Traditionally in Ireland, the public house or pub served as the center of a community's social life, ranking second in importance only to the parish church. The public house has providentially survived into the modern age as a vibrant social institution and the most ubiquitous feature of Dublin's cityscape. To this day, Dublin is still renowned for its exuberant pub culture and its amazing variety of pubs. Dublin Pub Life and Lore is an oral historical chronicle based on the vivid recollections of old publicans and regulars. With the aid of over eighty photographs, it examines the entire spectrum of the pub phenomenon, capturing in eloquent and witty fashion the folklore, customs, characters, and wit of the traditional Dublin public house.
Dublin is renowned for its amazing profusion of pubs and for its exuberant pub culture. In Dublin Pub Life and Lore, Professor Kevin Kearns examines the history of this phenomenon by speaking to old publicans, barmen and regular customers, relating the story of Dublin pubs and their patrons in an engaging and entertaining fashion. Traditionally in Ireland, the public house or 'pub' was the centre of a community's social life and a social institution ranking second in importance only to the parish church. Pubs ranged from dusky watering holes frequented by labourers, dockers and shawlies to elegant Victorian gin palaces where the gentry and literati gathered. Along the Dublin quays there were dives filled with scoundrels, prostitutes and misfits of every sort. Following the success of his bestselling classic Dublin Tenement Life, Kevin Kearns has researched and created a wonderful oral historical chronicle of Dublin's pub life. Based on conversations with old publicans, pub 'regulars' and long-serving barmen, Dublin Pub Life and Lore captures the folklore, customs, characters and wit of the traditional Dublin public house. Dublin Pub Life and Lore: Table of Contents Introduction - History and Evolution of Dublin Public Houses Origins and Uses of Alcohol A City of Taverns and Alehouses Dublin's Colourful Public Houses Drinking Customs of the Social Classes Disreputable Drinking Dens Proud and Prosperous Publicans Dublin Temperance Movement Government Inquiry into Intemperance and the Role of Public Houses Oral History and Pub Lore - Dublin Pub Culture and Social Life The Pub as a Living Social Institution The Publican's Role and Status Pub Regulars and Their Local Porters, Apprentices and Barmen Pubs as IRA Meeting Places Women on the "Holy Ground" The Pintman and His Pint Pub Customs and Traditions Pub Entertainment Singing Pubs Literary Pubs Notable Pub Characters Eccentric Publicans and Notorious Pubs Underworld of Shebeens, Kips and Speakeasies Famous Barmen's Strikes Transformation and Desecration of Venerable Pubs - Oral Testimony of Publicans and Barmen - Oral Testimony of Pub Regulars and Observers
For nearly 150 years, the wretched, squalid tenements of Dublin were widely judged to be the worst slums in all of Europe. By the 1930s, 6,400 tenements were occupied by almost 112,000 tenants. Some districts had up to 800 people to the acre, up to 100 occupants in one building, and twenty family members crammed into a single tiny room. It was a hard world of hunger, disease, high mortality, unemployment, heavy drinking, prostitution and gang warfare. But despite their hardship, the tenement poor enjoyed an incredibly closely knit community life in which they found great security and indeed, happiness. As one policeman recalls from over half a century ago, they were 'extraordinarily happy for people who were so savagely poor'. Contents of Dublin Tenement Life - History and Evolution of the Tenement Slum Problem Physical Deterioration Profiteering Landlords and Powerless Tenants Overcrowding, Sanitation, and Illness Social Stigmas and Stereotypes The Press and Public Enlightenment Housing Reform and Slum Clearance Oral History and Tenement Folklore - Social Life in the Tenement Communities Community Spirit and Gregarious Nature The Home Setting Economic Struggle Securing Food and Clothing Health, Sickness, and Treatments Entertainment and Street Life Religion and MoralsCourting, Marriage, and Childbirth The Role of Men, Mothers, and Grannies Drinking, Gambling, Prostitution, and Animal Gangs Death, Superstitions, and Wakes - Oral Testimony: The Monto and Dockland Maggie Murray—Age 80 Timmy "Duckegg" Kirwan—Age 72 Alice Caulfield—Age 66 Chrissie Hawkins—Age 83 Johnny Campbell—Age 68 Mary Waldron—Age 80 Billy Dunleavy—Age 86 Nellie Cassidy—Age 78 Elizabeth "Bluebell" Murphy—Age 75 - Oral Testimony: The Liberties Nancy Cullen—Age 71 Paddy Mooney—Age 72 Harry Mushatt—Age 83 Margaret Byrne—Age 72 John-Joe Kennedy—Age 75 Frank Lawlor—Age 66 Mary O'Neill—Age 84 John O'Dwyer—Age 70 Tommy Maher—Age 81 Lily Foy—Age 60 Senan Finucane—Age 73 Christy Murray—Age 86 Bridie Chambers—Age 66 John Gallagher—Age 60 Mickey Guy—Age 72 Margaret Coyne—Age 72 Patrick O'Leary—Age 70 Jimmy Owens—Age 68 Elizabeth "Lil" Collins—Age 91 Stephen Mooney—Age 65 - Oral Testimony: The Northside Paddy Casey—Age 65 Chrissie O'Hare—Age 76 John V. Morgan—Age 70 Peggy Pigott—Age 65 Mary Chaney—Age 84 Father Michael Reidy—Age 76 Ellen Preston—Age 65 Thomas Lyng—Age 70 Una Shaw—Age 61 Con Foley—Age 75 Margaret Byrne—Age 81 Jimmy McLoughlin—Age 50 - Four Tenement Tales Mary Doolan of Francis Street Noel Hughes of North King Street Mary Corbally of Corporation Street May Hanaphy of Golden Lane
