The worst thing a pub can be, the late AA Gill wrote, is a restaurant. The sensible and polite restraint it takes to hold court over a plate of steamed fish and seasonable vegetables simply does not cohere with the rowdiness inherent to a public house. And the gastropub, a ghoulish New Labour invention, represents the apogee of this unfortunate blurring of lines between eateries and watering holes.
Luckily enough, in the hundreds of Irish pubs sprinkled across London you are unlikely to find braised pork belly and red-wine jus. You would certainly struggle to order a lemon posset. And as for microgreens and foraged mushrooms, forget about it.
For the most part, the Irish pubs of England’s capital have managed to resist the influences of modernity. Instead, the likes of Stoke Newington’s Auld Shilelagh and Camden’s Sheephaven Bay are more like relics of a forgotten era. Exactly what demarcates the Irish pub from its English counterpart is hard to pin down. There are obvious superficial qualities, notably a penchant for paraphernalia. Their walls groan under the weight of artefacts that could only have been accrued over years or decades.
GAA jerseys, hurleys and sliotars, pots, pans, road signs and tourism posters overwhelm the senses. In the Hemingford Arms in Barnsbury a taxidermal badger hangs from the ceiling, looking cross and feral, as badgers tend to. McGlynn’s in King’s Cross is unfashionably carpeted. Were you to design a pub from scratch today it seems unlikely you would make any of these aesthetic choices.
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Nevertheless, on a Friday night, you will find all of these places packed to the rafters.
What continues to attract people in their droves to Irish pubs, many of which look like ersatz film sets? And how have they managed to retain such distinct identities even in the face of the homogenising force of the hipster-trend cycle?
The hospitality industry has undergone vertiginous change in the past decade. But London Irish public houses remain time capsules, seemingly impervious to outside influence. A cynic might suggest it has something to do with the soaring popularity of Guinness in recent years. Since the end of lockdown the stout’s sales have surged 30 per cent. By the end of 2021 one in every 10 pints sold in London was a Guinness. Where better to go for a pint of the capital’s new favourite drink than the bars that know how to do it best?
What Londoners once dismissed as a quaint Irish idiosyncrasy has transformed into a boon for these establishments.
Pat Logue, the proprietor of the Sheephaven Bay (which gets its name from Logue’s home in Donegal), thinks clientele are attracted to the “traditional values” of his pub. As natural-wine bars take over London’s East End like a bad rash, and an experimental cocktail can be bought on every street corner, perhaps a dark-panelled no-nonsense affair is what people truly crave. Maybe there is something reassuring in being offered a wine choice that does not extend beyond “Red or white?”
We could try to list all the reasons for the Irish pub’s sustained appeal. Suggestions range from their products — Tayto crisps, Ballygowan water and Club Orange are often on the menu — to their sport. GAA fans — there are thousands in London — come to the Sheephaven to watch the games. The Six Nations must be a draw too.
Maybe it is simply because many drinkers are not fussy, and proximity will always trump style when it comes to picking a spot. It is all possible. Perhaps I have underestimated the magnetic pull of just one brand of crisps.
But the answer is probably more profound than that.
The British novelist Gerard Woodward argues that English literature “begins in a pub”. Chaucer’s pilgrims set off on their journey to Canterbury Cathedral from the Tabard in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. George Smiley, the beloved spy of many of John le Carré‘s novels — whiles away the hours in the Kings Head and Eight Bells in Chelsea. Even the hobbits in the Shire — JRR Tolkien’s literary shorthand for Englishness — convene in the Green Dragon Inn.
If Woodward is right, and the pub tells us something about the qualities of Englishness, then the London Irish pub can tell us a lot about the history of the London Irish diaspora. The middle of the 20th century was a period of mass Irish migration to the city. First workers came over and settled in the capital’s northeast: Cricklewood and Kilburn. Then they moved a few kilometres south, to Camden. As the profile of Irish emigres changed — from construction workers to young corporate professionals — so did their chosen destination. Now the young Irish in London inhabit leafy Clapham and trendy Hackney.
The density of Irish pubs across the city reflects this migratory pattern. It is no surprise they are on every corner in Kilburn and still fairly ubiquitous in Camden. By the time we get to Clapham they are more of a novelty — caricatures of their older counterparts. They are few and far between in Hackney, exceptions to prove the rule. As the Irish diaspora assimilated more and more into London, it seems the need for distinctly Irish places faded away.
But it is not just the topography of the city that explains the qualities of the Irish immigrant community. The social texture of the pubs themselves offers more crystal insight. It would be a mistake to assume that the Sheephaven, the Hemingford Arms or any of the traditional spots cater just to Irish clientele. Logue explains that many of his customers are Spanish. On Thursday nights the after-work crowd is as big as it is diverse. The Auld Shilelagh has a coterie of regulars — Irish immigrants, others their children, just as many having nothing to do with the island next door.
On Friday night at McGlynn’s I sat outside with friends. Some were English, a few Irish, one born in Luxembourg. Behind us sat a man who explained he was half-Dutch, half-Italian, with an Irish son living in Carlow. All of us Londoners by choice but only one of us by birth. These places are perfect ambassadors for the Irish diaspora writ large: fully integrated into a multicultural metropolis but proud of their heritage nonetheless. It is a common feature of Irish pubs in London to serve Thai food — something that tells us little about Ireland and less about Thailand but everything about the assimilatory quality of London.
Above the bar at McGlynn’s the sign reads “Welcome, Wilkomen, Bienvenidos, Fáilte”. All of these things speak to the enduring legacy of the Irish pub more than a GAA jersey or a packet of crisps ever could. It is not clear that all will survive the looming energy crisis, compounded by a recession. In the wake of the pandemic, 400 British pubs closed their doors for good. Even more publicans fear ruin over the coming winter.
But Logue is confident the Sheephaven can weather the storm, just as it did with coronavirus.
We ought to hope. Sometimes tradition, no matter how unstylish, is worth clinging on to.
