Come Here To Me!

Thanks to Walter Wouk for sending this interesting little 1960s tidbit through to our Facebook page in recent times. I like it for a couple of reasons, including the fact it not only features the Nelson Pillar (gone fifty years next year of course), but also uses the monument in the menu, with Horatio Nelson recommending Madigans “for a topping cocktail.” Madigans on North Earl Street is still going strong today of course.

There has been a trend of cocktail bars opening in Dublin in recent years, and you’ll find some of these drinks on menus across the city today. We previously looked at denunciation of alcohol cocktails in 1930s Dublin before. The Irish Times denounced the cocktail in 1932, warning readers that the cocktail “fulfils no useful function. It is supposed by the many to induce an appetite and to stimulate intelligent conversation; in fact, it absorbs the pancreatic juices and encourages cheap wit.” This menu shows there was plenty on offer in Dublin fifty years ago.

Madigans cocktail menu (1/2)

Madigans cocktail menu (2/2)

The menu also directs customers towards another Madigans on Moore Street, which is now no more – in fact, there isn’t a single pub on Moore Street today.

These are times of great change on Moore Street, with potential new developments that could drastically alter the appearance and character of the street, not to mention the focus on the street with the centenary of the Easter Rising approaching.

A Madigans Lounge sign can be seen in this image of Dublin street traders from the 1970s, and the below:

Madigans Bar & Lounge (Unsure of date of image)

Twenty years later, there was still a pub trading under the Madigan name on the street, though on the other side of it, were these premises related?This image is found in the excellent Dublin City Council Photographic Collection, from 1992:

This photograph is from the Dublin City Council Photographic Collection.