - is sold as the living thing, not the place itself. That ‘thing’ grows as more myths and legends are stuck upon the body until it becomes a hideous monstrosity that just serves its own purpose and has become detached from the actual place in history where its real story began, to the point where the myth is the thing that lives and grows - and exists. 

It is a curious thing to me that in a country with such deep and interesting real history that businesses feel the need to create or embellish a heritage of mistruths – crafting fakelore from folklore. Why do they feel the need to do so? Perhaps it is because of a love for that existing rich history, much of which is lost and needs 'finding' in one way or another? Therefore our love of myths and legends allows and encourages us to do so?

Or perhaps, as the more cynical among us might assume, it is for more mercenary reasons …

-o-

But back to the imaginary pub I’d like to own, and what if I wanted to create a history to wrap around it? How could I do so if I was so inclined?

It’s quite easy really …

There is a pub in my town whose foundations literally sit on the ashes of a previous public house, a place that was called the Red Cow Inn. That establishment faced on to two right-angled streets and is recorded on street maps in the late 17th and very early 18th century right down its exact frontage length on both of those streets, and the document even records who owned the inn in this period. There also exists a merchant token of the kind issued by many businesses in the 17th century, and said token is dated 1657 and reconfirms the name of the inn’s owner as John Masters. Some of the buildings on the street burned down on a couple of occasions after this time so the existing public house structure probably dates to the 19th century - as do the huge amount of Irish public houses - but its rough frontage on one street corresponds to the older inn so therefore we can surely say that a public house has sat on this site to the mid-1600s. Right?

Estd. 1657, huh?

But we can go back even further …

Mentions in local historical publications can push an inn here into the 1500s – so we are now back 500 years which is a good age for any public house, providing we don’t need to look at the actual footprint or any of the extant building …

But what if we want more?

What if there is a charred piece of timber joist embedded in a wall, found in some rubble on site and used to shore up some subsidence after one of the fires that consumed one of the iterations of a building? Dendrochronology is relatively accurate although it can give varying eras for any given piece of timber. So, if the boffins came back and said the timber was from either 1560-1610 or 1160-1180 then one of those has to be right, and it was found ‘in situ’ so therefore my pub dates from 1160 now, doesn’t it? 

Estd. 1160 AD, imagine that!

(We shall of course discount the known (and actual) fact that timbers were scavenged from the 12th century castle at one time when it fallen into ruin and used in a building right beside our site and these may be the wood that was discovered and dated. Shhhh....)

Is that far enough? No?

We can go further.

There is a lost early Christian monastic community that was known to be in the environs of the town, and if one looked at the lie of the land then it would have been on a place that was unlikely to flood - being close to two rivers - but close enough for those rivers to be useful. Our pub site sits on the high ground and would have overlooked both rivers at that time, not forgetting its proximity to two ancient roads that – probably – led to river crossings, so it was surely here was where this community was built? This site was founded in 634 AD according to one source, and would have provided rest, and indeed drink to weary travellers. It was a place where travellers drank alcoholic beverages (as the monks definitely brewed there) or an inn, or public house by any other name surely?

Est. 634 AD …

This establishment is now the oldest public house in Ireland, or at least can claim to be.

-o-

It isn’t of course, as I’ve just fused some real facts and some conjecture into a story that appears to be believable, although all except the actual act of finding that wooden beam and doing the dendrochronology is based on reports, chronicles and actual history that I've forced into a mythical history, although as you can see it required a fair degree of lubrication.

But this might not be enough for me because having the words ‘Est. 634 AD’ might not hold sway with tourists and the general public unless I plaster the walls with old pictures and memorabilia and cart in a few old columns, wonky chairs, an ancient looking hearth and a battered countertop - and let’s not forget a few holy relics and church pews as a nod to its ecclesiastical past – plus that old charred and precious 12th century beam.

For food we’ll serve Olde Worlde Monk’s Oyster Chowder, then porter and mutton stew with rustic-style bread with bog butter, followed by a seaweed dessert with a shot of sweetened mead.

We shall buy a red nitro ale from a local brewery and sell it as ‘Monks’ Red Ale’ or ‘Curim Naofa’ – plus we need a dark beer so a rebadged nitro stout will be served called ‘John Master’s Black Porter,’ and a whiskey from a ‘found recipe’ distilled to Mr. Masters exacting standards called ‘Ye Red Cow Inne Uisce Beatha,’ which will be recommended to all the tourist who flock here.

As you can see I could turn that pub into a huge marketing-driven, tourist-focussed enterprise that told a skewed and embellished version of the truth that suited the story … but what have we created?

In truth we have just assembled a pub, one that doesn’t live. It would exist for sure but that is not the same thing. It wouldn’t have a life blood, only the transient infusions that tourists would bring, and success based on a history that was stretched so thin that it resembled the wraiths that reportedly lived among the dolmens and standing stones of our long-lost past.

-o-

Fakelore is unfortunately a huge part of our commercial lives, be it Irish pubs or even breweries and it is an ongoing issue, even amongst our newest suppliers and providers of beer. If you tell a story often enough it will spread and take over everything it touches, and you can never take it back. That mistruth, that lie, that embellishment, will always be there sliding into people’s minds and thoughts being constantly repeated, written, rewritten and recorded until the author too believes what they have perpetuated.  Perhaps this is worse than that oral tradition of chronicling the past that came before the written word, as it has a permanence that will never really be rectified by those who rail against it.

