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Posts Tagged ‘Glasnevin’

A Random Drop Inn: Porterhouse North

Posted in Pub Crawls, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2010| 2 Comments »

This graveyard hides a million secrets.
And the trees know more than they can tell.
The ghosts of the saints and scholars will haunt you
In Heaven and in Hell.

We’re fresh out of the brand new Museum at Glasnevin Cemetery, and much has been learned. It’s great, if you’re wondering.

The history of Glasnevin Cemetery is well known. It is, in popular Irish history, associated with many legends and great figures. Yet there is more to the place than that, there is also the history of ordinary people and communities. In fact, for all the talk of ‘The Liberator’, liberation struggles and more besides, it is perhaps the audio interviews with gravediggers who worked at the cemetery that was most captivating. Suitably enough, the interview was conducted over a pint in the Gravediggers pub next door.

I’d only done the excellent walking tour of the graveyard recently, and not having seen my mate in a while we decided a pint was in order. The timeless, tellyless (Publicans, take note) Gravediggers on the edge of the cemetery is one of my favourite boozers in Dublin, but you can’t ‘Randomly Drop Inn’ twice, now can you?

So, where to?

We settle for The Porterhouse. This decision is largely based on the reputation of their Chocolate Stout.

“No Chocolate Stout lads, not doing that anymore”

Hmm, bad start. I opt for the Plain (a pint of Plain, clever that) stout, and the mate goes for Oyster stout. Food is ordered, seats are taken, and we have a look around. The premises is large and spacious, the music not too loud (bit of Smokey Robinson going on…), and the food arrives quick. No food for me, but the reports were good. I’ve heard great things about the Irish Stew, but who am I to spend money when there’s dinner at home. Students, we’re like that.

The pint of Plain? Not quite your only man, but still a damn good light stout and I’m content. I’ve tried the Oyster stout before too and while it takes some getting used to, it’s a grower. As they’re quick and proud to tell you, these are award winners, and unlike in some Dublin pubs with the more famous stout on offer, you can rest assured each pint will be right here.

The smoking area is sizeable, but I’m not one to stand around smoking areas. It’s large, it’s covered and it’s heated. Three boxes ticked if you’re that way inclined. The staff are friendly and talkative, and seem to be engaged with what sound like regulars. My friend picks up on the menu in front of us, which boasts that “Our beer kills fascists”. Not entirely sure what they’re getting at there, but why the hell not.

The place is quiet enough, though it is 4.30 on a Wednesday. A few large screens around the place and the variety of both booze and grub makes me think this wouldn’t be a bad spot to catch a bit of the World Cup.

The Porterhouse, for what it does, isn’t too pricey. It’s worth a venture to any of the Dublin pubs to try something new, but be warned that the two city centre pubs are tourist hubs at the minute. A worthwhile visit, with a ‘we’ll only be 10 minutes’ trip turning into an hour out of nowhere.

On our way out, we pass a Christmas tree of beer bottles.

Bit late for that, or are they just early?

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A Random Drop Inn:John Kavanagh’s (Gravediggers), Glasnevin.

Posted in Dublin History, Pub Crawls, tagged , , , , , on May 23, 2010| 1 Comment »

As much as I love this pub, I must love reading reviews of this pub even more.

It’s amazing how much people, especially younger people, can seem taken aback by the place.

The Porterhouse she ain’t. The taps when you walk in are a no nonsense affair. Not quite Henry Ford and the famous “..any colour you want as long as it’s black” comment, but not a million miles off. Let’s be honest, for ninety percent of the punters here at any given time, it’s black.

Yet , there is quite a bit more to a pub like this than the pints. Colm Tóibín was on the money when he stated that, when it came to Dublin pubs, “There are four or five that have survived the ravages of new money”

When a pub remains in the hands of one family for so long, as this one has, tradition becomes so firmly implanted in the place you’d need to knock it down and build some dire three floor disco-pub to undo it at this stage.

Glasnevin Cemetery is the rowdy next door neighbour to the quiet, content Kavanagh’s.

In any other community, the cemetery and pub might be the other way around. Still, only a stones-throw (literally) from the front door of this pub, you have the burial place of over one million individuals. Frank Ryan and Eoin O’ Duffy, Jim Larkin and William Martin Murphy, Cathal Brugha and Kevin O’ Higgins- all together. Not to mention a Big Fella and a Long Fellow.

1891, Parnell is laid to rest in Glasnevin.

Only recently on the fantastic Glasnevin Cemetery Tour did I fully stop and appreciate the surreal nature of the manner in which old and bitter Irish conflicts are at rest there. A pub can not grow up on the edge of such an amazing place and not be shaped by it.

Stories, legends or otherwise, have spread. The best is surely that of the Cemetery staff in years long past arriving to find a number of coffins sitting outside the pub, as opposed to inside the gates. I don’t doubt such tales for a second. A pub on the edge of a graveyard is, to me, akin to a fireworks factory beside an incinerator.

So, the place naturally has character in excess. If this was in the city centre, you wouldn’t be able to see for all the flashing photographty you’d no doubt have to put up with from tourists. Swinging doors, a true staple of a sort of Irish pub long gone, make you long for something you never knew in reality and could only read about. The pub is authentically old. There are publicans all over the island battering tables with objects to make them look old (Well, not literally…I hope) to create some sort of old ‘Oirish’ pub experience. You can’t create it but, especially not when you’ve put 5 widescreen televisions into your pub and half your customers are only there to watch Manchester United.

There isn’t a telly in sight here. Nor can you hear a Lady Gaga song, or any song for that matter. It’s a reflection on the punters and regulars that the sound of chat and laughter is enough to carry the day in a pub like this. Some pubs probably need the television sets to be honest. I’ve been in pubs where silence would be the only thing worse than the music selection on offer.

