Magill Pub Review

'Dear Davy, send a bottle of the best over to the City Hall for myself and Carson - your's Mick.'

I HAVE ALWAYS been constrained to regard Davy Byrne's as the archtype, the doyen, the centre, the place where the trams go: in other words as the downntown pub. If somebody says on the teleephone "pub" and "down-town" I think of Davy Byrne's.

Even more curiously perhaps, and while we're on this amazing confessional jag, I still think of it as somehow smart, sophisticated, avant-garde, or at least as more o'f these things than ... well, than its neighbours, or than any place else which sets up to be such. Thinking of it this way (and I am of course describing a feeling more than a thought) does not, I hasten to insist, mean thinking of the people who go to anyone of the three compartments in it, the large outer bar or the two cocktail places, as anyone of the things I have mentioned (smart, sophisticated etc.). They may be, they just may be. For all I know the Golden Cage lot may be the smartest lot around, in their own eyes and everybody else's.

But what I am describing is more a mystical state devolving on the place itself: something to do with its decor, something to do with its history, a little to do with the fact that it is, let's face it, mentioned in Ulysses, a lot to do with the point in time when I started to drink (thirty odd years ago); and quite a lot, in a subtle sort of way, to do with its ownership and management over the years, especially, for me anyway, the management of Peter McGuinness.

The decor of the bar proper was "modernist" when it was done by Dick Guy in 1942. It is now "period". The murals, an integral part of it, by Cecil Salkeld, are of course awful. That is an article of faith by which I have lived; and the most I am prepared to admit now is that if they grow on you over the years they only grow on you because anything will, even the neighbour's dog. Yet Guy produced something which was so outrageously of its time and dated so fast and so furiously that thirty odd years afterwards the whole thing may stand as a lesson to all the thoolermalauns who own and run pubs in the city of Dublin: get a man of some talent to do your insides, let him go the whole hog, and decades after they have been an offence to the eye and a trouhlement to the spirit they will still be worth drinking in.

Before the new door was pucked in, the place was just a bar. After the great change it was a lounge bar,; apart from the parent house,' Doran's of Marllborough Street, which had a reputation for being very wicked in those days (indeed the devil was said to have been seen there in person, sitting among the brassers with clovern hoof, let us hope buying them drink) the only lounge bar, which meant a bar that was all lounge, or, a lounge that was all bar, in the city of Dublin. The bar that was there before had a history and a tradition. Even if you didn't know it had been mentioned in Ulysses -- and most of us couldn't know, since there wasn't, thanks to the British censorship, a copy of Ulysses in sight - you could look at the note which used to hang down towards the back:

"Dear Davy, send a bottle of the best over to the City Hall for myself and Carson - your's Mick. "Bu t the tradition did not mean that there were literary men to be seen or (wild dream in those days) talked to. The sort of people I was glad to know in those days were mostly "characters" of a different ilk.

Still, there was an ambience, a touch of - well, I've already been into that; and it has lasted. I can best illustrate by anecdote. Sometime in, I think, the early six ties, the late Peter Duval Smith (a man of great aplomb, as those who knew him will testify) was over here doing a television programme about The Machinations of the Catholic Church in Ireland and he and I and mi esposa were all having a drink in Davy Byrne's when we met the painter Edward Maguire. Edward invited us all to dinner. What sort of place he had in mind I don't know because we went on drinking. Aftor about two hours he said "Hold on a minute" and went out. Twenty minutes later he returned, bringing with him a sort of collapsable primus stove and a large pressure cooker containing the ingredients for a stew. He set the stove up on the table, placed the pot on top of it and asked for plates, cutlery and a bottle of wine. These were all brought; the spirit lamp was lit; the stew was heated; and, to the accompaniment of carefully unbatted eyelids on the part of the management and staff, eaten.

That showed style; and style is what, I suggest, Davy Byrne's has always had a bit of - a bit more than most places anyyway. It also has continuity. One major architectural change in fifty odd years is not bad, more especially when a bit of courtesy and goodwill has survivedfrom the long-ago too. Two members of the staff - Dessy O'Connor and Larry O'Toole - were there before Mr. Salkeld rose up from his bed and before Mr. Guy thought daringly of what was then called concealed lighting or put his still more daring soix an te-neu f frieze over the bar. They may stand, in their whitecoats, for all that is kind and accomodating about Davy Byrne's service, and that, in my experience, has been a lot.

