Come Here To Me!

The Red Bank Restaurant (19-20 D’Olier Street) was one of the city’s most famous and long-running restaurants, open from 1845 – 1969.

Culinary historian Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire wrote that it was:

…established by Burton Bindon on the site of a famous city hostelry (and) known originally as ‘Burton Bindon’s’. (It) took its current name from the famous ‘Red Bank’ oysters which grew on beds owned by Bindon in Co. Clare and were available in season in his Dublin establishment [1]

Taken over by the Montgomery family at the turn of the century, by 1934 it boasted a ground floor with a grill room and luncheon bar, two further floors of dining rooms and some of the best food in the city.

Sadly, it perhaps best known for being a popular meeting place for pro-Axis supporters. American historian R. M. Douglas described it as a ‘well known haunt of ultra-nationalist and extremist bodies owned by a German-born member of the Dublin Nazi Party’. [2]

It was a regular meeting place before the war of Adolph Mahr’s ‘German Association’. Mahr had been a leading Nazi official in Dublin, and also the Director of the Irish National Museum. The ‘German Association’ would often invite sympathetic Irish men to these dinners where the table was draped with a Swastika flag.

In February 1940, 1916 Rising veteran and long-serving fascist organiser WJ Brennan-Whitmore invited a select group of ‘Celtic Confederation of Occupational Guilds’ (CCOG) veterans, most of whom he had known from his Blueshirt days, to the Red Bank restaurant to sound them out for a new group called ‘Clann na Saoirse’ (‘Tribe of Freedom’). [3]

In May 1940, the ‘Irish Friends of Germany’ (aka the National Club) held a meeting in the restaurant that was attended by 50 people. George Griffin, veteran anti-Semite and ex Blueshirt, spoke on the subject of the ‘The Jewish Stranglehold on Ireland’. Griffin mentioned many Jews by name and went onto advocate that ‘… we should never pass a Jew on the street without openly insulting him’. [4]

In 1942, the restaurant was host to a number of meeting from the ‘Aontacht na gCeilteach’ (Pan Celtic Union), a front group for ‘Ailtri na hAiseirghe’ (‘Architects of the Resurrection’). [5]

As aforementioned, RM Douglas is of the opinion that the restaurant was owned by a German Nazi party member. Historian Gerry Mullins (author of Dublin’s Nazi No. 1) supports this theory and names the Schubert family as owning the restaurant.

However, respected culinary historian Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire has said that he has ‘found no evidence of the Red Bank leaving the Montgomery family ownership from the beginning of the twentieth century until its sale in the late 1960s’ and that the Mr Schubert referenced was actually the manager of the Solus factory in Bray. Mac Con Iomaire also seriously questions the claim by David O’Donoghue (author of ‘Hitler’s Irish Voices’) that newspaper advertisements for a new lounge in The Red Bank Restaurant were coded messages for Nazi meetings.

The standard of food at The Red Bank declined over the war years, when it became a late night drinking establishment. It closed in 1948 but was reopened under new management. A fire in 1961 gutted the place and the restaurant finally closed its doors in 1969.

–

Notes:
[1] Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire, ‘The Emergence, Development and Influence of French Haute Cuisine on Public Dining in Dublin Restaurants 1900-2000: An Oral History’ (DIT, 2009), 100
[2] RM Douglas, ‘Architects of the Resurrection: Ailtirí na hAiséirghe and the Fascist ‘New Order’ in Ireland’ (Manchester, 2009), 66
[3] ibid
[4] Martin White, The Greenshirts:Fascism in the Irish Free State 1935-45, (Queen Mary University of London, 2004), 245
[5] Douglas, 271

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All are invited to attend the launch of ‘Locked Out: A Century of Irish Working-Class Life’ on 19 September in Liberty Hall. Diarmaid Ferriter (UCD) will be on-hand to launch the book, which contains essays looking at the history of the Irish working-class in the hundred years since the 1913 Lockout. I have contributed a chapter to the book on the ‘Animal Gang’ and gang violence in 1930s Dublin. The launch will be followed by music and (most importantly of all!) there’ll be a bar on the night 😉

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Recently my brother pointed me towards a priceless archive of Dublin images online, hosted by NUI Galway.

