A career in the pub trade for over 60 years

Andy Cronin has called time on his Ballinagh establishment after 44 years at the helm. A meeting place and entertainment hub, Cronin’s Bar has been a hive of activity in the heart of the community for nearly half a century under the watchful eye of Andy and his wife Anna Mai.

Now, at the grand old age of 80 years, he is retiring from the bar trade; the pub has been sold and the undertaking side of the business has gone into partnership with Declan Finnegan. And as Andy says himself, “It’s time now to relax, to put the feet up for a while”.

His career in the trade began one dark evening in the early 1960s when a man by the name of Eddie Finnegan landed at the Cronin family home in Derrin wondering if any of the young lads there would come and serve their time in the trade. Andy’s mother volunteered him and a week later at the tender age of 16, he found himself in the Big Smoke and at Finnegan’s pub on North King Street. Eddie, his brother Hughie and Andy ran the bar for 12 months at which point the Finnegans sold up and bought a watering hole on the southside, in Churchtown to be exact.

There Andy remained until 1969 and with some serious bar skills under his belt, he set sail for New York where the world opened up to him and placed his future wife Anna Mai, a native of Co Laois, directly in his path. Anna Mai trained as a nurse in Dublin and decided to travel to New York around the same time that Andy Cronin was there.

During the eight years in New York, he worked at Biddy Mulligans on Second Avenue and at the Rockefeller Center in Hurley’s Irish Bar.

“Old man Hurley held out against Rockerfeller, and his little pub was built into the corner of the 65-flour building. That was a famous pub because Hurley was regarded as a man who stood up to the multi millionaires of the time.

“Sixth Avenue and 49th Street were close by and it really was a massive place to be in. I met Henry Kissinger and JFK’s daughter when I worked there. There were no frills at Hurley’s - the bar was bare, there were white tablecloths on the tables and a Puerto Rican chef in a small kitchen in the corner who turned out burgers that everyone wanted to eat. There was good food and lots of drink in Hurleys.”

Andy said that during those years the Irish hung out in groups and socialised in Irish owned establishments. It was through this network that he and Anna Mai met.

“We hung out in the Irish joints and at that time there were quite a few Irish groups and musicians in New York, and a lot came over from Ireland and stayed. In fact the amount of Irish out there then was incredible. Sure Gaelic Park would be jumping every Sunday; then you’d pair off and come down along Broadway and have a bite to eat and that is how it was, it’s how myself and Anna Mai met,” he added.

Sunday was Andy’s day off, “your party day,” he laughed. “Then it was back to work on Monday.”

The couple stayed in the Big Apple until 1977 when they returned to Dublin with the intention of purchasing a bar and settling down.

“I thought I might be able to buy my own pub but the prices were out of my reach,” Andy recalls of Dublin.

“Myself and Anna Mai got married in Dublin after we returned home. For us, Dublin was a kind of a halfway house between Dublin and Laois. In those days you didn’t have 200 or 300 people at your wedding.”

Anna Mai added: “We got married at the church in Dublin Airport in 1974. And, we had great years after we came down to Ballinagh”.

In 1980 the Cronins bought the bar in Ballinagh. The town was a hive of activity throughout those years with the showbands and singers of the time playing weekly in the local hall. Big Tom & the Mainliners, Gina & the Champions, Joe Dolan, Brendan Bowyer, Dickie Rock, and Mick Flavin all made regular appearances in Ballinagh and the pub trade locally was booming as a result.

Dance-goers would congregate in Cronin’s and as Andy says “the town was absolutely buzzing”.

“That was where the furniture store is now; the bingo was on Tuesday night and the dance was on a Saturday night, and there was a committee that went in after the dance, cleaned the place up and put down seats for Mass on a Sunday morning because the new church was being built at the time,” he recalled.

“The community spirit around here was incredible and everyone rallied around and got things done. In those years there was also good employment in and around Ballinagh and all of these things kept businesses going.

“In the early years here, it was all about music on Saturday or Sunday nights. Sunday night was the country people’s night out; Saturday nights became a thing when the young people started going to the dances. By the end of the 1980s the discos started up.”

Meanwhile, Andy, Anna Mai and their four small children Orlene, Padraig, Ciarán and Sadhbh lived over the bar and the family continued in that vein for 17 years until Andy bought the house next door and renovated it. The Undertaking side of the business meant that Andy needed to stay in town so moving out to the countryside wasn’t really an option for the Cronins. It is here that Andy and Anna Mai are now enjoying their retirement, minus their children who have all moved on and live in other counties while working and rearing their own children. The couple also have eight grandchildren.

Recalling the characters he met down through the years, “I remember Sam Bennett down at the Mill; he was a great character - a great man to tell a story, especially when it came to history - he could go back years and he knew everyone,” said Andy before adding that the Sam Bennett Tractor Run is held annually in Ballinagh to remember him.

“There was a time then that we built a back bar, the house was reroofed, Barney Macs was sold and so was Phil Mastersons.” But by then it was clear that change was on the way beginning 20 years ago with the introduction of the smoking ban.

“People didn’t want it,” says Andy but it was introduced.

“Do you know that having to go outside for a cigarette didn’t appeal to me so one day I went over to the chemist and got two nicotine patches. I wore one until it fell off and I didn’t use the second one but I never smoked again.”

Anna Mai believes that “banning smoking in pubs was one of the best things that ever happened” while Andy says that drink driving legislation served as a “real blow to pubs” especially in rural Ireland.

“It had to come, there’s no doubt about that. There was no transport provided either for people living out in the country to come in for their few pints and get home after.”

Anna Mai, who returned to work as a nurse in the early 2000s says she has some wonderful memories of the couple’s 44 years in the bar.

“The cycle group that went to Croagh Patrick every year for 10 years,” she continued.

“They’d arrive back to Cronin’s where they’d be joined by the whole community and to great music and festivities for their effort. There were lots of fundraising events here over the years with different groups, Tidy Towns, charities, etc. I remember Mrs Fitzsimons who organised a fundraiser every year for Cystic Fibrosis; Daniel O’Donnell would come and perform for that.

“I’m delighted for Andy,” adds Anna Mai.

“It’s a relief really because you know retirement is coming at some stage and now it’s here. We miss the company, meeting people. We made the best of friends here and had really wonderful years.”

“We are going to relax now until after Christmas and then I’m going to take to the road,” smiled Andy.