STREET LIFE:"The second the sun comes out, South William Street and environs become Dublin's grand promenade. Smoking regulations definitely put tables on the street, but non-smokers also like sitting outdoors to see and be seen. UNA MULLALLYgoes walkabout while FIONOLA MEREDITHand LORNA SIGGINSfind a similar vibe in Belfast and Galway
GRAFTON STREET IS like the river, I always looked at it like the Liffey. On the other side of it are the southsiders, suburbanites. And these are the city people on this side.”
“This side” is South William Street, where Joe Macken has opened his second incarnation of CrackBird, a buzzy chicken restaurant he calls his “baby”. Nowhere typifies Dublin in the summer more than South William Street. It’s probably the only street in town that is truly continental, allowing for outdoor terraces and seating areas at every cafe, restaurant and bar on the street.
“It’s the main vein for the city,” Macken says, and it’s hard to disagree. On a summer’s day, the place is packed with punters mulling over coffees in Busy Feet or Metro, grabbing a crepe in Lemon or a burger in GBK, having a mojito in the South William, or a pint in Peter’s Pub, and with tourists dining outside the several Indian and Moroccan restaurants.
The area is populated by an oddly high number of hairdressers (Dylan Bradshaw, Brown Sugar, Cowboys Angels and Style Club to name a few), and South William Street and its surrounding area of Drury Street, Castle Market and Clarendon Street is going back to its roots as a key fashion district in the city.
Bookended by Powerscourt Town House Centre and the George’s Street Arcade, South William Street, Wicklow Street, Exchequer Street, Fade Street, Castle Market and Drury Street have never been buzzier. Devoid of trashy restaurants, the area instead has a concentration of high quality but reasonably priced eateries, such as La Maison, Fallon Byrne and L’Gueleton. Its bars – Grogan’s, Kelly’s (which some still refer to as the Secret Bar given its lack of a sign), Hogan’s, the South William, the Exchequer and Peter’s Pub – are ungeneric.
It is also home to some of the nicest independent stores in the country, including Bow in Powerscourt, Indigo Cloth on South William Street, Costume in Castle Market, Om Diva in George’s Street Arcade and Smock and Horse and June on Drury Street. There are mutterings of pedestrianisation to further enhance the street life in the area, with Fade Street the first to become closed to traffic, and other streets to follow.
The South William Street area isn’t the only place where a street life vibe percolates. More and more new “neighbourhoods” are coming to life, including the Cow’s Lane and Exchange Street area, which is home to the Exchange Dublin collective arts centre, Dublin Ink tattoo studio, Queen of Tarts on Cow’s Lane, The Bakery, and the new Ubode café and home store.
Then there’s Portobello, with its easy going vibe along the canal and throughout its residential streets, with the Bernard Shaw for kids born in the 1990s, and BiBi’s for brunch. Or Grand Canal Dock, one of the few success stories of quickly constructed urban living – even if many of the nicely designed units still lie empty. There’s Herb Street for breakfast and Ely for pre-theatre drinks. In all of these cases, diversity and independence is at their core. Our street life will be created and enhanced not by international stores and food outlets being parachuted in, but by the people who strive not just to create something for themselves and their staff, but for their surroundings.
For a while, it felt as though Dublin’s centre was dead, barely holding it together as institutions of the city’s street life closed down. A race to the bottom in alcohol prices took hold of many bars and clubs, and closed shutters were oftentimes a more common site than open doors.
But post-aftershock comes a sort of recovery. The independent shop managers of the South William Street area are determined. Where Road Records fell, The Rage opened, a fun record and old-school computer games store on Fade Street. Indigo Cloth has expanded. There’s a feeling of rebirth throughout the area, a spirit of of determination and cooperation.
TOMMY SMITH from Cavan started working in Grogan’s, at the corner of South William Street and Castle Market, 40 years ago. “Come inside, I’ve a counter to watch,” he says, pulling down the awning over the seats outside as the rain starts to stutter. Grogan’s is the unchangeable stalwart of the street. Always busy. Always laden with art. Always inviting. Its outdoor seating spills across all of Castle Market on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and it has one of the most eclectic crowds in the city; professionals making their way over from the Baggot Street area, students rolling cigarettes outside, musicians, writers, old-timers propping up the bar.
“This originally was the rag-trade street really,” Smith reminisces. “When we came here, the majority of our customers were involved in the drapery business, and some antique dealers that were around the area.” Back then the South William Street area was devoid of the bustle that now typifies it. “This was a very quiet backwater. It was a sleepy part of the city with no need to pass through the streets,” Smith says, before detailing the philosophy of his pub.
“It doesn’t make a difference where you come from here, that’s what we like. I’d like to think that this pub is quite egalitarian. There’s no such thing as suits or just young people or just old people. It’s just people who want to talk to each other. We don’t have televisions or background music. Not everyone wants to go out and boogey all the time, some people want to meet up and talk about something more serious. I think this pub is a place where you can do that; from legal age to whatever age you live to. People can mingle here.”
