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Tyrconnell Single Malt Whiskey Mirror

€200.00

Classic,oval shaped Tyrconnell Whiskey Mirror,depicting the racehorse Tyrconnell (Gaelic for Co Donegal) who was owned by the Distillery's founder, the very wealthy Andrew Watt. This historic brand of whiskey has now been revived by the Cooley Distillery (which is now part of Beam Suntory).The brand was previously owned by the Watt Distillery, which (according to the company) dates back to 1762. The Tyrconnell was their flagship brand, and was named after a racehorse owned by Andrew Alexander Watt. The horse was a chestnut colt that won at 100 to 1 odds in 1876 in the Irish horse race called The National Produce Stakes.The actual horse race is depicted on the label. Tír Chonaill in the Irish Language comes from Tír meaning “Land of” and Chonaill which was the name of an ancient 5th Century High King of the North West of Ireland in the 5th century who was a son of the famous Niall of the Nine Hostages. Tyrconnell was therefore the name of this ancient North West Irish Kingdom and is still to this day used as the Irish language name of Donegal in the North West of Ireland. Tír Chonaill would have encompassed the modern county of Donegal and much of her neighbouring counties of Sligo, Leitrim, Fermanagh and Tyrone. The Kingdom survived until 1601. In 1876, the Donegal – Derry based Watt family who owned one of the largest whiskey distilleries in Ireland entered a racehorse called “Tyrconnell” (after the local ancient kingdom) in the Irish Classic “National Produce Stakes” where it won against all the odds at an incredible 100 to 1. This spectacular achievement inspired the Watt whiskey distillery in Derry to celebrate the occasion with a special commemorative Tyrconnell Irish whiskey label. The Tyrconnell was, before American prohibition, one of the biggest selling whiskey brands in the United States. Pre-prohibition photos taken in Yankee Stadium in New York show Tyrconnell Irish Whiskey billboards in positions of prominence at the venue. All three of the company’s whiskey brands enjoyed great success in the export sector. Sales in England, Canada, Australia, Nigeria and the West Indies and the U.S. put Derry on the commercial map as never before. Unfortunately, with the decline of Irish Whiskey after prohibition, Watts distillery and Tyrconnell whiskey faded and died like the majority of Irish whiskey distilleries and brands of the time. When the Cooley Irish Whiskey Distillery was recommissioned by Dr. John Teeling a few years ago, Tyrconnell was one of the old iconic Irish whiskey brands that Cooley brought back to life. Cooley Distillery and the Cooley Irish Whiskey brands are now owned by the Japanese – American whiskey giant Beam Suntory. Today, Tyrconnell whiskey is available as a standard 10 Year Old Cooley Single Malt and is also available through the Tyrconnell Irish Whiskey Finishes Collection in Port Pipe, Madeira Cask and Sherry Butt finishes at 46% abv as well as a 15 Year Old Single Cask expression. Andrew Watt (4 November 1853 – 11 October 1928) was an Anglo-Irish businessman with a net worth of over £900,000 at his death in 1928, worth £51.8 million in 2016.He was born in 1853 to Samuel Watt of Thornhill and his wife Jane Newman, daughter of Captain Robert Newman, R.N.. He was educated at Foyle College and then at home by tutors. His family were gentry who had arrived at Claragh in County Donegal during one of the Ulster Plantations.He was the owner of Watt's Distillery, one of the largest distilleries in Ireland, and the creator of many whiskies including the famous Tyrconnell,which he named after his racehorse that won the National Produce Stakes against the odds of 100 to 1. During industrial unrest of 1921, brought about by prohibition in the United States and the First World War, Watt's workers at the distillery were made redundant after challenging his authority. Watt is said to have stood on a barrel outside the gates to his distillery in Bogside, whilst the workers were on strike, and shouted, 'Well men, I shall put it to you like this …what is it to be? Will you open the gates?' To which the workers retorted, 'The gates stay shut!' This prompted Watt to reply, 'Shut they are, and shut they shall remain!' Watt subsequently closed down the distillery at great economic expense. On 7 October 1895, he married Violet Flora de Burgh, daughter of George de Burgh and Constance Matthews, with whom he had 4 sons and 2 daughters.He served as High Sheriff of County Londonderry from 1886 to 1887.He was a member of Boodle's. He died at Easton Hall, where he lived in England after he left Ireland. Below is an additional and very interesting article from the Derry Historical Journal chronicling the rise and fall, like so many other Irish Whiskey distilleries, of the once all conquering Watts "Tyrconnell" brand.

