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.