Noel Hume

The pot-belly stove in the corner of Hume’s Pub is still up to heating the bar. It was bought by Arthur Hume at the outset of the War in 1939 for the princely sum of £2 from Davy Frayne in the Hammond-Lane foundry in Athy. But the stove won’t be stoked or pressed into service anymore as Hume’s Pub has called closing time and last orders for the last time after 147 years in business this week.

While the story of the demise of the rural pub has been well documented, Hume’s Pub on the other hand is slap bang in the middle of Portlaoise, on Main Street. The landmark watering hole gives its name to the junction with the Well Road as Hume’s Corner, just like Baker’s Corner in Dunlaoighre or Doyle’s Corner in Phibsboro. The town’s pub count is now down to twenty, with many of the Main St. establishments not even bothering to open during the day anymore.

Ironically, Hume’s did a roaring day trade thanks to its prime location and popularity with off-duty prison officers. While publican’s might be feeling the pinch now, Noel Hume (67) the fourth generation and final member of the family to pull pints there since 1863, recalls that at one time at least it was a regular little gold mine.

“It must have been a nice little earner one time as my grandfather Arthur Hume, who may also have had a penchant for dabbling in stocks and shares, bought 270 acres and a fine house at Ballinclea, Timahoe in 1905 for a purse of £1,800, so that was fair going out of a small pub.” The under bidders at the time were the Odlums, and the farm remains in Noel’s family to this day.

But there were tough times too and Noel Hume remembers being told by his father how throughout the 30’s and 40’s it was common for farmers to call in and barter country butter and cured ham, for other provisions, like pig meal and tea which was scarce and perhaps even a few pints and a whiskey. Hume’s kept a grocery as part of their trade up until 1958.

But mostly Noel Hume has fond memories of the great gas he had behind the bar and often, he would readily admit, on the other side of the counter over the years. He was too, he concedes, an accidental publican as he completed a successful Leaving Cert in 1959 he had an interest in art and architecture but qualified and opted for the army cadets, the youngest in the class of that year. There was a military tradition in the family as his father’s uncle, John Frances (Jack) a former Irish officer joined the American navy and was killed at Guada Canal in 1943 and posthumously awarded the purple heart.

There were clerical influences too, most notably Dr Patrick Collier (1880-1964) who was Noel’s mother, Maureen’s uncle. He impressed upon Noel’s parents to get him to quit the army and return to Portlaoise to help out in the pub as business was to pick up with the start of construction nearby of the new parish church, SS Peter and Pauls in 1960 and so it did. The bar business was in the blood as another aunt of Noels, Nora Malone was proprietor of a pub at the other end of Main St., Burke’s, colloquially known as Auntie Nora’s. While the premises has changed hands it remains a pub, Peig’s, run by another local family the Plunketts and Nora Malone is the sole surviving member of that generation of Noel’s family at 91.

“When all the builders came back from England there was great craic and mighty sing-songs,” which Noel encouraged. “Then came the showbands and as we were the closest pub to Danceland up the road Friday nights were brilliant and as busy as any Christmas Eve. We had them all in here, the Royal, the Miami, the Drifters, the Capital, I got to know loads of them. Then one night there was an all girls band over from London, the Ivy Benson All Stars Girl Band and they had mini-skirts up to you know where, there were old lads nearly lost the sight out of their eyes with the amount of leg showing. The Dubliners were playing next door in the County Hotel and Luke Kelly, Barney McKenna and Ciaran Burke called in and played here in ‘68, at their height. Then we had our own local heroes, The Rising Sons, with the ‘Skipper’ Deegan, Joe Brown, Mickey Robinson and the late Pat ‘Socks’ Whelan. There were some mighty sessions here and on Monday nights we’d have a sing-along and noble call with great singers like Johnny Dollard, Red Dickie Dempsey, Alex Bergin, Gerry Murphy and Peter Byrne who was better known by his nickname, as The Bunch of Violets after his signature tune.”

Hume’s prominent location also played a hand in it hosting some other dignitaries over the decades. Danceland, operated by former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds at the height of the showband era, also doubled as the election count centre for Laois-Offaly throughout the 60’s before it was eventually demolished in 1971. This led to, Noel recalls, his father giving a key of their hall door to then Minister, Brian Lenihan snr, Bill Davern and Ber Cowen, so as they could have a pint in peace upstairs in the family sitting room as the bar downstairs was mobbed. And as the civil unrest of the Northern troubles  regularly spilled over to protests outside Portlaoise prison in the early 70’s Noel remembers how the John Hume accompanied by a first cousin of Noel’s also John Hume (81) enjoyed a couple of pints of Smithwicks  in their bar in 1974. “My father was especially proud of that,” reflects Noel.  Proud moments too in 1969 to have all the Timahoe crowd back in the bar when they won the county football championship. The cup was filled with brandy and first to sup from the silverware was Paddy Whelan the blacksmith from Cremorgan remembers Noel.

Funny stories aplenty too: “There was the day that these two hairy fellas came in and I hadn’t a clue who they were until someone told me that they were the Furey brothers in town for a gig. I also had the embarrassment of refusing Mick Kinnane and Steven Craine when they came in to play a game of pool and ordered two lager shandies back in 1978. The guards had just been around warning about underage drinking, I’m small and these two lads were smaller and I refused them as I thought they were too young,” explains a red faced Noel who likes to have the odd flutter on the gee-gees and was so mortified he stuck the then apprentice jockeys one on the house to make amends.

Noel Hume sold the famous family pub to a property developer in June, 2005 as he and his wife Rosaleen, who have three daughters, Aishling, Aoife and Niamh decided to call it a day.

“We were blessed and probably lucky to get out when we did. We had great times but it’s a tough business and a young man’s game. As far as I know the pub has been repossessed by the banks as it was part of a portfolio funded by Anglo and will probably end up in Nama, a sign of the times I suppose,” shrugs Noel, outside the closed doors of the premises founded by his great  grandfather Robert 147 years ago. Noel has now turned his hand to one of his first loves, art and painting with no small degree of success, as his days of pulling pints in Portlaoise’s famous Hume’s Pub are well and truly over.

According to figures released by the Revenue this week, 22 pubs have closed in Laois over the last three years; 15 in Offaly, 17 in Kildare,  9 in Carlow out of a total of  833 countrywide which have not  renewed their drinks licence over the period 2007 to 2009.