Aherne's of Old Bawn- A History

Aherne’s of Old Bawn- A History since 1875

Aherne’s …The Shamrock Inn, The Elm Inn, Dowling’s “Greyhound Bar”, The Tap, Porter’s, Healy’s...

What is now well known as Aherne’s of Old Bawn, may have started life as a gate-house to the Old Bawn Papermills, once situated just in front of what is now the site of Tymon Bawn Community Centre.  There has been a licensed premises here since at least 1875 and a substantial structure since the early 1800s.  Throughout the early part of the 1800s several hundred men worked in the mills along this stretch of the Dodder- in McDonnell’s Mill (Old Bawn) Haerlem Mill (Mill-brook Lawns) and Boardman’s Mill in Bolbrook (or Boldbrook). By the late 1800s many of the mills were in decline and McDonnell’s Mill had closed entirely.

HEALY & PORTER

In 1875, having recently returned from England, Patrick Healy of Old Bawn, applied to have his licence extended to a 7 day licence and to sell spirits, as well as beer.  The application was refused on the grounds that the district didn’t need a 7 day licence. Patrick Healy owned and ran the establishment for 30 years from the mid 1870s. In 1891 Healy was fined 5s and 1s costs, at Tallaght Petty Sessions, for using an ‘unjust beam and scales with three light weights”.  In Tallaght Petty Sessions, he was in good company that day. At least five other merchants and grocers were charged with similar offences.  Laurence Cullen of Corballis was fined 1s for using an unstamped measure in his shop.  William Farrell of Redcow was fined 5s and costs for “having in use 5 unjust weights, all considerably light”, and James McGuinness of Fox and Geese was fined for using unbalanced beam and scales and three light weights.  There were three nails stuck under his scales, “in the interest of the vendor”. He was fined 20s.  It was not an unusual practice.  John Delvin of Bluebell was fined similarly.  He was using six light weights, and a beam six drachms light (One Drachm was 1/8th of an ounce).  Underneath his scales was found a piece of fat bacon stuck on “with a bit of butter”. All in all, Patrick Healy’s offence was at the lower end of the scale, as it were.

In 1901 Mary Ellen Healy, Patrick’s daughter, was a single, 32 year old barmaid working in her father’s pub in Old Bawn.  By 1911 she was a 43 year old widowed mother of a 5 year old son, and publican- Mrs. Mary E. Porter.  Mary Ellen’s father Patrick died in 1904 and in 1905 Healy’s of Old Bawn was put up for sale with four acres of adjoining land.

The premises appears to have been acquired by Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co., although the land on which the pub was situated was held by Sir Lionel McMahon, an absentee landlord, resident in his family pile, Mountfield Lodge in Omagh. The rate payable on the land was £19 and 4s per year. (The McMahon Baronetcy of Dublin, was created in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom on the 6th May 1815 for William MacMahon who was Master of the Rolls in Ireland.  The title became extinct on the death of the fourth Baronet (Sir Lionel) in 1926).  The premises, including the land, would return to the market in 1926 on the death of Sir Lionel McMahon. 

In November 1905 the licence attached to “Healy’s” was temporarily granted to Mary E. Porter, Patrick’s daughter.  In 1906 when Mary Ellen applied for a full transfer of the licence, The Society for the Prevention of Intemperance objected, on the basis that the premises was a ‘tied’ house- a system which the Society wished to see an end of. What now became known as "Porters" was a ‘tied’ house (It was ‘tied’ to a particular brewery)- and as such stocked principally Watkins' Stout, brewed by the recently amalgamated firm of Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co., of Ardee Street in Dublin, better known then as “Watkins Brewery”.    It would remain a tied house up to the late 1930s when Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co. went into voluntary liquidation.

“Porters” sold only Watkins Stout and “O’ Connell’s Ale”, a brand acquired by Watkins, when they had bought out Darcy’s Brewery some years earlier.  When Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co. acquired the pub they leased it to Mary Ellen Porter. In September 1906 the full licence was granted to Porter.

In August 1913, Porter was fined for selling beer on a Sunday, in breach of her six-day licence.  Sergeant Driscoll, visiting the premises on a Sunday afternoon, found 6 men in the sheds out the back of the shop- five of whom had tumblers in their hand which they handed in through a back window to have refilled.  On seeing the Sergeant approach someone shouted “Run!”  The six men were John Muldoon, Joseph Doyle, Edward Quinn, Robert Douglas, William Smullen and Martin Shortall.  Porter was fined £2, and the men fined 5s 6d each.  Douglas claimed to have bought three drinks, one for himself and one each for Muldoon and Quinn.  The other men denied drinking and claimed they had only called on Mrs Porter, to inquire as to the health of her brother, Michael Healy who had been unwell.

