There are many pubs still open for business today that you can visit and soak in the history of the 1916 Easter Rising, mostly in Dublin.
The Schoolhouse
This excellent bar, restaurant and hotel is located at Mount Street Bridge where a battle between twelve rebels and two battalions of the Sherwood Foresters lasted none hours on the Wednesday of Easter Week.
http://www.schoolhousehotel.com/
The Grand Central
One of the newest public houses on O'Connell Street, the building where the bar is now located was the site of the rebels radio station in 1916, Reis's Chambers. The story of the station is told for the first time in 'Rebel Radio' by Eddie Bohan
http://www.louisfitzgerald.com/grandcentral
The Tap
This pub was at the heart of the Battle of North King Street and was known as Mrs Reilly's Fort.
https://www.jar.ie/bar/dublin/dublin-7/the-tap
The Oval
Located on Middle Abbey Street, the Oval was at the heart of the fighting beside the rebel headquarters in the GPO. The pub was destroyed by British artillery.
http://theovalbar.com/
Kenny's of James Street
Located opposite Eamon Ceannt's South Dublin Union garrison the pub was the home of W T Cosgrave who was sentenced to death after the Rising but had his sentence commuted and later served as Taoiseach
https://www.facebook.com/KennysLounge/
Lynch's Aungier Street
Also known as The Swan the pub was seized by Thomas McDonagh's force in Jacob's and was held to stop the British forces advancing from Portobello Barracks
http://theswanbar.com/
Cassidy's
In 1916 this pub now more associated with President Bill Clinton's visit was known as Delahunts and saw action during easter week. Every Sunday a folk and trad group Rake The Ashes play recreating the flavour of 1916 nights out.
http://publin.ie/2011/cassidys-wexford-street/
The Portobello
Then known as JT Davy's the pub was seized by members of the Irish Citizens Army who held British forces from the Portobello Barracks at bay for a number of violent hours. Francis Sheehy Skeffington was arrested on its doorstep before being executed in cold blood by the British.
http://www.portobellohotel.ie/Bar/
Monday, June 6, 2016
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
1916 Whiskey
Beer and spirits was at the heart of events in 1916.
Proclamation signatory Sean McDermott once worked as a barman in Belfast before turning
his attention to more pressing matters. The rebels managed not to seize British
Army barracks around the city or even the seat of The British Government in Ireland , Dublin Castle
but did capture The Watkins Brewery on Ardee Street , The Jameson Distillery,
Roe’s Distillery, Dublin City Distillery, and the Barmack Brewery and many
public houses..
The Watkins Brewery raiding party was led by the teetotaller
Con Colbert who was subsequently executed in the aftermath of the Rising. The
brewery was unprotected except for a yard manager and was quickly captured by
twenty rebels and the only counter attack they suffered from Monday to
Wednesday was a large group of angry women, the wives and families of Irishmen
serving in the British army, who demanded that the rebels go home ‘to their
mammy’s and daddy’s’.
The Marrowbone Lane Distillery where Jameson whiskey was
produced in great quantity was captured by Captain Seamus Murphy and his men.
The military advantage of the distillery was the height of the chimneys and
warehouses.
A section from Eamonn Ceannt’s 4th Battalion seized Roe’s
Distillery located at Mount
Brown on James’s Street.
Barmack’s Distillery on Fumbally
Lane off Clanbrassil
Street was seized by Captain Henderson. Despite
the seizure of all these distilleries there was very little drunkenness from
the rebels but much of the stock was looted by the poor of the city.
The Dublin City Distillery on Pearse Street was seized by Captain
Cullen as part of Eamonn DeValera’s battalion who captured Boland’s Mill.
DeValera hoisted the Irish flag, then a green flag with a gold Brian Boru harp
at its centre on top of the Distillery. The British artillery and gunboat Helga
shelled the distillery believing that this was the rebels’ location but in fact DeValera was located in the bakery watching the British destroy the wrong
target.
Kenny's James Street
To reinforce the notion that alcohol played a major part in one way or
another in the Easter Rising, when the rebel prisoners were transferred to the
Frongoch Internment camp in Wales
they quickly realised the irony that the camp now being used as a prisoner of
war camp was a former distillery.
