The Jobstown House- since it was The Red Cow- 1717

The Jobstown Inn- Since it was The Red Cow (1717)

“On a night in December in 1717 a party of O’ Byrnes pitched their quarters in an Inn called The Red Cow. The premises nestled where the coach road, by the base of Tallaght Hill, winds to Blessington.  Attacked by the military, the besieged fought for twelve hours. After wounding several soldiers, they surrendered only when powder and ball were spent”.

 (Irish Independent,10-06-1924)

This must surely be one of the earliest and most intriguing references we have, to what is now the Jobstown House, in 1717- The Red Cow. Who knew? Regrettably the Irish Independent does not tell us on what authority this is based, other than a 'Dublin broadside' or pamphlet.

There was no doubt, a lot of porter or Scáiltín spilled in the roadhouse of Jobstown between the O’ Byrnes pitching their quarters in 1717 and  “Climbing Jack” visiting for his supper in the year of the famine, 1847.  There was little sign of famine in the Jobstown Inn that night.

At 8 O' Clock on a Tuesday evening in 1847, a country lad of about nineteen years, known locally as “Climbing Jack”, came to the house of the publican in Jobstown.  He had two sheep, which, he stated, he was driving to the market in Smithfield in Dublin.  He put the sheep into an outhouse out the back and called for a large supper of rashers, eggs, bread and porter.  It was suspected that the possession of the sheep was "not what a gentleman in a long robe would term legitimate”.  The publican, suspecting something was amiss, started questioning young Jack about the origins of the sheep and his suspicions were not diminished.  Jack claimed he was driving the two sheep to market the next morning, for a Mr. Pat Rogers.  There was two problems with this explanation.  The first being that Wednesday, was not market day in Smithfield.  The second was that Pat Rogers was a well-known sheep farmer who never sent less than 100 sheep to market at a time.  The publican taking both a precaution and initiative thought it best to ‘turn the key’ on his now sleeping young shepherd, and having done so, promptly sent for the police in their barracks at Kiltalown.  In due course the police arrived, but to their chagrin and that of the publican, on unlocking and entering the bedroom, found an open window and an empty bed.  The bird had flown!

Not three hours after the police had returned to barracks, Climbing Jack returned to the Jobstown Inn, to reclaim his modest flock.  Having taken further precautions, the publican had locked the sheep in an outhouse and had set a watch- to lie in wait for the return of the wondering shepherd.  Climbing Jack was discovered pulling his favourite lamb out of a window at the back of the outhouse.  The sergeant and his assistant were again sent for, and both Jack and his sheep, were promptly taken into custody, to be secured in the barracks for the night.

The sergeant and his assistant were clearly impressed by the lad whose “organs of acquisition were fully developed” and finding some rapport with their erstwhile charge, indulged his appetite for coffee and bread- over which Jack regaled the conservers of the peace with humorous tales of daring-do.  He told them how he had removed the shoes- back and front- from a wondering horse- to sell for scrap metal, and proudly confessing to his company that he was a competent thief of great experience and high standing in that particular community.

After the entertainments of the evening, all three settled down to bunk in the barracks in Kiltalown- the prisoner- confined to secure quarters, and the sergeant and his able assistant in their own bunks at either end of the building.  Hunkering down for the night, the Sergeant left his timekeeper and a gold chain, as was his habit, on a bedside table.  On waking the next morning he found that his timekeeper, his gold chain and his prisoner had all taken their liberty, leaving the Sergeant and his hapless assistant shepherding the sheep that Climbing Jack had left in their custody.  It is unclear if they ever made it to market, or if Climbing Jack ever came back.

Clarke's of Jobstown

In January 1857 a rumour circulated around the city of Dublin that Michael Clarke, publican and grocer in Jobstown, had called a meeting of his creditors and that he was being held a prisoner in the Four Courts Marshalsea (Debtors'  prison).  The rumours were false, or at least extremely premature.  Clarke had his solicitor  put paid to the rumour by compelling the originator of the story to put a letter in the paper refuting the claim.  But there was a spark of truth behind it. For within 18 months Clarke would lose his establishment in Jobstown, at least for a time.

