“A Pint of Plain is Your Only Man”: Masculinities and the Pub in Twentieth Century Irish Fiction

Abstract

Lee Dunne's Goodbye to the Hill (1965) follows the life of Paddy Maguire in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh during the mid-20 th century. As a Bildungsroman, Dunne’s novel charts the rites of passage necessary for Maguire to take his place in society among his peers. An important rite of passage for Maguire is his entrance into Dublin pubs as a way of achieving the ideals of local hegemonic masculinity. J.P. Donleavy’s novel The Ginger Man (1955) then chronicles the psychological breakdown of the protagonist Sebastian Dangerfield. His breakdown is marked by frantic visits to public houses around Dublin where he seeks solace and a sense of re-masculinisation from his anxieties. This essay argues how Irish pubs are depicted in 20 th century fiction as ideological vehicles charged with assimilating Irish men into the ranks of homosocial society, inculcating the ideals of local hegemonic masculinity. This essay also demonstrates how, as a space from which women were barred until the 1960s in Ireland, pubs were used as essential hubs for homosocial interaction and markers of Irish masculinity. When women were gradually allowed into pubs, their presence was often sanctioned with certain caveats, often conducive to regulating additional aspects of local hegemonic masculinity