Known as the ‘Pickow Collection’, the archive contains hundreds of priceless images of Ireland, with great emphasis on the capital. Some familiar faces and locations feature, with piper Seamus Ennis for example shown playing to an audience of young children in the Phoenix Park. Elephants giving people lifts around the zoo and masses of cyclists crossing O’Connell Bridge are among other once common Dublin scenes in the collection.

Some background information on the collection is provided by NUIG:

Jean Ritchie, singer, folklorist and dulcimer player was born on 8 December 1922 in Viper, Kentucky. She was the youngest of a family of 14 children, known as .The Singing Ritchies.. Jean graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1946 and taught for a time. In 1952 she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to enable her to research the origins of her family.s songs in Great Britain and Ireland. Her husband George Pickow, a photographer, accompanied her and they spent approximately eighteen months recording folk songs and traditional musicians and taking photographs

You can view and browse the Dublin photos in the collection here.

I think my favourite image in the collection is this one below, showing two once familiar Dublin sights. While Horatio Nelson looks down towards the O’Connell Bridge, a Guinness barge passes under it!

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Acclaimed novelist Joseph O’Connor, from Glenageary in Dublin, who won international  recognition with ‘Star of the Sea’ (2002) and ‘Redemption Falls’ (2006) wrote a special poem for Philip Chevron’s testimonial on 24 August.

I doubt that many people know that Joseph O’Connor’s first non-fiction book (and second book published) was a biography of the Tyrone Republican Socialist and poet Charles Donnelly who was killed in the defence of the Spanish Republic with the International Brigades. It was based on his MA thesis, for which he was awarded a First Class Honours, in Anglo-Irish Literature at UCD. He completed this Masters after returning from a five month trip to Nicaragua where he had reported on the aftermath of the Sandinista revolution for various Dublin publications. ‘Even the Olives are Bleeding – the life and times of Charles Donnelly’ was published by New Island Books in 1992.

Here is the text of the beautiful poem that Joesph wrote for Philip.
Note: It can’t be reproduced further without his permission.

A BRIDGE FOR PHILIP CHEVRON

On his sixteenth Christmas Eve, a boy in wintry Dublin
Bought an album he’d heard on a pirate-station show.
‘TV Tube Heart’. Maybe you know it.
As he took the bus homeward the streets filled with snow
And late that night, alone in his room
He played those songs over and the world burst alive
In the voice of a city on the cold Irish Sea.
Passionate. Eloquent. Longing to be free.

THUNDER in the drumming and the punk rock guitars
Like Molly Malone meets the Spiders from Mars.
Lyrics with a BLAZE and a beauty hard and fine
From a poet. And a Dubliner. Name of Philip Ryan.
CHEVRON they called him. Cool as a knife.
Smoothest Irish writer ever seen in your life.
SPARKIN images together till they scorched off the paper.
NO ONE told a story like that Chevron shaper.

Martyrs on the banknotes. Liars on the box
Killers on the altar rails, shadows on the docks.
Pearse on his pedestal, still dreamin’ a dream.
He’d like to stick a Telecaster
Through the television screen.

Then Brother Brophy caught me outside a the class
Listenin to Philip when I shoulda been at Mass.
Big stew-eatin’ bollocks from Upper Drumcondra
And he’s not a huge admirer of the….punk rock…genre
Says Wheredjathinkyou’rgoinWiththatlookuponyerface
Whothehelldjethinkyeare?
I said:
A Radiator.
From Space.

Well his eyes are kinda flashin and his lips are turnin blue
Says Get in there to Confession or I’ll radiator YOU.
Father O’Reilly says Bless you, my child,
And how long has it been since you last…reconciled?
I said, Bless me, Father, been nearly a year.
See….I got the ticket and the bus stops here.