At one o’ clock on Saturday the 22nd May 1858, Charles Vesey Colthurst, The High Sheriff of Dublin sold the residence and shop of Michael Clarke in Jobstown. Included in the sale was all the defendants goods and Chattels’- table, chairs, prime feather beds and bedding, also some shop fixtures, barrels &c &c..  Clarke had been long enough in Jobstown by 1858, for the Bar to still be advertised as "Formerly Clarke's", 33 years later when the premises was again up for sale in the 1890s.  On that basis we might reasonably assume it was Michael Clarke who had served Climbing Jack 10 years earlier, and corralled his sheep into the outhouse. 

It is not obvious what happened next, but Clarke appears to have made a comeback in business. At the time of the Fenian uprising at Tallaght in March 1867- The pub was still, or again, known as Mr. Clarke's of Jobstown- 

“The house was crowded with persons in arms.  

Some said they would go home as the thing was sold.  

Others said they would not go home without a fight”.

In 1873 Michael Clarke, provision dealer, road contractor, publican and farmer at Jobstown died, and on the 2nd October 1874, Mary Clarke died after a short illness.   

Kelly's of Kiltalown & Cullen's of Jobstown

The establishment was acquired by Peter Kelly and became known as Kelly's of Kiltalown. As was common at the time, as a central focal point in the district, the establishment became a regular 'Standing Station', for thoroughbred sires to be brought to the district to ‘cover’ local mares.  In March 1884, forty year old Peter Kelly, a publican at Kiltalown, died of a “tedious illness”- a common enough occupational hazard for licensed grocers, more commonly referred to as liver disease.  The licence was transferred to his widow Esther the following year.  Quickly realizing that it was a demanding station for a lone and widowed lady Esther Kelly wasted little time and within twelve months of her husbands passing, married James Cullen, the son of Laurence Cullen, a publican at Corballis.

What now became known as Cullen's of Jobstown, was likely competition to (Laurence) Cullen's at Corballis.  On the 26th April 1889, "Esther Cullen, wife of James Cullen, carrying on business as a grocer and publican, separately from her husband", was declared bankrupt. The assignees of her estate had some difficulty in liquidating her assets and this caused some delay in the disposal of the Inn.  On her farm adjoining the public house stood a small cottage which was home to an elderly widow and tenant, Eliza Cleary. It was difficult to sell the property while the widow was still a tenant and ‘had a key to the gate’.  It was agreed that the assignees would pay the widow £5, on condition that she leave the cottage within one month.

“The beetle-browed thatch which often showed  like bushy eyebrows over the upper windows of houses  of entertainment was occasionally rustled”

In 1891, Cullen's (formerly Clarke's) at Jobstown- 'In consequence of a family arrangement' was auctioned.  It included a 7 day retail licensed premises, dwelling house with stabling, and a forge with 38 perches of Land.  (There had been a forge in Jobstown for over 150 years and had been worked by Christopher levy, the local blacksmith, back in 1745).  The premises contained a spacious shop, parlour, barroom, kitchen, storeroom and 5 bedrooms. The premises were in fair condition, with stabling and yards out the back. The forge was held year-to-year at a rent of £20.  The Blessington Tram stopped at the door on every journey.  

And it suited a particular shareholder in the Dublin to Blessingtown Tram Co., and neighbouring publican very well indeed- Mr. William Fox, District Councillor, of Tallaght Village. 

Sale of Cullen's of Jobstown- July 1891 

Fox's of Jobstown (1893- 1916) 

By 1911 the Jobstown House had been acquired by Mr William Fox of Tallaght village and was back open for business.  William Fox first had a licence transferred to Jobstown in 1893 but it appears the premises remained closed for a number of years at the close of the decade and indeed for the early years of the 1900s.

Fox was by then a long established publican and grocer in Tallaght and had plied his trade in the village since at least 1886.  The Jobstown Inn was being managed and run by his wife’s sister, Teresa Collins and one of his three daughters, 21 year old Angela Fox.

By 1913 Angela Fox was running the Jobstown Inn while her father remained in “The Covert” in Tallaght village.   On the 22nd June 1913 James McNulty of Bush-a-loaf, was sitting in the Jobstown Inn enjoying too many pints.  He ordered another drink and Angela Fox politely suggested he had had enough and refused him any more drink.  McNulty was not best pleased with this level of service and promptly, scoring an own goal, threw what remained of his own porter over Miss Fox. McNulty, an otherwise respectable young man. apologised to Fox in advance of his being summoned before the local petty sessions, and he was let off, on account of his apology and was charged only the costs of the case.

