S1493 The Circular

This is my last pub visit from before the lockdown - on the Saturday before the weekend it all got messy. Not the Petri Dish Inn weekend, the one before that. Its been this long to get it written up as I clearly had so much more to write about.... 

Well, I was actually putting most of the time in to significantly improving the map - duplicate removal, putting street addresses on all closed pubs where appropriate and the addition of over 100 former pubs, mainly those that closed for the last time in the 1900s-1920s so far.

The Circular is a recent enough addition, opening in November 2019 and operated by the crew behind 1013579 Luckys, and it has a similar atmosphere to its sister pub.

According to the NIAH, this very early 1900s-looking pub is a 1950s extension to an older house, and has had a number of operators in recent years. The most recent prior to The Circular was a D8 locals-style pub called either The Anchor or De Anchor, depending where they wrote the name down. This didn't last very long, but McAuleys and Charlie Byrnes were longer standing names; and fairly similar in what they offered. The Circular is a move away from this, and more in line with what is now expected in D8.

If you've been to Luckys, you know what you're going to get in the lounge in terms of vibe and drink offerings; but there is also a bar (The Other Hand) and a cafe (Daddys), which I didn't have time to take a look at - I had a booking for dinner at Rascals taproom/restaurant. There is also Coke Lane Pizza outlet within the lounge, which provides the >€9 meals that will allow The Circular to reopen on Monday coming

No Pubs in Dublin - Then and Now

We're now only days away from Dublin having pubs again - well, pubs you can sit down in. Many pubs have been doing takeout/delivery services, or have refocused themselves on their food offering, again for takeout/delivery. Some have resumed or increased their off-sales. I'd guess that maybe 20% of Dublin's pubs were trading in some form or other in recent weeks, with probably a higher % in suburban areas than the city centre.

However, these past three and a half months are not the first time Dublin's pubs have been closed for sit-down customers; ignoring the obvious Christmas Day and former Good Friday (1927-2018) or St Patricks Day (1927-1960).

Only one of these was anywhere near as extensive as the soon to end closure; some did not close every pub, and none were imposed by the State, but there's at least some historical interest in the stories.

National Days of Mourning 

The most recent general closure I've been able to find details of (and one of only two I remember), was the Irish National Day of Mourning on the 14th of September, 2001; with most media reports stating pubs were closed all day

A prior National Day of Mourning, for Bloody Sunday in 1972, only had a morning closure, again according to media reports.

Barman Strikes

While MANDATE still exists to represent bar staff, since its creation via a merger of the original Irish National Union of Vintners', Grocers' and Allied Trades Assistants union and others in 1994; the potential of a barmans strike to have a significant impact has waned significantly in recent years with more non-unionised premises and fewer unionised staff.. 

Threatened strikes in 2002 and 1998 didn't end up with actual industrial action; with a four day strike during the 1994 World Cup being the most recent to occur. This affected about 70% of pubs in Dublin; with many closed and others operating with just the owner/family or whatever non-unionised staff they managed to find - during the run up to the 1998 strike threat, a claim was made that only 30% of pubs closed.

A detailed personal account from a then loungeboy suggests that not many locals turned out to the few pubs that were operating; but they did get some trade from those unable to drink elsewhere.

Previous city-wide strikes, which would have affected an even higher percentage of city pubs the further back in time they occurred, include a five week strike in 1955, that initially closed about 2/3rds of pubs; a strike in December 1924; and a ten week strike from January to March 1920 which was reported to have closed the majority of pubs.

Strike notices were common until the 1990s - with a pattern of them being roughly every four years - but generally seem to have been resolved by last minute deals.

JFK Funeral

The funeral of US President John F Kennedy on the 25th of November, 1963 resulted in a city-wide closure of pubs. As far as I can tell, this was for the day of the 25th and the morning of the 26th; with LVA members requested not to open until 12:30pm; however the tense of the articles announcing this could be interpreted as different timespans.

Popes Funerals

Two Popes funerals are reported to have had city-wide closures; albeit not full day. That of Pius XII on October 17th, 1958 had a closure until "the afternoon" - unspecified exactly when; and that of Pope John XXIII on June 6th, 1963 was met with a 3 hour pub closure, from 5pm to 8pm.  JFK getting a longer closure than the Pope a few months earlier indicates a shift in priorities for Ireland!

This tradition seems to have died out by the time of the two funerals in 1978, with nothing turning up in newspaper archives.

Update:

The Evening Press archives have gone online since I originally wrote this article, and have turned up another citywide closure - again for a few hours, again Papal related. Pubs did not open until 7:30 on the day of the Papal mass in the Phoenix Park in 1979.