You see, I saw you there, Philip,
In hushed Dublin streets,
Walking at dawn past a shuttered store
Or pausing a moment to look at the statues
Of Wilde. Larkin. Joyce. Thomas Moore.
Grey gulls above Christchurch
The old city sleeping
McGonagles closed and a rumour of snow
And there’s little to hear but the dawn alleluia
Of a garda-car siren down Portland Row.

Your mind raining melodies, nighttowns of humour,
Cabaret, greasepaint, heart-aching wrong,
Your heroes, inconvenient people in corners,
People that rarely get put in a song.
Early-house ghosts in the hunger of morning
Five-o-clock shadowmen shook by the fates,
Huers and bogeymen waiting for openings.
People unnoticed by cold eyed Yeats.

I saw you there, Philip, walking lost Dublin theatres.
Brunswick Street, Francis Street, down towards the Coombe,
City of actors, in all of her vagaries,
Wandering back to her lonely room,
Loving her streelings and early-hour homecomings
The LASH of her wit and her dirtyfaced talk
You and the spirit of Micheal MacLiammoir
Talkin of Bowie
On Bachelor’s Walk.

I saw you there, Philip, drifting past Trinity,
Cobbles of history moistened by mist
Head full of powerchords, thunderstorm images
Lovers you kissed.
Your shy smile by Bewleys.
Your handshake to Duke Street
Some evening when August had glittered the town.
The windows all shining in glorious cadence
With your stubblecheek grin and your beautiful frown.

You pause on the bridges
Named for our poets.
I saw you there, Philip.
You always knew –
A song is a bridge on
Uncrossable rivers.
I saw you there, Philip.
This bridge is for you –

And the thousands gone sailing
While Kitty Ricketts weeps.
‘Cross the street from Clery’s clock
The G.P.O. sleeps.
Johnny Jukebox in the Ghosttown
Still paintin up his lips.
‘Stranger than fiction,’
Sighed the girls in the kips.
Thank you, Philip Chevron.
I’ll sing no more.
Million dollar hero
In a five and ten cent store.

© Joseph O’Connor, August 2013

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Earlier tonight I was on Monday Night Soccer (RTE) discussing the Ringsend Riot in 1913 with Tony O’Donoghue. ANU productions also featured with their Dublin Tenement Experience scene dealing with the clash included. Larkin’s paper the Irish Worker denounced two footballers as scabs (Jack Millar and Jack Lowry, both appearing to be pseudonyms) and there was trouble in Ringsend when locked-out workers attempted to prevent a football match from taking place. This story featured recently on Newstalk, and thankfully with the centenary here at last this forgotten part of the story has been given plenty of attention. Our article is available to read here.

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In February 1918, thousands of Dubliners celebrated the Russian Revolution at a packed meeting in the Mansion House. Indeed, the attendance was so great that it spilled out of the Mansion House, with many more filling parts of Dawson Street, with an attendance of up to 10,000 people.

Some of the most interesting characters of the time, such as Maud Gonne, Countess Markievicz and others spoke, and ‘The Red Flag’ was sung with gusto. The song, which has become something of a socialist anthem, was written by Irishman Jim Connell in 1889. Jim Connell was awarded the Red Star Medal by Vladimir Lenin in 1922, which gives an indication of the importance of the song to the socialist movement. While much has been written of anti-communism and anti-socialism in early twentieth century Ireland, this incredibly well-attended meeting is largely forgotten. The meeting was chaired by William X. O’Brien, who had been instrumental in the trade union movement during the Lockout of 1913.

The meeting took place on 4 February 1918, and the Irish Independent proclaimed the following day that:

The scene in the Round Room was an extraordinary one. The passage up the centre of the spacious and crowded floor was occupied by a dense body of men standing. Near the front of this body was borne aloft a red flag, and during an interval in proceedings, while a collection was being taken up, the song ‘The Red Flag’ was sung.