In January 1924 Porter was fined £1 at Rathfarnham District Court for serving drinks after hours (later than nine o’ clock).  Sergeant Nyhan, visiting the premises on the 12^th January 1924 found 6 men drinking in the shop after hours.  In Porters defense, it was noted that her family had been in business in Old Bawn for over 40 years and had only once, 14 years early, been before the court. (It was in fact only 11 years earlier!) The six men were each fined 2d.

Three months later, in April 1924, Porter’s was held up by three raiders, at least one of whom had a revolver.   A customer by the name of Doyle (Joseph, perhaps!) was held at gun point and relieved of 8s.  Mrs Porter shouted to her son Patrick in the kitchen “Get the gun”, at which the raiders quickly departed in the direction of Balrothery.  They were wearing trench coats and leggings.  The raiders were believed to have carried out a number of other ‘hold-ups’ in the district that week and despite an extensive man hunt, they were never caught.

It's a Stick-Up- April 1924

From the mid-1930s, with Mrs Porter now in her late 60s, the day to day running of the bar fell to her only son Patrick.  On the 9th of October 1937, Patrick Porter,  son of Mary Ellen and the late Patrick Porter Sr. died.  He was only 31 years old.  Due to a combination of factors- age, illness and grief, Mary Ellen Porter was no longer able to keep the premises open. In 1940, a transfer of the licence was sought by Mr. John Maguire-  a managing director of Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co.- the brewery to which the premises had been ‘tied’. The bar itself remained closed for a number of years. In February 1945 Mary Ellen Porter passed away after a long illness in Our Lady’s Hospice in Harold’s Cross.  Her funeral was held in the Hospice in Harold’s Cross, after which her remains were brought to Tallaght for burial, slowing passing down the Old Bawn road, passed the shuttered premises her father had bought in the 1870s.  She was 76 years old.

Death Notice of Mary Ellen Porter, nee Healy, 10th Feb 1945

THE TAP

John (Johnnie) Aloysius Maguire, had been managing director of Messrs Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co. (by now in voluntary liquidation) and had been a barrister-at-law, having been called to the bar in the Michaelmas term in 1926.  While he no doubt had the option of taking up residence in Old Bawn, he chose to remain resident in his own somewhat less humble abode- Bulloch Castle in Dalkey.  He briefly served in the Senate from 1943-44, and became editor of the Licensed Vintner and Grocer, the official organ of the trade.  He was also the author of the “Licensed Vintners and Family Grocers’ Business and Legal Guide”. Maguire was a member of the National Executive Council of the Licensed Vintners’ and Grocers’ Protection Association and a member of the Dublin City and County section of the licensed Vintners’ and Grocers’ Association.   Maguire renamed the establishment “The Tap”- a brand that had been applied to a number of public houses that had been “tied” to Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co., when Maguire had been Managing Director.  With the liquidation of Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co. by the early 1940s the pub in Old Bawn was no longer a tied house.  Maguire had little to do, operationally with the establishment, and was a more familiar sight swimming off the Point at Dalkey, than visiting The Tap in Old Bawn.

THE GREYHOUND BAR

In September 1947, 31 year old James Dowling sought a 6 day licence to sell beer at “The Tap” in Old Bawn. Dowling was a prominent member of Harold’s Cross Greyhound Racing Association, the Irish Greyhound Trainers Association, and was a regular at Shelbourne Park.  He liked the pub but didn’t like the name very much, so changed it, perhaps not surprisingly to The Greyhound Bar.

Among Dowling’s prize greyhounds was The Village Chancer, son of The Village Major. Dowling died in September 1956 at the age of 40, leaving his wife, Breda and five children, 3 daughters and two sons.  Eight weeks after his death, two of his dogs won the double at Harold’s Cross.  One of the dogs was called after his daughter- “Rita’s Gift”.

In August 1957 Breda Dowling sought a transfer of the licence to sell beer and cider in the premises.  She had never been as keen as her husband on the dogs, and promptly changed the name of the establishment back to The Tap.  The pub was put up for sale in 1959. 

Breda Dowling and her children (Rita, Vincent, Bertha, Tony and Mary) emigrated to Beauty Point, Tasmania.  Her daughter Rita, on turning 18 in 1964, was shortlisted for the title of Ms. Tasmania, in the national beauty contest. 

