Dr. Perry Share

One, it meant a lot of the pubs in the Cork looked more similar because they were branded and designed by the company.

And the other interesting thing was that in Cork, a lot of women ran pubs because you were an employee of the brewery rather than the owner of the pub.

A lot of women were employed in pubs in Cork.

And at one stage, most of the pubs in Cork were run by women.

And the husbands, if you like, were in other jobs.

They were maybe tradesmen or they were working in a factory or something.

Cork has that unique distinction, which we talk about in the book.

Yeah, it certainly is a perception.

And in certain ways it was true, you know, in certain parts of the pub and in certain types of pub, women were made not welcome or were effectively barred from pubs.

but there have always been and both Elizabeth Malcolm in her chapter and in subsequent chapters you know we do trace the history of women both behind the bar you know working in pubs owning pubs but also you know there were always women in pubs but often they were they were corralled if you like or divided into certain areas so the famous snug of course which is a key feature of the Irish pub and then also in the you know starting in probably the

1930s, 40s, 50s, lounge bars began to appear.

So you had a nicer part of the pub, maybe more furnished with different sorts of drinks.

And carpets and women's toilets, which was very important.

And women and then later families were sort of encouraged to go into those parts of the pub.

Now that distinction is gone, really.

Yeah, I mean, Tracy Dalton, who has a chapter in the book, she works in TU Dublin now, but she was a designer for the Irish pub company at the time, set up by a guy called Mel McNally.

And it can be traced back to Italia 90, actually, like many things in Ireland, I suppose.

But at Italia 90, Guinness executives were over there in Milan and they noticed the huge popularity of Irish pubs, both for Irish fans, of course, but also for local Italians.

And they thought, this is a great idea.

And they came back