Have Ye No Homes To Go To?

THE pub has been at the centre of Irish life for centuries. Research has even shown that going to the local gives us better life satisfaction than staying at home watching TV or socialising online.

In its varied career, the pub has played many roles: funeral home, restaurant, grocery shop, music venue, job centre and meeting place for everyone from poets to revolutionaries. Often plain and unpretentious, it is a neutral ground, a leveller – a home away from home.

But how much do you really know about it?

A Westport man, Kevin Martin, can tell you all your need to know in his new book, Have Ye No Homes To Go To? The History of the Irish Pub.

Kevin, who taught English, communications and cultural studies for 25 years, loves 'pubs, travel and reading'. This is his first book.

Here are some quirky pub facts to mull over, maybe over a pint of plain:

* Irish publicans in ancient times were required by Brehon Law to have ‘a never-dry cauldron, a dwelling on a public road and a welcome to every face’.

* Some pubs once had cold rooms where they stored dead bodies until the corpse was ready for burial.

* In 1872, it became a legal requirement to display the proprietor’s name over the front door.

* In 1873, the MP for Leeds argued it was bad idea to prohibit public houses opening on a Sunday because ‘the populace will be left without access to alcohol for medicinal uses’.

* In 2003, it became illegal to refuse women entry to a pub.

* Pubs didn't open on Saint Patrick's Day until 1973.

 

Have Ye No Homes To Go To? The History of the Irish Pub by Kevin Martin is published by The Collins Press (price €14.99) and is available in all good bookshops and from www.collinspress.ie/have-ye-no-homes-to-go-to.html.