As for the customers, then and now they have had at least one thing in common: the reputation of being swingers or worse. As long as I remember people have been saying things about the sort of other people who go to Davy Byrne's; and so when I read a piece in our principal national newspaper the other day which suggested that it was now a sort of singles parade shop of the most outrageous order I collected a commpanion elsewhere (so as nobody would think I was desperate) went in and had a peep . .J ust like you and me they looked in the long bar; and in the other two places, the same only richer; and furtherrmore they all seemed to be decently coupled together. And that is how they have al ways looked, given that businesssmen, stockbrokers, barristers and other sons of toil who have to wear suits have always been a bit prominent at the cockktail hour, and they always look as if they were looking for something. Mind you, the most of the people there did not look like habitues. They looked like the passing trade. Also of course everyybody looks like a swinger nowadays just as everybody looks like an intellectual. You go into a bar and they're all swingers and intellectuals. And maybe they are too.

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PUB LISTINGS

DUBLIN

O'Brien's Sussex Tee, (off Upper Leeson sr.) Unquestionably THE young swingers bar in Dublin. Mainly singles but beware of married men in drag. Strong rugby contingent and loads of lady teachers and nurses. Convivial and unpretentious - the old bar has associations with Paddy Kavanagh who I ived nearby. The downstairs lounge has a beautiful painting of a pub scene by Harry Kernoff, who also lived nearby and who completed it just before his death. The upstairs lounge is a mess.

Prices (downstairs lounge) stout and beer43p; spirits 36p, mixers 12p. No pub lunches.

Sachs, Morehampton Rd. ,

The most fash ionable bar in town with the most fashionable prices. Tasteful Gatsbv-tvpe decor, excellent service, splendid host in Jackie Donnelly but the clientele are very much of "the beautiful people" variety with a few chancers and lots of ladies-on-the-make thrown in. Sachs is first stop on the "Strip" trail at weekends, when most of the trendies disgorge from there onto the Leeson St. discoes and from there ... God is good!

Prices: stout and beer 56p; spirits 48p; mixers 17p. Pub lunch cost: £3.50 [approx l

Palace Bar 21 Fleet St. One of the best of the centre-city bars. A Tipperary pub, the scene of much celebration one way or another, when Tipp is at Croke Park. Old-style pub, with partitions and mirrors in the bar. but the back lounge has been

despoiled recently by renovation. Harry Kernoff paintings here too, plus a photoomontage of journalists of 30 years ago. Awful upstairs lounge.

Prices: stout 41 p; beer 42p; spirits 38p; mixers 13p. No pub lunches.

The Shakespeare 160 Parnell St.

Another pub with strong GAA associations, in spite of its name. Much singing and cavorting after big matches, especially for Kerry fans. Formerly the bar had theatre associations but none nowadays when its main clients are honest to God (sometimes) locals. Long, spacious old fashioned downstairs bar and a typically awful upstairs lounge.

Prices: stout 41p; spirits 37p; mixers 13·p. No pub lunches.

Conways Pub 70 Parnell St.

One of the few tastefully redecorated bars in the city. Built in 1745. Main clientele from Rotunda opposite - quite a few nurses, radioographers and clerical staff on their own (!) Gate Theatre types who offer a bit of commpetition for the former and locals who are generally amazed by the antics of the other types. Whether because of the above or because of its proximity to An Phoblacht offices in Parnell Square, the bar is also frequented by well-known republicans.

Prices: stout 43p; beer 44p; spirits 39p; mixers 13p. Excellent pub lunches costing about £1.50.

Ryans Parkgate St.

Reputation for excellent pints of stout, possibly because of its proximity to Guinness. Also reputation for very discreet snugs, which can be opened only from inside the bar. Strong local trade. but also a good "passing trade" which curiously gravitates towards the snugs. Lovely old-fashioned pub with no nonsense and no singing.

Prices: stout and beer 41 p; vodka and gin 36)1.,p whiskey 37p. mixers 12p. No pub lunches.

Sinnotts 3 Sth. King St.

The best of the Grafton Street area bars, coming down with lefties, actors, economists and other drop-outs, including the entire cast of The Riordans. A very indiscreet snug, formerly renowned for its ham sandwiches, though they have gone off since the sliced pan. A great place to cash a cheque.

Prices: stout and beer 43p; spirits 38p; mixers 12p. poor pub lunches for £1, but who wants to ear on an empty stomach!

Old Stand 37 Exchequer Street.

Scene for middle-aged aptly described as pottbellied, roues, especially at lunch-time. Imaginnagination's taxed more than the drink as the unlikely exploits of the nights before are described for the benefit of the whole pub . Prices: stout and beer 45p; whiskey 40p; vodka and gin 39)1.,p; mixers 14)1.,p. Good pub lunches for about £2.

Prices of stout and beer per pint: of spirits per half glass of Irish whiskey, gin and vodka.