Dublin's Former Pub Chains

With the traditional lack of tied houses for the non-Cork based brewers in Ireland, Dublin has never really had that many cases of multiple premises owners until recently. Now, groups like Louis Fitzgerald, Mercantile, Press Up and Charlie Chawke (no single website) have sizeable holdings and even a brewery - Galway Bay - has multiple pubs. This generally started in the 1990s, with some of the current groups and also Sean Quinn's large group existing back then

Prior to this, most pub owners had one or two premises at most. However, there were two notable chains during this time which are no longer with us. A third, Madigans, exists to this day and may eventually get their own article.

J G Mooney

J G Mooney & Company was a Dublin-based spirit merchants who built up a sizeable estate of pubs, mostly larger scale. They had assets outside of Dublin and even outside of Ireland, but the Dublin premises are all we're interested in here!

Mooney pubs had formulaic names, rather like many UK chains have to this day - generally named in the format of "[Street] Mooney". A few reminders of this hang around to this day - N1098 Parnell Heritage Pub is still generally called the Parnell Mooney by locals, and some parts of the signage of the Abbey Mooney remain on the PermanentTSB on Lower Abbey Street

J G Mooney was a listed company and had diversified in to property and consumer electronics retail as well as its original core business. Shares were suspended in 1973 and after continued difficult trading, began divesting of its pubs in 1975. In 1976, the remaining premises were sold to the Madigan Group who, I believe, don't operate any of these premises anymore. J G Mooney was eventually liquidated in 1982.

Mooney premises I am aware of are:

Abbey Mooney (closed, now a PermanentTSB branch)

Baggott Mooney (closed, now a PermanentTSB branch)
Bohemian Mooney (now N0232 Bohemian House)

College Mooney (now S0009 Doyles)
Dun Laoghaire Mooney (now S0270 O'Neills)

Earl Mooney (now a branch of Anns Bakery)

Grafton Mooney (now S0094 Bruxelles)

Liffeyside Mooney (reopened in 2022 as Meaghers)

Parnell Mooney (now N1098 Parnell Heritage Pub)

Update 2022: When reading a publication by the Institute of Public Administration that was basically a set of 20 year-end roundups for 1967-1986, I found a reference to Mooneys buying the Brazen Head in 1973. I wasn't aware of this; and it turns out that it's because, well, they didn't. They never completed the sale, blaming problems with the leases of the flats included in the premises; and this was eventually settled in court in late 1974. I wonder whether this was the real reason for failure to complete the sale considering their other issues in 1973.

Belton Group

Patrick Belton, TD (easily confused with his son Paddy Belton, TD who later ran the chain) opened his first pub in 1937 on Collins Avenue - a road which, apparently, he himself named - their political persuasion should be determinable from the name alone, if not some of the others!

The corporate structure of the Belton Group was not as clear as the PLC structure of Mooneys, so its slightly harder to extract information from archives on them. Companies within the group included Europa Inns Ltd and United Bars Ltd but many pubs were held in individual companies.

The Belton Group peaked at around 20 premises in Dublin in the mid 1970s and ran down from then on as investments and diversifications faltered. They were primarily in suburban areas, unlike Mooney who focused on the city centre.

In 1972, they were involved in a failed bid for J G Mooney (above) and in 1974 they were involved in, but later withdrew from a bid for the Murphys brewery which apparently owned 140 premises at the time (almost if not entirely in Cork). By 1977, they had made a proposal for major developments of premises adjacent to the Ilac Centre which also did not proceed, and this was cited as a major reason for later financial issues.

The Group went in to receivership in 1986 and liquidation in 1987, with final payments to creditors as late as 1993. The ownership of the pubs was extensively scattered. Most are still trading.

Paddy Belton moved to London in 1987 to attempt to re-commence in the pub trade (reported as gossip in the Sunday Press, a FF paper likely slightly happy that an FG publican had failed, but died on May 22nd, 1987.

Belton premises I am aware of:

1001214 The Traders, Walkinstown

1002299 The Graduate, Killiney
N0041 Keatings (now Ryans), Store Street
N0051 Beltons (now Lowrys), Summerhill Parade
N0123 Rendezous (now The Beaumont House), Beaumont Road

N0142 The 19th (now Kitty Kiernans), Collins Avenue

N0173 Swiss Cottage - sold in 1948. Demolished.
N0175 Autobahn, Glasnevin Avenue
N0589 Oasis (now Cabra House), Cabra. Closed.

N0824 Towers / Seven Towers, Ballymun S/C. Closed.

N0909 Black Sheep (now Liz Delaneys), Northside Shopping Centre. Closed.
S0797 Thirsty 1 (later the Farmhouse), Monkstown Farm. Demolished.

S1476 Submarine (now Rory O'Connors), Crumlin 

S1527 Blades / The Blades (now Bradys), Terenure 

S2096 Finches, Rowlagh

S3099 Central Hotel, Exchequer Street

Hunters, Frederick Street - I think this became Reynards. Gone anyway.
The Leinsters (later the Deerhunter, Glenageary). Closed.

Seven Stars, Parnell Street - demolished for the Ilac Centre.
Beltons, North King Street - demolished