When Bogside whiskey was the toast of the world

By 1887 Watts Distillery at Abbey Street was the largest in Ireland and had become a world leader in whiskey production. The massive city centre plant covered eight acres, which included Abbey Street, Fahan Street and adjoining thoroughfares.

At that time the company’s director, David Watt, installed a second Coffey still - an invention by Aeneas Coffey which revolutionised the whiskey industry - to boost output to an incredible two million gallons a year.

The firm developed three major brands, Tyrconnell, Favourite and Innishowen. In 1876, Andrew Alexander Watt entered a racehorse called “Tyrconnell” in the Irish Classic ‘National Produce Stakes’ and it won against all the odds at an incredible 100 to 1. This spectacular achievement inspired the Watt distillery to celebrate the occasion with a special commemorative Tyrconnell label. The Tyrconnell was, before prohibition, one of the biggest selling whiskey brands in the United States. Pre-prohibition photos of Yankee Stadium in New York show Tyrconnell billboards in positions of prominence at the venue. All three of the company’s brand names enjoyed great success in the export sector. Sales in England, Canada, Australia, Nigeria and the West Indies and the US put Derry on the commercial map as never before.
Water used in the distillery came from the surrounding Derry hills and was stored in reservoirs on site. The wheat and maize stores were immense. At any one time, the warehouses, ranging in size from two to four storeys in height, contained 2,000 tons of wheat and barley; 1,000 tons of maize; 1,600 tons of barley, oats and maize. Attached to these buildings were two large “Malakoff’ dry-corn kilns, capable of drying 30 tons of corn every 24 hours, while in each of the two malting houses, 16 tons of grain were malted in a steep (50 ft in length by 9 ft wide) four times a week. The Coffey stills - the revolutionary inventions designed by Aeneas Coffey - were located in a still house which was seven storeys high, the tallest building in the city apart from the Cathedral. After dilution and casking, the barrels were taken to one of the five warehouses by an overhead railway pulled by a small steam engine. An advantage by-product from the Coffey stills was fusel oil which was used to light the distillery. It had a distinctive all pervading spirituous smell that the men carried home with them in their clothes. The Abbey Street site had many distinctive features notably two massive chimneys, one 160 feet and the other 130 feet high.

Around 1820, James Robinson started distilling in the Waterside with a simple 76-gallon still. The operation was later acquired by the Meehan family who built a street in the Waterside called Meehan’s Row to accommodate the distillery workers. By the early 1830’s, the Watt family purchased the business and set out on a planned, systematic expansion of the site. Despite being successful, the Waterside operation always laboured in the shadow of the Abbey street distillery. In the 1880s, Abbey Street had the capacity to produce two million gallons of whiskey a year; the Waterside’s maximum output was 200,000 gallons. It is possible that the geographical location inhibited major expansion as the premises were situated on a steep hill and were flanked by two major thoroughfares. The decision was taken in 1902-03 by the Watt family to merge with two Belfast distilleries, the small Avoniel, owned by William Higgins and the Irish Distillery Ltd., Connswater, to form the United Distilleries Company Limited (UDC). Andrew Watt would chair the new consortium that had the capability to produce the six million gallons of grain whiskey per year. The operation would have several Coffey stills and would exert great influence within the industry becoming a major supplier of grain whiskey to blenders in both Scotland and England. Things worked perfectly at first but around 1908 and 1910, conflict arose between the UDC group and Scottish giants DCL based in Edinburgh. A series of further complicated deals between them served only to undermine confidence in both organisations. This was to be the beginning of the end for the huge Derry operation and company head, Andrew Alexander Watt closed the business after the strike of 1921. Watt himself died at his English estate in Easton Hall near Grantham in October 1928 at the age of 75. Derry Auther Ken McCormick describes the last encounter of AA Watt with his employees in a wonderful account ‘The Folly of Andrew Watt’ in his book ‘Ken McCormick’s Derry - Heroes, Villains and Ghosts’.