We shouldn’t create beer and brewing related history, we should just record facts as best we can at any given time.

And by the way, I’ll never own a pub ...

Liam K

(I wrote this piece in a fit of annoyance and anger a few months back and I was inspired to tidy and publish it after reading James Wright's excellent recent post here.)

* My perfect pub.

Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. The attached image is the adapted from an image of the actual John Masters Red Cow token from British Museum website.

Pub Fiction: Cat, Contraption & Mechanism

'Shoo! Git!'

Cat skidded along the counter, its paws losing traction on the shiny surface as it tried to escape the flick of a cloth from the Her, knocking a bottle containing the dregs of the dark bitter stuff over and leaving it bouncing and spinning on the cold marble – a small trail of froth and stickiness in its wake. It was usually less clumsy, but the Her had surprised Cat when she had come up from the Underneath and caught Cat staring curiously at the newly delivered ham that she had left hanging from a hook above the counter while she relayed a message to the Him.

'That bloody cat!'

Cat stopped running when it was out of harm’s way and slinked off towards the other end of the bar, where it sat down and began cleaning itself of the small drops of liquid that had landed on its calico coat while the Her cleaned up the mess on the bar, all the while muttering and throwing annoyed looks at Cat, who stopped its preening every few moments to make sure that the Her was still far enough away not to hit it with anything. From down below in the Underneath came the sounds of clinking and the grunts and groans of the Him and - being by default a curious creature - Cat jumped down from the bar and padded down the worn timber steps, careful to avoid the Her as she headed towards the kitchen with the ham on her shoulder.

Cat sat on a step halfway down and looked at what was happening in the place that it saw as its play- or more accurately hunting-ground. The Him was down here wrestling with a large, heavy wooden barrel that had arrived earlier, while the Himling  - who looked like a younger and less rotund version of the Him - stood with his finger rooting in his ear and a glazed look in his eyes.

'Jaysus, don’t stand there like a gobdaw, help me with this will ya?'

This was a common sight for Cat, with the Him doing the work while the Himling just stood around until forced to move and do something by the shoutings of the Him. Cat didn’t really know what was being said but it was no stranger to the tone being used when he occasionally got under the Him’s feet or just generally got too close.

A similar scene had played out the previous day with Him shouting at the Himling above the dull clinking of glass as the Himling filled a big round tub with the old bottles that had sat in crates down here for the last while. Next the Himling donned a sacking apron and added some cold water from a tap on the side wall to the tub before topping it up with steaming water from a bucket to which he had added some spoons out of a bag labelled ‘Soda Crystals’ - not that Cat knew what the bag contained as it could not read of course.  All the while the Him was shouting at the Himling to hurry up as Cat watched on from its perch on a broad shelf filled with dusty paraphernalia. The Himling then got a brush-like thing with loads of bristles and proceeded to push and twist it around inside the bottles one by one, checking them by holding up towards the bare lightbulb that hung from the ceiling, until all of them had been scrubbed. Next the Himling scraped off the old label from the outside of the bottles and rinsed them all before setting them upside-down in a rack in order to drain and dry.

Today the bottles were still sitting there and Cat came cautiously down the stairs to find its perch once again and watch the ritual he had seen happen many times before, pausing just briefly to distractedly push with its paw a few of the wooden corks that were floating in hot water near to a very low stool.

Him and the Himling ignored Cat, as they were currently rolling the barrel back and forth on the cold slabs, which they did for a short while before placing it on its side - and with some effort - onto a low wooden stand. Cat watched as the Him loosened something with a hiss on what was now the top of the barrel before picking up a brass tap with a perforated tube on one end and a wooden mallet, he then wrapped some folded newspaper around the end of the tap and positioned it at the bung at the bottom of what had been the round top of the barrel, before striking the tap end a few times to drive the bung into the barrel followed by the tapered end, with the paper wrapping forming a tight seal. Cat had watched this process on occasion before and sometimes a jet of black liquid would shoot out of the barrel and hit the Him square in the face, causing a string of words to be uttered that would make the Her come down the steps and tell the Him to shut up as there were gentlemen and ladies present in the Up Above that day. But no accidents happened this day, so the Him got a mug and poured some liquid into it from the now secured tap, tasting it before grunting approvingly.

Cat jumped down on the newly tapped barrel and watched as the Him then took the Contraption with its rectangular bowl and 4 pipes and placed it under the tap and proceeded to fill the bowl with black liquid from the tap that was now in the barrel. The Himling then sucked the ends of each of the four pipes to get the liquid to flow into the four bottles he had just positioned under each of the pipes, spitting mouthfuls of black liquid back into the bowl that was being filled. The Himling would take the empty bottles he had cleaned the previous day from their rack at one side of the Contraption and once filled by one of the four tubes, he'd put them on the ground on the opposite side and put another bottle under the filling pipe and repeat the process.

'Get off of there!'