A resolution was passed at this meeting that was put forward by Cathal O’Shannon, with newspaper reports noting that it expressed that the “people of Dublin were at one with the Bolsheviks”, and “maintaining that the Russian interpretation of the democratic principle was the only one that would be acceptable to the people of Ireland.” O’Shannon, from Antrim, was a trade unionist and republican who had spent time in Richmond Barracks, Frongoch and Reading jail in the aftermath of the Easter Rising, despite not seeing action during the rebellion. There were several other republicans who had either fought in the Rising or been interned in its aftermath at this meeting, including Dr. Kathleen Lynn of the Irish Citizen Army, who stated that some people were shy to acclaim the Russian revolution for fear of being labelled anti-clerical. Lynn was a tireless campaigner for the poor of Dublin and the medical well-being of children, and established the Saint Ultan’s Hospital for Infants in 1919.

The media noted that some Russian Bolsheviks were on the platform at this meeting, alongside leading lights of the trade union movement. Thomas Johnston of the Labour Party proclaimed that “the cry for bread was at the bottom of all successful revolutions”, to loud applause.

Patrick Coates also spoke at this meeting, describing himself as a revolutionary socialist, he drew a huge cheer by noting that he wasn’t sure if this was the first time ‘The Red Flag’ had been sung in the Mansion House, but that “it would not be the last.” He later stated that when Ireland received her liberty the people would transform the Viceregal Lodge into the headquarters of the Transport Workers’ Union!

Countess Markievicz rose to offer congratulations to the Bolsheviks “on behalf of the Irish Citizen Army”, and in the aftermath of this meeting thousands would march through the city of Dublin, though interestingly there were no reports of any confrontation between this demonstration of solidarity with the Russian revolution and anti-socialist elements.

Only weeks after the meeting, The Irish Times warned that Bolshevism was creeping into Ireland, noting that:

They have invaded Ireland, and if the democracies do not keep their heads, they may extend to other countries in Europe. The infection of Ireland by the anarchy of Bolshevism is one of those phenomena which, though almost incredible to reason and experience, are made intelligible by the accidents of fortune and human folly.

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This is the third post on the website looking at cartoons printed in the Sunday Independent during the course of the 1913 Lockout. Part 1 can be read here, while the follow-up post is here.

The cartoonist often poked fun at Jim Larkin’s expense, especially as the dispute dragged on, and this cartoon shows him and William O’Brien, another leading trade unionist of the day. Larkin would go to England during the dispute to drum up support among the English workers and trade union leadership, referring to this as the Firey Cross campaign. The mission was to instigate solidarity strikes in Britain which could be of assistance to the cause of the Dublin workers, but Larkin failed in this task. Here we see a match, representing the English union movement, with Larkin bemoaning the fact “it will only strike on its own box”.

Larkin’s attempt to ‘light’ the Firey Cross was ridiculed the following week once more. Larkin was shown firing at a barrel, which in another cartoon below was shown to explode with ‘trade union snubs’ and ‘hostile public opinion’ and the like. Mocking Jim, the paper noted on its frontpage that Larkin was a “Liberty Hall autocrat” who was “looking for trouble” in England.

One cartoon which did not feature in either post to date and really should have is this powerful image, showing a Catholic priest rescuing a child from ‘socialism’.

The cartoon is a reference to the Save the Kiddies campaign, essentially an attempt to send the children of locked out workers to England during the labour conflict. The intervention of the church in this dispute was reprehensible, physically preventing working class children from leaving the city. The attitude of the church hierarchy was captured best in a letter from Archbishop Walsh to the media in which he targeted the mothers of the children and claimed

.

I can only put it to them that they can be no longer held worthy of the name of Catholic mothers if they so far forget that duty as to send away their children to be cared for in a strange land, without security of any kind that those to whom the poor children are to be handed over are Catholics, or, indeed, are persons of any faith at all.

This series of cartoons featured on the front page of the Sindo on 5 October 1913. ‘Socialism’ is shown burying ‘Christian Principles’, while the ‘Ordinary Man’ is showing telling the ‘Syndicalist’ where to go. Both of these were common themes in the Indo cartoons, the idea that socialism was somehow anti-Catholic or anti-Irish, and the idea that the ‘ordinary people’ of Dublin would be the ones to ultimately tell Larkin and his followers they were not wanted.

