Substitute Records - the 1891 LVA List (part 1)

If you have ever dug in to your family history in Ireland, you will have heard of the idea of "census substitutes" - using alternative records to find information that you could have got from census records, had they not succumbed to fire, pulping - or wars preventing them from even being taken.

I use the current Revenue register to define my list of Dublin pubs; and Revenue were able to provide me with full digital copies of the register back to 2011 - when Brendan Howlin as Minister insisted on wider open information from Government departments. But pre-2011 registers do not appear to be available for inspection anywhere. And I have one huge reason for looking for older registers - my map of Dublin pubs back to 1902.

I've generally used Thoms Directory as well as targeted newspaper archive searches to locate old Dublin pubs; having actually 'read' (skimmed, looking for buildings with higher rates valuations that might be pubs) the entire 1986 Thoms street listing; as well as having gone through the list of vintners in the 1943 and 1955 trade lists. That, plus looking specifically for pubs listed for sale, and reading all of the Sunday World Pub Spy in the archives filled in the map to its current state where I have 476 pubs that closed pre-2010 mapped out.

But there are still gaps, and only access to old licence registers is going to fill this in accurately. However, I recently got directed to the best substitute record I'm likely to find by Sam from Come Here To Me!

This is a public letter in the advertisement's section of the Freemans Journal, 'signed' by members of the Licenced Grocers and Vintners Protection Association, a predecessor of todays LVA; a body of which the majority of Dublin's publicans are still members. The membership would also have included some licenced grocers who not involved in on-trade; but the bulk of them will be pubs. 

The letters topic is stating that the policy of giving Christmas boxes to customers was being ended due to financial reasons - this type of agreed anti-consumer action by a trade body would now be highly illegal, and you would not draw attention to it if you did make such a deal!

It's from October 31st 1891, so 11 years before I normally start looking (the 1902 legislative changes are what prevented new pub licences being created without extinguishment of another; a concept that may soon finally end); but a list of ~500 licence holders in Dublin from that era is the best I can expect to hope for.

The main problem with this as a data source is that its a very poor scan of the newspaper. I would imagine that this is from a microfilm source, and that the microfilm camera may not have been particularly well focused. There are two options for accessing this list - the Irish Newspaper Archives and the British Newspaper Archives. The BNA scan is sharper, but fades out in places; whereas the INA scan is blurrier but bolder. And some sections are exceptionally difficult to understand from either source:

British Newspaper Archives copy

Irish Newspaper Archives copy

(I can actually figure out what both of these say - its just not easy!)

A secondary issue is that the list is only barely alphabetical - I suspect that as various members agreed they were placed to the end of the list for their initial letter

By comparing the two scans, I am slowly getting a proper list of premises extracted from this. I will then use my existing map, plus the 1892 Thoms, to correct as many of my transcription errors (or typos in the original) before using the list to add any missing pubs to my map; as well as show which pubs are still trading - so expect an update here in a few weeks on that.

Revisited pubs: January 2023

Forgot to get this one up; and February's will be due quite soon...

S0048 Kennedys, Westland Row - long wait for a train from Pearse and the Gingerman was closed!

S3908 The Well, Stephens Green - regular meeting happens here

N0199 Delaneys, Smithfield - ran in to a friend and ended up here

N0211 Clarkes City Arms - escaping a pub I really didn't like nearby (and haven't written up yet)

N0588 Breffni Inn

I was planning another trip through the city centre to tick off an area of as yet unvisited pubs; before realising that I'd picked a very bad day to do so. 

The shop in my local railway station was open - which it does not normally do on weekends, but does if there's matches on. And there were two - in Croke Park and in Lansdowne Road - which meant that the city was likely to be very busy; as would the train as it got in closer.

So I bailed out at Navan Road Parkway to change to the bus; and decided to hit a cluster of places I hadn't been to yet in the Ashtown/Cabra area, starting with the one closest to the road - the Breffni Inn.

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The Breff, as the branded shirts the barmen are wearing call it, is a perfectly acceptable suburban locals pub in a 1960s estate. In Ireland, 30s-70s suburban developments often included a pub amongst a set of shops and they have nearly always avoided the horror of the English "estate pub" stereotype. That they generally have two floors and a pitched roof helps, I imagine.

The bar was a bit noisy with, I think, four different sports screens on with sound (football, golf, horses x2); and with a slightly unusual tap lineup - all macro, but some of the secondary options like Beamish and Tuborg; but there was also a lounge as a quieter option.

Many of the English "estate pubs" are gone; whereas nearly all the Irish semi-equivalents are still there. Long may they continue.

1019147 Tailors Hall

This is an interesting one - not the first pub licence in this building; but the first for a very long time. Clearly going to appeal to tourists; but not tourist tat tacky. Wedged in to a fine old building; but done quite well.

A company associated with Aer Lingus opened a fully licenced setup here in 1974 with the intent of hosting "Georgian banquets", but the licence continued until about 1982, in use as a music and cultural venue. Then the licence was sold off; and the property was eventually leased to An Taisce as their headquarters in 1984.

40 years later, however, and works were completed to convert the lower/basement floor (it opens at ground level to High Street, but Tailors Hall never had any access from High Street until all the buildings in front of it were demolished for road widening) in to a licenced cafe/restaurant; which basically means pub. And with the addition of a full pub licence, a pub is what it has become. This opened around Christmas 2022, and I visited within a few weeks.

The interior is a must see, having the feel of a medieval banqueting hall (the building is 1707, so too late to be medieval, but lets ignore that) and some decor to match. There's going to be lots of bits of this in tourists Instagram photos this summer - I picked a bit of taxidermy for mine.