“A gleaming yellow Rolls Royce slowly making its way through the gloom of a cold foggy morning in the Bogside in the year 1921. The air is tense and there are huddles of men everywhere - unbelievably, the workers of Watt’s Distillery are on strike. The eight-acre site, normally humming with activity round the clock, is as silent as the grave. But in the approaching vehicle is 68 year - old Andrew Alexander Watt, and he’s intent on a showdown . . . “Andrew Watt asked to be helped up on to one of his own whiskey barrels and from there he addressed the crowd with the menacing words - ‘Well men, I shall put it to you like this . . . what is it to be? Will you open the gates?’ The workers retorted angrily- ‘The gates stay shut!’ ‘Very well!’ exclaimed Watt bluntly. ‘Shut they are, and shut they shall remain!’ “In that bleak instant the Watt’s whiskey enterprise disappeared from Derry forever. Over 300 jobs were lost, including the talents of some of Ireland’s finest whiskey blenders. Also left jobless were coopers, carpenters and a host of other tradesfolk and office staff, many of whose parents and grandparents had worked for Watts for generations.

“As for A A Watt, he left the city never to return. In doing so he turned his back on what would be a multi-million pound business in today’s world. Looking back, the outcome can only be viewed as a total disaster.” It ranks as one of the bleakest days in Derry’s industrial history and marked the end the city’s reputation as a world leader in whiskey production. Mr McCormick adds: “The loss was staggering.” The tensions created by the War of Independents and the Civil War and the introduction of new laws demanding that grain whiskey be laid down for three years before it could be sold may have had a bearing on Watt’s decision to shut up shop, although many agree that it was his expansionist tendency’s which were as Mr McCormick put it “his folly”. “Quite simply he bit off more than he could chew and left his whole operation vulnerable to a take-over,” he adds. Meanwhile some people maintained that a fire - in which several employees died - at the Abbey St distillery in 1915 was the beginning of the end for the Watts. According to Mr McCormick: “The vats had to be opened and it seems whiskey flowed along the gutters - much to the delight of the locals, it must be said, for they were able to collect bucketfuls of the precious spirit!”

Origins : Co Louth Dimensions :64x56cm 10 kg

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Phurnacite Boiler Fuel Advertising Mirror

€70.00

32cm x 24cm. Limerick Nice little advertising Phurnacite mirror . For well over sixty years, Phurnacite has retained its position as the country's first choice of smokeless fuel for roomheaters, boilers and cookers. This long time favourite is manufactured from anthracite to produce a hard compact briquette with an outstanding heat output and efficiency ideal for modern solid fuel central heating systems. Phurnacite burns slowly and consistently and can be banked to slumber throughout the day and overnight.

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Carling Black Label Mirror

€140.00

Nice Carling Black Label Mirror 50cm x 42cm Sneem Co Kerry Even though Carling originated in Canada,it’s popularity spread widely throughout the Commonwealth including Ireland .A famous advertising campaign “I bet he drinks Carling” contributed hugely to the brands market share . Carling Black Label is a Canadian brand of lagerdistributed by Carling Brewing Company. In several countries, it is also known as Carling Black Label, and in Sweden, it is known as Carling Premier. In the United Kingdom it is now known as just Carling.
History
Although its original focus was on ale, Carling has been brewing lager-style beers since the 1870s. In 1927, as part of an overall corporate re-branding effort under new president J. Innes Carling, the company renamed its already popular Black & White Lager to Black Label. Three years later, Carling was purchased by Toronto business tycoon E. P. Taylor, who merged the company into his Canadian Breweries Limited (CBL), which grew to be the world's largest brewing company, at least for a time. Under Taylor, Black Label was promoted as CBL's flagship brand and went on to become the world's first beer to be brewed on a mass international scale,becoming particularly popular in Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Canada
In response to a shift in popular taste away from ale, Carling added a three-storey lager plant to their main London, Ontario, brewery in 1877. Carling's Lager (later renamed Carling's Bavarian Stock Lager, and then Carling's Imperial Club Lager) was the company's first lager brand. Carling's Black & White Lager was introduced in the 1920s and later renamed Black Label Lager, in contrast to their recently launched Red Cap Ale. Due to its strength and price, the brand quickly became popular with the country's working class, perhaps most famously among the loggers and miners of Northern Ontario, where the brand gained a tough, blue-collar image. Around 1990, Black Label had an advertising campaign in Canada, which used the phrase "The Legend is Black."
United States