The Him had dragged the Mechanism towards the barrel beside where the Himling was leaving the bottles and positioned the bucket of corks beside it, he threw a cork at Cat but missed - Cat just looked at the Him curiously and continued his observations. The Him just sighed and inserted a cork from the bucket into a pull-out section on one side of the top of the Mechanism, he slid that section into place, positioned a bottle on a little plate underneath before pulling down on a long lever that forced the cork into the bottle. He then placed the bottle into a crate and repeated the process, the Him and the Himling working in silence apart from the quiet gurgle of the dark liquid in the Contraption and the dull clunk of the lever in action of the Mechanism.

'Oh hello pussycat!'

The Herling had arrived home from wherever she went during the day, and Cat liked the Herling as she gave it little treats of meaty scraps and hard rubs behind the ear, both of which pleased Cat. But today the Herling went to where the Him and the Himling were sitting on the low stools in front of their machines, picked up a crate of filled bottles and carried them over to a table near the back of the Underneath. She opened a brown envelope that was sitting on the table and took out a thick bundle of oval, beige labels tied up with string. She cut the string and left the pile beside the crate of bottles. Then she got a small bowl to which she added a spoonful of white powder from a bag with the word ‘Flour’ written upon it – not that Cat knew that - and mixed them together. Then she used a small paint brush to put some of the mixture on the back of the label and affixed it neatly to a bottle, then she too – like the Him and the Himling – fell into the non-musical rhythm of repetitive work, with the air smelling of hot corks, spilled stout and floury paste, tinged with the greasy metal smell from the Mechanism and the musty odour of the Underneath itself.

Cat wasn’t happy at being ignored, it jumped up beside the Herling and sniffed at the mixture in the bowl before butting her elbow with its head, almost making the Herling drop a bottle.

'Silly puss! Don’t do that.'

The Herling picked up Cat and put her back up on the barrel that was almost empty, much to the annoyance and mutterings of the Him. Soon the tap began to gurgle and the tray in the Contraption that the bottles were being filled from was empty. When he had finished corking the bottles, the Him pried out the brass tap from the end of the barrel and used the mallet to beat back a round piece of timber into the hole to seal the cask tight again. Cat had to jump quickly off the barrel as the Him and the Himling lifted the barrel back upright and set it near a trapdoor to the Outdoors where Cat knew these barrels appeared and disappeared from regularly.

The Herling was finished putting the beige round labels with writing on them on the bottles and the Him and the Himling took the crates, each holding two dozen bottles, and stacked them at the end of the cellar six high, where Cat knew they would sit for a third of a Moon’s Time before being brought a crate at a time up into the Up Above where the people came and the corks were removed from the bottles with a long handled machine that was attached to the bar, before being poured into a glass in exchange for Round Metal Things that clinked as they were tossed into a drawer underneath the counter.

Cat yawned and stretched, then it sniffed the air for any smell of the Grey Squeakers that sometimes wandered into the Underneath, as it was his job to catch, play with, and crunch them. There was no scent of them today but it would return by its secret way later that night to check again, on its nightly patrol of the Underneath.

Just then the Herling appeared beside Cat and picked it up.

'Come on puss, up we go.'

Cat let himself be carried up the stairs purring contently, with Him and the Himling following behind after having cleaned the Contraption, putting away the Mechanism and mopping the slabs.

When everyone was upstairs the Him closed the door into the Underneath, and they headed towards the kitchen and the smell of cooking ham. The Him stopped briefly to gather four glasses before opening  two bottles of stout and two minerals. They had an hour to eat, drink and rest before the doors would be opened and more bottles poured for their thirsty patrons.

And as ever, Cat would watch over all proceedings …

Liam K

'Contraption'

'Mechanism'

[The bottling routine described here is adapted from notes regarding the procedure in the 1950s in “A bottle of Guinness Please” by David Hughes, and supplemented by passages in “3 Score and 10 – A Great Leap” by Cartan Finegan plus parts of Flann O’Brien’s “Myles Away from Dublin.”]

(Cat Photo via rollingroscoe on morguefile.com, and the Contraption and Mechanism photos were taken by the author from the public house display in Carlow County Museum.)

Pub History: More on Mulled Porter - Rare Recipes & Mulled Beef?

In my last post on the subject, I established that mulled porter was certainly something that was available in public houses in Ireland - and elsewhere of course - the 19th century. I even discovered that specially designed or adapted mulling 'machines' sat on the bars of public houses for serving the mulled porter itself, but I did not discuss in any great detail what recipe was being used to create this hot drink.

Finding clear information on what mulled porter actually contained, apart from the heated beer itself, has proved to be a little tricky, as although there are many recipes for mulled porters and ales in old (and new) recipe books, pinning down what exactly was in the versions sold in bars in Ireland in the 1800s has been almost impossible.

One point to make is that sometimes 'mulled' just meant heated porter with nothing added to it, akin to the old much-mentioned method of just sticking a hot poker into the beer and hey presto there you had mulled porter. I have no doubt that this may have been the case in certain establishments - with or without the poker - but I did come across some other Irish non-recipe-book references that mention ingredients.

A Louth enquirer in The Farmer's Gazette from 18th of January 1868 regarding a recipe for mulled porter or ale gets the response that it contains sugar and nutmeg or ginger. Also, in Saunders's News-Letter from the 28th of July 1854 there is a brief mention in a published letter of a 'mulled porter you used to make when we were in Dublin, with plenty of nutmeg grated on top of it.' A few other online references mention both ginger, nutmeg, and sugar as well as - less often - cinnamon, which would lead to us to believe that if and when it was spiced it was mostly with these ingredients, either mixed or on their own perhaps? Hardly definitive proof but we can see that there is at least some record of these spices being used in general in Ireland if not specifically in pubs unfortunately. 