“The Boyohs”

In January 1914, Angela was again struggling to maintain order in the house, when she telephoned her father in Tallaght to say there were two obstreperous young men refusing to leave the premises. William Fox could hear the raised voice in the backround, and could clearly hear bad language. Richard Broom of Terenure and John Keen of Rathfarnham, as a consequence, were summoned before the Tallaght Petty Sessions and fined 10s & 6d.  “I don’t want to be spiteful”, Mr. Fox insisted in court, “But I want to show these Boyohs that they can’t do what they like in my place.  I’d sooner shut the doors than have such conduct going on”. 

Mr. Fox memorably displayed a plaque over the door of his establishment, held up by two stuffed foxes, that read:

  "Come in Soberly, drink moderately, leave quietly and call again

A bird is known by it's song, A man by his conversation."

1914 would be a year of tragedy and celebration for the family.  Twenty-four year old Angela Fox, would marry Thomas M’Glashan, an athletic and respected ploughman, and heir to the substantial Brookfield Estate- a 100 acre farm and respectable dwelling house just across the tram-track from the Jobstown Inn. But the year would be marred by the death of her father, William Fox.

In 1915, following the death of William Fox the previous year, his wife Mary J. Fox, in addition to seeking a licence for The Covert in Tallaght in her own name, sought a licence for the Jobstown Inn. The application for the Inn was opposed by both the Crown and the Temperance Movement, and her application was rejected.  Fox’s of Jobstown was, consequently, put up for sale in February 1916.  It would mark the beginning of a downward spiral for the Fox family in the years and decades ahead.

Toomey's Jobstown House

In September 1916 James B. Toomey bought the Jobstown Inn for £1,550.  The pub had a six day licence.  Toomey was a seasoned vintner who had plied his trade in Windsor Terrence, on the South Circular Road before coming to Jobstown. Toomey had had an interest in the district before acquiring the pub, and had significant land holdings between Killinarden and Brittas.  In 1910 Toomey had sold 18 acres of grazing land in Brittas and in July 1919 he sold a further 56 Acres at Aghfarrell, Brittas.

As a publican Toomey had a chequered past. He had appeared in court in 1902, charged with assault with a knife, on a Victor Byrne.  The jury ‘found no bill with the prisoner and he was discharged’. In  1905 his application for the renewal of his licence for his public house in Windsor Terrance was appealed on the basis that the pub ‘had not been regularly conducted’.  The application for renewal was granted with a severe caution. And in 1907 he was brought up on a charge of selling intoxicating liquor for consumption on his premises without being duly licensed.

In November 1917 James Toomey, a widower, married Elizabeth M’Garry, a young widow and owner of M‘Garry’s Public House in Firhouse (now Mortons).  Elizabeth held on to the Firhouse establishment until 1920.

After the disposal of M’Garry’s of Firhouse, James and Elizabeth Toomey invested heavily in the redevelopment of the Jobstown pub.  James Toomey, would make his will in 1921- before he bought a farm in Killinarden. This would give rise to his will being contested by a nephew, John Toomey, in later years. The court ruled in favour of his wife, though granted John Toomey his costs from the estate.  James and Elizabeth would go on to purchase the Templeogue Inn in 1929.

It was Toomey who, in 1916, called the establishment the Jobstown House, as distinct from the "Inn" for the first time.  Up until that time Jobstown House had been a substantial neighbouring private residence.

On the evening of Sunday the 15th November 1931, William Scanlan, who was employed by Toomey in the pub, was looking out the front window of the Jobstown House when he saw James Toomey standing casually at the roadside outside the pub.  He saw a Baby Austin car approaching at speed.  Toomey, who had lost an eye some years earlier, prepared to cross the road.  The car, driven by a Mr Synott was travelling at about 25 miles per hour.   There was no other car on the road.  Without a horn being sounded the car violently struck Toomey- sending him crashing to the ground, his head striking the pavement before his body rolled several times across the road. The car traveled a further 20 yards having hit Toomey, before it finally came to a halt.  James B. Toomey died the next day in the Meath Hospital, having sustained serious head injuries and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Three months later, in February 1932, both Toomey’s of Jobstown and the Templeogue Inn were put up for sale by Elizabeth Clare Toomey ‘in light of her recent bereavement and other business interests”.  Toomey’s of Jobstown had been “almost entirely rebuilt in handsome style…regardless of expense”. The bar and grocery was splendidly fitted.  It had porter and bottling stores, a yard and a good sized garden, which could be adapted as a ‘tea-garden’. The domestic accommodation had a hall-door entrance, drawing room, dining room, breakfast room, 6 principal bedrooms, 2 maids rooms, kitchen, scullery, hot and cold bath and wash basin.  The three acres of land with the sale, adjoined the house and it had extensive road frontage. Its location was considered a suitable position for a small hotel.

