TradeNames: The proof of the black pudding, and of course sausages, is in the eating - and Dubliners have loved the Olhausens brand for over 100 years. Rose Doyle reports

Sausage making in Dublin was for years in the hands of a number of venerable butchering families. Still is, in that the experience and traditional methods of several of the families are these days found in the Olhausens brand, a name which crops up as often and affectionately in early 20th century tales of the city as does the Howth tram. The two are not unconnected . . .

When Leopold Bloom emerged from Olhausens on the June day he spent wandering around Dublin 100 years ago, he was holding a parcel in each hand "one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen . . . sprinkled with whole pepper". Bloom would have known Olhausens well: the pork butchers had by then been trading for eight years at number 72 Talbot Street.

They're still well known. Last year, according to managing director Denis Murphy, Olhausens "sold 40 sausages to every man, woman and child on this island." But Olhausens Ltd, Pork and Bacon Producers, have long left Talbot Street, together with many other Dublin city centre traders, for the space and facilities of the suburbs. The company is these days found in Unit 3, Malahide Road Industrial Park, Dublin 17.

Other things too have changed.The shops have gone (the company is now a supplier to supermarkets, catering companies and the like), Olhausens is bigger than ever it was (230 people on the payroll, two production plants, 28 vehicles on the road) has diversified (five different product lines) and is now owned by a group of wholly Irish private investors.

What hasn't changed is the emphasis on quality pork and bacon products and the steadfast input of those who know the business. When Olhausens Ltd took over Kearns and Byrnes, it took on the nous and experience of two other sausage-making family businesses. Before that, in l977, when Freddie Olhausen sold the original company to butchers Terence Gormley and Thomas le Blanc, the new/old Olhausens gained the priceless knowledge of people like Tony Molloy, 76 years old, 56 years in the business and still making the loose, naturally cased, sausages today in Coolock that he first made as an apprentice in Gormleys in l948.

The company has the expertise too of Declan Williamson, vigorously looking after what is probably one of the biggest sausage rooms in the country and who has been 30 years in the business. He began serving his time in the Talbot Street shop when he was 14 years old.

What hasn't changed at all is the name. Olhausens it was in l896 when William Olhausen, a butcher newly arrived in Dublin from Central Europe/Germany, set up the business, and Olhausens it still is.

Denis Murphy says it kept the name "because of brand recognition. Olhausens has been known and regarded since the days it was advertised across the front of the number 31 tram going to Howth". The company has another niche spot in advertising history: when l927 legislation allowed for advertising on Radio Eireann, Olhausens was the first to take a slot. The company paid five pounds for five minutes, a lot of money and a lot of time in radio terms then, and now.

The company's origins are clear, but the Olhausen family story through the early years of the 20th century not so accessible. Denis Murphy, a mere four years with Olhausens but a working lifetime in the food industry, tells it as he has heard it.

"Back in the late 19th century, a lot of central Europeans/Germans arrived in Dublin . There were Olhausens, Reinhardts and Hafners. They all established butcher shops in various parts of Dublin."

William Olhausen, in Talbot Street, butchered behind the shop, primarily pigs. All of his sausages and puddings were made by hand; sausages would have been made of pork, rusk and his own specialised seasonings.

The natural casing then was made of sheep gut - these days, with a healthy 15 per cent of the company's sausages still made au naturel, the casing is manufactured collagen. The early Olhausens company, according to Denis Murphy, "went from father to son" and in the l970s was being run by Freddy Olhausen, son of William.

Denis Murphy here digresses from the Olhausen story to outline the parallel story of the Gormley and le Blanc sausage-making families. Both of these, in the mid-20th century, were running traditional butcher shops and making sausages in Dorset Street. "Through the l950s and l960s, they developed a chain of such shops under the Gormley name. There were 10 in all, in the newer estates and in the city centre. In l977, these two families bought Olhausen from Freddie, the son of the original William Olhausen. In l981 all of the butchering and processing moved out to Coolock." In time the shops all closed and the Olhausens manufacturing side grew as a supplier of supermarkets, catering food outlets and the like. In time too the company took over Best Food Services, which were producing Kearns and Byrnes, two other notable and old Dublin sausage brands.

Bernard Gormley is the company chairman and four of the le Blanc family work in the company but there is no longer any Olhausen, Byrnes or Kearns family involvement. Since February l999, the company has been owned by a group of private investors, all Irish.

Many of today's employees are from central and eastern Europe, a completing the circle begun when by central European immigrant started the business in l896.

Tony Molloy tells how it was when he started in the business in l948, as an apprentice in Gormleys in Dorset Street. "Gormleys was a small business, more like a family, with everyone on first name terms. Most butchers were like that at the time.

"To make the suasages you used lean meat, fat meat and some beef to give it the pinky colour. Each shop had its own seasoning, basically pepper, salt, nutmeg and mace. The seasoning for the puddings was much the same, with pimento added. You had to keep tasting to make sure it was all right; it's all measured now and more consistent. We did a great trade too in pressed beef."

His colleague, Declan Williamson, remembers the original Olhausens at 72 Talbot Street as "one of the bigger shops in Dublin at the time. There were about 16 or 17 girls working there, with about five of them working in the factory at the back three days a week. We did everything ourselves; boning, cooking hams, making sausages, puddings and brawn. Customers would come in for pigs legs and feet and eat them with a pint in the pub next door. Olhausens in Talbot Street was a "very, very busy shop. The guards from Store Street used come in for their rashers and sausages, big country men, as well as tourists and everyone else getting off the train. Back then you worked, and you learned, and if you got it wrong you got a kick in the arse. It's a great trade and I've no regrets about spending all of my time in it."

Denis Murphy adds that the company has tried hard to keep expertise on board and ensure that its product is both traditional and one of quality. "We distribute nationwide, from Letterkenny to Killorglin. Food quality and hygiene standards are so high now we need to produce and sell in volume to keep going."

Denis Williamson says he "still wouldn't eat anyone else's product. I take pride in what we do," he grins, "and in the end of the day the proof of the pudding's in the eating."