Conor Bereen and his brother Marc run the South William bar and Coppinger Row. Pygmalian took Ba Mizu’s place and Coppinger Row continues to flourish. A market on Thursdays adds extra oomph to the area, with fresh groceries, olives, crepes, and great jewellery from father-daughter team Richard and Giorgia Reichhold (check out their matt and glossy glass rings), among other stalls. At the end of the row, if you’re sick of the bustle, check out The Living Room, a silent space and money-free zone where everyone is invited to lunchtime meditations.
It’s a change from the endless queues that the Nirvana headshop courted before synthetic psychoactive substances were banned, and the lines of clubbers and kids on their way to parties elsewhere in the city disappeared.
Begging is omnipresent, thanks to the ample opportunities for hooking in outdoor drinkers and diners. And like elsewhere in the city, phone-snatching happens on occasion.
Garrett Pitcher used to go to the Hideout on South William Street to play pool when he was a kid. Now he runs Indigo Cloth, practically opposite the pool hall. “If we want to grow our business, we’ll probably grow upwards,” Pitcher says, pointing towards the ceiling of his basement shop. He has since taken over the ground floor on a temporary basis, and his well-edited mix of men’s and women’s fashion has outlasted many similar efforts elsewhere. He has been on the street since 2007. “We’re a fashion retailer, but we’re a retailer with lots of different ideas,” Pitcher says. “The street lends itself to interesting businesses. That’s what’s happening out there now.
“ CrackBird with Joe, and you have a couple of other new businesses going across the street – one is going to be a café, and one is Project 51. Now, finally, the street’s becoming a bit more balanced, and I think the street will go from strength to strength because there’s more diversity amongst the businesses.”
His typical customer doesn’t exist. “We have hipster kids at 18, and trendy dads, and women in their late 50s. We attract diversity, but catering for them is the next thing.”
Pitcher describes his shop’s stock as: “Quality, contemporary, new designers or designers who have become big recently. Our customer base would be quite educated, be it educated in knowing what they want in terms of fabric and look, or people who travel quite a bit and see these types of brands or stores abroad. Generally in New York and London, but also Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm . . . a lot of brands are Scandinavian, and we do a lot of English heritage brands too.” Pitcher collaborates with Aisling Farinella, Keith Nally, James Cullen and Kieran Kilgallon to produce Thread, a fashion magazine that is available in outlets throughout the South William Street area. Pitcher sees it as an outlet for creative ideas that aren’t commercial enough for mainstream media, but it also feels slightly more than that; there is a sense of place in an area that has its own publication.
It's that sense of a defined place that is beginning to take hold. I recall walking down the street a couple of years ago with a New York Timesjournalist I was showing around who was writing a travel piece on Dublin. "I like this neighbourhood," he remarked. And that comment stuck. South William Street is a neighbourhood within a city that doesn't really do neighbourhoods.
TAKE FIVE Eat, drink and be merry
Top five South William Street
neighbourhood tipples
Rhubarb lemonade in CrackBird
The Exchequer's I Can't Believe It's Not Watermelon cocktail
Picard (espresso, condensed milk, cognac and grated nutmeg) in Coppinger Row
Pint of Guinness in Grogan's
Hot chocolate from Murphy's on Wicklow Street
Top five South William Street neighbourhood eats
The selection of pâtés and pickles at La Maison
A Grogan's ham and cheese toastie with mustard
Eggs Benedict on Sundays in Kelly's bar
Soy garlic chicken with whipped feta and lemon dip in CrackBird
Chanquetes in Port House
On the fringes: Five up-and-coming joints in Dublin
Foam Café Gallery, 24 Strand Street (in the Italian Quarter), Dublin 1
The new kid on the block is probably the best decorated cafe in town, with gorgeous comfy couches upstairs, and the drag-queen-explosion effect of endless art, a pink umbrella and brilliant light fittings. Plus, it's open until 9pm most nights. Key buy: Citrus torte with clotted cream
FucknFilthy Club, Crow Street, Temple Bar
This pop-up shop runs in the basement of All City Records until July 27th. New runs of T-shirts and sweatshirts sell out within hours of being flagged online (fucknfilthy.com) having developed an international cult following, business at this shop, open for just 10 days, is booming. Key buy: The new five-panel hats
Jam Factory Café, 134 James Street, Dublin 8
A labyrinth of rehearsal studios with a cafe on the ground floor, this spot has been attracting fans of good sandwiches and good music alike. Cathy Davey and Paul Noonan of BellX1 played at the launch this week and its Electro Jam night looks set to become a regular feature.
