One for the road
Trip Start
Apr 07, 2011
1
23
40
Trip End
May 15, 2011
Tullamore to Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
Friday, April 29, 2011
Steph walked us up to the Tullamore Dew Heritage Centre to do the tour at 11.30, it was not too bad and the story behind the product was worth a hearing. They don’t actually make the whiskey there now, the building was originally the bond store for the company. It’s set on the canal which was necessary for transport in the early days. We got a good overview of the history of whiskey itself, the story of the distillery’s business, the process of whiskey manufacture, and then a chance to sample the product.
The first whiskey in Tullamore was distilled in 1829, the company passed through a few hands until it was bought by Daniel E Williams – hence the name Tullamore DEW. The company had about 3500 employees in the best years and Williams was also responsible for getting electricity to Tullamore, the first telephone exchange, and he also ran an import/export business in grain, tea and other products, and owned a chain of 26 grocery stores.
Prohibition in the USA had a huge effect on Tullamore town and company with a huge downturn in production and Williams’ grandson diversified. He pretty much invented Irish Coffee in the 1950’s and the owner of Buena Vista café in Los Angeles took the idea and ran with it and they make about 2000 per day. Irish Mist liqueur was introduced using an ancient recipe. Apparently it was a drink made of whiskey, heather honey and special herbs, used by chieftains a couple of hundred years ago It was taken overseas when the chiefs left the country, and lost for 250 years. An Austrian person took a bunch of old papers to the company in 1947 and in amongst it was the Irish Mist recipe and they haven’t looked back. Now Tullamore Dew is the second-best seller in Irish Whiskeys in the world.
Afterwards we had a quick lunch then left Steph for Dublin Airport to return the car which we eventually did, then took the bus into the city. The St George is not a patch on Bewleys in ALL respects but it will be okay, being more central city I guess puts the prices up. It’s a Georgian building built in 1750, traded with more and more difficulty until 1979, stood derelict for a few years (even lost its roof), then was re-established. Honestly, its adequate: staff members are pleasant, room is clean, breakfast is good; but the walls are paper thin (man next door snores), had to ask for toiletries, walls , guests were smoking on non-smoking floors (hallways reeked of cigarettes), tired, peeling paint. But I won’t go on. It’s quirky too, full of little hallways and a couple of steps up here, a couple down there, and the floor slopes every which way wherever you are. And I guess it’s fairly handy to most things so I shouldn’t moan. I don't think it's the best value for money we've struck.
After we’d settled in we jumped on a bus to Temple Bar which is the main entertainment area. We wandered a wee bit then found ourselves outside the Oliver St John Gogarty bar and we thought 'This’ll do’, and settled in. Gogarty was a poet, author, doctor, politician – you name it, there’s no space to detail it. Enough to say he was very well known. The pub was fairly full and we were lucky to get a table, people were there for the music which started after 8pm, two main guys playing and they were joined by another on the bodhran (Irish drum), and later by a fellow called Des Leech who is apparently very famous in Irish music, he played the piano accordion. They had the crowd singing along and didn’t stop until 11pm. We had a meal and we could see the small stage for most of the time but it got really crowded around 10.30, a lot of people came in on stag nights and things like that and the noise level got pretty high so we couldn’t hear so well. But never mind, we had a good night out all the same.
I was a bit doubtful about the Temple Bar area, it seemed pretty rough to me although there were plenty of people around (a fair percentage were pretty drunk). Funnily enough we later noticed a plaque next door to our hotel saying that Gogarty had been born there so that’s a coincidence. And we were safe enough. Not a late night and we enjoyed the meal and entertainment.
** Irish street numbering ** I forgot to mention this on Wednesday ** When we were looking for Longford genealogy we had a wee bit of trouble. The address is 17 Dublin Street , first problem was that on the left side the numbering (not that all businesses actually were numbered) was 1, 2, 3……..etc, and the right side opposite started at 49, 48. We found 17 okay, but it was a Chinese restaurant so we stood outside in case someone arrived looking like a genealogy person, and Pete had a wander up and down the street though not sure for what. After a few minutes I went into the next door shop (number 16) and the woman said ’17 – it’s across the road’. Oh, but, um, next door is 17…..?? ‘Oh yes, that’s right, it is but it’s wrong, don’t worry about it’. And sure enough there it was across the street with a plaque outside and 17 on the door. The one positive in this search was that the street was actually named so we knew we were in the correct street.