On 19 October, this series of cartoons appeared. One shows the ‘Sympathetic Strike’ represented in the form of a hot air balloon. This tactic was central to Larkin’s political ideas, and involved bringing out workers not directly involved in a dispute in solidarity with those who were. It is clear Murphy’s paper believed that the lockout was breaking this tactic and Larkinism in general. The bottom right cartoon gives some commentary on the housing crisis, insisting that “a helping hand” was needed to provide better housing for the working class. The horrific Church Street collapse in September 1913 ensured housing was a topic on the lips and minds of many in the last four months of 1913.

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Recently while researching tenement Dublin and the history of prostitution in Dublin, I stumbled across an 1837 publication The United Service Journal. Speaking about the area around the Royal Barracks in Dublin, the publication noted that “scenes of riot, drunkenness and gross indecency” were common place, and that the area was home to many prostitutes but lacking in “persons of decent and moral habits” . Royal Barracks is Collins Barracks today of course, and Barrack Street has since been renamed Benburb Street.

Benburb Street was the location for the first Dublin Corporation housing scheme in the late nineteenth century. Shortly afterwards, the Corporation also constructed public housing on Montgomery Street, in the heart of what was known as ‘The Monto’. By attempting to keep public housing cheap, the Corporation ended up constructing homes in areas with long standing social problems. I’ve long had a personal interest in Benburb Street as my great-grandmother lived in a tenement on that street, and in-time we will look in detail at the first Corporation housing schemes in Dublin on the website.

Here is the extract:

The publication is available to read here.

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The centenary of the Church Street disaster is fast approaching, and will rightly be commemorated and remembered as one of the most tragic incidents during the course of the 1913 Lockout. On September 2nd 1913 two tenement homes collapsed to the ground, killing seven working class Dubliners, with children among the dead. While this tragedy did spark a very significant housing inquiry, tenement collapses remained all too common in Dublin in the decades that followed. This is the first of a number of posts in the weeks ahead looking at tenement disasters in Dublin.

Two tenements collapsing within weeks of each other in June 1963 forced Dubliners to re-examine the housing situation in the city, and sparked a huge inquiry into housing in the city which delivered many shocking finds. It also saw hundreds of families moved out of their homes at short notice, for fear further collapses could be imminent. The panic began on June 2nd, when two elderly Dubliners were killed on Bolton Street when a four-story tenement home collapsed, trapping them under the rubble and wounding seven other occupants of the house. The destruction to the tenement home was clear from this shocking image featured in The Irish Times. Incredibly, the paper reported that when firefighters arrived on the scene, they could hear Billy, a pet bird on the fourth floor of the house, still “singing in the sunshine in his cage” in a corner that had withstood the collapse.

The collapse of this tenement home sparked a real fear for other properties in the area, and many people came forward to the Corporation believing that their own homes could be in danger of collapse. Only days later it was being reported in newspapers that two families living in a home less than 100 yards away were moved to Cabra and Fatima Mansions. This evacuation of dangerous properties continued in the weeks that followed, and by June 22nd the media were reporting that since the Bolton Street disaster “156 houses have been evacuated because they were in a dangerous condition. This has necessitated the rehousing of 520 families.” It was reported that an astonishing 223 families were still awaiting rehousing, and it was clear the Corporation were unable to provide housing with the required urgency, rehousing people in some very unlikely locations. It is noted in a history of the Dublin Fire Brigade that Dublin’s fire service “were forced by a panicking Corporation to allow tenants into the former married quarters in both Dorset Street and Buckingham Street fire stations.”

The Bolton Street collapse was followed on June 12th by a similar incident on Fenian Street, this time claiming the lives of two young children. Marion Vardy (9) and Linda Byrne (8) were the victims of that incident, as two three-storey buildings toppled onto the street. There were scenes of anguish on the streets at the time, with the Irish Press writing that “Hundreds of Dubliners, many visibly crying, crowded the narrow streets leading to the scene of the collapse as firemen and Gardaí frantically shoveled bricks, rubble and mortar aside to reach the victims.” The two young girls, described by their loved ones as inseparable, were returning home from buying sweets at a corner shop. One man, Andrew Dent, jumped for his life from the collapsing tenement.

