Revisited Pubs in March 2020

This is likely to be the last of these until maybe July (if some pubs are allowed open under restaurant certs on June 29th) or more realistically September. My local has a restaurant cert, but isn't in Dublin; and it would be hard to justify going to any in Dublin. I got an acceptable number of new pubs visited before the end, but only one Dublin revisit:

N0053 Graingers - had time to kill before the train home

S1447 Black Forge

I still had three pub visits left to write up when the shutters came down - and if I don't write them up soon I'll likely forget them entirely.

This pub brands itself as "The Home of Conor McGregor", which alone is almost enough to make me decide to skip it. Grumpy old gits sitting crowded at the bar, making it difficult to actually order from an un-busy barman, also didn't add to the atmosphere.

That's about it for negatives, but its just a very generic suburban boozer beyond that. I'm sure their locals (and possibly McGregor) are waiting patiently for it to reopen in August; but I don't see why anyone else would go.

William J Heron - an archive dive

While doing some newspaper archive digging, I came across a distinctive and easily searchable name - William J Heron, PC. Mr Heron has, so far, lead me to at least 15 additional former pubs for the map as well as data to clean up existing content in various areas - particularly the Liberties, the old Monto area and other areas that were wiped out for road widening.

Heron was an auctioneer and at one stage, deputy chair of their auctioneer and estate agents trade association. While his adverts in the Irish Independent, which run from the late 1920s to the late 1950s, include plenty of houses as well as house contents, estate sales and court ordered land sales; Heron's speciality was licenced premises - pubs, hotels and off-licences.

This isn't uncommon - indeed there are at least two fully specialised licenced premises agents currently - the former Morrisseys organisation which is now "Lisney Licensed & Leisure" (and who publish a very useful annual report on licence sales); and John P Younge, who have a uniquely awful camera - just look at some of the brochures on their site!

Heron does not seem to have been the most prolific seller of Dublin pubs during this time either, with the Archbold Corry & O'Connor appearing to have slightly more properties. I haven't yet worked through the archives for all their ads, but they often appeared directly above Heron's, so many have crossed my path already.

Both agencies have made life very easy for me by giving quite detailed descriptions of the pubs for sale - particularly in location and type of licence. Many other ads for pubs for sale would barely specify the location - "City Centre" being common - but full addresses and descriptions of other notable buildings nearby are common in these ads.

The type of licence being mentioned has been exceptionally useful, as the generic term "licenced house" turns up in other ads. Dublin has had off-licences since at least the mid 19th century in the form of "beerhouses" and "spirit groceries", which are not pubs (you were not legally allowed drink on the premises; even though this often happened!) but often appear identically to a pub in street/trade directories as "spirit merchant". I have a list of around 200 potential premises gleaned from directories and these ads have assisted hugely in cutting that down. The occasional hotel sale ad will also specify if its licenced or not - this assists with the huge list of Dublin hotels I have from the "Irish Travel" archives on the TUD website

May 2020 Licence Update

This was actually published, as life does go on for certain classes of licences.

There are no changes of interest for pubs