Brewing Corporation of America of Cleveland, Ohio in 1965. Home of Carling Black Label lager and Carling Red Cap Ale and former site the Peerless Motor Car Company

After the repeal of prohibition in 1933, the Peerless Motor Car Company, looking for a way to diversify in the poor car market of the depression, purchased the American rights to Carling's formulas, identifying labels, and trademarks. Technicians and brewmasters were sent from Canada to convert a Peerless plant in Cleveland, Ohio, into the Brewing Corporation of America. They first tried just brewing Carling's Red Cap Ale, but sales were too slow to maintain the brewery, and sales didn't climb until the introduction of Black Label lager. The philosophy behind Black Label was to have a high quality lager that was available nationwide but with a locally brewed budget price. The strategy worked, and the next several decades led to rapid growth and expansion for the brewery and the Carling Black Label brand. When Carling stopped producing Black Label to focus on a more profitable lager, they found their sales plummeting. Carling re-introduced Black Label with a beautiful blonde named Mabel, portrayed by Jeanne Goodspeed, with the slogan "Hey Mabel, Black Label!". The twenty-year marketing campaign cemented the name in the popular culture of America. In 1979, after several years of intense pressure from the larger American Brewers Miller and Anheuser-Busch, Carling-National was bought out by the Heileman Brewing Co. of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Carling and the Black Label brand are currently owned by the Molson Coors Brewing Company. Though no longer widely distributed in the U.S., Black Label remains the official beer of Beer Frisbee.
United Kingdom
Black Label was introduced to the United Kingdom in 1952. Originally, it was only available in bottles, but in 1965, The Hill Top in Sheffield became the first pub to pour Carling Black Label draughts.

A pint of Carling in a pub in Kettering, England

Carling Black Label sign on a club in Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

In the 1970s and 80s, Carling Black Label sales were driven to great heights, due partly to increased advertising support, in particular the classic "I bet he drinks" series of advertisements, and partly with the launch of Carling Black Label in cans. Cans were important to Carling's success as they helped open up the "take home" market.^[3] The "I bet he drinks" series of ads showed someone doing something cool, clever or difficult, and having a bystander say "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label". With the help of this advertising campaign, it became Britain's best-selling brand of beer in 1971. In the 1980s, many of the adverts featured comedians Mark Arden and Stephen Frost, also known as The Oblivion Boys, delivering the classic punchline. One of the advertisements in the series, Dambusters from 1989, was a parody of the 1955 film of the same name, and was ranked at number 12 on ITV's list of the "Best Ever Ads" in 2005, and at number 17 on Channel 4's list of the "100 Greatest TV Ads" in 2000.Campaign Live also ranked it at number 5 in their list of the "Top 10 Funniest TV Ads of All Time" in 2008. Carling has remained Britain's best selling beer since 1985. 'Black Label' has been dropped from the brand name and logo in Britain since 1997.
South Africa
In South Africa, Black Label began to take on a different tone with the anti-apartheid movement. This was partly due to the fact that, at 5.5%, it had more alcohol than the other brands of beer that generally had 5.0%, as noted in the popular advertising catch phrase "only hard working students deserve an extra 0.5 percent."

