A Visit to McCusker's

As McCusker's opens for business, two of Hugh McCusker's grandchildren joined us for a very special visit.

A man and a woman stand outside a pub. The name Hugh McCusker is written above the windows.

McCusker's Pub is once again open for business.

Not in Armagh, the original site of McCusker's, but at the Ulster Folk Museum, where a replica of 2 Upper Irish Street was erected in the early 1990s.

Shortly before the pub opened to customers, two of Hugh and Jane McCusker’s grandchildren, Jane and Francis, visited us to have a look around, share some memories - and donate some very special items.

A woman sits on the bench of a pub. She is smiling at a second woman who is half in frame.

The first thing that Jane and Francis noticed was the size of the pub. Having been children when their grandmother ran the pub, it seemed to them ‘much bigger’ than when they were younger.

As McCusker’s at the Ulster Folk Museum is a replica of the pub they once knew and loved, there were some things that were familiar – and something things that were very different.

A group of people stand in an old fashioned pub. They have their backs to the camera, speaking to the barman.

They remembered a cellar, which we have replicated at the museum – but on Irish street, the cellar had a well inside, something our cellar does not have!

Walking through the pub, Jane and Francis found their memories rekindled:

‘I remember steps down off that room and going down to a wee curvy walkway out to the back yard, where the barrels were kept,’ said Francis. ‘They used to bottle their own stout, so they would’ve come in in kegs, so they used to bottle it and tap it themselves’, remembered Jane.

The hatch that can be seen behind the bar in our McCusker’s peeks into a room where visitors can sit and enjoy themselves after a brisk walk around the museum. However, for Jane and Francis, this hatch was how drinks were passed from the bar into the room that very few were allowed into. That room was part of the ‘house’ section of the building, where Jane and Hugh McCusker raised their children and welcomed their grandchildren.

Jane and Francis shared stories from the pub that the remembered themselves, and stories that were passed down the family.

Jane and Francis recall that their grandmother was known having a very dry wit. One day, when their father was in the pub, she asked him, ‘Frank, can you tell me something? When are you having the operation?’ ‘What operation?!’ he replied. ‘The operation to have your coat removed!’ Said Francis, ‘He used to come in and sit with his coat on and wouldn’t take it off unless he was given permission!’

They recalled a pub regular nicknamed ‘tight legs Mallon’. A thatcher, this man would come for a drink in McCusker’s with his trouser legs tied at the bottom with strings. This, apparently, was to prevent rats living in thatched roofs from running up his trousers!

On a pub table, an old seltzer bottle and a pile of folded towels.

Jane and Francis kindly donated items to the museum that came from the original McCusker’s – a C&C soda bottle and selection of cloths and linen tea towels. According to Jane, her mother said they were ‘the best for shining the glasses in the bar!’

We are grateful to the McCusker family for visiting and contributing to the sharing of Ulster's heritage with new generations.