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