SABMiller variants of Black Label

Furthermore, the connotation of black to the racial issue became a point of pride to the native Africans. It used to be sold with the motto, "America's Lusty, Lively Beer", perhaps in reference to Canada, though it is seldom seen in the United States. The motto came from an older advertising campaign in the United States. Another famous Afrikaans slogan for Black Label in South Africa is, "Black Label sê die bybel", which means "The Bible says (one should drink) Black Label."

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Classic Tullamore Dew Whiskey Mirror

€200.00

A very attractive mirror depicting the famous Tullamore Dew Irish Wolfhounds and the slogan “Give every man his Dew”. 55cm x 40cm. Tullamore Co Offaly Tullamore D.E.W. is a brand of Irish whiskey produced by William Grant & Sons. It is the second largest selling brand of Irish whiskey globally, with sales of over 950,000 cases per annum as of 2015.The whiskey was originally produced in the Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland, at the old Tullamore Distillery which was established in 1829. Its name is derived from the initials of Daniel E. Williams (D.E.W.), a general manager and later owner of the original distillery. In 1954, the original distillery closed down, and with stocks of whiskey running low, the brand was sold to John Powers & Son, another Irish distiller in the 1960s, with production transferred to the Midleton Distillery, County Cork in the 1970s following a merger of three major Irish distillers.In 2010, the brand was purchased by William Grant & Sons, who constructed a new distillery on the outskirts of Tullamore. The new distillery opened in 2014, bringing production of the whiskey back to the town after a break of sixty years.

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Beautiful Irish Mist – The Worlds Most Luxurious Liqueur- Pub Mirror

€180.00

Lovely Irish Mist Pub Mirror-the Worlds Most Luxurious Liqueur Pub Mirror . Edenderry Co Offaly. 60cm x 50cm Irish Mist is a brown Whiskey Liqueur produced in Dublin, Ireland, by the Irish Mist Liqueur Company Ltd. In September 2010 it was announced that the brand was being bought by Gruppo Campari from William Grant, only a few months after Grants had bought it from the C&C Group. It is made from aged Irish whiskey, heather and clover honey, aromatic herbs, and other spirits, blended to an ancient recipe claimed to be 1,000 years old.Though it was once 80 US proof (40% alcohol per volume), Irish Mist is now 35% or 70 US proof. The bottle shape has also been changed from a “decanter” style to a more traditional whiskey bottle shape. It is currently available in more than 40 countries.
Irish Mist was the first liqueur to be produced in Ireland when commercial production began in 1947 at Tullamore, County Offaly. Tullamore is the hometown of the Williams family who were the original owners of Irish Mist. The company history goes back to 1829 when the Tullamore Distillery was founded to produce Irish whiskey. In the mid-1940s Desmond E. Williams began the search for an alternative yet related product, eventually deciding to produce a liqueur based on the ancient beverage known as heather wine.In 1985 the Cantrell & Cochrane Group purchased the Irish Mist Liqueur Company from the Williams family. In the summer of 2010 Irish Mist and the entire spirit division of C&C was bought by William Grant of Scotland. In September 2010 they in turn sold Irish Mist to Gruppo Campari.Irish Mist is typically served straight up or on ice, but also goes with coffee, vodka, or cranberry juice. Per the makers, Irish Mist’s most popular recipe is Irish Mist with Cola and Lime. A Rusty Mist is an ounce of Irish Mist with an ounce of Drambuie Scotch whisky liqueur.A Black Nail is made from equal parts Irish Mist and Irish whiskey.

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Paddy Old Irish Whiskey Mirror

€450.00

Classic oval shaped heavy type Paddy Old Irish Whiskey Mirror with wooden support backing. 56cm x 42cm. Youghal Co Cork