The Templeogue Inn sold for £3000, £550 less than they had paid for it only three years earlier.  Toomey's of Jobstown was withdrawn for private sale, as bidding was considered insufficient.

When the Blessington Steam Tram completed its final journey, when it sounded its bell for the stop at Jobstown, it, symbolically at least, rang closing time on Toomey’s of Jobstown.

In 1934 a licence would be transferred to Mr. John Clarke. The pub would once again become known as “Clarke’s of Jobstown”, just as it had been in the 1800s.  

Elizabeth Clare Toomey, relict of James B. Toomey, Jobstown and late of M’Garry’s of Firhouse, the Templeogue Inn and Jobstown, died at her daughter's residence, "Yarra Yarra," in Greystones in 1954.  In the interim, John Clarke would oversee proceedings in the Jobstown House.

Malachi Horan

 The Grand Old Man of Killinarden Hill

Remembered the Jobstown Inn 

(Watercolour by Gertrude O' Flynn from a Photograph by Rev. F. Browne S.J)

Clarke’s Jobstown House (1934- 1955) 

In September 1934 John Clarke applied for, and received a licence to trade in the Jobstown House. 

Clarke’s tenure in Jobstown was to be characterised by business as usual, the high points in the annual calendar being the point-to-point horse race and Leinster 200 motor race, both of which attracted significant custom to the area.  For the greater part of twenty years Clarke kept his head down and the doors open-  no mean achievement during “The Emergency” and war years.

In 1943, the pub gained a modest but wider reputation, as being the local of Malachi Horan, the grand old man of Killinarden Hill, following Dr George Little’s publication of “Malachi Horan Remembers”, now a bedside standard for those with an interest in local history and Tallaght folklore. The publication struck a chord with Sunday day-trippers, and piqued their interest in the hills above Tallaght.  Not since the demise of the Dublin to Blessington Tram twelve years earlier, had the district seen such an influx of hill walkers and sightseers.  The book also struck a chord with Ireland's first- first citizen, Dr Douglas Hyde, himself no slouch when it came to Irish folklore and rural fables.  

Several months after the publication was released Dr George Little, Author and President of the Old Dublin Society was having tea on the lawn at Áras an Uachtaráin, when his conversation with President Hyde turned to what Malachi Horan remembered.  President Hyde expressed a wish to meet the great man himself and Dr Little hastily committed to make the necessary arrangements.

In anticipating the arrival in Jobstown of the Presidential cavalcade in 1944, it is perhaps worth taking a moment to imagine the scene in the Jobstown House, when confirmation was received from Dr Little that the President of Ireland was indeed taking a day out of his schedule to travel up Killinarden Hill to hear what nuggets of wisdom Malachi Horan- the 97 year old farmer and Jobstown regular, had to share. The following Saturday afternoon the cavalcade of Presidential cars pulled up to Clarke’s of Jobstown to deliver the President and Dr Little to  Horan’s Lane, where the cars laboured up the hill guided by local man Paddy McNulty, who led the President, himself an aged man, up to Malachi’s Cottage.  There the President was left to sit by Malachi’s fireside, to hear the grand old sage himself, tell it as he saw it.  We don’t know the full extent of their conversation, as Dr Little and McNulty both left the two older men to share their memories.  But we do know that when they returned after some time, they entered the cottage to hear Malachi Horan share with President Hyde the recipe for Scáiltín, “The Little Burning One”, a drink that had at the turn of the century been a house speciality of the Jobstown Inn and “a drink to make a corpse walk”!

Recipe for Scáiltín (The Little Burning One)

·         Half a pint of Whiskey

·         Half a pound of Butter

·         Sugar

·         6 Eggs (Medium)

·         Pepper or Caraway Seeds

·         To be boiled and served red hot!

