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Davy Byrnes

Davy Byrnes

21 Duke Street
Dublin 2

Tel:677 5217


Davy Byrnes

Davy Byrne arrived in Duke street on the 11th of January, 1889 by virtue of a banksale of £2,300 from the Munster and Leinster bank and commenced work in his newly acquired public house. The next 25 years brought around great changes in Ireland of cultural, nationalist and athletic activities, it was also the era of the Anglo-Irish literary and it was in this period that Davy Byrne's pub became famous as one of the more popular haunts of many of Dublin’s best writers such as Gogarty and James Stephens. But the literary giant with which Davy Byrne's is synonymous, is of course, James Joyce.

Joyce regularly visited the premises and developed a special relationship with the friendly but abstemious Davy Byrne. Joyce’s Dubliners has mentions of Davy Byrnes, but the Joycean character with which the premises is most associated with is leopold Bloom of Ulysses.

He entered Davy Brynes. Moral Pub. He doesn’t chat, stands a drink now and then. But in a leap year once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.

Throughout the war of independence and the civil war the premises was regularly visited by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith . We can assume that Davy Byrne was of strong Nationalist lineage as he regularly allowed the upstairs room to be used for meeting s of the IRB, and the outlawed Provisional Cabinet of the State, of which Michael Collins was finance minister. At closing time, on one occasion, a strict and officious barman was clearing the premises, shouting,

“Time, gentlemen please,” to which a clearly annoyed customer replied, “Time be damned! The Government is sitting upstairs.”

Davy Bryne retired from business in 1939, and in 1942 the pub was acquired by the Doran Family of Marlborough Street, who still own and run the Pub to this day, and although the clientele consists of more business types these days the decor remains original with many interesting paintings and murals of Joycean Dublin and a pub-food menu that is second to none.




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