Giuseppe Cervi opened up Dublin’s first Fish and Chip shop on Brunwick Street (now Pearse Street) in the 1880s.
Here is a lovely snap of Eduardo Di Mascio’s shop on Marlborough Street from 1938.
Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire (author of The History of Seafood in Irish Cuisine and Culture) has identified that Eduardo Di Mascio was a carpenter from Valveri, Italy who arrived at the height of the Civil War in 1922.
This is worth a look.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1545982/
And don’t forget Benny’s in Parnell Street. I think his last name was Forte. Any of the old north inner city people I’ve ever talked to only had good things to say about him. His great granddaughter has a chipper in Finglas now.
The Dublin phrase “one and one” for cod and chips came from Cervi’s wife Palma who would ask customers if they wanted “Uno di questo, uno di quello?” “One of these, one of those?”
How times change… In the 1970s Di Mascio’s on Marlborough Street had a notice on the door that said something like “unaccompanied ladies will not be served after 9pm”.
went to di mascios on my cofo bacck in the seventies ! and was delira to do so!! ah the aul days…
Di Mascio’s was written up in Banshee magazine in the late 1970s as a chipper to boycott, as they refused to serve unaccompanied women after 9pm.
They served the nicest chips that I ever tasted