When Malachi Horan disclosed the recipe for Scáiltín, he advised the President:

“But be near your bed, Sir, when you take it. 

Troth, you may never reach it, if you wait!”  

Malachi Horan's Cottage, Killinarden

Before departing, the President presented Malachi with gifts of whiskey and tobacco, no doubt appreciated in equal measure during that period of wartime rationing.

In April 1955 Mr. Clarke, of the Jobstown House announced his retirement. The Jobstown house would return to the market and it would be bought by one of the the most notable characters in the district-  the memorable and uncompromising, Mr. Jingler McDermott.

The Jingler's of Jobstown (1955-1963)

In May 1955 Joseph “The Jingler” McDermott of Saggart, bought Clarke’s of Jobstown for £12,000 plus fees.

“The Jingler” McDermott, had been reared as a nurse child by the Cullen’s in Templeogue, and had starting his working life as a young man, when he took over a milk round in the Year of the Congress- 1932- collecting milk from farmers atop Mount Pelia and bringing it down to Hughes Brothers dairy in Rathfarnham.   It was a little sought after and challenging milk round- particularly in the winter months, trying to get up the mountain on very bad roads, and more importantly- trying to get back down again, in frost, ice and snow.  The Jingler bought a motor bike with a sidecar, large enough to accommodate two ten gallon milk churns. His first year in business would be his hardest.  1933 would see the 'big snow', make his particular round one of the most challenging milk rounds in the country, when Mount Pelia, like much of Ireland, was covered with four foot snow drifts for almost three months.  From such modest and challenging beginnings The Jingler McDermott reportedly went on to amass a significant fortune and was by the late 1950s reputed to be one of the few millionaires in the district.  And it was the sound of those two empty ten gallon churns, being driven back up Mount Pelia that earned Joe McDermott, his memorable moniker.  The Jingler had by 1960, a number of extensive business interests and he offered to put a man famously known as “The Phantom”, in charge of the Jobstown Inn. Few characters from Tallaght’s history read like they are taken straight from a 1940s Hollywood movie, but the story of The Phantom is one!

The Phantom Broe

Between April and July of 1954, South Dublin was hit by a relentless spate of house burglaries.  Carried out between the early hours of 1 a.m and 6 a.m., in the more affluent of houses, after a dozen such burglaries over a four week period, householders were on tenterhooks, as they secured their homes for the night.  All of the break-ins shared the same characteristics and the Gardai rightly surmised that they were all the work of one daring, steel-nosed and intrepid burglar.  Many of the households he burgled were occupied and though he was often heard by the occupants, he was rarely seen.  The national papers ran daily stories and updates as to where or when “The Phantom” would strike next.  The citizens of Ireland read the weekly, and sometimes daily, stories- stories that read like fiction from a penny dreadful comic.

The Phantom's modus operandi was to enter the home of a wealthy man, in his crepe-soled shoes, by means of a drainpipe or carelessly latched window.  Once inside he would quietly make his way to the fusebox to disconnect the electrical system of the house.  Moving upstairs into the bedroom he would rifle through the pockets of all clothing and the handbag of the lady of the house.  He carried a pencil thin torch to light his way.  The gloved phantom would then empty jewellery boxes and drawers and route through bedside lockers while the occupants slept and snored only feet away.

The Phantom did not confine himself to residences and households. He came close to being captured when he raided a clothing factory on James’s Street, escaping only  by “dashing through the police net’ of 50 officers who had hastened to the scene, leaving an accomplice to be apprehended as he climbed out through the factory window only moments later.

In a house in Clondalkin, where the Phantom took possession of a large quantity of jewellery in the early hours of the morning, he uncharacteristically and unintentionally disturbed a seven year old boy in his bed.  Only half-awake, the child enquired as to “who is there?” to which the Phantom calmly and in low tones replied “Shhh! it’s Santa Claus”, before leaving the room.  The boy could hardly contain his excitement the next morning when telling his parents, and they too could hardly contain theirs when they discovered the unseasonable visit.

The Phantom struck over 20 houses in a six week period, always using the same method, and the authorities were under immense public pressure to act.

A Dragnet Around the City

The special branch threw a dragnet of 150 Gardai, detectives and officers around South Dublin in order to close in on the elusive Phantom.