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They do do food - a limited menu, but what I had was decent. I believe this menu is to be extended (or has been already)

Interestingly, this is one of only two remaining Guild Halls in Dublin, the other being the Merchants one. Which is also a pub.

S3040 Jurys Hotel Christchurch

Opportunistic visit here - I was passing on my way to the next pub, and could see that the bar was easily accessible from the street (unlike its sister hotel on Parnell Street).

Its a hotel bar - there really isn't much reason to go in here if you're not staying in the hotel, particularly as there is an actual pub beside the hotel.

The bar is so not set up for outsider customers, that you have to ask the reception to give you a temporary door card to access the toilets. 

It's perfectly fine as a hotel bar, but there really isn't much of a point in dropping in unless you're visiting someone staying here. Or the Lord Ed is absolutely rammed but you think it'll somehow be emptier after a pint!

S0052 The Mont / The Sinbin

One of the cluster of close by O'Callaghan Hotels, the Mont was until recently the Mont Clare Hotel; before a heavy refurb in 2019. At that time, the bar was Oscars - a reference to the nearby Oscar Wilde statue - but it now the vaguely rugby themed Sin Bin.

Or, as it was the night I visited, The Sibin.

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One broken letter in the sign (almost) changes the name to something very different! But rest assured, the hotel holds a public bar licence, so this is absolutely not a síbín.

The bar is decent enough for a hotel bar, albeit as pricey as you'd expect in this part of the city. Unlike I think all the other O'Callaghan bars, this one has its own street entrance and is very much advertised to the public

S0034 Matt the Thresher

Its won awards as a "gastro pub", it advertises itself as a "city centre bar" on the website header, and Anthony Bourdain sat at the bar for Guinness and oysters.

But to me this is a restaurant, at least now - sitting at the bar went away everywhere during the pandemic pubs-open-as-restaurants era; and seems to have never come back here. However, it retains a full pub licence and as such, is on my list of places to tick off.

I imagine that if its not busy for food, you will be accommodated at a table and able to order off the drinks menu; but it was dinner time anyway so I did actually eat.

Its a seafood restaurant, and despite coming from a family that has history of both fishing and building commercial fishing boats; I don't actually eat seafood. However, there is a burger on the menu - maybe for picky kids there with their parents - so I went for that! 

Food was fine, pint (of O'Haras) was... less than ideal, but drinkable - I suspect it doesn't move much.

There's a chance that bar service is offered at other times; maybe when its tourist season or during matches at the Aviva or something; there just weren't any seats there when I visited.

S0143 Thomas Rody Mahers

Another Press Up pub. How different can they be?

Well, not very - but there was one very notable difference here.

All other Press Up venues I have visited have a nearly full Heineken Ireland taplist, plus usually Guinness. Thomas R Mahers has a mix of Diageo and Heineken Ireland taps, plus some Wicklow Wolf. Has the strangehold been broken?

The former Larry Murphys, this pub was bought by the ESB during the planning of the refit of their HQ, and then sold after it had been done - either surplus to requirements, or they felt it was better to have it closed during it; there's no real way to know for sure.

The name, that of a former owner as is usually the norm for Dublin pubs with a name above the door, had become a bit of a problem even when it was still open and was obviously something that Press Up would want to avoid using - even if they are willing to reuse the old name on a resurrected premises. 

The pubs About page explains that Thomas R Maher was a former operator of the premises, and also gives a source of the reclaimed back bar which I have not obviously heard of and will need to investigate.

This is just another Press Up venue in everything but the tap list, and having a chicken restaurant rather than a burger counter; but it provides an actual normal pub to an area of the city that isn't actually abundant in them anymore.

S0173 Searsons

This might, finally, be the last of the "how have you not been there before?" pubs in Dublin - and now, I have. 

That large pubs in D4 are not my regular haunts didn't stop me being asked about my omission of Searsons - which was because, just like S0181 The 51 two posts ago, it was quite full on the night I visited its neighbours - and I went to S0172 The Waterloo instead. 

The pub was significantly less busy this time; but it did look like it would be difficult to get a table. I'm not a bar-sitter the majority of the time; particularly when it may be blocking a busier bar; but the bar staff were far from busy on that part of the bar and there were seats right at the end.

Being perched down there did lead to a (honestly) interesting conversation about that most D4 of topics - house prices - with another patron who did actually pop in for one on the way somewhere.

Said perch was just by the memorial to Con Houlihan - a man much memorialised in pubs, with this one an omission from that fairly long list. The snug adjacent also carries his name. Multiple of these premises are owned by the Chawke Group; with some reports of the installation of busts reporting the owner Charlie to have been a friend of Con's.

S0182 Smyths

This was reported to be one of the last residential pubs (a pub where the owner or manager lives on-site) in Dublin when sold in 1999, and as it is now owned by the name-above-the-door owner of another pub, I don't think it still is.

There is still at least one residential pub in the city - N1090 The Hacienda - so that 1999 sale did not fully end the tradition, but it is something that has mostly slipped away. In some cases, the owner would not live on site, but some/all of the barmen would - looking at the 1901 and 1911 censuses you can find some premises with significant numbers of staff present on the night.

But otherwise, the pub does not seem to have changed hugely since the sale out of the family. The current owners received permission to rebuild the rear of the pub in 2006, but it does not appear that anything has happened out there. The front of the pub has a vastly more significant outdoor seating area introduced during the pandemic, but the building itself is not much changed.

There's not many of this style of pub - older style, but neither real or faux Victorian old - in the city, and even less in the posher bits of it, so this is an interesting relic of a different time.