A little bit of the pubs' history : When the Gibney family first arrived here on the 6th of December 1937, they were entering what was essentially a 'spit and sawdust pub' with a back yard that contained an apple garden and a pungent-smelling piggery. For the Gibney family, who have been five generations in the Dublin licensed trade, this may have appeared an unusual acquisition, but it continued the family migration trend northwards towards the coast.
At the time James Joseph Gibney paid £2,500 for this pub he also owned the Royal Hotel in Howth and the Phoenix Bar in Parkgate Street, the once-famous refuge of Michael Collins. It was here that young Jack Gibney learned the business of the licensed trade before moving to Malahide. His father, James Joseph, was regarded as something of an entrepreneur in the trade and had also owned the Abbey Tavern in Howth, which he sold in 1925. His forebears were also conspicuous in the Dublin trade, having served at Bow Lane Street, the Haymarket in Smithfield, where they ran a bakery, grocery and eating house, and also at Benburb Street.
In 1937, and for many years beforehand, the Malahide pub had been known as the Abercorn Tavern, the name which had been adopted by Henry Barton Cooke on 6th June, 1890, when he acquired the pub from James O'Hara and the ground landlord, the Right Honourable Richard Hogan Baron Talbot de Malahide. By 1917 Henry Cooke was suffering financial distress and the premises became partly invested in by Ormond Quay auctioneer and valuer Andrew Keogh, who had forwarded Henry some £400.