After a 999 call had been received the previous night, on the 15th July 1954  a team of squad cars were detailed to search the Rathfarnham and Templeogue areas, for the now legendary larcenist.   In the early hours of the morning, a man was seen hiding behind a haystack near Wellington Lane.  When called out to, the man fled and officers quickly gave chase.  Running down though the river poddle, after a 20 minutes chase, the officers finally brought their quarry down. The Phantom was apprehended by three officers in the river.  But there was challenge. The river bank was high and there was only a foot-wide break in the bank in which to get him out of the river to ‘take him in’.  Only one person at a time could get through the break in the bank.  Not taking any chances, the officers stripped the Phantom of his trousers and underpants, leaving him with only his shirt on- to deter him from making a run for it, once they got him out.  Two officers extricated themselves from the river in order to receive the Phantom on his exit.  As he stepped up to the bank, he forcefully kicked back at the remaining detective, sending him tumbling into the dark Poddle waters.  The Phantom would not be taken in without a further struggle, and managed to escape.  Reinforcements were sent for while the three remaining detectives combed the neighbouring fields.  After a 30 minute search the Phantom was found crouched and hiding in a ditch only yards from where he had last been seen. The game was up!  The three arresting officers would be hailed as heros, with provincial newspapers, each claiming the men to be of their own counties.

Brought before the courts, 30 year old, John “The Phantom” Broe, pleaded guilty to 20 charges of housebreaking, larceny and burglary in the previous four months and was sentenced to five years penal servitude. He would be out in 1959 and ready to give The Jingler a hand in the Jobstown. A local recalled "The Jingler brought The Phantom into the Jobstown House and said 'Now John,  this is all yours if you can run it and make a go of it".  His notoriety would do little to deter business, and every man deserves a second chance.  But the Phantom was restless and didn't hang about too long.

The Phantom Broe had been reared in Templeogue- only doors away from Jingler McDermott’s childhood settle in Kavanagh’s Cottages.  He had joined the R.A.F and served in the Second World War as a leading aircraftsman before being discharged in 1947, with an exemplary character.  Unable to find work he had moved to Carlisle, were he practiced and refined his new career of housebreaking.  Still then a novice burglar, he was apprehended in Northampton and sentenced to three years with penal servitude.  On release, he returned to this childhood stomping ground of Templeogue.  

Coursing in Jobstown

The Jingler McDermott was good friends with Tom Harty, one of the leading greyhound trainers in the country, working out of Killinarden House at the time and both men had a keen interest in the sport of coursing.  In 1962 both men set about establishing a new coursing club, with the intention of using Jinglers substantial land holdings in the district.  The club would challenge the long established Dublin and District Coursing Club, headquartered in Coolock, which had lost its ground to developers. The Jingler and Harty proposed the establishment of a County Dublin Coursing Club, but its development would split and fragment the City’s coursing establishment.  With little support from the wider coursing fraternity, they ploughed on with the establishment of the South County Dublin Coursing Club, which had it first meet in Jobstown in November 1963.  “The Jobstown Stake” attracted 16 puppies. With little support from the coursing community, the South Dublin C.C., quickly found itself in trouble and accused of animal cruelty, for netting hares on Bull Island. 

When the Jingler McDermott disposed of the Jobstown Inn in 1963, the coursing enclosure was moved  from his land in Jobstown to his land on Boherboy, Saggart.  The Kilbrides- the newest owners of the Jobstown House continued to support the South Dublin Coursing Club through the sponsoring of the “Kilbride Cup”.  The club was not universally liked.  In 1967, when Thomas Harty went to the Jinglers land at 7 a.m., in the morning to check on the stock of hares retained for their next meet, he found the bolt on the gate had been cut along with lengths of wire fencing, and that 35 hares had been ‘freed’.

The Jingler willing to swing

The Jingler was a hard-nosed business man and robust negotiator.  Twenty years after he relinquished his interest in the Jobstown House, he was brought before the courts in 1982 for threatening to blow-up the Dublin to Cork natural gas pipeline.  Bord Gáis intended the pipeline to traverse his land in Boherboy, Saggart.  The 77 year old farmer declared he was willing to pay £20,000 to blow the pipeline up if it crossed his land, and was willing ‘to swing for his actions’. On another occasion several years later, when two young burglars attempted to enter his home, the then 82 year old Jingler, promptly dispatched them, by threatened them with a butchers hook.  There was no messing with the Jingler McDermott! 