Mulled porter was not a uniquely Irish drink of course, and I am certainly focussing more so on Irish public houses here, but in Scotland and England there are quite a few mentions of sugar alone being used in mulled porter, and no spice at all is recorded. More interestingly, there were also specific mixes for adding to porter available in England, and possibly in Ireland too given the close trading ties. For example, an advertisement in The Bristol Daily Post on the 26th of October 1864 carries the following claim:

The only Genuine and Original
Lemon and Spice Extract
for making
Mulled Porter and Wine

An earlier advertisement from the same company but in the rival Bristol Daily Post in August of the same year names the mix as 'Caird's Lemon and Spice Extract' but unfortunately does not give us the recipe, just mentioning that it 'combines in soluble form the quintessence of the most esteemed Spices with the fragrance and agreeable acidity of the Lemon' and that it 'comes cheaper than using spice in the ordinary way'  - it could also be used in plum puddings and cakes, and all for just 1s a bottle!

And The Morning Advertiser from the 30th of January 1860 has this:

I'll Warm Yer. - Fettle for Mull'd Porter 8s per gallon, Ale Spice, 10s. 6d.

This was a spiced syrup that could be added to the porter for an 'instant' drink. (The word 'fettle' has a similar meaning to mulled, but seems to be more used in England as I could not find many references to the term in Irish publications.)

I did find a bar-related recipe for Porter Spice in the London printed New Guide for the Hotel, Bar, Restaurant Butler, and Chef by 'Bacchus' & 'Cordon Bleu' from 1885 that lists cloves, lemon rinds, cinnamon, allspice, coriander seed and caraway seed to which was added spirit, which was filtered after a fortnight and that spiced spirit added to syrup and bottled. It was suggested that a teaspoon be added to a pint of porter and then it could be sweetened to taste. I would imagine that this might be quite close to the proprietary syrup mentioned above, but no doubt there were a few variants of the actual spice mix.

This recipe certainly seems like one worth trying out and I am sure it would work in a hot whiskey too!

So to sum up, I could find no exact recipe for what was added to the hot porter in Irish public houses - it may have been just heated, possibly with sugar added - but I suspect it was also slightly spiced with ginger and/or nutmeg. Maybe it had a little lemon added too, and perhaps some used an instant syrup mix. In truth it was probably served a number of different ways depending on the pub and on their customers' tastes.

Incidentally, a mention in The Enniscorthy News & County of Wexford Advertiser on the 30th of May 1863 mentions that some cattle that had to swim for shore after a boat capsized were given a 'plentiful supply of mulled porter, sugar and ginger' to get them back to rights. The giving of mulled porter as a restorative to beast as well as man seems to have been quite common given the number of mentions I came across in veterinarian advice columns in newspapers around this time. So it looks like giving beer to cows is not just for certain Wagyu farmers, it was used here too and I suspect for similar reasons - as an appetite stimulant to get, in this case, sick cows to eat more, which would hopefully help with what ailed them!

Liam K.

(If you want further old recipes for spiced beers you could seek out Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks by William Terrington, as well as this post by me on the subject.)

All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. Newspaper image © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) from whom I have received permission to display this image on this site.

Pub History: A 'Summut' - Plain, Stick & Hinion ...

One aspect of pub snacking that I have a minor issue with is the pairing of a pint of stout with a packet of cheese and onion crisps, with the implication that one makes the other better. The cheese is perfectly acceptable of course but onion with a nice stout - or any good beer - clearly ruins the flavour profile of the beverage, changing it completely as your palate is assailed and altered by the harsh onion compounds. Admittedly this is less of an issue with one of the blander of the macrobrewed stouts, and it does not mean I have never partaken of such a combination, but it is certainly not a mix that any 'Craft Beer & Food Pairing Guru' would be happy with I assume - or at least not if they are being entirely honest about how such a strong flavour is workable with any fine and flavoursome stout or porter.

But it appears this combination of onions and stout is not new, so let me transcribe here a report that appeared in a couple of newspapers in May of 1837:

DUBLIN POLICE - Henry-street Office.

Pleasant Salute. — Thomas Mulvey preferred a charge of assault against Thomas Pleasant and Ellen Beverly. He stated, after having performed his daily business, and received his daily hire, he stepped into a public house to get pint of summut.

Mr. Blacker — What do you call a pint of summut?

Mulvey — Lord, your worship! not know what that is! My eyes! Every one knows that — a pint of porter with a stick in it, and a raw hinion.

Mr. Blacker — Mercy on me! — you beast! What you want the onion for, and what do you call a stick in it? 

Mulvey — Blessed are the ignorant, for they know nothing! A stick means a crapper of strong water, and the hinion to give it flavour.

Mr. Blacker — Very well, Sir; go on with your charge. 

Mulvey — Well, after taking a drop of natheral refreshment, I was coming out, when this here man and this here woman came up, and without any more ado, set on me and beat me in the manner you see; the female little devil got stones in her hand, and beat my head with them.

