Neil Sowerby on the Emerald Invasion washing its way through the city and beyond
An Irish wolfhound painted green, would you credit it? Not a tall tale but a Paddy’s Day encounter on the thronged streets of Downpatrick a decade ago. En route for Belfast we were driving through the County Down town – appropriately the last resting place of Ireland’s patron saint. The huge dog’s master was sporting an equally green stovepipe hat with a clover on it but not, alas, an elasticated ginger beard attached.
Every 17 March, American cities go even further celebrating Hibernian heritage. In Chicago and Boston whole waterways get dyed bright emerald. I don’t expect the Irwell to shed its shit-brown sheen in Manchester’s upcoming contribution to the Pat in the Hat revels. Yet the big day is sure to be fuelled by a flood of the black stuff. Purely on the evidence of the plethora of Irish bars springing up. One a month at the last count.
Somewhere over the rainbow, the price is way up high
Across the land trad pubs may be closing at the rate of 30 a week, but on the flip side an Oirish theme offers the pot of gold at the end of Finian’s rainbow. Just stick a row of Guinness dispensers on the bar, lay it on thick with the toucan posters and signposts proclaiming “It’s 300 miles to Tipperary” … then call yourself Mother McGinty’s Goat. Or something equally seafóideach (check Irish Gaelic translation, don’t attempt to pronounce).
Fact: across the globe, in streets broad and narrow, Molly Malone’s is the most popular Irish pub name. Of course, you’ve also got The Dog’s Bollix in Auckland, New Zealand, The Hairy Canary in Brussels, Cromwell’s (this’ll slay them) in Alicante and in our own dear Sale Moor, Fibber Magee's.
At the more sophisticated end of nomenclature I give you the Northern Quarter’s Salmon of Knowledge in the former Ply site, and now a second in Didsbury (becoming the new Dublin with Kennedy’s of Altrincham also expanding there). Smart sports bar Salmon is a quite different kettle of fish to the old school establishments. To wash down your brisket boxty they even feature a ‘craft’ alternative to Guinness. The Brandon Stout from Cork’s Franciscan Well Brewery is a more substantial tipple, but a small drop in the roasted malt dark ocean.
Guinness is good for you (especially if you’re an investor)
Central to this bar boom is, of course, the astonishing surge in popularity of Arthur Guinness’s beautifully marketed brew, on trend in Dublin since 1759. As I write, they are predicting 380,000 pints of this iconic stout will be downed at the current Cheltenham Festival – a 43 per cent increase on last year.
And before Christmas fears of a national shortage sent shockwaves through its new Generation Z legion of admirers. Result: a scramble to the bar to pay £7 a pint and beyond. The prices at Mulligan’s off Deansgate are almost keeping pace with London phenomenon The Devonshire, its landlord a man named Oisin, the downstairs bar the biggest Irish scrum down since Willie John McBride. (Tip: the wood ember grilled steaks upstairs are a superior experience.)
All this for a gentle keg beer that clocks in at just 4.2 per cent ABV but, yes, looks good on Instagram. Helped by all that ritual about the perfect, two-part pour, which takes 118 seconds to get it right. Oh, and for real nerds, the correct keg ratio of blanket nitrogen and oxygen has to be in place. As they say in Auckland, Bollix. Not content with now producing the UK’s best-selling beer, Guinness owners Diageo have also tapped into the zero market. Guinness 0.0 is also our numero uno non-alcoholic beer. Staggering, you might say, but that’s not the end product.
So which Manchester Irish bar is best for a St Patrick’s Day bash?
Probably Mulligan’s. It used to be my affordable local in ‘Lunchtime O’Booze’ days at the Manchester Evening News. It was just the right side of shabby then under a laconic landlord nicknamed Trigger. Was that really Roy Keane over there in the corner near the Fir and Mna (Gents and Ladies)? Nowadays, under progressive owner Pádraig Brady, it has smartened up and expanded upstairs to accommodate the hordes who descend. Get there early or charm the bouncers. Best Guinness in the land? I’m keen (sic) not to be mugged by the hype, but it is a lovely drop. Prices: ouch.
Pull up a pew – when bar decor is an ecumenical matter
How I miss Waxy O’Connor’s in the Printworks, at one time Manchester’s biggest Irish bar. Labyrinthine was the word for this multi-level job lot of ecclesiastical carved wood and stained glass, its centrepiece a 250-year-old tree shipped over from Ireland. What was that trunk’s fate when Waxy’s suddenly jumped ship?
