The Palace Victorian Snug.
One of the most talked about and intriguing features of the Palace Bar is the original Victorian snug. Over the decades, the Palace snug has played host to conversations of conspiracy and revolution, love and separation, laughter and song, sadness and despair. Cabinet ministers mused on the affairs of State here; careers were made and lost; deals were struck and undone, and political nominations and appointments were born here. And from time to time, punters just relaxed and enjoyed their pints of Guinness.
But few subjects generate as much debate and difference as defining the origin and purpose of the Victorian snug. How did it come into being, and what was it about? And this is where the theorists go wild and imaginative. Some theorists state the snug was there to accommodate special customers; others say it was created to accommodate the clergy who couldn’t be seen drinking in the main bar. Quite a number state its main purpose was to accommodate management and staff on their breaks; others believe the snug was there to conceal celebrity customers from the public eye. Some theorists believe the snug was created solely for the purpose of concealed drinking and undermining the licensing laws. And as the snug evolved over the decades, there was, perhaps, a grain of truth in some of the above.
But to find the historical origin and purpose of the Irish Victorian snug we need to separate usage from origin and go back to 1862, when the licensed vintners and grocers merged to form a new association, the LV&GA (licensed vintners and grocers association). At that time, the majority of pubs carried both grocery and alcohol products. As a consequence, Irish Victorian pubs were designed so that grocery items were sold at the front entrance of the premises. And such items were almost universally purchased by women. But the conventions of the prudish and austere Victorian age dictated that women should not be subjected an environment in which men were consuming alcohol.
Therefore, the snug in Victorian pubs was essentially created by demand as a separate section that facilitated women to order grocery items, without necessarily engaging with or encountering men.
Victorian Ladies Purchasing Tea
So why were women purchasing grocery items in pubs when there were sufficient provisions stores in Victorian Dublin? The answer is that the Victorian ladies came primarily to purchase tea. In the Victorian era tea was a far more expensive and exclusive commodity than coffee, a beverage the Victorians rarely indulged in. The great asset of the Victorian pub was that their off-cuts of mahogany from the backbar construction were utilised in the creation of wood and lead lined storage bins. Such bins created the perfect conditions in which to store tea, rice and semolina. The Victorians were quick to realise that tea stored in this environment tasted much better than tea stored in plywood tea chests in cold and damp provisions stores. As a consequence many well-to-do Victorian ladies purchased their tea only in Victorian pub groceries. And having placed their order, they waited patiently in the snug while the order was filled.
Of course, some of the Victorian ladies also liked a tipple away from the prying eyes of their husbands and neighbours. And to overcome the hypocritical conventions of the age, they simply took their housemaid along with them when they wished to purchase tea….and consume gin.
Surely, no self-respecting Victorian lady would drink in the company of the housemaid? But they did.
And that was the origin of the Victorian snug, which has enjoyed many adaptations and colourful tales in the intervening decades.