Ellen Beverly — No, your worship, it was only a key. 

Mr. Blacker — I will fine you and your husband 10s. 

Pleasant — She is not wife — she is better off; she is under my protection. 

Mr. Blacker—How dare you, Sir! It makes your crime worse. Get out of my sight.

There is quite a bit to take on board here. Both a 'stick' and a 'crapper' are terms for a measure of spirits - usually whiskey but a 'summut' is a new term for me, and I am assuming the word is an alternative version of 'something' as common in certain northern English dialects. How it appeared in Dublin I do not know and perhaps it has a separate meaning.

Leaving all of that aside the big thing here is an onion being served in a pint of porter and whiskey - or at least that is implied by the comments of Mr. Mulvey. This seems odd to the extreme and I can find no other reference to either a 'summut' or the practice of serving onion in a beer anywhere else - as of yet.

We have all probably had IPAs that certainly had a garlicky flavour from the hops, so maybe this is not as bizarre as it sounds - providing it is true of course, and Mr. Mulvey our witness was not making up the drink for comical reasons, although it would be a strange place and situation in which to do so. 

There are also onions that are quite mild and can be eaten a little like apples, and perhaps they were less 'oniony' in the early 19th century anyway. Certainly pickled onions are still acceptable in certain places as a pub snack but the act of pickling does tend the mute the onion flavour, and they are usually a special variety too.

I think we need to take the whole reference with a pinch of salt - to introduce another savoury element - and it is certainly not a recipe I plan to recreate, but it is certainly a thought-provoking , or perhaps stomach-churning, combination.

Perhaps I have discovered the origin of the need for some of you to have that packet of cheese and onion flavour crisps with your pint of stout!?

Liam K.

All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. Newspaper image © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) from whom I have received permission to display this image on this site.

Irish Pub History: Mulled Porter on Tap...?

Mulled porter, ale or especially wine are not exactly an unknown concept to most people, as these types of drinks have indeed been around for centuries - I even wrote about them here and listed some recipes - and I would think that very few of you are unaware that the 'mulling' refers to the spicing and heating of an alcoholic beverage. (Incidentally there seems to be no agreement in any online dictionary sources as to where the term ‘Mull’ comes from in this context but surely it comes from a contraction of muddle meaning to mix? Or at least comes from the same original source.) But while looking up references on how beer was served in Irish public houses, I came across repeated references to 'Porter Mulling Machines' right through the second half of the 19th century which got me thinking what form these could have taken, how they would have been heated, and how they worked. The word ‘machine’ can be a bit a little confusing, but my belief is that during this period it did not mean what we think of in our heads these days, of something filled with gears, axles and cogs, it – like engine – was just a general 'something' that replaced a manual form of doing a job or helped someone with that task. A ‘beer engine’ used for serving cask ale is a good and appropriate example of the use of these type of words.

Those mentions I found in newspapers – often for the sale of contents of a public house – often listed the name ‘Merry’ as the supplier or maker. More research uncovered a ‘Lawrence & Richard Merry’ as manufacturers of beer engines, bottling equipment and other barware in this period. They were proficient in a variety of metals such as copper, pewter and brass, and were also gasfitter and plumbers. They had won a gold medal at the Irish National Exhibition in 1883 for the quality of their wares, and I believe they enterprise may have started off as pewter manufacturers. (There is also a Martin Merry mentioned in the 1840s supplying similar equipment and based on Aungier Street, not very far away from where Lawrence and Richard were based at 25 Bride Street.)

Sadly, I can find no mention of their specific ‘Porter Mulling Machine’ but I have found a few English patents and designs for beverage mulling machines which used gas as their heat source, and given the Merry’s expertise with metals and gas, I think it is not unreasonable to assume that the ‘machines’ they supplied were quite like these?

Here is one such design in an Advertisement by Smith & Phillips - Gas Engineers in 'A Shilling Cookery for the People' by Alexis Soyer which was published in 1854. This one appears to have four sections for different drinks and four taps.

There were other patents during that decade too such as this one from Henry Remington from 1856 (English Patent No. 1783) which was gas heated too and contained two chambers for holding the heated beverages as well as a reservoir of hot water that heated the beer and maybe wine or ale, each with separate taps. (I have seen mention of similar in the sale of contents of a spirit grocer in Wicklow in 1873, which mentions that the mulling equipment also had three taps and in 1877 there is an advertisement in The Belfast Telegraph for 'a first class porter muller, all pure copper, well tinned inside, three apartments[sic], for porter, ale and water,' which certainly sounds like the boiler shown here.)

I have no proof that the Merry’s machine was anything like these (so I could be completely wrong) but I think it is reasonable enough to assume it was at least similar in design – like a heated copper barrel with the gas heat source below although if it was just for porter then it may have had just one - or two - compartments. As I stated above, the Merrys were gas fitters too and some of those mentions of the sale of the contents of public houses even list gas fittings with the bar items for sale. I also found a newspaper reference of a fire having been caused by a faulty porter mulling machine in Glasgow in 1881, which would point to gas being the likely heat source for this type of bar equipment. Also, slightly earlier in 1877 a spirit grocer in Newry is selling a 'copper keg, with brass hoops, in two divisions, heated by gas, for mulling porter, and boiling water' according to the town's Reporter newspaper. This seems to confirm that the heat source is indeed gas, and also that these boilers were quite ornate in appearance like the images above.