Another city-wide closure occurred on the afternoon of January 22nd 1980, so barman could take part in the PAYE protests taking place that day. The notice for this also mentions that supermarkets were closing, by agreement of the operators, but it doesn't say whether pub owners were quite so supportive!

S1480 Eleanora's

My second last pub visit pre-lockdown; and now setting a record for longest time between visit and writeup. That record will be beaten whenever I write up the final pub; which I'm convincing myself will be tomorrow and will realistically probably be August at this rate.

The main problem with leaving something this long is that, as this was a very generic pub, I basically remember nothing of it! This probably means its absolutely fine; suburban pubs often do not have a lot to grab your interest.

The pub is named after the alleged ghost of Drimnagh Castle, Lady Eleanora de Barnewall; and there was a bomb scare here two years ago; and that appears to be about the most exciting thing I can find with a quick search

"A Substantial Meal"

Going on all accounts so far, the existing rules about Restaurant Certificates - legal permission for a pub, club or restaurant to serve slightly later, serve beer in the case of a wine licenced restaurant, and some other things - will be applied to pubs that open from June 29th; whether they have a Certificate or not; with pubs effectively operating as restaurants for the three weeks after that.

The most important factor in this is the requirement for you to have had "a substantial meal". This is defined, but not very well in my opinion, in the Intoxicating Liquor Act, 1962, section 9, as follows:

"(a) the meal is such as might be expected to be served as a main midday or main evening meal or as a main course at either such meal, and

(b) the meal is of a kind for which—

(i) having regard to the prices charged for meals in the premises at times other than prohibited hours, or

(ii) if meals are not normally served in the premises, having regard to all the circumstances,

it would be reasonable to charge a sum that is not less than—

(I) the sum (if any) that for the time being stands fixed under subsection (2) of this section, or

(II) if no sum stands fixed for the time being under the said subsection (2), five shillings."

Now, there are worlds of arguments to be had as to what defines a main midday meal; and particularly in todays world of tasting menus, what defines a main course. Plenty of places could legitimately serve a very small, but very expensive item that is equivalent to a course on a multi-course menu and claim it meets the requirements.

Five shillings is 25p, or 31c in current day terms. This would be equivalent to approximately €6 in direct inflation terms - but these don't apply here. Instead, that figure has been updated twice by Ministerial order.

The first update in 1979 changed it to £2, €2.54 - equivalent to approximately €11 today; and the second in 2003 to the current €9, which would also be equivalent to approximately €11 today - which suggests that the 2003 update was done on a pure inflation basis, and not with an traditional increase in value like the 1979 one had.

This has become so close to irrelevant in recent years - there days of nightclubs operating on restaurant licences are long gone - that its unlikely an inflationary increase would ever have been considered; and its also so small of an increase that it would have very little effect. But should Phase 4 have to be pushed out for any reason, and there's an element of piss-taking going on, a Ministerial Order to whack this up to €15 or €20 would not be completely out of the question.

The James Joyce Pub Awards

Its Bloomsday today, so its time for the annual irritation-reminder of these plaques you see in pubs across the city, and beyond

MusicFanzz / CC BY-SA

These twee horrors appeared in 2000, apparently "awarded" by "Bloomsday Publications" to places decided to be an "Authentic Dublin Pub". These signs appear on the walls of pubs that didn't exist in 2000, or are not in Dublin. And as Dublin By Pub points out, the quote is wrong.

pic.twitter.com/HGXQBeUA1n

— Dublin By Pub (@dublinbypub) June 16, 2020

I tried to find out anything else I could about Bloomsday Publications. Firstly, it is neither a registered company or registered business name in Ireland, Northern Ireland or GB. The usual newspaper archives search turned up a single ad in 1992 for something unrelated in Kilkenny. Google returns nothing but references to the plaque. Proquest has some of the licenced trade publications, but with no library access at the moment that option is closed off.

However - a Intellectual Property Office search found that an attempt was made (and abandoned) to register it to a staff member of the James Joyce Centre in 1998. So it seems there was some more solid basis behind. Surely the James Joyce Centre would have been a more significant sounding awarding body name than a made up publisher? And how on earth would such an organisation get the quote wrong?

There may have been some significance to the awarding process in 2000, but that's 20 years ago now and there is no quality control on where they've gone now (if there ever was!) 

I've seen them appear from nowhere after renovations on pubs in the 2010s, which can easily be explained by their ready availability on the second hand market - at this moment, an antiques dealer has cut their price to €235.

June 2020 Licence Update

Another month of nothing - just really posting to show that the update actually happened

There wasn't even much on the normal admin side of it; a whole three licence renewals.