In Summer 2020, I wrote "What Is A Pub?", detailing the types of licences I consider to be pubs and criticising a reductionist attempt by the LVA to disassociate themselves from an event happening somewhere that nearly everyone except them considered to be a pub.
However, there are plenty of places that lots of people consider to be pubs but definitely aren't - these days they are mostly members clubs. Sports clubhouses, institutional setups like the Dáil and college bars compromise the majority of these; but the one that I get asked about the most is the Millmount House in Drumcondra - which looks and mostly acts like a pub; but is the Association of Retired Prison Officers bar.
There are also a small number of hotel residents bars that ignore the 'residents' restriction, and a few restaurants significantly stretching the use of their Special Restaurant Licence or Restaurant Certificate on a wine licence, but not many - and I'm not naming them here.
But in the semi-distant past, there were two other categories that would have turned up; had I been around in the 1890s and doing this blog via a column in the Freemans Journal perhaps. Beer Houses and Spirit Grocers existed in Dublin in semi-significant numbers, particularly in certain areas, and had specific constraints on their trade compared to premises with the standard (6- or 7- day Publicans Ordinary) licence.
Spirit Grocers
Spirit Grocers probably cause the most confusion; as this term was often used as a euphemism for the bar of an actually publican licenced premises with an attached grocery - the LVA used to be the LVGA - Licenced Vintners and Grocers Association - and what we often call 'the Barmans Union' also covered grocery staff. But the category of premises being referred to here would today be an in-store off-licence.
The Spirit Retailers Off-Licence category still exists; either standalone (very rarely), or combined with a Wine Retailers Off-Licence and a Beer Retailers Off-Licence to form a "full" off-licence licence, as held by the majority of standalone off-licences and all the supermarkets and convenience stores in Dublin that sell beer and spirits in addition to wine.
So, you may think, it was just an off-licence back then as it is now - and most of them were. But there were plenty of Spirit Grocers who would serve for consumption on the premises, often to women who would not - or could not - go to a pub to drink and did not want to (or again, could not) be seen to drink at home. Allowing women behind a wall of tea chests to drink a bottle of stout or a Baby Powers - introduced in 1889 at a larger size than it is currently, at 71ml, two full Irish shots - was often done but was, by the letter of the law, illegal.
It is impossible to know how many Spirit Grocers allowed this practice, as there are not usually accurate registers of law-breakers! But prosecutions can easily be found. This example mentions the hiding behind a partition to consume. This was Mulholland's fifth conviction for allowing consumption on site.
Many places that may be recorded in social histories as "pubs", particularly in working class areas, are in fact Spirit Grocers - particularly if coming from someone's memory of where their mother or grandmother drank.
Beer Houses
This second category provided something that could range from effectively a bottle shop - beer/cider/perry only - through to a full pub style experience; albeit only able to sell beer, cider, perry and non-alcoholic drinks.
Beer Houses were a licencing oddity, an Irish version of a reduced regulations licence type offered in England & Wales since 1830, but one which disallowed on-sales. Even though full pub licences could, in theory, be created anew until 1902 there were (and still are now) strict regulations that could prevent you from obtaining one - and they were particularly difficult to obtain in Dublin compared to elsewhere in the country.
A Beer House licence was obtainable with significantly less conditions - £1 application fee, initially 1s (5p/6c) a year licence, and prior to 1864, no requirement to prove good character - and as such they became quite common.
An attempt to restrict these, pushed for by the LVGA of the time due to the significant competition they provided to their members, lead to restrictions in 1877 requiring the rateable valuation of the premises to be £15 if in a city or large town. This closed many Beer Houses down nearly overnight and all but prevented new one from being opened. A £15 valuation for a premises not already containing a successful business would have been next to impossible to obtain in 1877 - indeed, here is an example of a small, but fully licenced pub in a poorer area of Dublin (Chamber Street) only being valued at £14 in 1912.
As an aside - the Beer Retailers Off Licence that still exists and forms part of the normal "full off-licence" is the last relic of this system, as it still imposes the same valuation restrictions as were brought in in 1877, however they have never been adjusted for inflation so are basically irrelevant.
There were substantial numbers of these licences issued, but a significantly smaller number of licences equivalent to the GB Beer House - the Beer Retailers On Licence.
I had inaccurately assumed that Beer Houses had ceased to be around the time of the 1902 licencing changes, but references to them in Dublin turn up quite some years afterwards.
Sam from Come Here To Me! turned up a 1906 court case involving after-hours serving at a Beer House in East Wall, notably mentioning that it had a full bar. This premises - with its >£15 rateable valuation - continued as a Beer House until at least 1916, being up for sale with same in that year; but in 1933 its off-licence (clearly no longer the Beer House licence - it may have become a full off licence so as to sell spirits) was voided for serving on-premises
CSO Statistical Abstracts, published from the mid 1920s onwards, provided a figure for the number of Beer Retailers On Licences renewed in the previous year - peaking at 91 in the 1928/29 licencing year and slowly declining afterwards
Legislation was introduced to more easily allow a Beer House to become a pub by onboarding a 6-day licence from a closed pub in 1927, and 7-day licences after 1942 - the Dáil debates around this claim that there were still 153 of them in the State, which despite being significantly higher than the figure from the CSO Abstracts, could actually be valid as licences are often not reliably renewed annually and the likelihood of there being minor objections and delays when dealing with a lower value, lower cost licence would be higher.
That the licences were so rare is occasionally reflected in media reportage. A newspaper report (Irish Press, April 10th 1954) featuring a judge who had never seen a Beer House licence come before him and having it explained as a "very old licence"
Holders of beerhouse licences were given the option to convert them to conventional pub licences (along with those holding 6 day and/or early closing licences, deemed as one to be "restricted licences") during the early 1960s for £100, and again for a brief period in the early 2000s, on payment of £2,500, and a committal to holding on to it for five years.
Revenue's statistical bulletins show single figure numbers of beer on-licences being renewed by the mid 1970s onwards, with 1976 the first showing below 10, albeit it did occasionally go back above. 19 were renewed in 1996, possible aware that the conversion amnesty was going to be brought in - the "prize" from doing this was a licence worth about €100,000 after your five period, at the going rate.
Revenue's last year of statistical bulletins showing any number is 2007, with eight licences. There are zero shown every year since. I suspect, but have no solid basis for doing so, that licences being converted under the early 2000s scheme continued to be listed as such until their five year no-sale period expired. This gives us a last Beer House date of some time in the early to mid 2000s. By comparison, the last in the UK closed in 1980.