There other mentions of mullers elsewhere too, The Belfast News-Letter in November of 1867 has a timely advertisement from Bloomfield's in John Street which invites publicans to look at their prize-winning and improved mullers so that said publicans can give their customers 'a pot of mulled porter this winter.' A London maker - Byron - is also mentioned in an advertisement in 1880 in The Belfast Telegraph, and Dublin's Freeman's Journal lists two for sale in 1882, one made by Merrys complete with stand and another three compartment version from a maker called Curtis. James Campbell & Co. of Mary Street and Jervis Street in Dublin had a new design of porter muller back in 1859 according to The Advocate too, so we can see that there were a number of suppliers and makers of porter mullers.

As well as the fire in Scotland mentioned above there was a fire in Dublin in 1884 according to the city's Daily Express, as in April it was reported that

'About twelve o'clock noon yesterday a fire broke out at the publichouse Nos 1 and 2 Wood Quay, the property of Mr O'Kelly. The Fire Brigade were quickly on the scene and within half an hour the fire was extinguised. It is beleived to have originated through a leakage of the gas pipe used for heating the porter muller, the shop flooring thus becoming ignited. The damage done to the property was slight.'

(It is probably worth mentioning that this property is the long gone and much lamented The Irish House ...)

Mulled porter appears to have been relatively popular in public houses Ireland at this time – perhaps less so elsewhere - and there were even specific lemon and spice extracts and liquid spiced syrups available to the publican to quickly and easily spice their porters. It would be great if some of the dispensers still existed in public houses somewhere in the country – if you spot one please send me a photo, as it would be great to see that at least one has survived – ideally with an ‘L & R Merry’ stamp.

It would also be nice to be able to walk into a pub in Ireland now and get a glass of spiced porter in a nice pewter mug on a cold winter’s evening, served from a shiny brass and copper barrel on the bar – perhaps we need to campaign for the reinstatement of porter mulling machines?

Liam K.

All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. Images are via Google Books and newspaper research via The British Newspaper Archive.

Pub Fiction: The Stars beneath the Sea ...

My favourite pub, The Stars beneath the Sea, sits on a narrow, cobbled street a short ten-minute walk from my home. There are well-worn limestone steps and a cold metal handrail that leads up to a creaky door, and inwards to a brightly lit room with huge gothic-shaped windows on two sides. Dust motes eternally hang in the sunlight, twisting and turning but appearing to never land.

The double height space has a gallery wrapping around all four sides, bisecting the windows on the two sides and a rusty-orange brick wall on the others, it is accessed by a shaky spiral staircase. The walls are covered in rare breweriana and the chairs and tables are all oak or beech, worn smooth by a thousand drinkers. The floor is timber too and looks like it was reclaimed from a ship, as indeed it possibly was.

The bar counter is dark marble, streaked with glittering white threads and cool to the touch - never sticky. The barstools have bottom-shaped but unpadded seats, and the arms wrap around you snugly when you sit, like the embrace of a loved one. There is a hanger for your coat under the countertop and a brass footrest for your feet - well-polished but reassuringly scratched and scuffed in places.

There is a cast iron stove - or two.

The pub serves three well kept beers on cask as well as five on tap - and there is always a stout, a mild or a brown ale available - with a small selection of corked and caged interesting bottled beers. Pints are served - not too cold - in conical glasses, and half-pints in the elegant pilsner shape. Bottles are presented with over-sized Worthington glasses and I am always allowed to uncork and pour my own. Regardless of the choice you make, the bar mat always matches the beer.

The barperson can judge your mood to know if you want the companionship of polite conversation, or to be left alone with your own thoughts, or if you just seek the comfort of a good book. The other patrons of the bar are quiet and respect the sanctity of the surroundings, the talk low just below the not-loud volume of the music, which is jazz and no later than 1970.

The food - served all day, every day - is a selection of pies or sausages, served with a cheesy mash and three types of gravy. There are no crisps, no chocolate, no corn-flavoured snacks, but there are pickled eggs, cubes of anonymous cheese and slices of charcuterie served with white pepper and celery salt. Soft napkins are always supplied, as are tiny metal forks.

There is a cat - or two.

Sturdy French windows lead onto a veranda that hangs precariously over a slow-flowing river, populated with ducks and black swans, and an otter on occasion. There are barges tied up close by and there are tall, repurposed mills, factories and warehouses along the quays opposite, and at just the right time of day their bricks glow golden in the sunlight.

When it gets dark the lights are dimmed and a candle burns on every table, flickering and dancing in time with the music. There are reading lights in certain sections, and a bookcase filled with short story books of every type. Newspapers are also provided and always return neatly and intact to their rack, never a page missing, but occasionally a crossword done.

There is no standing allowed, even at the bar, no one jostles your elbow or leans too close to you. All are welcome and all who enter this sanctum abide by the unwritten rules. There are no arguments, no rumourmongering and no lies being given wings. There is just a sense of calm and contentment, emphasised only by the quarter-hour chimes of the ancient clock that hangs above the bar…

I will have a pint - or two.

Liam K.

(With apologies to George Orwell …)

What's in a Name? Irish Pub Signage and that 1872 Licensing Legislation...