"It was half past five in the morning as I lurched through the front door of the B&B. Mrs. O'Sullivan appeared just in time to see me pause to admire the luminous Virgin holy water stand with integral night-light, and knock it off the wall. Politely declining the six rounds of ham sandwiches on the tray she was holding, I edged gingerly along the hallway to the wrong bedroom door and opened it." Despite the many exotic places Peter McCarthy has visited, he finds that nowhere else can match the particular magic of Ireland, his mother's homeland. In McCarthy's Bar, his journey begins in Cork and continues along the west coast to Donegal in the north. Traveling through spectacular landscapes, but at all times obeying the rule, "never pass a bar that has your name on it," he encounters McCarthy's bars up and down the land, meeting fascinating people before pleading to be let out at four o'clock in the morning. Through adventures with English hippies who have colonized a desolate mountain; roots-seeking, buffet-devouring American tourists; priests for whom the word "father" has a loaded meaning; enthusiastic Germans who "here since many years holidays are making;" and his fellow barefoot pilgrims on an island called Purgatory, Peter pursues the secrets of Ireland's global popularity and his own confused Irish-Anglo identity. Written by someone who is at once an insider and an outsider, McCarthy's Bar is a wonderfully funny and affectionate portrait of a rapidly changing country.
The first half of this century was the heyday of Dublin's vibrant and bustling traditional street life. Now in Dublin's Street Life and Lore, through the vivid oral histories of the participants themselves, Professor Kevin Kearns chronicles this rich street life and lore for future generations. The fascinating and often poignant verbal testimonies of Dublin's last surviving tram drivers, lamplighters, market traders, street dealers, spielers, buskers, local characters and others of their vanishing breed, comprise a wholly original and captivating personal historical record of Dublin's long renowned street life, told in Professor Kearns's uniquely engaging and informative style.
The 1930s in Ireland is often thought of as a bleak period of economic stagnation and unemployment. But 1932, hailed by the Irish Press as a 'new era', was an early glimmer of the modernity and success Ireland would later reach: a sequence of events and achievements that included technological advances in travel, agriculture, home appliances and entertainment; Olympic gold medals and the meteoric rise of boxing phenomenon Jack Doyle; a spectacular Eucharistic Congress; sweepstakes and a so called gold rush; as well as the election of Éamon de Valera and transformations in politics and culture. The soundtrack scoring all this change was the jazz craze, which landed in Ireland in the early 1930s and flourished throughout the country, loosening the conservative social and moral order of the time. Jazz brought new forms of dress, lifestyle and behaviour, exciting and exhilarating a younger generation for the future, while leaving an older generation wary of such rapid change. A Year of Glory and Gold is an energetic and exuberant biography of a bright year in Ireland's history, combining deep archival research with spirited storytelling by one of Ireland's best-loved social historians.
As a port city, Dublin owes much to the labourers who strove against the heavy-duty tide of imports and exports; a league of thousands who were hired on a day-to-day basis for generations, defining the bustle of Dublin city centre – a cornerstone of the urban industrial working class in Ireland. The Dublin Docker is a sumptuously illustrated history that determines the dockers’ and stevedores’ importance as an industrial subculture within the Dublin that they navigated. The authors excavated the archive of the Dublin Dockworkers Preservation Society to discover a wealth of photographs, spanning the mid-nineteenth century to the 1970s, that capture the dockers’ arduous labour and the energy of Dublin port. These evocative images bring this beautifully designed social history to life, complementing the inimitable voices revealed in interviews with the dockers themselves. How they negotiated working hours and pay, the changes that came with epochal events – the Dublin Lockout, the First World War, the Easter Rising and War of Independence – and the innumerable myths and ‘dark stories’ that shrouded their image: The Dublin Docker is a history of the dockers and their deep-woven connection to the city.
Alcohol consumption goes to the very roots of nearly all human societies. Different countries and regions have become associated with different sorts of alcohol, for instance, the “beer culture” of Germany, the “wine culture” of France, Japan and saki, Russia and vodka, the Caribbean and rum, or the “moonshine culture” of Appalachia. Wine is used in religious rituals, and toasts are used to seal business deals or to celebrate marriages and state dinners. However, our relation with alcohol is one of love/hate. We also regulate it and tax it, we pass laws about when and where it’s appropriate, we crack down severely on drunk driving, and the United States and other countries tried the failed “Noble Experiment” of Prohibition. While there are many encyclopedias on alcohol, nearly all approach it as a substance of abuse, taking a clinical, medical perspective (alcohol, alcoholism, and treatment). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol examines the history of alcohol worldwide and goes beyond the historical lens to examine alcohol as a cultural and social phenomenon, as well—both for good and for ill—from the earliest days of humankind.