Introduced 1879, renamed as Paddy in 1912

Paddy is a brand of blended Irish whiskey produced by Irish Distillers, at the Midleton distillery in County Cork, on behalf of Sazerac, a privately held American company. Irish distillers owned the brand until its sale to Sazerac in 2016. As of 2016, Paddy is the fourth largest selling Irish whiskey in the WorldHistory The Cork Distilleries Company was founded in 1867 to merge four existing distilleries in Cork city (the North Mall, the Green, Watercourse Road, and Daly's) under the control of one group.A fifth distillery, the Midleton distillery, joined the group soon after in 1868. In 1882, the company hired a young Corkman called Paddy Flaherty as a salesman. Flaherty travelled the pubs of Cork marketing the company's unwieldy named "Cork Distilleries Company Old Irish Whiskey".His sales techniques (which including free rounds of drinks for customers) were so good, that when publicans ran low on stock they would write the distillery to reorder cases of "Paddy Flaherty's whiskey". In 1912, with his name having become synonymous with the whiskey, the distillery officially renamed the whiskey Paddy Irish Whiskey in his honour. In 1920s and 1930s in Ireland, whiskey was sold in casks from the distillery to wholesalers, who would in turn sell it on to publicans.To prevent fluctuations in quality due to middlemen diluting their casks, Cork Distilleries Company decided to bottle their own whiskey known as Paddy, becoming one of the first to do so. In 1988, following an unsolicited takeover offer by Grand Metropolitan, Irish Distillers approached Pernod Ricard and subsequently became a subsidiary of the French drinks conglomerate, following a friendly takeover bid. In 2016, Pernod Ricard sold the Paddy brand to Sazerac, a privately held American firm for an undisclosed fee. Pernod Ricard stated that the sale was in order "simplify" their portfolio, and allow for more targeted investment in their other Irish whiskey brands, such as Jameson and Powers. At the time of the sale, Paddy was the fourth largest selling Irish whiskey brand in the world, with sales of 200,000 9-litre cases per annum, across 28 countries worldwide. Paddy whiskey is distilled three times and matured in oak casks for up to seven years.Compared with other Irish whiskeys, Paddy has a comparatively low pot still content and a high malt content in its blend. Jim Murray, author of the Whiskey bible, has rated Paddy as "one of the softest of all Ireland's whiskeys".

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Classic Cork Dry Gin Mirror

€140.00

This small but distinctive mirror advertises Ireland’s original gin manufacturer. Thanks to Gins recent renaissance, Corks very own variety has been joined by a number of new gin distilleries in most notably Dingle etc, 35cm x 25cm. Cork
Gin has moved on from it’s “mother’s ruin” image to become the drink of choice for the younger set.

Gin has a very mixed history. Traditionally the G&T has been the favoured tipple of middle-class Ireland, consumed in golf and yacht clubs throughout the country. More recently it has become very fashionable with a younger age-group as the base for exotic cocktails dreamed up by mixologists in trendy bars and night clubs. But historically it has a more dubious reputation, once known as “Mother’s Ruin”.

The man credited with inventing gin is 17th-century Dutch physician Franciscus Sylvius, although flavoured spirits had been used by monks as medical treatments for centuries before. Gin became popular first with Dutch soldiers, and then English mercenaries, seeking reassurance before battle, hence the phrase Dutch courage. It was brought back to England, but only really became popular under the reign of William of Orange. At that time, the British parliament passed laws permitting anyone to distil gin, at the same time increasing duties on French brandy. Gin rapidly became the binge drink of its day, with the infamous gin palaces of London serving the spirit, often in very crude form and at very cheap prices. It is estimated that there may have been 15,000 such establishments in London alone, famously celebrated in Hogarth’s engravings.
Cork Dry Gin is an Irish gin. First produced in Cork in the Watercourse Distillery circa 1793. Since 1975, Cork Dry Gin has been manufactured by Irish Distillers, a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard, at their Midleton Distillery. Cork Dry Gin is the largest selling gin brand in Ireland. Until recently, bottles of Cork Dry Gin still featured the name of the Cork Distilleries Company, which had purchased the Watercourse Distillery in 1867 and owned it until its subsequent merger with two other Irish distilleries to form Irish Distillers in 1966.

