Conversation is gone out of the Irish pub
CONVERSATION is gone out of the Irish pub, and that's according to a man very much in the know, Castlebar publican Mick Byrne.
In an interview with Tom Gillespie, Mick recalls how he spent most of his youth in Castle Street with his grandmother, Duxie Stewart, who was married to John, a native of Ballyboro, County Cavan, who served as guard in Ballycastle and Ballyheane. And he talks about the changing face of the Irish pub.
“I always compare Castle Street to something like Coronation Street. It was full of characters. It was an institution,” said Mick. “My grandmother ran an institution well known for its ice cream. I spent a lot of my youth up there. I remember Madam Bourke, The Black Horse, The House of Commons, Hughie McGartland, the great, great Ray Prendergast who died at the early age of 40.
“Then you had Pat Lavelle’s where people gathered for a chat. When Pat closed they went down the archway to shoemaker, Tom McHugh, where Joe Dunne worked for a while and there was always great gallery in there.
“When that closed people always went into my father-in-law Seanie Kilcoyne’s butcher shop. The late Seanie only passed away last month. There was great craic. People had time to talk. If you went down town for a message and it took you an hour, when you got home you were asked what delayed you and you would say you met so and so and you would be asked had they any news.
“People don’t have time now. They are in a hurry, always rushing.”
Mick remembers the pubs on Castle Street - Conway’s, The Castle Bistro, Ray’s and Rattigan's, who had a sign that read: ‘ No cheque too big, no cheque too small, tonnes of cash to pay them all’.
He continued: “Mai Leonard's was an institution. Kelly’s barbers was beside us and they had a sign too - ‘If the razor suits tell others. If not tell Kelly’.
“Everybody congregated on The Mall. There were mid-summer festivals there and carnivals. You had Eddie Lynn in the Military Barracks who was captain of the Order of Malta.
“We used to play football on the Mall. There were no televisions then. Johnny Mulvey was secretary of the Mayo GAA County Board. He lived in the Castle Bakery. He used to give me a football that was tattered or torn and if I had a ball I was always guaranteed a game. Because if l went the ball went.
“I love Mayo football. The Mayo team used to go to Maureen O’Loughran’s Castle Bakery for a meal after training. You had Joe Corcoran, Prender, Mick Ruane and Johnny Morley, to mention a few. We used to go down and meet them.
“My two uncles, Mick and Sean Stewart, were the first two brothers to win an All-Ireland minor medal in 1953, and the late great Dermot Earley was born in the pub in Main Street - his mother Kitty was a sister of my dad.”
Mick was chairman of Castlebar Mitchels for five years. He confessed: “We did not win much at the time. I came in just after the All-Ireland final in ’94 and we were fighting relegation for three or four years.
“I had a great bunch of fellows around me, Jodie Munnelly, James Rock, Mick Ruane, Paddy Kerrigan, all hard workers behind the scene. I love sport in general. We have great sports facilities in Castlebar. Castlebar Celtic and Milebush is a credit to soccer. They started the floodlit pitches.
“I can go back to Bisto Feeney and Nobs Scully, Hughie McGartland, Josie Feeney, who is a legend, Ronnie Dawson and Eamonn Clarke. The facilities at Castlebar Rugby Club are fantastic and the Mayo team have used the rugby club for training. It is lovely to see sport going so well in Castlebar.”
Mick said it was a privilege in centenary year to have been captain of Castlebar Golf Club.
He added: “There are a great bunch of people in the golf club. I have nothing but praise for them. The club has gone from strength to strength. It just does not happen. It involves hard work. The greens are called the Augusta of Connaught thanks to Stephen Munnelly and his team who are the green keepers. Gaelic and golf are my passions as well as horse racing. Unfortunately, horse racing costs you money.
“Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to see some crowd come in (to the pub) with a cup and we will fill it as some of them might only win a cup once in a lifetime and I will always honour that occasion.
“The publicans in this town are a closely knit bunch of people. We work together. There is great camaraderie and craic and we love to see the other fellow doing well. There is no one looking over your shoulder like that.
“People often say they remember coming in here years ago and there would be 30 fellows in here drinking. That is all very fine but they are all dead. The drinking trends have changed. This is down to the price of it, the smoking ban, drink driving, the low cost of drink in supermarkets and, surprisingly, the mobile phone.
“People might laugh when I say the mobile phone. The money you spend on the mobile phone now was spent on drink 10 years ago. The mobile is a luxury you have now that you did not have then. But it is costing them.
“In the old days you could have a sing-sing here at 6 p.m. Willie the Shoe would start into ‘We Sailed On the Scope John B.’ and everyone would join in.
“If I had my way again I would never have a television in the pub. Conversation is gone out of the pub now, the old style conversation where you go into a pub and you talk to a publican. I am lucky that the staff I have can converse with anybody. You know when a man wants to talk and if he wants to read the paper you leave him on his own.
“People are relying too much on Sky TV. If I had my way again I would go back to the old way but I can’t because sport is so dominant and people come in to watch matches on the television and you have to have a TV in the pub now.
“I remember years ago one of the great publicans of the town, Paddy Moran in the St. Helena Bar on Rush Street, would only put on the radio for the news. I tried that years ago. I would only put on the telly when there was a match on. But it did not work because there were so many matches coming up.
“The drink culture has changed totally. Years ago Sunday morning drinking was huge. Families went out for a drink. Nowadays people tend to go out for just one night a week and that is down to the economy. People just don’t have the money.
“I remember the recession of the 1980s. But then people spent their money because they had only one house and not a mortgage on two or three houses.”
Mick continued: “Castlebar is a town I will always love. I am privileged to have so many great friends, people you can turn to quietly for a bit of advice.