Reassuringly old wooden fixtures remain de rigueur in a new generation of Irish bars. Sometimes it goes beyond recycled barrels as tables. Take O’Connell’s, which has set up shop in the old Thirsty Scholar site on New Wakefield Street. The main bar front has been sourced from an early 20th-century bank on Dublin’s College Green with seating ‘looted’ from both Tralee and Manchester Cathedrals.
Less generic is neighbour Mother Marys, itself a reinvention of another classic Manc student bar, Font. Music, including Irish trad sessions, is part of the package. Derry’s lively bar scene is apparently an inspiration and Franciscan Well is on tap here, too. Combine a crawl round both bars with a communion with the nearby plaque marking the site of the 19th century slum district, Little Ireland. Friedrich Engels was appalled.
They love a good story – who’s for Nancy Spain?
An invitation sits in my inbox. To Nancy Spains, a project by three brothers from Kerry who have brought the craic to Shoreditch and Monument in London and hope to replicate in the NQ’s Hilton Street. They are just going to make it in time for St Patrick’s Day. Cork stout Murphy’s is their signature stout – not even Cork’s finest. I prefer the creamier Beamish, also under the Heineken umbrella but, for some odd commercial reason, we don’t see it much on draught over here.
It’s an odd addition to the scene, but I’m not pre-judging. Just indulge in that traditional Tralee bottomless brunch while digesting the back story of the eponymous heroine: “Nancy Spain was born outside Tralee in County Kerry in 1857, just after the Great Famine. Raised in a rural farming family, she grew up helping on the land but always dreamed of a life beyond the village. In her mid-teens, she left Ireland for London, driven by the hope of a better future.
“Starting out as a maid and factory worker, Nancy worked tirelessly, eventually becoming a barmaid in a local pub. Through her hard work, charm, and dedication, she became the landlady – the first Irish woman to hold such a role in London. Throughout the years, the pub became a place for the Irish community to connect with their heritage. Through traditional music, dance, and storytelling, it became a home away from home for many Irish generations living in London.
“Though Nancy loved London, her heart always longed for home. When she retired, she returned to Tralee, where she spent her remaining years in the peaceful countryside that had never left her soul.”
So Nancy, no pissed-up leprechauns from the great peat bogs of Newton Heath and Harpurhey then?
Forgive me, St Patrick. Do I sin in loving the old school bars?
There were, of course, pubs where folk of Irish extraction exclusively went. Not much of this left around. The Hennigan family empire in Levenshulme is majorly depleted. If you listen carefully enough on Ducie Street you might still hear the ghostly strains of Irish music sessions of the Jolly Angler, now shut after 166 years of jollity. Up in Ancoats a similar fate has befallen the even older Shamrock Inn in Bengal Street. It was mooted Holt’s Brewery would refurbish and reopen it, but that still hasn’t happened.
To the west of here was Angel Meadow. In the 19th century it was a hellish home to 30,000 Irish immigrants. On the other side of town there was the aforementioned ‘Little Ireland’. On the fringes today hails O’Shea’s. I was there in 1994 when Jack Charlton, Geordie boss of the raggle-taggle Republic of Ireland football squad, poured the first ever pint in this warehouse conversion that still proudly flies the green, white and orange tricolour. Grab a Full Irish with Clonakilty Black and White Pudding, washed down with Guinness at a mere £6.10 a pint. Do they screen the All-Ireland Hurling? Be good if they did. Whatever’s on the screens, it will be packed this coming Monday.
A leap of faith at The Salmon of Knowledge
A busy Salmon, too. To sup the stout you don’t have to be acquainted with the legend, but it helps. In Irish myth the salmon of knowledge swam in the Well of Segais, and ate the magical nuts from nine hazel trees that fell into the water. There was a prophecy that Finegas would catch and eat it, thereby gaining all knowledge. However his apprentice Fionn roasted the salmon and burnt his thumb while turning it. Fionn put his thumb in his mouth to cool it, and so received the salmon’s power. From that point on he only had to chew his thumb to gain knowledge of the future.
Mind, at the end of a hectic St Patrick’s Day the immediate future is probably just a Full Irish.
- St Patrick’s Day is 17 March. In the aftermath treat yourself to a copy of Ian Ryan’s A Beautiful Pint (Bloomsbury, £9.99), which explains the Guinness mystique and guides you to the best places to sample it. As a riposte to the TikTok influencers check out this Cork exile’s @shitlondonguinness Instagram account.
This story also appears on Neil Sowerby’s acclaimed blog www.neilsowerby.co.uk
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