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‘Train, Bus, Dinghy to Limerick’- Newspaper Bog Cuttings

€90.00

There’s almost a John Hughes film starting Steve Martin & John Candy to be made about this particularly protracted journey from to Limerick ! Another in our series of humorous excerpts from Irish provincial newspapers or colloquially known as 'bog cuttings' in Phoenix Magazine. Origins :Limerick. Dimensions : 30cm x 30cm

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Humorous How to speak Irish Print

€70.00

A humorous little quick Irish Phrase learning tool! Say it fast now - Whale Oil Beef Hooked ! 31cm x 43cm

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The Legendary Stags Head Pub Dublin

€80.00

An attractive drawing of the legendary Stags Head Public House in Dublin."With the Aberdeen granite counter and an overpowering mounted stag's head behind the bar,this is a favourite lunch-time haunt, with copious portions of 'plain ,honest to god food'.A fascinating exterior, with the opposite corner occupied by 'The Stag's Tail",well slanged by another name. 40cm x 30cm Dame St Dublin The Stag's Head is a pub on the corner of Dame Court and Dame Lane in Dublin, Ireland.Records of a pub on the site of the Stag's Head date to 1770 (original construction by a Mr. Tyson) and 1895 (extensive rebuilding).The pub is known for the preservation of its Victorian interior and the restored advertising mosaic on the footpath on Dame Street, some distance from the pub's doors.The name "Tyson", and Mr. Tyson's initials, decorate the old clock and the wrought-iron of the exterior. Mr. Tyson is also believed to have contributed to the construction of a permanent pavement over Dame Lane. There is a stuffed fox on the ground floor snug of the Stag's Head, while a large stag's head decorates the main bar. The pub has appeared in many films, notably A Man of No Importance, starring Albert Finney and Educating Rita starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters. Filming for Penny Dreadful also took place both inside and outside the pub in February 2014. The establishment was sold in 2005 for €5.8M and bought by the Louis Fitzgerald Group. A number of changes have made to the pub since the sale, most notably the introduction of a television set to the bar area.

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Humorous Brendan Behan Sketch

€70.00

Humorous sketch of the enigmatic genius Brendan Began with typical irreverent quote attached. 37.5cm x 25.5cm Dublin BRENDAN BEHAN 1923-1964 PLAYWRIGHT AND AUTHOR Behan was born in Dublin on 9 February 1923. His father was a house painter who had been imprisoned as a republican towards the end of the Civil War, and from an early age Behan was steeped in Irish history and patriotic ballads; however, there was also a strong literary and cultural atmosphere in his home. At fourteen Behan was apprenticed to his father's trade. He was already a member of Fianna Éireann, the youth organisation of the Irish Republican Army, and a contributor to The United Irishman. When the IRA launched a bombing campaign in England in 1939, Behan was trained in explosives, but was arrested the day he landed in Liverpool. In February 1940 he was sentenced to three years' Borstal detention. He spent two years in a Borstal in Suffolk, making good use of its excellent library. In 1942, back in Dublin, Behan fired at a detective during an IRA parade and was sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude. Again he broadened his education, becoming a fluent Irish speaker. During his first months in Mountjoy prison, Sean O Faolain published Behan's description of his Borstal experiences in The Bell. Behan was released in 1946 as part of a general amnesty and returned to painting. He would serve other prison terms, either for republican activity or as a result of his drinking, but none of such length. For some years Behan concentrated on writing verse in Irish. He lived in Paris for a time before returning in 1950 to Dublin, where he cultivated his reputation as one of the more rambunctious figures in the city's literary circles. In 1954 Behan's play The Quare Fellow was well received in the tiny Pike Theatre. However, it was the 1956 production at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Royal in Stratford, East London, that brought Behan a wider reputation - significantly assisted by a drunken interview on BBC television. Thereafter, Behan was never free from media attention, and he in turn was usually ready to play the drunken Irlshman. The 'quare fellow', never seen on stage, is a condemned man in prison. His imminent execution touches the lives of the other prisoners, the warders and the hangman, and the play is in part a protest against capital punishment. More important, though, its blend of tragedy and comedy underlines the survival of the prisoners' humanity in their inhumane environment. How much the broader London version owed to Joan Littlewood is a matter of debate. Comparing him with another alcoholic writer, Dylan Thomas, a friend said that 'Dylan wrote Under Milkwood and Brendan wrote under Littlewood'. Behan's second play, An Giall (1958), was commissioned by Gael Linn, the Irish-language organisation. Behan translated the play into English and it was Joan Littlewood's production of The Hostage (1958) which led to success in London and New York. As before Behan's tragi-comedy deals with a closed world, in this case a Dublin brothel where the IRA imprison an English soldier, but Littlewood diluted the naturalism of the Irish version with interludes of music-hall singing and dancing. Behan's autobiographical Borstal Boy also appeared in 1958, and its early chapters on prison life are among his best work. By then, however, he was a victim of his own celebrity, and alcoholism and diabetes were taking their toll. His English publishers suggested that, instead of the writing he now found difficult, he dictate to a tape recorder. The first outcome was Brendan Behan's Island (1962), a readable collection of anecdotes and opinions in which it was apparent that Behan had moved away from the republican extremism of his youth. Tape-recording also produced Brendan Behan's New York(1964) and Confessions of an Irish Rebel (1965), a disappointing sequel to Borstal Boy. A collection of newspaper columns from the l950s, published as Hold Your Hour and Have Another (1963), merely underlined the inferiority of his later work. When Behan died in Dublin on 20 March 1964, an IRA guard of honour escorted his coffin. One newspaper described it as the biggest funeral since those of Michael Collins and Charles Stewart Parnell.

