The Lost Pub of Tallaght Village - Barrett's of Tallaght

The Lost Pub of Tallaght Village- Barrett's of Tallaght (1880-1913)

Purveyors of Bolton's "BB" Whiskey- Barrett's of Tallaght

 

In the early 1900s Tallaght main street, in a village of no more than 360 souls had three licensed premised.  By the 1980s Tallaght had a population approaching 55,000 people, and had long since lost one third of its village pubs.  Until now, all that remained of the lost pub of Tallaght, was an old black and white photograph, in which the curious or inquisitive might discern an advertisement for Bolton's "BB" Whiskey.  Welcome to Barrett's of Tallaght.

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In 1880, 27 year old Christopher Barrett married Elizabeth Johnstone, a Wicklow girl and carpenter's daughter, who had been living in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway.  Barrett had recently established his own modest grocery and provision shop on Tallaght's main street, one of only two licensed premises in the village at that time, the other being O'Neill's on the corner (The Dragon). Here they would rear their family.

Barrett's decision to establish his business in Tallaght was likely informed by the recent decision and announcement that a tram-line extending from Dublin to Blessington would be routed through the town. It would be eight years however before the vision would become a reality.

Initially, in 1880, an application for a spirit licence for the premises would be refused on the grounds that the town had no need for such a thing.

In the early years the Barrett's concentrated on the grocery and provisions end of the business. In 1882 they kept upwards of one hundred hens laying and could deliver eggs on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings to Dublin City, his primary market.  Most local and country people kept their own hens so there was little local market for such produce. Barrett charged 1s 3d per dozen eggs. The following year he purchased a second hand spring-cart for a donkey.  

The Barrett family, compared to the general population of Tallaght,  enjoyed relative affluence, first class housing and a degree of economic security.  But they were by no means insulated from the unavoidable hardships and calamities that fate wrought, irrespective of class or income. In the first ten years of their marriage, they would bury three of their seven children.  Their three month old daughter, Elizabeth Louisa  died in 1884. In 1888, their eldest son Robert James died aged only five years and nine months. And the following year they would bury a six month old daughter, Emily Victoria.  As they observed in the death notice of their eldest son:  "Of such is the kingdom of heaven".

After the arrival of the Dublin to Blessington tram through Tallaght in 1888, the economic fortunes of the district experienced a significant revival.  Weston St. John Joyce, visiting Tallaght village and remembering it before the tram-line passed through, noted: 

"Windows that formerly bore a geological stratum of dust now disclose to the wayfarer carefully arranged and polished apples and oranges, polychromatic sugar-sticks, gingerbread, claypipes and diverse other attractions. The whole place appears to have suddenly awoken from its long dormant state and to have arrayed itself in honour of the occasion in its Sunday best”.

 (Joyce, W. St. John, "The Neighbourhoods of Dublin (1912))

The description of the window he was peering through might accurately describe Barrett's.   The small bar sat, in little more than a 'lean-too' on one side of their domestic residence with their extensive grocery and provisions shop on the other.  Barrett was for many years an agent for Bolton's BB Whiskey, a now long forgotten brand of blended whiskey of dubious quality.  In 1890 Barrett invested in a second hand "corking machine", so as to bottle his own Whiskey, purchased from Boltons by the barrel.

Purveyors of Bolton’s “BB” Whiskey

In the late 1880s and throughout the 1890s Barrett’s of Tallaght was one of about three dozen agents for Bolton’s “BB” Whiskey throughout the country.  William Bolton, a Whiskey blender, importer and merchant with offices on Westmoreland Street in Dublin had, as a younger man served his apprenticeship with Kinahan and Sons,  learning the craft of Whiskey blending and he became privy to what was ‘the secret recipe’  to a then popular and well-known  blend of whiskey, Kinahans “LL” whiskey. 

Kinahan’s “LL” whiskey was called after the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland in the 1820, the Duke of Richmond.  When old grandfather Kinahan first established his blending business, the Lord Lieutenant sent out to various establishments in Dublin, a call for samples, to find the finest whiskey in the city.  So impressed was he with Kinahan's whiskey, that he ordered a large quantity of it for himself and for his household, and asked that a separate vat be, at all times set aside by Kinahans, for his future use.  The vat was marked with the initials “LL”- to distinguish the Lord Lieutenants reserves, from the general stock.  Over the following three decades, Kinahans began marketing the whiskey with, what they believed to be, their exclusive and distinctive trademark, “LL” Whiskey.