While O’Donoghues and a few other gems have sadly succumbed to the suits and faster pace of a new Dublin, a new faster paced Dublin has to slow down when it enters Kavanagh’s. Let us hope a few more generations will rise to the challenge of running the place. It’s in good hands.

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Glasnevin Cemetery; Who isn’t buried there?

Posted in Dublin History, Miscellaneous, Reviews, Social History, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2010| 14 Comments »

Memorial to Irish Hunger Strikers

I’ve been up around Glasnevin before in a vain attempt to find Brendan Behan’s grave; I don’t know what possessed me, it was a beautiful day, I’d just finished reading The Hostage and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, I failed in the attempt, but promised myself I’d come back some day and have another look. So, given the oppurtunity this weekend, the three CHTM heads, accompanied by LukeF (of LukeF Comics,) took a walk to Irelands largest necropolis where we hooked up with the official tour- led by Shane MacThomáis, son of  the great Dublin historian Eamonn MacThomáis, a man who I personally have a lot of time for, and I’m sure the other two lads here are the same. Some of his documentaries can be found here.

A modest grave for a big character; Jim Larkin

The cemetary is home to the graves of approximately 1.2 million people; A far cry from the nine acres it started out with in 1832,the area now stands at over 120 acres on one side of the road and a further 40 acres on the other, where the body of Luke Kelly now rests. It came into being initially due to reforms pushed through by Daniel O’Connell, whose tomb sits at the entrance to the cemetary. Prior to it’s existence, death was an expensive thing to endure, there being no Catholic burial grounds in Dublin and it costing a small fortune to bury a Catholic in a Protestant one. O’Connells tomb is of course marked by a 170ft tall round tower, which tends to stand out a wee bit! The tomb was the target of a loyalist bomb attack in the seventies, which shook the tomb itself, and blew up the stairs encircling the inside of the tower, closing it to the public. The Cemetary is surrounded on all sides by high stone walls, with towers on each corner. Not there to keep the dead in, they were built to keep grave robbers out. Grave robbing was a lucrative business in the 19th Century, corpses fetching £2, quite a sum in those days. Guards manned the towers from dusk to dawn, armed with muskets and pistols.

Plaque Commemorating the Cemetary Watchmen

JayCarax said it on the way up here and he was right: It isn’t a case of who is buried here, it’s easier to say who isn’t. For within a stones throw of the gate, you have Daniel O’Connell, as mentioned above, Eamonn DeValera, Michael Collins, Michael Malone, Maud Gonne, Jim Larkin, Roger Casement, Cathal Brugha, The O’Raghallaigh and Frank Ryan, amongst any number of important historical figures. The virtual map on the Glasnevin Trust site gives you a better of who is buried, and where, and is definitely worth having a look at.

One of the more interesting gravestones; The Indian Mutineers

Whilst amongst the masses of graves friends and comrades lay side by side, mortal enemies are often not within spitting distance of each other either. For while Big Jim Larkin turns to dust beneath the Glasnevin soil, likewise does William Martin Murphy whose palatial tomb is within sight of the modest grave Jim and his family are buried in. While Frank Ryan is buried within sight of the gate, Eoin O’Duffy is also. Glasnevin is, and has always been, a multi-denominational cemetary. Buried and cremated here are Catholic and Protestant, Sikhs and Jews. Rich and poor also, the cemetary is home to the Millenium Plot (what would have formerly been known as a “paupers plot.”) This is looked after by the charity “Alone” who maintain the plot and make sure people buried there are buried with dignity, giving them a full funeral, headstone and flowers. Fair play due there. In one of the older paupers plots, up to 25,000 bodies are buried in a relatively tiny area, not far from Parnell’s grave. Many of the dead were victims of a cholera outbreak in the late 19th century. A couple of years after their burial, fresh outbreaks of Cholera were reported in the Drumcondra / Ballybough area. For not far beneath the soil where their bodies lay is a maze of underground streams, all emtying into the Tolka River- the disease had assimilated into the soil and on into the water, making its way back into circulation. Nasty times.

Above is a stone that caught my attention the first time I visited, and again on our visit on Monday, a memorial to the Indian Mutineers of 1920. Theres is an interesting story. Upon hearing of the uprising in their homeland, hundreds of Irish Soldiers fighting in the British army in India turned their guns on their generals. Though close to 400 men took part, the mutiny was quickly  suppressed and eighty-eight of those men were court martialled. Fourteen were sentenced to death and the rest given up to 15 years in jails in Dagshai and Solan. Two died in the mutiny, Pte Sears and Pte Smyth. Thirteen of the men sentenced to die had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, though one man, James Daly was shot dead by firing squad. He was considered the leader of the mutiny at just 21 years old.

Frank Ryan & next to him, the great Eamonn Mac Thomais

The tour eventually took us to the grave of Brendan Behan in the end, and my search was over. Not far from him lies the burial place of Francis Sheehy- Skeffington, brutally murdered by an Anglo-Irish officer of the 3rd battalion Royal Irish Rifles, Captain J.C. Bowen-Colthurst. Another sad story, one of 1.2 million sad stories you might say. You get the sense when walking around here that each grave has a history attached, each person buried here has had trials and tribulations of their own. And while visitors come here to see the burial sites of the famous and influential, there are others here whose personal struggles surely matched the struggles of those marked on their maps.

The new Glasnevin Visitors Centre opens this Friday. There are daily tours of the cemetary, led by Shane MacThomáis, costing €5. A bargain, tours last approx. 2 hours. Without donations and support, Glasnevin would be forced to close its gates as a national monument. Be sure to visit and support it however you can. Check out http://www.glasnevintrust.ie for more details.

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