Only days after this second tragedy, a third was narrowly avoided. The top storey of 36 York Street collapsed shortly after 1pm on June 16th, thankfully after families had been evacuated from the building but one man who had returned to collect belongings from the building left it literally moments before it collapsed. He would tell reporters “I had just closed the front door when I heard a resounding thud as bricks and mortar came crashing through the landing in a cloud of dust.”

The response to all of this was an inquiry launched at City Hall. Some Dubliners were skeptical of what this inquiry could achieve, with reports of one group of protesters marching onto City Hall behind placards telling the city not to wait until their homes too had collapsed around them. Exceptionally bad weather at the time was cited as a factor in the June collapses, and other collapses were discussed which had not made the news to the same extent as those with tragic consequences. On the first day of the inquiry a story was told of an Inspector who had left a house at Buckingham Street “white-faced” and horrified by the condition of the structure, which was immediately evacuated. The inquiry was told that there had been a partial collapse of this empty property on June 11th, despite immediate emergency work.

It was reported in July that the Corporation was seriously considering prefabs as a response to the housing crisis in Dublin, and that “red tape is being slashed to overcome this emergency.” The Irish Independent reported that Griffith Barracks was among the locations housing those moved from tenement dwellings during the emergency period.

Erika Hanna notes in her recent study of urban change in Dublin in this period that in the eighteen months that followed the Fenian Street disaster “around 1,200 of Dublin’s Georgian terrace houses and mews were destroyed, mainly in the north and east of the city.” What were the long-term consequences of these tragedies? The Ballymun Housing Scheme and other such plans which would follow were, in a way, a response to the urgency of the problem in Dublin city centre. These incidents were a tragic reminder that fifty years after Church Street, Dublin’s working class were still to be found living in houses unfit for human habitation.

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Yesterday I was on Newstalk discussing a peculiar incident that occurred early on during the 1913 Lockout. You can listen to the audio here. Previously featured on the site, a game between Bohemians and Shelbourne was targeted by Jim Larkin as he believed there to be scabs playing for each team. I was joined by Will Irvine, the co-director of ANU Productions. ANU are doing great work with their Dublin Tenement Experience (Sadly coming to an end soon) and this incident features in their performance. A sound clip from the Tenement Experience was featured in the piece.

The opening scene, in what was to prove a prolonged and sanguinary drama, was enacted in the Ringsend district. In his speech on Friday night Mr. Larkin had referred to a football match which was to be played on Saturday in the Shelbourne Ground at Ringsend between two local clubs. ‘ There are ” scabs ” in one of the teams, and you will not be there except as pickets,’ he said, in language whose menacing character was understood by those who heard him. In obedience to the implied command, a large body of members of the Transport Workers’ Union gathered at the time announced for the match near the entrance to the grounds.

-From Arnold Wright’s Disturbed Dublin.

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In the run up to Philip Chevron’s testimonial tomorrow night, a number of pieces have been published in the Sunday Independent, The Herald and Examiner. (It’s a pity the Irish Times didn’t do any feature).

Declan Lynch – ‘ Truly, there’s nobody like Philip Chevron‘ in the Sunday Independent on 3 August 2013.

It also brought into play Phil’s pursuit of great music in every form imaginable, his gifts as a collector and an archivist. I’ve always felt that he could be a brilliant journalist too, ideally writing about the theatre on which I believe he may well be one of the greatest living authorities.

Barry Egan – ‘Diamond in the Crown‘ in the  Sunday Independent on 11 August 2013.

Time spent with Philip is a leap into the exhilarated air of a life living through rock ‘n’ roll, punk, balladry and poetry and into graciousness with which the wisdom, knowledge and humour gathered up along the way is imparted. Philip does all that to the max. – Fiachna Ó Braonáin (Hot House Flowers)

Eamon Carrr – ‘It’s about time we all saluted the living genius of Philip Chevron‘ in the  The Herald on 21 August 2013

The fact that Philip … has never been nominated as a member of official Ireland’s cultural elite is a savage and humiliating indictment of that body … Philip gallantly says the song gave him the impetus to finish Ghostown, arguably the finest Irish rock album… ever.

