George Lucas (born George Quirke) (1926–2014) was an English civil servant who documented his gay social life in a series of detailed personal diaries from the 1950s until the 1990s. Lucas befriended journalist Hugo Greenhalgh in the mid-1990s and he was one of only three people to attend Lucas’ funeral in 2014 alongside a fellow co-executor of his will and a neighbour. Before his death, Lucas agreed to donate his extensive diaries to Greenhalgh. For the last three years, Greenhalgh has been patiently transcribing and posting entries from the diaries onto Facebook. He has started in the year 1968 when Lucas was aged about 42.
Lucas’ mother was Irish and it also comes through in many diary entries that he had a particular soft spot for Irish men (mainly prostitutes) in London. In September 1968, Lucas spent two days in Dublin. (The original transcript of the diary entry is available here). Lucas also included four lovely photographs of Dublin from that trip.
The main reason for his visit was to try to locate his mother’s birth certificate in the registry office. It is clear that this was not Lucas’ first visit to Dublin as he knew the gay geography of the city very well. He also mentions an unsavoury incident in 1966 when he was physically assaulted in Dublin in a homophobic attack/robbery. I hope Greenhalgh can transcribe and post this particular diary entry in due course.
Lucas visits two of the main cruising spots in the city centre, the public toilets at Burgh Quay and St. Stephen’s Green. He spots a couple of lads who had a “villainous cut-throat look” on Burgh Quay beside O’Connell Street Bridge and “various middle-aged and elderly men” at hanging around the toilet in St. Stephen’s Green.
The writer had a drink in the city’s three main gay-friendly bars – Rice’s, Bartley Dunne’s and Davy Byrne’s. Drinking a lager in Rice’s, he was happy to see that the “rather unwelcoming barman of 2 years ago” was gone. At Davy Byrne’s, he enjoyed two “whiskies and water and a good cup of coffee”. Bartley Dunne’s was “crowded” but he only recognised “little tubby Bert the head barman and Mr Bartley Dunne’s own somewhat spectral figure”. On his second visit to Bartley Dunne’s the following night, he was warmly greeted by the “sturdy friendly barman” Brian who told him that George (“that attractive if somewhat pretentious barman”) had left Bartley Dunne’s to manage a hotel bar in Dún Laoghaire.
I have a particular interest in Rice’s and Bartley Dunne’s and published a long piece on their history in 2013 which I continue to add material whenever I can.
Here is the edited diary extract of George Lucas’ visit to Dublin, enjoy. It’s an amazing slice of social history.
September 10, 1968 (Tuesday):
“I had dinner at Moran’s Hotel – 6s 6d for egg and sausages of more diminutive size than I have seen since my last visit. It is as well there is an abundance of bread and butter to eke out the meal. I was nervous this clear sunny evening, and to my fearful fancy a couple of lads hanging round the Burgh Quay lavatory had a villainous cut-throat look. I noticed a tall youngish man in a pink shirt in talk with a man – not a visitor.
To Rice’s bar and sat awhile over a lager, noticing that the rather unwelcoming barman of 2 years ago is gone; and then to Davy Byrne’s, striking up courage with 2 whiskies and water and a good cup of coffee, served by the sandy haired apprentice I heard called Paddy. Like every apprentice barman in Davy Byrne’s, he looked out of spirits.
Bartley Dunne’s was crowded as I remembered it… but I saw only little tubby Bert the head barman and Mr Bartley Dunne’s own somewhat spectral figure that I recognised. Back at 11.15, a little tipsy – dilutior might be a better word – and not lingering by the green urinoir in Eden Quay. My room – no. 18 – is on the front of the hotel, overlooking Talbot Street, and I woke at 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock, though I don’t think it was street noises that disturbed me.
September 11, 1968 (Wednesday):
A fine clear day till near 8 o’clock when dark clouds from the south-east brought a short shower. I was busy today, taking photographs, buying the Austin Gaffney record that Byrne stole in 1965 and I’ve been trying to replace, a spoon with a Dublin crest, and so on, and spending 18/- in fees at the Register Office.
Though food is dear in Dublin, goods are notably cheaper – I paid 2s 8d for a tube of shaving cream, and I see almost all of the luxury sort of goods are priced well below the level to which purchase tax raises them in London.
Dublin’s charm is indefinable, but real; in part it comes from its being a metropolitan city on the right scale. 18th-century London was similar. The hills to the south, that can be seen from the principal streets, seem to close the city in, to make it compact, humanly scaled. Walking is easier, too, with the pavements less thronged than London’s… and the abundance of good-looking young Dublin men is a continual joy to the eye. (The aggressively nasty coffee-bars and snackeries that disfigure O’Connell Street have an abundance of slovenly and unlovely Dublin girls.) I wore my light raincoat this evening, the same coat I brought home bloodstained from Dublin two years ago. It is better and more elegant than the one I have bought since, and like everything that suits me is no longer made.
To the St Stephen’s Green lavatory several times, and saw various middle-aged and elderly men, but my assailant of two years ago was not to be seen.
In Bartley Dunne’s, Brian the sturdy friendly barman was serving tonight, and after a moment’s hesitation recognised and greeted me. He remarked that “there have been changes here” and told me that George, that attractive if somewhat pretentious barman I remembered, is now manager of a hotel bar at Dun Laoire (sic)… which is his métier, I think.
I noticed the pink-shirted young man in this bar, and at Burgh Quay there were three or four lounging about. One, a thin youth with spectacles, approached me for a cigarette. Were I bolder, I might do well here; more likely I’d be robbed and knocked unconscious. To bed again before midnight, and slept tolerably well.”
