Pat Keenan on happenings in and around the capital
It was around twenty years ago that for some reason best known to themselves American Airlines invited a group of Irish journalists decidedly weighted towards provincial newspapers on a press trip to Boston and Chicago, both cities with a large Irish ancestry. I was the only Dub. We flew from Shannon, in the days when there were no trans Atlantic flights from our capital city.
On that trip one of those provincial writers rarely went along with the group, preferring to stay on his own, mostly in pubs, where he believed that meeting locals gave him the best source of stories. He told us of meeting so many Irish Americans with tales to tell of their exile experiences and of hopes, perhaps dreams of some day returning to Ireland.
He may have been right. Bars and pubs have been used by many writers, some like Flann O’Nolan (pen names – Flann O’Brien and Myles na Gopaleen and more) often was seen writing in The Scotch House, now gone, it used to be on Burgh Quay. Flan also inhabited The Palace Bar on Fleet Street where other Irish Times folk also gathered. I remember regularly seeing late great sports writer Con Houlihan arrive in Hourican’s pub in Leeson Street after having been at some sporting event and sit his milk laced with brandy pint while contemplate his daily sports column in the Evening Press. Sadly Hourican’s has also gone. The Irish Press lot mostly went to Mulligans, still there in Poolbeg Street. Other journalists would seek out celebrities and public relations news sources in The Horseshoe Bar in the Shelbourne Hotel or at Scruffy Murphy’s pub off Mount Street Lower, now closed to to be replaced by apartments.
The Oval, Middle Abbey Street, favourite watering hole of journalists and writers
I had my own reflective pint recently in The Oval Bar in Middle Abbey Street just round the corner from O’Connell Street and still used by reporters and writer from Independent newspapers now headquartered in Talbot Street. They of course used to be in Independent House just further along the street. The Oval opened in 1820 and enjoyed a long relationship with Independent House which before that was also the site Freeman’s Journal. Reporters, writer and production workers from there would have dropped in to the Oval after the daily editions were put to bed for over two hundred years.
Independent House was sold twenty years ago and still lies boarded up and empty, part of the sad decline of Dublin 1. This magnificent building, rebuilt in 1924 on the site of the original buildings destroyed during the 1916 Rising, the site of newspapers dating way back to 1763.
My reflections with the ghosts of drinkers past had to be narrowed, otherwise it would have been a bit congested. Maybe even Joyce himself sat here researching for Ulysses. The Oval gets a mention in the great book, episode seven ‘Aeolus’, we have W H Brayden, editor of the Freeman, described by Leopold Bloom as having ‘fat folds of neck’ and Simon Dedalus adding that ‘all his brains are in the nape of his neck.’ Also mentioned, the Freeman’s London correspondent Paddy Hooper, who we’re told had ‘gone round to the Oval for a drink’ with reporter Jack Hall. Hopper, Joyce suggests, had been one of Molly Bloom’s many casual lovers. Simon Dedalus, more a major figure in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is also in briefly in Ulysses having a drink in the Oval. Dedalusis said to have been modelled on Joyce’s father John Stanislaus.
At the close of The Aeolus episode in Ulysses, there is a short reference the statue of Sir John Gray which is just back around the corner in O’Connell Street
At the close of The Aeolus episode in Ulysses, there is a short reference the statue of Sir John Gray which is just back around the corner in O’Connell Street. Sir John was a patriot, politician, physician and journalist. In 1841 Sir John Gray and his family became the owners of the Freeman’s Journal and changed the papers stance from being pro British under the previous owner the ‘Sham Squire’ Francis Higgins to become staunchly Irish nationalist and prime supporters of Charles Stewart Parnell and the Irish Parliamentary Party. Eventually with increased competition of other nationalist papers and witch splits in the Irish Parliamentary Party over Parnell’s relationship with Kitty O’Shea, the Freeman’s Journal ceased publication in 1924 and merged with the Irish Independent.
Alive Alive O!
Kathleen Farrell, a street trader died in January after more than fifty years selling flowers at the corner of Thomas Street and Meath Street in the Liberties. She was the fifth generation of her family with a market stall here. In the early days there would have been over sixty stalls on Thomas Street. At her funeral in the Augustinian Church on John’s Lane John’s Lane Church singer songwriter Imelda May, herself born and raised in the Liberties, sang ‘Molly Malone.’ Kathleen’s daughter Catherine O’Connor also trades on Thomas Street.
Imelda May, born and raised in The Liberties, sang Molly Malone at the funeral of street trader Kathleen Farrell
Street trading in the area dates back nearly 300 years to the early 19th century. It extending from Thomas Street, Patrick Street, James’ Street and continued on to Kilmainham and Dolphin’s Barn.
Dublin’s fair city, of course, was not the only city with street traders but can be said to have developed its own reputation made famous by sweet Molly Malone selling ‘cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!’ by day and who knows what at night. During the 1988 Dublin Millennium celebrations a statue representing Molly Malone was unveiled on Grafton Street by then Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ben Briscoe. It had to relocated to its present location in Suffolk Street to make way for Luas tram track-laying.
Depending on what you needed tp buy you would pick a street trading location of which there were many. I have fond memories of the Dandelion Markets on St.Stephen’s Green, flowers on Grafton Street, and of course Moore Street for vegetables, cabbages,’heads of salad’ and wisecracks. Redevelopments have been going on since the 1970s and are still going on! There was Smithfield Horse Fair and the Fruit and Vegetable markets. The Iveagh clothes market is no more. South William Street & Drury Street, now a days so up-market with exclusive Bars and restaurants, was once known as the rag trade district. Now remembered by a ‘unique and intimate’ bar called The Rag Trader. It was once a textile warehouse.
Werburgh Street Church, Werburgh Street. The area was originally known as ‘Little Italy’
In the early 1900s the area around Werburgh Street, Chancery Lane and Ship Street was Dublin’s ‘Little Italy’ and included familiar names like Forte and Fusco. They were street traders of ice cream carts and some like Giuseppe Cervi would open small cafés an introduce Dubliners the term ‘One and One’ for fish and chips. Dublin’s Italian community gave us Joseph Nannetti from the Tuscan region and slightly better off being the son of an Italian sculptor. Nannetti became a Dublin Lord Mayor in 1906 and being a printer and trade unionist, Nannetti also gets a mention in Episode seven of Joyces Ulysses when Bloom meets him in The Freeman’s Journal.
The Rag Trader – Stout & Whiskey, worth a visit, is at 39 Drury Street, Dublin 2 Visit their website at: wwwtheragtrader.ie
And it’s just a short walk to visit the Molly Malone statue in Suffolk Street.
