1 Glen Rd, Andersonstown, Belfast BT11 8BA
This small bar was built in 1888 by Nicholas O’Brien, a packman or an old-time tinker, who sold haberdashery etc. Here he built a Spirit Grocery, which he christened ‘The Brewery Stores’. Divis Drive, where the bar stands on the corner with the Glen Road, was then known as Baldoyle Street. The Army was then billeted in Tram Depot opposite, and the NCOs stayed in Porridge Row, at nearby Turf Loney. Edward McEnaney bought the Spirit Grocery in 1905. Edward’s daughter, Rita, around 1951 surrendered the Off Sales licence, and handed in a full Spirit Licence, purchased from Francis Joseph Bigger, who closed his bar down in Corporation Street.
McEnaney’s stands on a corner opposite the Falls depot while across the road is Milltown Cemetery. Is it any wonder it gets the nickname of ‘The Gravedigger Arms’? A good deal of its clientele comes from the busmen, graveyard workers, and mourners. Funerals are important social occasions in Northern Ireland, a meeting of friends, some of whom you probably haven’t seen for years. The old ‘Irish Wake’ is a thing of the past, and only found in remote regions of the country. McEnaney’s, as it is still popularly known (the former owner, Rita, sold the business to present owner, Paddy Cullen, back in 1971), is a popular stop for West Belfast funeral corteges, serving as a kind of decompression chamber, you might say, between the grief of the burial and the return home.
The graveyard association reminds me of two lovely stories. The first is about two drunks who enquired at their local about their old drinking companion, Murphy, only to be informed that he was dead and buried over a month ago. They decided to pay their last respects, so after getting directions from the bartender as to the whereabouts of the grave, they found it in due time, sure enough. One of the drunks spelt out the name Paddy Murphy, while the other one, bleary-eyed, looked up at a large statue of our Lord, which the widow had put up. ‘Not a bloody bit like the man’, says he. ‘That’s not Murphy, whoever done it.’
The other story is about the drunk who stumbled into a graveyard one pitch-black night, and fell into an open grave and, in time, fell fast asleep. In the early morning, when he awoke, he climbed out of the grave, only to look at a sea of headstones as far as the eye could see. ‘Christ!’ says yer man, ‘It’s resurrection day and I’m first up!’
McEnaney’s is a small bar, consisting of a public bar and a snug-like small room at the back. Around the walls are framed Daily Express headlines like ‘Walk on the Moon’ – 21.7.69, ‘Kennedy Assassinated’ – 23.11.63, ‘Monroe dies of an Overdose’ – 6.6.1963, ‘Clay the Champion’ – 26.2.1964. Upstairs is a very cosy lounge with framed black and white photos of the Hollywood Legends.
This is quite obviously a working man’s bar, with a friendly atmosphere that abundantly makes up for the absence of frills.