Replica, location of original: Upper Irish Street, Armagh, County Armagh
The public house was one of the centres of social life in towns. In spite of various the temperance movements of the 19th century, the great religious revival of 1859 among Protestant denominations, the Catholic religious revival of the 1880s and 1890s and the founding of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in 1901, many public houses continued to trade and to make a living.
For many people the pub offered a welcome, if temporary, relief from the grind of daily life, from long hours working in arduous and often dangerous conditions, or the terrible overcrowding in some inner-city areas and the generally miserable living conditions of working people. Spirits, especially gin and whiskey, were consumed in large quantities. Periodically great concern was expressed at the high level of consumption, usually by the working classes. Of course, the middle and upper classes were by no means teetotal, they merely had the means to drink in comfort in their clubs or at home, although the quantities they consumed tended to be much smaller.
It is only in recent years that the consumption of alcohol has become socially acceptable, and the idea of being 'in disgrace' if seen entering or leaving a public house has largely disappeared.
