In 1987, the Kilcoyne family that owned Shamrock Rovers, south Dublin’s pre-eminent football club, sold the ground that they played in, Glenmalure Park, from under the team despite vociferous protests from the fans at the time. It sent the storied club into a peripatetic existence for 20 years, before they finally found a permanent home in Tallaght in 2009. The result was a nondescript housing estate.
In March of 2017, it was announced that Oaktree, an American based vulture fund had acquired Jack Nealon’s pub in amongst the portfolio of property loans it had bought from NAMA, would close the pub and lay off all of the staff who worked there. The result, from what we know now, is that the building’s century-long history as a licensed premises will come to an end. Sorry Nealon’s – staff and patrons – you don’t feature in our plans. Plus ça change.
On the surface of it, sitting at the head of the horseshoe-shaped bar downstairs sipping a Guinness, all seems normal in Nealon’s: There’s no music, no TV, just clangorous chatter of a perpetually popular city centre bar on a Thursday evening. The clientele is a mixture of locals and tourists. In the men’s toilets, there’s evidence of Nealon’s transition in recent decades into a queer space, with an ad for Béar Féile 2017 pinned to the wall.
Two different people come in asking for a pale ale or an IPA, but they have no ale other than Smithwicks (which, coincidentally, an American orders pronouncing the W, as we shake our collective goddamn heads). The drinks list is depleted on account of Jack Nealon’s impending closure, and they don’t appear to be ordering any new stock, just pouring out what they have left. To hammer this point home, the bar manager literally pours out the end of a bottle of spirits to a customer, about half a measure, explaining that’s all they have left, before offering a shot of Jameson’s Black Barrel, which he assures the customer is even nicer.
Nealon’s in many ways represents the best of the Irish pub. It’s the classic third space in its lack of frills, and unrelenting hospitality. It certainly has played a big role in defining the character of Capel Street and its environs. And yet, all of that can be ripped up and thrown away by the perpetual incompetence of property speculators, by the disinterest of foreign fund managers to whom our country’s heritage goes on sale to. With only a few weeks left before the doors finally close, it seems like the most pertinent move would be to drop in for a quiet one, two or three before the spirit is gone for good.
165 Capel Street, Dublin 1
t: 01-8723247
Words: Ian Lamont
Photos: Killian Broderick
