John Mulligan

And it's how the family business, that's what the family business was as well, the pub trade.

And so he grew up in Adair and County Limerick, and his aunt had a pub there, his dad had a pub there that he bought in the 1950s.

So this was in his blood, this pub trade.

And so he was a keen herder and worked away in the pub business in Adair when he was younger.

And they owned a pub called Auntie Lena's, which was his aunt.

She had run that for decades on her own.

And actually that pub had been in the family since 1806 when the building was actually constructed.

So then this long history of being in the pub trade and yeah, really goes back for generations.

Yeah, so that's where he made it big.

So he had done his intercert, or his junior cert, as many of our listeners might know it as.

He had done his intercert and he was only 16.

He left it there and he decided to go to Dublin.

And this was a time when Ireland economically wasn't in a great place.

And he went off to Dublin anyway, and he worked hard.

for about five years or so in a pub called Davy Burns, which is just off Grafton Street.

And some listeners might know that from being famous in Ulysses, where Leopold Bloom stopped in for a cheese sandwich and a glass of Burgundy.

And so he worked there.

And then he decided he was going to buy a pub.

And he did.

In 1770, he bought his first pub along with a friend.