Ed Power – ‘Philip Chevron — a Radiator and a Pogue‘ in the Irish Examiner on 20 August 2013.

The Radiators from Space are regarded as one of the great lost bands of punk, but they had a reasonable profile during the heyday of the scene. Several of their singles were playlisted by the BBC and they were supported, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, by the UK rock press (whose approval was essential). Punk arguably had a greater impact in Ireland than anywhere else.  “If you look at what happened in the country between ’76 and ’81, the change was immense. It had a massive resonance. Hot Press magazine was founded. 2FM started up, in response to the pirate stations. And you had all these bands coming along. Punk changed a lot.”

Finally, Pete Holidai and Steve Rapid (The Radiators from Space) and Cait O’Riordan (The Pogues) spoke on RTE Radio 1 , along with contributions from Shane MacGowan, on 21 August. You can listen back here.

 

 

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Note 1: Previously we’ve looked at the city’s oldest restaurants, the first Chinese restaurants, the first Italian restaurants, the first pizzerias and the first Indian restaurants.

Ireland’s first Lebanese restaurant, The Cedar Tree, was opened at 11 St. Andrew’s Street in October 1986 by two brothers from Beirut, Abed and Ali Sarhan.

It is still in business 27 years later which is extremely impressive.

Ronit Lentin wrote in the Irish Press (24 Nov 1986) that you could get a cheap filling lunch of Falafel in pitta bread for about £1.70  in Exile restaurant in Rathmines.

In The Irish Times (29 Oct 1987), journalist Pauline Lindsay let her readers know that could buy falafel in Mubarak’s Spar shop on Camden Street.

In the same year The Phoenician Lebanese restaurant was opened at 10 Lower Camden Street but I’m not sure how long it lasted. Today, this building houses the Dublin Camera Club.

Sinners (estd. 1993) at 12 Parliament Street was reviewed favourably in the Irish Independent (13 Aug 1996) by Myles McWeeney. Owner Jerry Salam, who is half-Egypitian and half-Lebanese, explained that the main characteristics of Lebanese food was:

… not hot chili spicyness like Indian or Mexican food but a delicate blend of vegetables, herbs and spices like garlic, onions, parsley and coriander, cinnamon and black pepper.

His food, particularly the falafel and dolmas, were particularly popular with vegetarians. Sinners closed in 2009 after sixteen years in business

Ali Sarhan established the Alis Beef and Beer Bazzar on South William Street in July 1992. In the run up to the opening night Ali told Irish Press journalist Barbara McKeon (23 July 1992) that:

Lebanese food has an international appeal. And I saw there was a gap in the market between the very expensive, high-class restaurants and the burger joints so I decided this is what Dublin needs. We have good food and drink for under £10.

Since 2000, a huge number of Lebanese (and Middle-Eastern) and restaurants have sprung up including: The Silk Road Cafe (estd. 2000) at the Chester Beatty Library at Dublin Castle; Keshk Cafe (estd. c. 2008) at 71 Mespil Road; Rotana Cafe (estd. 2008) at 31 Richmond Street South;  Little Jerusalem (estd c. 2009) in Rathmines);  Damascus Gate (estd. 2012) at 10 Upper Camden Street and Beriut Express (estd. 2012) at 69 Dame Street.

In terms of kebabs and cheaper dining, Iskanders Kebab House (estd. 1996) at 29-30 Dame Street remains a firm favourite  as does Zaytoon (estd. 2001) at 14-15 Parliament Street. Sultan on George’s Street is also supposed to be quite good though I’ve never been.

More recently,  Falafel & Kebab (estd. 2012) at 11 East Essex Street in Temple Bar and Ephesus (estd. 2011) at 20 Capel Street are proving popular for budget-conscious foodies.

We hope Mark from the ‘Dublin Falafel hunt‘ blog keeps up his quest for the best falafel in the city!

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