Sympathetic publicans also assisted in the facilitation of
Rising planning with publicans such as Sean O’Farrell who owned a bar at the
corner of St Stephens Green and South
King Street . Thirty six year old Eamon Morkan who
with his brother Michael ran a bar on Queen Street was a Captain in the
Volunteers while future leader of the Free State W.T. Cosgrave was a publicans
son from James Street who fought in the nearby South Dublin Union one of the
last outposts to surrender.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Lambe's (Now Meagher's) Ballybough
Lambe’s public house on
According to the Witness Statement of Harry Colley
"I had
discovered that men from my own Company under Frank Henderson and Oscar Traynor
were holding a house over Gilbey's at the corner of Fairview Strand which
commanded the approach from Dollymount and also Ballybough Bridge .
As
well as Gilbey's, our men also occupied Lambe's public house on Richmond Road (now
Meagher's). Frank Henderson was in charge of this outpost. A man named Sean
Kerr was
Quartermaster and cook. I remember we commandeered bread from a
baker's cart and a sheep from
an adjacent butcher's. Scouts on bicycles were
thrown out along the Howth Road
and through
Drumcondra. About 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening (Tuesday) we got
orders to fall-in. We took with us
all spare arms, ammunition, equipment and
food. We were paraded outside Gilbey's on Fairview
Strand and marched over Ballybough Bridge towards Summerhill."
One of the barmen in Lambe's on that Easter Monday was John Gavan a member of “F” Company, 2nd Battalion, Dublin Brigade. The 24 year old surrendered with his comrades and was interned after the Rising in Stafford Jail and the North Camp Frongoch until he was released August 1916.
The Grand Central O'Connell Street
There are some sites from the Rising that were not pubs at the time but are today and you can stroll in, have something to eat, perhaps a beer and soak up the atmosphere and imagine what it was like as a battlefield in the middle of the Rising.
The Grand Central in O'Connell Street was in 1916 Reis's Chambers and was home to the rebels very own radio station.
http://www.louisfitzgerald.com/grandcentral
The Schoolhouse on Northumberland Road was held be the rebels during the Battle of Mount Street and looks today exactly as it did in 1916.
http://www.schoolhousehotel.com/
The Grand Central in O'Connell Street was in 1916 Reis's Chambers and was home to the rebels very own radio station.
http://www.louisfitzgerald.com/grandcentral
The Schoolhouse on Northumberland Road was held be the rebels during the Battle of Mount Street and looks today exactly as it did in 1916.
http://www.schoolhousehotel.com/
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Egan's of Smithfield
The British Army seized Egan’s public house in Smithfield which they used
as a firing position in the attack on Church
Street and during the events of the North King Street
massacre. The soldiers of the South Staffs spent considerable time breaking
through the wall of the houses and by the time they reached the Rebel’s
position the Rebels had gone. In their frustration at not catching the Rebels
the soldiers of the South Staffs turned their anger on the residents of North King Street .
15 men and boys were rounded up and either shot or bayoneted to death. Included
among the fatalities were Patrick Bealen, aged 30, who had been employed as
foreman at Mrs. Mary O'Rourke's licensed house, 177 North King street, Dublin,
and James Healy, aged 44, employed as a labourer at Jameson's
Distillery, Bow street, and residing at Little Green street. The bodies, which
bore marks of bullet wounds, had both been disinterred on 10th May in the
cellar of O’Rourke’s pub at 177
North King Street by the sanitary authorities.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
The Pubs of Enniscorthy
One of the few battles outside Dublin during Easter Week was Enniscorthy, Co
Wexford which was seized by the Rebels. The Athenaeum theatre was made the
Republicans’ headquarters, over which they flew the green, white and orange
tricolour. All the public houses in the town were closed down and as Father
Patrick Murphy, a priest who publicly blessed the rebels, recalled,
“During the four days of
Republican rule, not a single person was under the influence of drink”.
'There was an order given that no publicans were to supply
anyone with drink. That evening two men were caught in Loftus Porter's
public house in Templeshannon. Both of them were from Shannon .
Mike Murphy (Toby) and Bernard Neill were arrested and the keys of the
public house taken from the owner. His shop was locked up and the keys brought
to headquarters'.
Witness Statement of Thomas Doyle, Weafer Street, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.
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