THE COFFEE STAND OF 1897

The third and final part of the blog on Dodd’s Garden focuses on the one building that can be proven to exist there in the 19^th and early 20^th century.  That was a coffee shop or stand that was put in there in 1897.

Although we are surrounded by mobile coffee shops today, Killybegs had its own permanent coffee stand a hundred and twenty four years ago.

Coffee drinking in these parts is not a new idea – William McGarrigle, who kept a shop on the Diamond, sold Cassell’s coffee there in 1865.  During the last years of the 19^th century the Congested Districts Board arranged for local women to sell coffee at a penny a cup to fishermen from Teelin to Killybegs in the early 1890s.  

Soon afterwards Killybegs received an actual ‘Coffee Stand’, much along the same lines of those to be seen today, although fixed in position.  This was in the summer of 1897 when the new Killybegs stand was erected in Dodd’s Garden.  Anyone wishing to know where this Garden was located can refer to the first blog in this series.  The stand can be seen clearly in the Lawrence photograph No. 5793.    

Lawrence photo No. 5793, the coffee stand sited in Dodd’s garden opposite the Ulster Bank.  The stone pillar marks the edge of the main street.

It appears that the idea for the stand was got up by the local Church of Ireland Temperance Club, judging by the majority of the names mentioned at the time.  The stand was designed by Young and Makenzie of Belfast, and was built on the site by Andrew Coulter of Mountcharles.

The promoters of the Stand were probably the local Church of Ireland Temperance Society, to judge by most of the names of those who attended its opening.   

Built on a concrete platform, the building was constructed of pitch pine.  The floor was laid in tiles, and there was a white marble counter.  The windows had tinted glass, and the ornamental roof had two revolving ventilators.  Patrons could dine inside or sit on seats in the surrounding garden.  The manageress was Mrs Robert Morrow.

It is not known when the coffee stand went out of business, but Mrs Mary Anne McGilloway used to talk about it.  Mary Anne may have actually visited the stand as a young girl in the 1920s.