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The legendary J. O’Connells of 29 St Richmond St Dublin-Vintage photograph

€120.00

Beautiful framed print of the esteemed J.O' Connell’s Pub.29 South Richmond Street,one of the great Dublin watering holes. 48cm x 68cm Dublin "O’Connell’s, from what we can tell, is an old boozer. Our limited research skills haven’t managed to date it, but a record in ‘Thom’s Almanac and Official Directory for the Year 1862’ lists a Mr Walter Furlong – a grocer and spirit dealer, as it’s occupant. A further record from an electoral register dated between 1908 and 1915 describes the building as being a ‘Licensed House’. What’s nice though about this pub, though, is the fact that none of that is rammed down your throat. Nowadays we live in such a marketing-centric time, and it’s of particular annoyance to us when a pub which is barely opened a wet day bombards its patrons and potential patrons with a PR-spun, contrived ‘back-story’, which takes more than enough of its fair share of artistic license when deciding on how liberal to be with the truth. In J O’Connell’s this is no concern. What you do get here is an authentic Dublin boozer. The colour scheme is one that I can’t come to describe without mention of the word – festive. Glossy reds and greens cast a warming glow on the pub which is of a medium size overall. High seating is available at the bar only and a traditional combination of pub couches and low stools make up the rest. The walls display a good mix of the usual fare – horses, GAA, local history and some nice portraits of Brendan Behan & Co. Mix nicely along with the whiskey and beer trinkets about the place. Pintman Nº2 was taken with the arrangement of the shelving behind the bar and I noticed the barrel end of a few casks which sat into the bar, as they would have in the era before mainstream bottling. I wondered if they were an original feature at the time, I’m less uncertain now having discovered the age of the place. The vibe when we visited was quite a chilled one – a mix of young and old locals sat ensconced into various corners engrossed in quiet conversation. The radio was kept low enough and was playing Billie Holiday, or Billy Holiday-esque sort of tunes – we all agreed it an unusual set of tunes in the context of Dublin pubs en-masse, but too agreed that they suited the mood perfectly. The staff were excellent, the barman was on the ball with service and barely allowed us to leave our seats to obtain a jar. The pint was a bargain at €4.80 and was as satisfying on the palate as it was on the pocket. J O’Connell’s is one of the true undiscovered gems in Dublin’s landscape of pubs. And yes, the Panama Canal may be more impressive than The Grand, and there’s little doubt that the weather in the Carribean is nicer than ours. But who wants to be drinking rum in a wicker hut with sand down your trousers when you could instead be cuddled into a couch with a pint of plain in Portobello. I know which one I fancy more."

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