I cannot drink coffee (well, it's caffeine what I cannot take, really, having to include tea and coke in the 'no go' zone) Coffee gives me palpitations and insomnia (severe, in both accounts, unfortunately)
It wasn't always like that, though: I used to have a couple of double expressos in the afternoon, almost every day. In Spain, pretty much every business closes at lunch time for three hours, so the afternoon coffee and a game of cards with friends are the best alternative to taking a nap in the sofa. Coffee in Spain is good (as good as Italian or French, may I add) and having to give it up was as hard as trying to get my eating habits straight, this time around.
By the time I moved to Ireland, I was caffeine free. However, my habit of going into Cafés for a wee chat (for several hours, sometimes) with friends or to read a book in a rainy day was very much still there... so I guess I can be an advocate for Cafés and Coffee Houses as much as any of you, coffee addicts,reading this.
And yes, I've been drinking coffee today. I felt I had to since I was attending a conference on Dublin's Café Culture. It was great: sociologists, librarians, journalists,Dublin City Council Plan developers, Café owners, baristas and coffee enthusiasts gathered for three hours to talk about three hundred years of coffee drinking in Dublin.
The Dublin Cafe Culture Project was born as a result of the closure of Bewleys Cafe and the campaign that resurrected it. Volunteer coffee enthusiast power the movement.
The main speaker was Professor Kieran Bonner, Professor of Sociology at St. Jerome's University, Ontario, Canada. He spoke about the Café as Third Place. I wasn't familiar with the term 'Third Place'(or indeed First or Second) It seems that our home and work space would be the other two, generally in that order ( as in 'where we spend most of our lives') with the Pub being, until now, the main Third Place.
Prof. Bonner told us about the first two being 'exclusive' environments preventing our interaction with strangers and the possibility of random meetings (to me, what makes Life interesting). He also said that Third Places, apart from being the facilitators of such exchanges, level all cultural backgrounds and social status, becoming a democratic space to discuss ideas.
(His speech was truly insightful and I should be able to get access to a copy in the next couple of weeks, so I might come back to the sociological aspect of cafés and pubs, then).
Next, Glynis Casson, acting for Hugh Oram, talked us through the story behind Bewleys Oriental Cafés. Born a few years after the Great Famine as a quaker, non-alcoholic, reaction to the traditional socializing in pubs, Bewleys Cafés became a focal point for the Arts, with many of the greatest Irish writers and poets being regular customers and even mentioning them in their works.
Today, only one of the three Bewleys Cafés remains, rescued by a campaign that mobilized Dublin citizens into saving the emblematic building, back in 2004, and the needed cash injection provided by Café Bar Deli, the new tenants since 2006.
Then, Máire Kennedy, Divisional Librarian at the Dublin City Library and Archive, talked us through the history of Coffee Houses in Dublin, which I found truly fascinating, also. Here's some of the info she shared with us today:
Apparently, the habit of coffee drinking first became popular in Europe early in the 17th century. In their heyday, the fashionable coffee houses of Europe served as well springs of gossip, political intrigue and faction. Serving coffee, tea and other refreshments, they provided newspapers and pamphlets to their clientele and also acted as meeting places for local clubs and societies.They were also a favorite spot for members of book trade, where deals were made and contracts negotiated.
Dublin's earliest coffee houses weren't open until the end of that century, remaining popular throughout the 18th century. The fashion also spread to county towns and in 1698, coffee houses were to be found in Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Wexford and Galway.
Coffee Houses would be located on the drawing room (first floor, airy and well lit rooms)of a house having a well established business on the ground floor, many times this being booksellers or newspaper printers. The clients of the Coffee House would then have free access to the newspapers. Many establishments prided themselves on the range of papers and information slips which they held, a custom which continued into the nineteenth century.
It was then that the decline of coffee houses as informal news exchanges started and it was not until the 1970's, over a century later, that the fashion for coffee drinking in specialised cafes and coffee shops was re-established.
You can read more about the history of Dublin Coffee Houses here:
http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/history-heritage/pages-in-history/dublin-coffee-houses/index.xml
The last speaker of the day was Dick Gleeson, City Planner for Dublin City Council, who gave us an overview of the current and future developments involving Cafés and Coffee Houses as an integral part of the city fabric.
The conference ended with a Q&A round where the concerns of small, independent café owners and other member of the public were raised (including the need for extended opening hours as someone visiting Dublin, not long ago, pointed out to me )
And so you know, my beloved coffee addicts, it was never about the coffee, really, but about the company people kept in those places. In fact, Dublin coffee only got any good when the Italian arrived with their expresso machines, just a few years ago ;-)
Yeap. It's crazy weather out there so I thought it was about time to write another post.