Exclusive that is, until William Bolton, now an experienced hand at whiskey blending, left the firm, started blending his own whiskey as per Kinahans ‘secret recipe” and selling it as “LL” Whiskey.

Bolton was, in 1863, brought before the courts in Kinahan V Bolton.  William Bolton was restrained from selling whiskey in bottles or jars with the letters “LL”  ‘so impressed on labels or corks or otherwise so contrived using seals or labels  to imitate the seals and labels of the petitioners'.  And so Bolton sold the same blend of whiskey (the recipe for which Kinahan’s vowed in court could not possibly have been known to their long standing, if departed blender) under the new Bolton’s “BB” Whiskey into the late 1890s.  "BB", almost certainly standing for “Bolton Blend” Whiskey.

Bolton’s “BB” Whiskey, like much of the Irish Whiskey industry suffered a spectacular decline and ultimate demise in the following decades.

Barrett- A helpful sort of fellow

In October 1895 when an extensive farmer from Terenure, Mr. H. Mannering was savagely gored by a furious bull on land on the Greenhills road (The Loughlin Meadows), in addition to Dr. Poett and a clergyman from St. Mary’s priory being sent for, Mr Christopher Barrett was also called upon for assistance- to provide his spring cart with a mattress and blankets, to help transport the discombobulated Mannering home.  Poor Mr.  Mannering had been tossed high in the air like a ragdoll by the impertinent bull, before giving in to both gravity and the beast, and landing on the bulls horns and then promptly on his own head.  Unbeknownst to Mannering, he was then to be a figure of sport for the animal and was butted about the field of play, before the bull casually wandered off re-joining his herd or harem of milch cows. The prognosis for Mannering was only marginally better than that of the bull, neither demonstrating greater alertness after the exchange.

In 1903 When the Right Honourable Lord O’ Briens' daughters were travelling from Newlands to Orlagh, crossing the tramline in Tallaght, their carriage broke down. One of the wheels became latched and a horse broke loose. After some time, the horse was found and reined in by some able countrymen.  The coachman and footmen escaped with only slight injuries, and the ladies, while greatly inconvenienced, were uninjured.  It was, to Mr Christopher Barrett in the village, they turned to for assistance in their moment of crisis and he supplied his carriage to take the ladies home.

Barrett was by 1903 a well-established and respected businessman in the district- comfortable, helpful and protestant.

In 1906 Barrett was charged with, on the 4th March, having six persons on his licensed premises at prohibited hours, for allowing alcohol to be consumed on the premises and for allowing drink to be taken off the premises.  Barrett testified that of the six young men on the premises, one was his son-in-law, and the rest were either relatives of his or of his wife, who were in the habit of visiting them.  The case was dismissed.

Women outside Barrett's of Main Street

In October 1907 Christopher Barrett died at 54 years of age, having been a prominent resident in the town for almost 30 years.  He was a popular and respected man and the funeral was one of the largest seen in the district for some time. He left three sons, Christopher, George and William.  By 1911 Elisabeth Barrett was living with her youngest son, 19 year old William, a five year old grandson and Ms. Rose Weldon, a Church of Ireland domestic servant and cook from County Meath.

In 1913 the establishment was still known as Mrs. Barrett's, when the Clydesdale Stallion "Sunny South" was brought to stand outside it to 'serve' local mares.  It must have been a sight to behold on Tallaght main street, perhaps best left to one’s imagination. It was an enterprise not without its hazards. And what a stallion "Sunny South" must have been-

A Closed Shop

Shortly after, Barrett’s of Main Street was acquired by William Fox, of the Fox’s Covert also on the main street. His wife Mary was granted a temporary transfer of the licence in the months before he died. 

Instructions from the Administratrix

Following the death of William Fox in 1914, the "Spirit Grocery" known as Barrett's of Tallaght was put up for sale in 1916, along with the Jobstown House, then also part of William Fox's estate.  It would never reopen as a licensed establishment, leaving future generations of thirsty locals in Tallaght village with a choice of only two pubs, the Fox’s Covert (Molloys) or O’Neill’s “Convent” (The Dragon). 

Administratrix Sale- 1916

The Lost Pub of Tallaght Village- Barrett's of Tallaght (1880-1913)

Albert Perris

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