Dublin People - Gravediggers owner surprised at protection proposal

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Gravediggers owner surprised at protection proposal

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

THE owner of a famous Northside pub has expressed surprise and some confusion at Dublin City Council’s proposal to make it a protected structure.
Mr Eugene Kavanagh, owner of Kavanagh’s, or ‘The Gravediggers’, public house beside Glasnevin Cemetery said the first he had heard of the council’s proposal to make his pub a protected building was when he received a phone call from a council official.
“But it was a short phone call and I couldn’t weigh up the pros and cons of my premises being placed on this list,” said Mr Kavanagh.
“I presume if this decision goes ahead it’s going to impact on my business and my home in a number of different ways.
“Does it mean if I want to renovate, I can’t, or if my wife wants to paint a wall a certain colour she can’t?”
However, when contacted by Northside People, a Dublin City Council spokesman explained that a definite procedure had to be initiated before it was decided if the famous premises was to be added to the protected structures list.
“The proposal must first come before the local area committee and if it is passed there it will proceed to a consultation period of 12 weeks,” said the spokesperson.
“During that period anyone can make submissions on the suitability of the premises to be placed on the protected list.
“After the consultation period the proposal will then proceed to a full meeting of Dublin City Council where the elected members will vote on the proposal.”

The spokesperson added that if the decision was taken to list the building, the owner could apply for a Section 57, which explains exactly what work can or cannot be carried out on the premises.
Mr Kavanagh’s premises is steeped in local history. It was built as a residence in the early 1800s and occupied by a John O’Neill who converted it to a public house in 1833.
In 1835 Mr O’Neill handed over the business to his son-in-law, John Kavanagh, and the premises has been owned by a Kavanagh ever since, with Eugene being the current owner.
According to Patricia Hyde, Dublin City Council senior planner, there are surviving early features of the building worthy of protection, including the bar and the partition in the Western Bar that once separated the drinking area from the grocery section.
“The premises included a grocery from the late 1800s until the 1950s where various items were sold, including jars of jam whose empties were also used to serve stout,” said Ms Hyde.
“They were used during the war when glass was in short supply and this gave rise to the term ‘a jar’, meaning a drink of stout.”
The pub’s alternative name of the Gravediggers arose from the fact that the men who dug graves in the cemetery next door frequented the bar from its earliest days.
Ms Hyde added that a slightly tenuous link to Daniel O’Connell also exists. He is held to have played a role in securing the pub’s good fortunes in its earliest years because he campaigned for a new road to what was then the cemetery’s main gate.
That meant funeral processions would not have to pass via a tollgate and the pub returned the favour by mainly stocking O’Connell’s Ale.
“Kavanagh’s is specifically mentioned in James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, in an episode in which the funeral of Paddy Dignam retires to this pub,” Ms Hyde said.

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