Taking Liberties – An Irishwoman’s Diary on Dublin’s Dubbiest Dubs

‘C’mon here till I tell ya!” cries a familiar voice, thrusting a chunk of pear in my face.

“Try this Comice! De-lic-ious, this is!”

The voice belongs to Jacko Roche, greengrocer of the Liberties. Jacko is a 100 per cent organic, locally sourced “Libertine”. The pear is rosily, creamily delicious, one of a gallimaufry of organic fruits from hotter spots than Dublin’s 32 Meath Street.

Jacko’s veggie-selling patter is legendary. The other day a customer pointed at an avocado and asked, “What’s that when it’s at home?”

“An aphrodisiac,” says Jacko. “But I already have a bottle of stout,” she demurs. His jokes are often “stem-winders” – jacket potatoes that wind up in pyjamas, for example.

And his accents are indubitably Dub, purest Liberties, pulling me down a backwards slide through 40-odd years (yikes!) to when I was a student, meeting Larry Dillon for the first time, to talk about the Liberties’ fight for survival.

You could say Jacko’s inherited Larry’s mantle.

Larry was the pride of the Coombe in the 1970s. Spokesman for the Liberties Association and gifted arguer, Larry proclaimed his Liberties was “heart of the rowl” – oldest and Dubbiest Dub, independent since Henry II’s 1171 visit to the monks of St Thomas, and menaced by city planners itching to move the Libertines to “Ballyfarouts.”

We’d been introduced by architectural student Jeremy Williams. So many things began with Jeremy!

He took us to the massive Marshalsea Barracks off Thomas Street, former jail for debtors.

Later, Larry introduced us to Mrs Kitty Ryan's on Meath Street, where Jeremy led the bar in Leonard Cohen's Suzanne Takes You Down (To Her Place near the River).

As a member of Rage (Radical Action for Good Environment) Jeremy wanted the Marshalsea converted for student housing, and we seconded his emotion.

But I came back after Christmas in 1971 to find the Corpo had demolished it.

Thinking has since shifted. Right now, former Frawley’s is to be affordable NCAD student housing over the road. Archaeologists now think it covers 17th-century homes behind a newer frontage.

Probably too late to save them – it’s passed council, and like the Marshalsea and Moore Street debates, it’s quite a stretch to reimagine original structures!

But the Marshalsea would have made terrific NCAD housing today. Shame.

Jeremy died suddenly at Christmas while on his way to buy his daily morning pomegranate. To me, the shocking part of this was not only that he died, relatively young – but that he bought pomegranates on Thomas and Meath Streets.

Or “wine apples” to older Liberties folks!

Organic blueberries

“T’was far from them that we were raised,” my former neighbour Tony Doonan says, as Jacko regales us with organic blueberries, crying “Peruvian!”

Jacko was at Number 26 in the old days, where Norton’s is now. Dimly I recall him claiming, “You’re never stuck with an onion!” next to a wall of cabbages and spuds. Kerr’s Pinks. Now it’s Roosters.

And “Italian Corner” seduces with pasta, red peppers, olive oil, garlic, imported tomatoes – arrabiata, pomodoro, puttanesca – stop! Don’t be talking!

Back in the dark ages we bought olive oil at the chemist’s and never saw garlic. Altogether now – “T’was far from garlic and olive oil we were raised!”

Charter

The 1171 Liberties charter is in London’s British Library. You can see it there. Henry II was doing penance for Thomas Becket at Saint Thomas Bawn monastery at the time.

Becket’s monks prayed here till Henry VIII “dissolved” them. Fresh earlier finds and a crypt of Earls of Meath have been uncovered.

So this history keeps shifting, like a kaleidoscope and other Liberties exist too. As an “anarchaeologist” of the “contemporary past”, Franc Myles argues, you can say all of Dublin is a Liberties.

On recent walkabouts with Jacko we visited charming French café owner Daniel Vossion of Legit (“‘Leg it’... gettit?” jokes Jacko), then the “Kevin Barry” sculpture at Meath Street Saint Catherine’s; and cheery Rev Pat Heron at Thomas Street St Catherine’s (“Did U2 ever play here?” asks Pat, dreamily. Well, the Chieftains did).

On to another dreamer: Gerry Macken, chief executive of the Digital Hub and busy hatching plans for Vathouse 7 on Rainsford Street; then a pulsating café at the National College of Art; Francis Street and Iveagh Market with its Cork’s “English Market” plans pending and two new heads; the hidden stables down an alley where a tourist horse bunks.

“What’s his name?” I ask the young groom, Jamie.

“No Comment,” he replies.

“Awww, c’mon...” I begin.

“No, the nag’s name is No Comment,” Jacko explains. No Comment snorts.

I’m gobsmacked by now, but we’re off to Teeling’s Distillery on Newmarket, where I go into boggle overdrive at Jack Teeling’s experimental nectars. After all, Newmarket was no-go back in the druggy nineties, and now it’s go-go-go!

Improved

But has the Liberties changed? No, not really. But it’s improved and looks a lot better and new Libertines thrive here, just as I did.

As a teenage Trinity student I’d been equally gob-smacked. Until then the furthest west I’d been was Kevin Street, to paint a giant Findus Frozen Foods contest with pal Angie Maddigan.

When we lost, we tried to paint another F word above “Findus”. But too late!

Not too late for livelier Liberties. It’s more or less risen, more kaleidoscopic and more engaging. Thanks to Larry and Jeremy, RIP.