Once the haunt of the great and good of Irish society in London, the Irish Club has reopened and is looking to widen its appeal for expats
AT LORD Longford’s wake in the Irish Club in London’s Eaton Square, wearing a black lacy cap reminiscent of something Queen Victoria might have worn, Lady Longford gave an affectionate address. She recalled how her husband, when he was nine, had been at his grandmother Lady Jersey’s house when Lord Kitchener came to tea. “And who are you, my little man?” Kitchener inquired. Young Frank stood up straight and declared indignantly: “I am grandmama’s grandson!”
Frank Pakenham, son of Lord and Lady Longford, was the last president of the Irish Club. In its heyday, it was a London venue where a pint of Guinness at the bar could be supped with anyone from a building contractor to an aristocrat – as long as there was Irish blood flowing through their veins.
Regular visitors to the bar were Garrett Fitzgerald, Conor Cruise O’Brien and Liam Neeson. Colm Tóibín once described the Irish Club as “like the friendliest BB in Galway” within walking distance of Buckingham Palace. The late Nye Bevan, founder of the National Health Service and heavyweight Labour Minister, found it one of the more desirable spots in town to play pool.
The original Irish Club was founded by a group of Irish expats who met in 1947; the building was acquired with the aid of a donation from the Guinness family in 1948. In its prime in the 1960s, the club boasted a membership of more than 1,000. The club once had two properties in Eaton Square, with a tunnel connecting the two to enable drinkers to move from one bar to the other without drunkenly risking the traffic outside. Once, a drunk man was being carried through the tunnel by two friends, when he muttered happily, “Ah, Jesus, lads we’ve come far. We’ve come far.”
There was more to the Irish Club than drink, though. It stood at the heart of London during the Troubles and throughout the IRA’s vicious bombings of the city. Henry Kelly, broadcaster and journalist, remembers a midnight scramble back to the Irish Club with the late Gerry Fitt.
“We were having drinks with prime minister Ted Heath in Downing Street at the time and were looking for a lift back to the Irish Club, where we were staying. Gerry insisted on ringing a local cab company from Heath’s office and spelt out D-O-W-N-I-N-G Street to the person on the end of the phone. All of a sudden, he turned around looking confused and blurted out: “Ted, Ted, what number on Downing Street is this?”
THE ORIGINAL Irish Club was forced to sell up five years ago from its salubrious Eaton Square location, but relocated in February 2009 to the marginally less fashionable but more affordable Blackfriars, a stone’s throw from Fleet Street. “The Irish have the clicks and we have the bricks,” says chairman Gabriel McKeon, who was one of the driving forces behind the project.
“It will be a home for young Irish professionals to meet up with other Irish people from a background of different disciplines for dining, social and cultural events. The ‘Ryanair generation’ of Irish still gravitate towards each other, as we’ve seen from the vast number of existing Irish networks in London. Now they have somewhere to go.”
One million pounds (€1.1m) has been spent on the refurbishment and the club now boasts a members’ bar, with a licence to serve until 1am seven days a week, a restaurant and function rooms named after the four provinces of Ireland.
The new restaurant is already serving the club’s famous Irish stew, a recipe used by Nigella Lawson in her book How to Eat. The original Waterford Crystal chandeliers have been restored, and a number of portraits from the original Irish Club, including those of Douglas Hyde and Arthur Griffith, now adorn the walls of the main dining area, the Connaught Room. Some of the more lucrative paintings, including a prestigious Jack Yeats, had to be auctioned off to support the purchase of new premises.
Honorary vice-presidents include Hon Desmond Guinness, Pat Jennings and Seamus Heaney, and they must be pleased that already the 5,500 sq ft club has generated steady interest and that all men and women of Irish birth, descent or nationality are welcome to join.
Mindful of the global recession and keen to attract as many new faces as possible, the newly opened Irish Club has also been keen to tap into the thriving Irish graduate community in London. In February, the London club for NUI (National University of Ireland) graduates relaunched, six years after it was dissolved at the Irish Club. The club, which also has a rich and varied history dating back to the 1920s, was re-established at an event sponsored by the Irish Times international edition, at which Sen Joe O’Toole was the keynote speaker.
Some of the graduates in attendance were themselves considering membership of the Irish Club, which starts off at £150 per year for those in the 25-30 bracket.
“My boss recommended it to me, and I have to say I’m tempted having seen the facilities,” said one Dublin graduate.
Not all were sold on the merits of membership. “Bit steep for me, man,” a Corkman barked. “I’m just here for the free Guinness and the craic.”
A few days later, The Irish Times arrived for a visit while some of the internal building maintenance was going on. At one point, the manager of the Irish Club, Charlie Vernon, had to cut short our tour momentarily to tell the builders to stop drilling while guests were enjoying lunch in the restaurant. “Almost there!” he said with a wry smile.
THE CLUB’S FOUNDERS state that it should welcome people of Irish descent, regardless of religious or political creed. They’re determined not to make it the stuffy preserve of high society types either, and members will be permitted to bring a number of guests with them. And with its banqueting and conference rooms, they hope it won’t serve merely as a venue for drinking, cards and televised Gaelic Games in the summer months, but also for the clinching of political and business deals.
“At the Irish Club we’ve always prided ourselves on the fact that we’re an autonomous organisation, and it’s very important now that we’ve a freehold property,” Vernon added.
“We’re entirely comfortable with launching in the middle of a recession. We’ve done our homework and the demand is there between the Irish diaspora and people popping back and forth to London on business. We hope that in time the young Irish who join the club will hold on to the best of the old traditions in this new environment.”
The Irish Club is located on 2-4 Tudor Street, London EC4Y 0AA. Contact Charlie Vernon on +44 20-7353-7977. For more information, e-mail info@irish club.co.uk or visit the website at irishclub.co.uk