Early Houses

Dotted around Dublin's docks and markets, they are havens for hardcore partygoers and thirsty locals. But what are Early Houses actually like? Barbara McCarthy visits the best

At some stage in the early 1960s, a number of pubs were granted early licenses in order to accommodate docks and shift workers. This anomaly in our licensing law means that for six days a week, you can have a pint somewhere in Dublin at seven o’clock in the morning. Early houses aren’t pretty and neither are some of the people who drink in them. One often hears about customers who have been defenestrated, barred or arrested whilst drinking in an early house; others have just had a great time and never looked back. Everyone who has ever been to an early house has a story to tell. Anyone who hasn’t might like to check out the best around.

The Windjammer The home of Dublin’s longest serving barman, Joe Casey started working the bar in1954. At 72, he still works five days a week and apart from a broken ankle, which put him out of work for several weeks, he has never had a sick day in his life. A man of principles, Joe doesn’t suffer fools gladly. “If you’re barred, you’re barred.” Men have served life sentences for murder and robbery only to find that when they’re released from jail they’re still barred. “I’ll never forget a face,” he claims. Casey says he will retire soon, but regulars don’t believe him. He’s been saying that for years, they say.
If you turn up pissed, or off your head on drugs, you have no chance of getting in. There are no bouncers, but there is a camera on the door. “That’s how we turned away Colin Farrell one morning, we could see he was too pissed,” says Joe. But Farrell was allowed in again a week later. Art Garfunkel was also asked to leave the premises one morning, according to barman Rory. “Most of the drinkers here are locals who used to work in the docks, or the post office,” said one regular. “There are many alcoholics like myself, who come in at seven in the morning and drink anything from 20-30 pints till five in the evening, go home to sleep and, if they can afford it, do it all over again the next day.”

111 Townsend Street,
Dublin 2
677 2576

The Chancery Inn There are three kinds of early house drinkers: the ones who’ve been partying all night, the ones who just finished work and the ones who got up especially to have a pint. In the Chancery you get all three. “Every head case in Dublin is out on a Friday night, that’s why we have doormen on Saturday mornings,” says manager Anthony McGarry.
On a busy Saturday morning or Bank holiday you can find anything from a German tourist who’s lost his way to a transsexual covered in fake tan. There are also plenty of miserable old men; newly released jailbirds; ugly weirdoes; leprechauns; a very normal looking couple just having a pint; someone reading the paper; coked-up party animals from Darndale or Sandymount, and groups of aggressive girls. The younger crowd hangs out down the back by the jukebox, while the regulars tend to sit at the front, and it’s not as busy during the week.
Traffic can be the enemy of the Chancery drinker. If you happen to have called in sick to work on a Monday morning, and you’re standing outside having a cigarette, any bosses or co-workers will have plenty of time to spot you. Not that that ever bothered Shane MacGowan or Rufus Wainright, both of whom have spent plenty of time in these parts. The Chancery was originally a place where bag ladies drew mail for solicitors or conducted special deliveries for them. It has been a pub for almost 200 years, and according to the manager, the pub’s cellars are haunted. He often hears strange noises and fans sometimes turn themselves on.

1 Inn’s Quay,
Dublin 7
677 0420

The White Horse Established as an inn in the 1790s, the White Horse used to be frequented by sailors, most notably Mutiny on the Bounty’s Captain Blythe. It was a haven of ill-repute, because there was a brothel upstairs, so decadence is nothing new round here.
A couple of years ago, owner Bernard Kennedy decided to start running a Saturday morning club. For €8-10 at the door, you can keep the party going till midday as the resident DJ mixes mostly house and funk; this is the most happening early house in the city. The windows are blacked out and if you’re lucky, there is another party on somewhere else afterwards. For a while, staff laid on a courtesy bus service delivering party goers to Slattery’s on Capel Street to continue in a darkened room there. The scene was somewhat reminiscent of the movie Awakenings with Robert de Niro and Robin Williams, where a group of patients who have been catatonic for years are taken out on a bus journey for the day. Most of these patients would not have seen the light of day for years, just like the White Horse punters. The service was short-lived however, because shop owners on Capel Street didn’t appreciate 40-odd lunatics descending on a busy Saturday shopping street. Many of these would have made their way into Louis Copeland’s to try on expensive suits, much to the disgust of the owners. Others would walk down the quays in large groups, occasionally vomiting or getting kicked out of shops.
What could only be described as a mutant once came up to a friend of mine in the White Horse and asked: “Are you looking for your hole?” He obviously had a great sense of community and was probably only looking for her number so that he could return her hole to her, should he find it in the jacks or something. Another friend told me she was asked if she was a transsexual by a “disturbed looking man with purple, crusty lips.” She slapped the man in the face three times and walked away in disgust and straight to the toilets to wash her hands. The best way of getting an idea of what goes on is by calling down some Saturday.

Burgh Quay,
Dublin 2
672 7597

Ned’s The regular drinkers in Ned’s are mostly locals, but they’re a dying breed. The next generation of dockers, postal workers and shift workers just can’t afford to live in these parts anymore. “We get all sorts of nutters in here,” says barman Dave Coulahan, who also boasts that Ned’s was the first pub in Ireland to enforce the smoking ban on the early morning of March 29th 2004.
Noel O’Toole, a Ned’s regular, says Monday is the best day of the week to go to an early house. “You get a perverse satisfaction from seeing other people running to work in their suits clutching their briefcases.” Noel enjoys some high jinks and singing and dancing with the locals. “They once taught me the lyrics to Changing Partners by Sinatra and a large group of the locals danced around me and my lady friend in a circle – and all this before breakfast.”
Founded in 1861, the door policy in Ned’s is not as rigorous as it is in the Windjammer, but if you behave appallingly, you will get kicked out, says Dave. “I had to kick Brian O’Driscoll out one morning.” But he’s not the only one. Anyone who has been to an early house at some stage in their lives has probably also been kicked out of it and in many cases they didn’t really care.
By the way, Ned’s is a good pub to go to if you’re a smoker. Townsend Street is a side street and even in rush hour it’s not too busy, so you won’t be spotted outside.

44 Townsend Street,
Dublin 2
677 9507

Published in the May 2006 edition of The Dubliner magazine

Comments

[daniel browne]

i've beenn these pubs s
and they suc k

[Lou LOU]

Neds Townsend street is def the pub of choice here... White Horse is not open anymore as far as I know and the chancery and the Jammer are both in desperate need of a cleaning. Neds has just been done up recently too so not as bad as the others! :)