The internet is for sure a wonderful resource for writers and researchers - it's full of books, articles and news that can be accessed at the click of a few keys. It's quite easy to lose yourself in an archive or scroll almost endlessly through social media posts relevant to your interests and hobbies, but it can also make the perpetuation of the most infamous of news - fake news - easier, quicker and more easily believed, as a so-called 'fact' can work it's way around the world at lightening speed, growing exponentially with each retweet or share.

This effect also causes issues in the world-within-a-world of beer, public house and brewing history, where a erroneous story published in one article or book gets repeated to the point where it becomes ingrained in the folklore of beer history - and we all know examples of this kind of  problem, as many have been well documented and exposed by others.

As an example of this issue from closer to home I'd like to delve into some comments I've spotted recently regarding as to how almost all Irish pubs came to have a family name emblazoned in big letters along their frontage. Here are some examples from books, articles and social media, which are often accompanied by questioning titles such as 'Why Irish pubs have family names over the doors?'

"I know the act of 1872 meant that pubs were forced to use their family names..."

"In 1872 it became a legal requirement to display the proprietor's name over the front door of the premises. The legacy of this is that often a pub today operates under a long-obsolete family name."

"... pub names in Ireland tend to bear the name of the proprietor, [...] a result of the requirement to do so  [in] the Licensing Act of 1872."

"Legislation passed in 1872 meant that it was a legal requirement for the owner of the premises to have their name over the front door. The legacy of this law has forward-rolled into something of a tradition, and a unique feature for Irish pubs around the world."

These examples could be read in different ways of course, but taken as a whole and within the context of where they appear, and combined with the images of pub fronts that accompany some of the articles it is quite easy to infer that they mean that Irish publicans after 1872 had to put their names big and bold on the front of their buildings because of this legislation, regardless of whether this was the implication of the wording of the writer in some cases.

This all seems to stem from Kevin Martin's excellent and must-read book 'Have ye no Homes to go to? - The History of the Irish Pub' where he states the following:

It became a legal requirement to display the proprietor’s name over the front door of the premises after legislation passed in 1872. The legacy of this law is often cited as one of the unique features of the Irish pub. Often, a public house operates under a long-obsolete family name – a signature feature in the boom of “Irish pubs” outside Ireland. This change in legislation limited the previous inventive array of names: in Dublin, The Sots Hole in Essex Street, The Wandering Jew in Castle Street, Three Candlesticks in King Street, House of Blazes in Aston Quay, The Blue Leg in High Street, The Holy Lamb in Cornmarket and The Golden Sugar Loaf in Abbey Street are all long since defunct. Some pubs, such as The Bleeding Horse and The Brazen Head, kept both a family name and original title.

It seems to be that this has been pulled out of context (in some cases repeated-but-twisted almost word for word) to stretch the author's meaning to fit a simplified narrative as to how we came to have pubs called McDaid's, Tully's, Kehoe's or whatever, when in fact it appears to just mean the smaller signs that you can see directly over doors (or windows as in the example at the top of this piece) and that you still occasionally see on older pubs, such as the example here below.

This image combined with the actual wording of the legislation here I think you can see what was actually meant, as compared to what is often touted as the reason for those bigger signs.

 Names of licensed persons to be affixed to premises.

11. Every licensed person shall cause to be painted or fixed, and shall keep painted or fixed on the premises in respect of which his license is granted, in a conspicuous place and in such form and manner as the [licensing justices] may from time to time direct, his name, with the addition after the name of the word “licensed,” and of words sufficient, in the opinion of the said [justices] to express the business for which his license has been granted, and in particular of words expressing whether the license authorises the sale of intoxicating liquor to be consumed on or off the premises only, as the case may be; and no person shall have any words or letters on his premises importing that he is authorised as a licensed person to sell any intoxicating liquor which he is not in fact duly authorised to sell. Every person who acts in contravention of the provisions of this section shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding for the first offence ten pounds, and not exceeding for the second and any subsequent offence twenty pounds.

The actual legislation dates back at least a few decades before this as a similar if more detailed version appears in The Excise Licences Act of 1825. Part 25 states in full:

25. All and every person or persons in the United Kingdom, required by any law or laws of excise to make entry of his, her, or their premises, in order to exercise or carry on therein any trade or business, for which an excise licence is required and who shall have taken out such licence, shall paint or cause to be painted, or shall place and fix in letters publicly visible and legible, and at least one inch long, in and upon his, her, or their entered premises, his, her, or their names respectively at full length (or where there are partners or more than one person engaged in carrying on jointly the same trade or business, the name or style of the firm or partnership), and after such name or names the word “licensed” adding thereto the words necessary to express the purpose or trade or business for which such licence has been granted; and such person or persons shall cause such letters to be painted or placed, and fixed in some conspicuous place on the outside of the front of his, her, or their said premises, over the principal outward door or gate, or entrance door thereto, and not more than three feet from the top of such outward door or gate, or entrance door; and if any such person or persons as aforesaid shall not paint or place and fix such letters as aforesaid, or shall not preserve and keep the same so painted, placed, and fixed, or shall not repaint or renew the same as often as necessity shall require, for the purpose of keeping the same in good order and condition during the continuance of his, her, or their licence, he, she, or they shall forfeit for every such offence the sum of twenty pounds; and if any person or persons not being licensed to exercise or carry on any trade or business for which a licence is required by this Act shall put or have any such letters as aforesaid upon his, her, or their premises, or any letters importing that he, she, or they does or do exercise or carry on any such trade or business, or is or are licensed so to do, all and every such person or persons shall for every such offence forfeit the sum of twenty pounds.