A very substantial landowner indeed, when the Jingler McDermott passed away, he is understood to have left an estate of over €14m.

Kilbride's Jobstown House (1964- Present)

In 1964 The Jobstown House was purchased by Joseph Kilbride. The Kilbride family became well known in the Tallaght Community, and Joe’s daughter, Clare, a member of the Royal Academy of Dance in London and a young choreographer with a rising reputation, gave ballet lessons to the children of Tallaght in St. Dominic’s Hall in Tallaght village.

Joe Kilbride took on the Jobstown House amid the folk music and cabaret boom of the 1960s. In the late 1960s entertainment in the Jobstown House was provided by Maeve Mulvaney, The Bandoliers and The Fianna Folks.  The house M.C. was Paddy Murphy and a weekly balled night was kept in time by “Leo & Jimmy”.  Stiff local competition was provided by the Embankment in Corballis, then under the management of a youthful and ambitious Louis Fitzgerald.  (Urban lore has it, that among those to drive straight past the Jobstown House to get to the Embankment Inn was a young Bob Dylan).

Jobstown House- 1960s

Sadly, after only five years in Jobstown Joseph Kilbride died in September 1969, while on a holiday visiting a daughter in Westport in Mayo. The Jobstown House remained closed for a number of days until Sunday the 14th September 1969. In January 1971 the licence was transferred to his son John Kilbride, who would marry Madeleine Doyle of Saggart later that year.

In June 1974 a handful of punters staged a picket outside the Jobstown House over the price of a pint.  Five customers staged a two night protest, claiming an increase to 23 pence for a pint of Guinness, was unauthorised and called for other customers to boycott the pub until the price was dropped.  Business was not greatly affected by the five man picket line.

Reflecting the development and growth of the local community, the following decades would see a number of extensions and development to the premises. In 1977 permission for a car park and beer store was granted and in 1988 permission was sought to reinstate the front elevations and add an extension to the bar lounge.  In 1991 developments included an additional first floor toilet, a two storey porch and two storey bay window, and change of use of the first floor to a function room.  By 1992 many of the first generation of new Jobstown residents were reaching 18 or 21 year, and the function room of Jobstown House hosted many a birthday party.

By 1995 the Jobstown House was generally considered to be the most expensive pub in Tallaght, and notably more expense than the immediate competition, the Killinarden House. (Aherne’s of Old Bawn had the cheapest pint in Tallaght). Despite this it remained a firm favourite with locals in Jobstown.  In 2007 the Kilbrides announced their retirement from the licensed trade and the Jobstown House was put on the market with a price tag of  €4m. Its ownership however was retained within the Kilbride family.

In recent years the Jobstown House has embraced new social media, catapulting the old established Inn to the forefront of contemporary business practices.  Their youtube “Mannaquin Challenge” and “Carpool Karaoke” have proved popular with locals and the wider public alike, keeping the profile and reputation of the Jobstown House front and centre of the local market.  As a pub it has a reputation for looking after locals and regulars very well, and for its support of charitable initiatives and the community of Jobstown.

***

A great Kerryman and writer, Con Houlihan, once said of Killinarden Hill, “And you feel at home there- and you understand why Jesus Christ and Mohammed went up into the mountains to find themselves…When global warming takes effect, Ballsbridge and Donnybrook will suffer frequent and serious flooding- Killinarden Hill will be the new Dublin 4".

Driving now from Tallaght to Jobstown, as the sun sets on a late summer evening over Saggart in the west, it’s not hard to imagine the characters of history- of Climbing Jack, of Malachi Horan, of the Jingler McDermott or the Phantom Broe, loitering outside the ancient roadhouse on a summer evening in years gone by.  The silhouette of the hills behind the tavern, bear witness as to why it was here, that the O’ Byrnes pitched their quarters in 1717, and fought on until their powder and ball was spent, and why too it was here that the Fenians of 1867 sought to muster on Tallaght Hill.

In the Jobstown House, Scáiltín has been replaced with a variety of exotic and foreign tipples.  But sitting at the bar, if you listen for a while, listen carefully, you can still hear the voice and accents of the mountain men and of those ghosts who have come down from the hills to share their memories and stories.  With them there are tales and drinks to be had.

“But be near your bed, Sir, when you take it. Troth, you may never reach it, if you wait!”

Albert Perris 

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