Key buy: The JFC Special
Momma's Place, Curved Street, Temple Bar
Joe Macken is a busy man. Not content with CrackBird, his latest venture is a café upstairs in Filmbase in Temple Bar, which opened yesterday, and will no doubt act as a magnet in an area heavy with musicians and theatre and film heads. Key buy: The cakes will be killer
Project 51, 51 South William Street
Project 51 is to open this September. The Irish Design Collective running the space is aspiring to turn the building into a luxury boutique space populated by the best up-and-coming Irish designers in fashion, millinery, jewellery and more. Key buy: Eoin McDonnell diamond rings
Alternative Ulster Belfast's Cathedral Quarter
It was once a lonely and neglected corner of the city, but now the winding cobbled lanes of Belfast's Cathedral Quarter are full of bars, cafes and galleries, all sorts of new festivals are springing up, and there's a real sense of energy, creativity and renewal in the air. Although it's heavily marketed as a tourist destination, the Cathedral Quarter is not a confected cultural area, dreamed up by city planners: it really is a place where artists, musicians, architects, writers, curators and DJs meet, play and work. In winter, the best spot to be is squeezed into a corner of one of the lively bars, but in the summer months, the life of the place spills on to the streets.
Tables with flickering candles pop up outside Nick's Warehouse (pictured below). Converted from a pigeon-infested whiskey store in 1989, Nick's was one of the first places to see the potential in the area, and it still does the best steak in Belfast. On summer evenings, the narrow laneway outside the Duke of York bar is thronged, and it's almost impossible to pass through without meeting at least five people you know. On the last Friday night of every month, the Belfast bike-riding initiative, Critical Mass, ends up at the Duke, usually with local artist and inventor Paddy Bloomer on one of his hand-made contraptions, complete with portable sound system blasting out obscure 1980s music. Many of the openings at the area's visual-arts galleries – the Golden Thread, Belfast Exposed, PS2 and the Third Space – are held on the first Thursday of every month, and groups of friends often cross paths as they stroll between venues.
The summer also brings Sunday afternoon performances of street theatre to Cotton Court, organised by Belfast Community Circus School. It's all the more enjoyable if you grab a ring-side seat at the adjoining tapas bar and have some olives and a glass of wine while you watch, but there's always the risk of being dragged on-stage and forced to catch bananas or juggle beanbags, to the amusement of the crowd. At the very heart of the Cathedral Quarter is the Black Box, a space for live music, theatre, comedy, film and much more. Set up five years ago through the tireless efforts of committed people in the local cultural community, this is where it all happens. All kinds of new creative projects and plans have been dreamed up over a slice of home-made pizza in the Black Box cafe, and this place – more than anywhere else – embodies the imaginative, experimental DIY spirit of an alternative Belfast.
Fionola Meredith
Tribal gathering Galway's street culture
WHEN key words "Galway" and "food" made the Illustrated London News back in June 1842, it wasn't for the quality of the city's coffee houses – it was for the "dishonest artifices" practised by hoarding traders who forced up prices during times of scarcity.
In fact, Macnas monsters might wilt at the ferocity of the regular 19th-century food riots, fuelled by genuine distress. Nine score years on, and the hardships once associated with the Spanish Arch and Claddagh basin are not even a memory to the multitudes enjoying the Corrib banks on a summer's evening.
For Fishmarket, as it is known, is Galway's largest outdoor café, but without the checked tablecloths and chairs and parasols. There is no service charge and no aproned waiting staff here, as young families enjoy their McDonagh's fish and chips or Flo Wagemakers's falafel – just the odd juggler or unicyclist or drummer, and then the discreet Garda presence as evening drinking begins.
Up town, however, a café society of sorts has been developing to rival Galway's notorious pub "culture". It starts in what has been re-named the "Latin quarter", with Pura Vida's home-made quiches and muffins, and Cupán Tae, modelled on its sister tearoom in Kenmare, Co Kerry, at the corner of Quay Lane and Flood Street.
Traffic doesn't seem to be a deterrent, even on busy Merchant's Road where the original Arabica restaurant serves up the finest panini and espresso. Move up Quay Street, and it is the sturdy canvas awnings that catch the eye, designed to protect customers from the worst that the Atlantic can offer.
"Ten or 15 years ago, you'd never have dreamt of an outdoor café in Galway, particularly with the weather we have," admits Jimmy Griffin, proprietor of Griffin's Bakery. His 135-year-old business in Shop Street, close to the Saturday market, commands one of the best spots for people-watching, rivalled only by McCambridge's further up.
"Pedestrianisation had an influence, as had the café culture which people experienced when travelling abroad," Griffin says. "But it was the smoking ban in pubs that started up the chat outdoors." He and his fellow café owners knew it would always be a bit of a gamble. Proprietors have to purchase a licence from Galway City Council, pay a charge per table, and also provide public-liability insurance that indemnifies the local authority for up to €6.5 million.
"When we opened our café in the bakery three years ago, we knew we had to cater for smokers also, but the extension outside also adds a bit of character and colour – and it's a bit of a magnet for drawing people in," says Griffin.
"We have customers sitting out from early morning. All through those sub-zero temperatures last winter we had the hardy few . . . so the tables stay out with them all-year round."
In spite of the elements, Galway's outdoor cafes have also become a type of sanctuary – particularly where there's far too much rattle and hum to communicate by mobile phone. Here be places where people can still talk, rather than tweet, eye to eye rather than screen to screen.
Lorna Siggins