A much more detailed set of instructions as can be seen, even down to the minimum letter height.

-o-

Another error sometimes repeated is that this was just an piece of Irish legislation. It wasn't as we can see above, the later passages is still in the British records, although the words 'Commissioners of Inland Revenue' was changed to 'Justices' in Ireland at a later date - 1874 I believe. We don't see the same 'forced' name changes over there when they had the same law, so I think there were other more complex reasons for the appearance of these name signs and I believe that this 'Irish Pub Look' comes about because of a number of factors.

Firstly, the older names such as 'The Yellow Dragon' and 'King's Arms' were predominately used for the coaching inns in this country, especially in the smaller towns that were dotted along the coach roads between major cities. Many of these names died out with the coming of the railroads which caused many inns to close or become repurposed, as can be witnessed in my home town - and I'd imagine many others too. That is probably why we see more of these types of names, versus surnamed properties, even to this day in the larger, busier towns and cities where these businesses survived, or on old rural established properties that operated as inns for longer than those in towns and that date back centuries.

Secondly, because of this change, what remained of course, along with public houses, were the spirit grocers. These were effectively food provision shops that also sold alcohol - or perhaps vice-versa - which was supposedly for drinking off of the premises, although this wasn't strictly enforced from what I've read! These businesses by and large didn't have these older names and signage and instead relied upon the the name of the proprietor when being discussed or mentioned, and it is these establishments that eventually and effectively morphed into many of the well-known the pubs we know today - so they simply never had other inn-like names to begin with.

Another reason for change probably came because of pride, with the new owners of businesses wanting to put their names over their doors. In Britain many of the pubs were brewery owned - something that was quite limited in Ireland - so therefore the landlord or landlady could not - or would not - do the same, which might also go a certain way towards explaining the divergence in naming rituals.

Of course it is also more than possible that either the proprietors or those in charge of the enforcement misunderstood the legislation and believed that the bigger signs were needed, as per the line in the wording that says, ' ...such form and manner as the [licensing justices] may from time to time direct ...' and if one establishment did it then there may have been a copycat approach throughout an area. This is borne out in an write-up in the Ballinrobe Chronicle and Mayo Advertiser of the 19th of February 1876, where the licencing justices issued their own further directions and clarification to public houses of the, albeit with equally vague wording, some based on the earlier1825 legislation perhaps, where they direct that:

... the full name of every person person licenced to sell wine, spirits, beer, ale, or cider by retail, to be drunk or consumed on the I premises where sold, within the said County and Division, which is required by the said provisions to be painted or fixed on the premises in respect of which his license is granted: and also the following words to express the business for which his license has been granted - namely, "Licensed for the sale of wine, spirits and Beer for Consumption on the Premises," shall be in Roman Capital letters, or other distinct form of letters, not less than one inch in height and three quarters of an inch in breadth, In a back ground so different in colour as to be easily read by persons passing by, and be on the front over and close to the top of the principal door or entrance to his said premises, and as as to be distinctly seen by a person entering the said door or entrance.

The more you read the more that certain phrasing comes down to interpretation to a huge degree, perhaps giving a little credence to the belief that the name needed to be bigger than the licensing wording...

Lastly there was probably a degree of 'Anti-English' bias towards certain names with a strong royal or British connection that some of the more independence-minded owners didn't want associated with their businesses. So a simple way of showing their allegiance was ditching a name like 'The Red Duke' and calling the pub 'James P. Murphy' for example.

So that's my take on it - I believe that these reasons are why we ended up with surnamed pubs in Ireland, not one cause but a multitude. Perhaps - and probably - the legislation acted as a catalyst for change but only in that nameboards suddenly appeared on liquor sellers' storefronts, as they could  then achieve two things - advertise their business and be in line with that legislation in one fell swoop.

But they could also - and did in some cases - keep their old tavern or inn name and just put the required sign up over the door in small writing, there wasn't a need for this sudden change that appears to be implied by the above mentioned headlines and comments. Real proof that it wasn't 'forced' is how many pubs to this day still carry an old non-personal name not a family name, although in fairness in some cases they carry both.

Personally I'm a little sad we have lost this older way of naming pubs, which was based on a sign that those who could not read could identify. It gives me an unexplainable sense of nostalgia to be drinking in such places. In my home town we lost names like The Sheaf of Wheat, The Green Dragon, The Yellow Lion, The Harp, The Beehive and many more - although I can still drink in The Plough which is as far as I know the last of the drinking and sleeping establishments to still carry its pre-twentieth century name ... and its hanging sign.

Liam

1) I haven't chased up when this law was changed or removed, I don't think it ever was and I think is just ignored now and replaced with other checks and records.

2) I may have missed further legislation 'forcing' the use of surnames, I did put out a call on Twitter but didn't receive any additional information - yet!

(All written content, images and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its source and a link back to this post. Images via Dublin City Library's Digital Repository)