Unfortunately, some of the great old pubs of Belfast have gone forever. It’s a great pity nobody recorded these in print or on film for posterity. Let’s take a trip down memory lane as I fondly remember some of these grand old pubs.
Do you remember The Golden Jubilee Bar in Cromac Street, with the Omar Khayyam room painted in gold, and adorned with illustrated passages from the famous Rubaiyat, and above the glass bricked bar, in Arabic script, the closing words of the poem, “Tamam Shud”, freely translated into the Belfast vernacular, “Time Gents”?
McGlade’s Bar of Donegall Street had the longest bar counter in the North, part of it is still there in the new Penny Farthing Bar and what about the late Jimmy Coyle’s Spanish Rooms in Divis Street . . . unique because it was the biggest seller of cider in the British Isles – 65,000 gallons a year. I remember him having displayed in the bar a framed $1,000,000 Confederacy note, dated 1813.
The public bar of the old Wheatfield Bar on the Crumlin Road was another casualty of the Troubles. I knew it well for here I took stock weekly for three years. The bar itself was centre stage, and a wonderful example of craftsmanship of the early twenties, when they took pride in their work. The Wheatfield was a very busy bar, and I was told by a Guinness rep lately that in its day it was the biggest seller of Guinness porter in Ireland.
The old Duke of York in Commercial Court, off Lower Donegall Street, was another favourite haunt of the press. Many scribes from all over the UK were well acquainted with it, and many a front page story was either conceived or written in its back room. Memories of some of the great characters who used to frequent it come flooding back – Cecil Orr, Jimmy Kennedy, Gareth McGrath, Joe Sherlock, Paddy Scott, Sean Mayne and last, and probably the greatest of them all, Ralph (Bud) Bossence.
Old world appearance (a low roof and drawings of local characters by artist patrons) gave the Dukes that little extra bit of decorative quality. McCoy’s, or The Citadel, another hidden beauty in Cromac Square, was a wonderful corner pub, with elaborate snugs, etched glass, magnificent panelled ceiling and Gothic privacy screens that would remind you of an annex in a church.
Who will ever forget Mooney’s of Cornmarket, with its massive long, curved counter, lovely tile front and unusual granite top, large privacy screen and fine coloured glazed tiles on the walls? The ceiling was ornate and a joy to behold. Mooney’s in its day was, without question, the most celebrated eating establishment in the North. Few of Belfast’s old thoroughfares have altered as much as Cornmarket, once Shambles Street. The last of the old shops to go there was Gilbey’s. An earlier 4-story building stood on the same site – Davis’, a famous plough hotel. This was the terminus of the Dublin and Derry mailcoaches, and around the corner in Castle Arcade, formerly called Hammond’s Court, King William III, on 19th June 1690, issued a royal proclamation on his way through Belfast to the Boyne. Here also Finlay printed the first issue of the Northern Whig.
Let’s go back to the old stagecoach days. As I say the old Plough Hotel was journeys end for many a tired and benumbed traveller arriving in the Belfast of a century and a half ago. He was welcomed with a jug of steaming punch or a glass of brandy. In those leisurely days, travel – despite the newfangled railroad system – was still largely confined to the mailcoach. As the journeys were long and trying, especially in winter, it was natural that the old inns and taverns of the towns and villages should be the principal centres of gossip, entertainment, good food and cheer. Travellers to Dublin in those far-off days had the choice of the speedy day and night Mails, which did the journey in about 12 hours. Then there was the slower stage coach, ‘The Commerce’, which started out from The Plough at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and rattled into Newry at 9 o’clock in the evening. After an overnight stop the journey was continued by ‘Caravan’ at 9.30 a.m., arriving in Dublin at 6.30 p.m. Mail and stagecoaches linked all the principal towns, but none was quite so fast as the Dublin mail. For instance, the journey from Derry to Belfast took 12 hours, and from the White Hart in Enniskillen, 13 hours. The traveller, though muffled up to the eyes, was usually blue with cold and chilled to the bone by the time High Street hove into sight. High Street, Belfast, in those days must have been a cheering sight, because cosy inns and taverns abounded. As well as The Plough, there were the Donegall Arms in Castle Street, Bambridge’s Hotel and Tavern in Sugarhouse Entry (destroyed in the blitz), Low’s Inn down in Church Lane, a stone’s throw from where the ship’s mast swayed in the tide, and of course there was Hugh Kelly’s Wine Stores in Bank Street (still there!). At the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign there were 346 tavern keepers in the young city, and these were supplied by 22 Wholesale Wine and Spirit Merchants, whose premises were mostly situated in Anne Street, North Street, Mill Street and Callender Street. There were 11 mineral water companies. All are gone, the last one being Grattan’s of Cornmarket.
The old world was soon to give way to the new, and one can feel a twinge of sympathy for those old gentlemen with the silk top hats who, in the seclusion of their commercial premises, shook their heads and muttered when they watched through their windows the picturesque brightly-coloured mail coaches, with their teams of galloping horses, rumbling past. No, sir, that devilish monstrosity, the steam engine, would never take the place of the horse and coach. Alas, how wrong they were. The prosaic railway was soon to put the colourful coach off the roads for good.