THE ELM INN

The Tap was acquired in 1959 by Thomas Finnegan, who renamed it The Elm Inn, before disposing of it in February 1963.  It was purchased by Stephen Quinn for £10,200 in March 1963 after the bidding had starting at £5000.  The premises, standing on four acres of land, had a rateable value of £18 per year. It had a modern bar, a spacious lounge room at the rear, with service bar.  The living accommodation consisted of two bedrooms, a kitchen and bathroom. It had a spacious car park, and bottle washing and bottle goods store and other out-offices.  In April 1963 a publican’s licence was granted to Maureen Quinn, of 66 St Brigid's Road, in Clondalkin.  In August she sought confirmation of a transfer of the licence. 

Stephen Quinn was not having one of his better years. Within 18 months, in addition to acquiring The Elm Inn he also acquired a number of separate charges for dangerous driving, speeding, and driving while under the influence. His association with The Elm Inn in Old Bawn would be brief.

THE SHAMROCK MUSIC LOUNGE

It is a curious thing that the public house that had been a “tied house” to Watkins Brewery for so many years in the first half of the 20th  century, should in 1965 come to be called “The Shamrock”, for the logo of Watkins Brewery itself had been for many years, just that-  a shamrock. In January 1965- “The Shamrock Music Lounge” in Old Bawn, Tallaght was entertained by Billy Wilson and his boys. It’s not entirely clear just how good their music was, but what is clear is that by the following year the pub has simply called “The Shamrock Inn”.  In September 1967 John Aherne’s “Shamrock Inns”, sought confirmation of a 7 day license.  John or Jack Aherne was originally from Foilduff, Newport, outside Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. His brother Bill Aherne, was owner of the well known Palace Bar on Dublin’s Fleet Street, having previously held The Strand Bar on Dorset Street. 

Ahernes and Co.

THE SHAMROCK INN

By the late 1960s discerning drinkers were no longer satisfied with the old style pub.  With the arrival and growth of television in Irish homes, pubs now had to attract the public out of their home and into the bars and the period saw an explosion of 'Cabaret' across Dublin's suburban bars and lounges.  Aherne's, competing with the nearby Burke's (not yet 'Bridget's) responded with a nightly schedule of comedy, cabaret and folk music acts.

The Sir Trio and the Roadgang ballad group, Carnival Night with Tommy Coombes and Reg on the piano, Jimmy Ryan Clubland Comedian and The Celt with the Kilt,  routinely entertained Aherne's regulars throughout 1968.  A comedian- Tommy Poland, was the house M.C., with music provided  by "Ollie on the Organ and Frank on drums".  "Jimmy and the Hylights" held the regular Wednesday night slot.

Peadar Brown, who would become one of  Aherne's longer serving barmen, outside Aherne's in the late 1960s.  Peadar passed away in 2006.

Aherne added a substantial extension onto the premises in 1971 and extended again in 1979. By 1978 the scale of housing development in Old Bawn and potential for further development, became acutely apparent, and the potential for business growth in the licensed trade to meet the growing demand was by now fully appreciated.  The distance from Tallaght Village left the exploding local population with only two convenient choices:  Aherne's or Bridget Burke's-  Unless of course a third, new super-pub could be developed in the area.   Ambitions to build a new super-pub close to Aherne's in 1978 ended up in a quagmire of scandal and ultimately in the High Court- This is a story worth remembering, over a pint in Aherne's!

While a third licensed premises would not be built, Fitzgerald would ultimately get a foothold in the neighbourhood when he acquired the premises of Bridget Burke, thirteen years later in 1991 and developed the Old Mill.  

By 1984 DHAABS, a Junior football team for local kids (from Dominics, Homelawn, Avonbeg, Avonmore, Bolbrook, Seskin View), were using Aherne's 'garages' at the back of the pub, as their clubs temporary dressing rooms, in the absence of changing facilities for the  Dodder Park pitches opposite the pub.  Little did those kids know, that 60 years earlier, the outhouses and bottling sheds that had once stood there- had served as a shebeen for thirsty Sunday drinkers, locked out by Mary Ellen Porter's six day licence.  

Ahernes has since remained a firm favourite with locals, honouring its status as a friendly neighbourhood pub part of, rather than simply in the community. 

Peadar Browns, Clanbrassil Street, Dublin- Called after Aherne's long serving barman, Peadar Brown who passed away in 2006.  It is owned by his son, Aiden Brown.

In Memory of Pat Benton

Albert Perris 

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