Just dying for a pint . . .
QUESTION Was there a pub in Ireland that doubled as an undertakers? What other multipurpose pubs are there?
The combination of pub and funeral parlour is common in Ireland. A pub and an undertakers is a natural combination because the Irish wake centres around the deceased and alcohol.
having the two services under one ownership made a lot of sense, especially in Irish villages where it was hoped not to have regular undertaking work.
In my hometown of Newry, there were three public houses/undertakers within 50 yards: McGennity’s, McCrink’s and McLogan’s (which was also the grocery shop). As children, we would play among the beer barrels and coffins out the back.
The Coroners Act of 1846 in Ireland decreed a dead body had to be brought to the nearest public house for storage until further arrangements were made.
The beer cellars were cool and slowed decomposition, and it became common for publicans to have marble tables in their cellars for autopsies. McCarthy’s pub in Fethard, County Tipperary, still advertises: ‘We wine you, dine you and bury you.’
In Ireland, it is not unusual to combine the vintners trade with another. In Dublin, Mary’s Bar & hardware in the city centre has building supplies mixed in with the beer and spirit bottles.
Until recently, in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, my wife used to try on footwear in the Main Street shoe shop while I sipped a draught Guinness at the bar beside the shelves of shoeboxes.
In PJ’s Bar, Carlingford, County Louth, you could put fuel in your car, buy groceries and drink a pint on the same premises.
Pat Curtis, Newry. MCDONNELL funeral directors works from its pub in Belmullet, County Mayo, where you can enjoy a fine pint while making your arrangements.
Iain Harkness, North Berwick, East Lothian.
QUESTION What is the most valuable guitar?
The highest price ever raised at auction for a guitar was $2.7 million paid by an unknown bidder for a Fender Stratocaster in November 2005. Signed by a large number of rock luminaries, it was sold in aid of the Reach out To Asia charity at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, Doha, Qatar. It was part of fundraising for relief efforts after the 2004 tsunami.
Signatories included Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones; eric Clapton; Brian May of Queen; David Gilmour of Pink Floyd; Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin; Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits; Pete Townshend of The Who; Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath; Angus and Malcolm Young of AC/ DC; Sting; Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple; Bryan Adams; Liam Gallagher of oasis; and Paul McCartney.
Like classic cars, vintage guitars have become highly sought-after for their collectability and potential to appreciate rapidly in value.
The most highly prized are linked to an iconic figure or seminal performance.
In 2015, John Lennon’s 1962 Gibson J-160e sold to an anonymous bidder for $2.41 million. It was the guitar he played when recording The Beatles’s 1963 breakthrough albums Please Please Me and With The Beatles. Lennon had bought it at Rushworth’s Music house in Liverpool for £161 on September 10, 1962.
Another Lennon guitar, his Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Nashville model, used on The Beatles’s 1966 single Paperback Writer, sold for $530,000 to NFL owner Jim Irsay in November 2014.
Irsay also paid $965,000 for Bob Dylan’s Fender Stratocaster, which he used at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where he was famously booed by angry ‘folkies’ who felt betrayed by the new-fangled electric technology. There was also Blackie, eric Clapton’s famous guitar, which he’d created by dismantling and reassembling three Fender Stratocasters to match his ‘slowhand’ style. This was sold in 2004 for $959,000 to raise money for Clapton’s Crossroads Rehab Centre.
Another valuable guitar was the 1968 Fender Stratocaster that Jimi hendrix wielded on The Star Spangled Banner, Voodoo Child, Purple haze and Red house at Woodstock in 1968.
It was bought by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen — a decent guitarist himself — for $1.3 million in 1993.
This guitar has found a home at Allen’s Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. The Guitar Gallery features instruments from music legends, including howlin’ Wolf’s 1965 epiphone Casino, Nancy Wilson of heart’s 1965 Fender Stratocaster and Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s 1984 G&L Rampage.
Max Hiatt, Salford, Gtr Manchester.
QUESTION What’s the most inappropriate shop name?
FURTHER to the list of shop names, as a youngster in the Sixties, I frequently travelled with my parents to Snowdonia from our home outside Reading.
This involved driving through Kidderminster, where there was always a laugh in the car as we went past the estate agents Doolittle & Dalley.
It must be an inappropriate name, as they are still in business 60 years later.
Roger Strudwicke, Bourne End, Bucks. I WAS amused when, many years ago, the butcher’s shop in the Cheshire village of Davenham was run by a family called Ramsbottom. William Tyson, Crowborough, E. Sussex.
I HAVE photographic evidence of The Polonium Restaurant, Sheffield, and The Sarin Arms Snack Bar in Malta. John Beksa, Chesterfield, Derbys. I WOULD like to add to the list Swindells chartered accountants and tax advisers in Seaford and Uckfield, east Sussex. Jean Clark, Eastbourne, E. Sussex.
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