RetroReviews: S0106 The Porterhouse (Parliament Street)

The first of the Porterhouse pubs, and probably the first "craft beer bar" in Dublin, this premises opened in 1996 and originally hosted an on-site brewery - various bits of polished brass pipework between the floors has lead to tourists I've brought here assuming they are actually drinking inside a brewery to this day!

An escape, of sorts, from the normal standard of pub in Temple Bar, with the drinks offered not generally being to the taste of a Welsh stag party; it can still be quite hard to get a seat here even off-peak in normal times. 

Once again, I've been here too many times for a writeup to resemble a single visit. 

RetroReviews: S0094 Bruxelles

Amongst the times I've been here, I landed in late on the night of Ireland's second grand slam win in 2009 - via the last bus in and a taxi from the bus depot, as they only ran to there that late back then. I'm not quite sure how I got past the door staff either, come to think of it.

Bruxelles is quite a lot older than many people used to its image as an indie/rock bar would imagine - both in its current incarnation, which dates from the 1970s, and in general - having opened in the 1880s. Prior to its current setup, it was The Grafton Mooney, a branch of the JG Mooney chain, and before that again it was the Zodiac Lounge - which explains some of the odder astrological decor which remains in places.

I've been here a fair few times, which always causes a shorter review than a single visit

Picketed Pubs - by Punters

Most peoples ideas of what a picket on a pub would entail is going to be a labour dispute - and indeed they have been plenty of these over the years. Come Here To Me! has already documented the 14 year picket of Downeys in Dun Laoghaire, and I've mentioned a few city-wide strikes in my run-down of previous city wide pub closures. But there's much more than a single post to write on labour relations in Dublin pubs; considering there's an entire book written on trade unions in Guinness already. The entire history (and realistically, decline) of the union movement in Dublin pubs is probably deserving of similar.

You are less likely to think that it may be the drinkers of the pub picketing; but this has happened in Dublin.

A lot, in fact; and for a rather baffling array of reasons. It seems to have been a thing primarily during the 1970s, and hasn't generally happened any time recently. The 1970s was a time of great industrial unrest, with many people well used to strikes and their associated pickets occurring at various times in nearly every employer in the country, so possibly consumers were just doing what seemed natural.

This is another heavily newspaper archive driven piece of research, and newspaper reports on pickets are generally due to pub owners seeking - and often receiving - injuctions to move on picketers. It is entirely possible there were plenty more cases of this happening that did not escalate to court. 

Generally, pickets were at a single pub but there are cases of all the pubs in an area being picketed, and one case of an ersatz "union" of punters - the Public House Customers Union -  called for a citywide picket over drink pricing in July 1970. 

It is unclear if they were behind organisation of a patchy but citywide picket on this issue in December 1971. This picket was not particularly successful, possibly because with so many pubs involved there wasn't an easy option for other customers to just swap to a non-picketed pub. However, isolated pickets could be very successful, with as high as 95% drop in trade claimed by the operators of the Cardiff Inn during a 1974 picket. 

Price increases appear to have been the most common cause of a customer picket, with another frequent one being to protest a ban on singing - the Cardiff Inn picket mentioned above being for this purpose. There are some other oddities in the list below, though - who ever knew bagatelle was that popular in Dublin? (except for everyone who has read Publin's post on the last pub with a bagatelle table, that is)

List of strikes documented in newspapers:

* January 1971 - N0741 Edenmore House - then The Satellite. Claims that 200 people had been barred unjustly.

* December 1971 - citywide with hotspots in Stoneybatter, The Coombe and Ringsend. Protest at a price increase

* February 1972 - "Andy and Eugenes", Cork Street. I have not been able to trace what pub this was later called. Claims that new owners were not serving "old people" - it doesn't specify do they mean elderly customers, or prior customers.

* March 1973 - The Penthouse, Ballymun. Dispute over barring of customers

* September 1975 - N1638 The Cardiff Inn, Finglas. Protest over ban on singing.

* September 1974 - The Royal Oak, Finglas. No details provided as to reason

* July 1975 - N0237 The Homestead, Cabra. Protest over ban on loud singing. One report gives the address of N0231 Matts of Cabra for this so it may have been  a multi-pub dispute.

* March 1976 - S1428 Marble Arch, then The White Horse, Drimnagh. Dispute over price increase

* September 1976 - N0624 Abbey Tavern, then The Cappagh House, Finglas. Bagatelle club picket after member is not given a replacement for a "bad pint".

* October 1976 - S1441 The Lamplighter, then The Weavers, The Coombe. Dispute over barring.

* October 1978 - all pubs in Leixlip including 1011787 The Salmon Leap which is in Dublin. Protest over barring of customers.

* January 1980 - The Towers, Ballymun. Price increase dispute

October 2020 Licence Update & Year-on-Year

The licence file updated to the 30th of September has been released, which is the one that should always be the most complete for a year - however, as Revenue themselves warn, a premises not being listed does not mean it isn't licenced.

The only change of interest is:

Removals

S3982 O'Donoghues, Blackrock - this has been closed for as long as I've done the blog and has re-appeared a few times

There's only been one new pub opened in Dublin since March (Johns on Thomas Street); and its not on the register yet. There's very little else going on so this small an update is to be expected.

However, I can still do a year-on-year to September 2019 to look for any pubs which appear not to have been renewed, so I can change them to red on the map. This is often a waste of time as places reopen, but it does keep it a little tidier. If somewhere is definitely still trading (or was in March 2020), I won't list it as there are a few more than normal of those missing this year.

Removed Year-on-Year

• 1000966 Paidi Og's, Mulhuddart. This is proposed for redevelopment so it'll be back, possibly with a new number 
• 1006793 3 Spirits, Capel Street. Gone for good, converted to offices
• 1011474 White Hart Inn, Balbriggan - converted to housing
• 1013188 Etihad Lounge, Dublin Airport - Facility closed and converted to the East Lounge with its own licence (1015966)
• 1014008 Black and Amber, South Circular Road - demolished. I have a suspicion the licence transfered to Brewdog, but I can't prove this. Same building landlord.
• Dg0496 Black Raven, Skerries - converted to housing
• N0018 The Big Tree, Dorset Street - will reappear as a hotel licence in time
• N0096 Hill Street Sports Bar - converted to housing
• N0173 Swiss Cottage, Santry - demolished for apartments. Restaurant in development may use licence
• N0300 The Lord Mayors, Swords - closed and planning applied to demolish for apartments
• N0320 Island View Hotel, Malahide - closed, proposed to demolish for apartments
• N1024 Artane House, Artane - long closed, reappears every so often, may finally have been sold as hotel plans for the site have ended
• N1119 Long Mile Inn - closed for a long time but no plans, likely to reappear
• S0039 The Long Stone, Townsend Street - demolished for redevelopment. May reappear on new premises
• S0194 The Hill, Mountpleasant - closed but will likely reappear
• S1470 Agnes Brownes, Thomas Street - closed but will likely reappear
• S1513 The Brewery, Newport Street - closed for redevelopment as a hotel, licence will likely reappear for same
• S4466 Odessa, Dame Court - closed a while back for redevelopment as a hotel but I don't think this ever happened.

As you can see, I've been to a few of these - those hyperlinked plus Odessa before the blog - so this has dented my completion stats a bit. The current floating figure is 587/1020 licences visited

Is counting licences a suitable way to measure the number of pubs in Dublin during current restrictions? Not at all. But hopefully it will be again, and I've nothing else to go on.