Dublin Dossier Pat Keenan on happenings in and around the capital
A tale of love and sausages.. Hafners advertised on an old Dublin tram
When my Aunt Kathleen went visiting relations in England and Scotland she would never leave Dublin without a few pound of sausages. Not sure if the sausages over there were somehow inferior or that the exiled Keenans preferred a taste of home. Odd thing was, those Dublin sausages most likely had German names - Olhausen (Olnhausen), Reinhardts, Hafners, Youkstetters (Jauchstetter), Mogerleys (Mögerle) Seezer or Speidel. Today your average Dubliner will still love their Irish sausages but nowadays will most likely return from the supermarket with Spanish Chorizo, German Bratwurst or Frankfurter, Polish Cabanossi or put my poor departed aunty into a grave spin, with a English Cumberland or a Lincolnshire. And whatever happened to Dublin coddle? Most Dubs probable never tasted coddle, let alone know what it is, an anemic looking concocted stew of boiled salty bacon, sausages, potatoes and sometimes a carrot or onion - in fairness it tastes better than it looks. Something else has changed, that Cumberland and nearly all British 'bangers', Wall's, Bowyers, Richmond and Porkinson are now owned by an Irish company - Kerry Foods. All in all it still comes down to local tastes. The sausages Aunt Kathleen took with her used Irish ingredients and recipes. During the latter part of the 19th century there was an influx into Ireland of people from Central Europe, Many were pork butchers, mostly from southern Germany's Hohenlohe region and they set up butcher shops across Dublin. Take young William Olhausen, a Bavarian master butcher, he arrived in Dublin in pursuit of the love of his life, young Margaret Hafner, daughter of one of Dublin’s already established German butchers. What with his fine German sausage-making skills and her pork parentage it was a perfect match. Soon the young couple marry and make beautiful sausages together. One of the wedding presents was a shop at 72 Talbot Street. It opened as Olhausens in 1896 making sausages, brawns and
The number 31 Howth Tram with 'Olhausen' advertised on the the front
puddings by hand behind the shop. A second shop followed in South Great Georges Street. They even get a mention in James Joyces Ulysses when Leopold Bloom ‘disappears into Olhausen’s, the porkbutcher’s, under the downcoming rollshutter’. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter, ‘puffng Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel.’ For William brand recognition was key, 'Olhausen' was advertised on the the front and sides of Dublin trams and Olhausen was the first ever to advertise on Radio Eireann, paying five pounds for five minutes. There were native Dublin brands too, John Kearns made sausages in 1905 in Parnell Street. Terence Gormley had ten shops in Dublin, the sausages were made at the Dorset Street shop. Granby Sausages started in 1933 by John Kavanagh in Granby Place, off Parnell Square. There was also Byrnes, Donnelly, and Superquinn - Fergal Quinn got the idea on a trip to Nuremberg when he saw a supermarket that had its own sausage factory next door. Senior Times l August 2020 l www.seniortimes.ie 39
