Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Irish Pubs, English Pubs and the Essence of Pubness, 19

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Was part of the appeal of the Irish pub in the 1980s and 90s that real Irish pubs were more like ideal of the English pubs than English pubs had become?

This fantastic article*by Irish journalist*Mary Holland*(1935-2004)*published in January 1964 covers multiple issues in a few hundred pithy words.
First, the mystique of Dublin pubs:*‘I’ve always gone along with the belief that any Dublin bar has a magic aura which causes the talk to shimmer and sparkle as fast as the Guinness flows.’
Then their true qualities:*‘I now think the Dublin pub mystique is thriving as never before for the simple reason that its pubs are more comfortable.’
(See also a related 1996 columns from the Pub Curmudgeon here.)
And, finally, there’s a pointed examination of the state of English pubs in the mid-1960s:
One of the most recent attempts to revamp a pub’s image in central London is a bar designed to appeal to ‘business executives and the younger set,’ in which rattan cane, murals of brooding buddhas, slatted bamboo swing doors and a background of jungle noises are among the attractions. Yet this is only an extreme example of the way the brewers seem bent on catering to a city of pub-lovers. Given that the beer is good (and I know that this is another question), I can’t believe that anyone wants to drink his pint, let alone talk the evening through with friends, in the kind of South Seas Traders tavern or sub-Scandinavian bar which seems to appear whenever the painters and decorators move in on an ordinary pub.
You can imagine how that delighted us, what with our ongoing obsession with theme pubs.
In general*the Spectator archive is a fantastic resource: searchable, fully indexed, with material provided as both OCRd text and original page scans. Our ramblings through it to date suggest that it was very much a wet office — there’s lots of coverage of beer and pubs — so if you’ve got a pet*obsession, give it a search and see what you can turn up.
Irish Pubs, English Pubs and the Essence of Pubness, 1964 from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Beer blogging since 2007, covering real ale, craft beer, pubs and British beer history.


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