Category: Liverpool

Liverpool Venues 21 to 24

Liverpool Tess Riley’s is a hostelry that is situated on Great Charlotte Street. The history behind the naming of this boozer runs back to prior to the Second World War, so if you are sitting comfortably, I shall begin…

Back in the 1930’s an entrepreneurial lady called Tess Makin developed her initial business acumen when working on her mother’s market second hand clothes stall. On the occasional non-market days, she took it upon herself to travel over to the Wirral to pick up the stock. She became a dab hand at bartering with the affluent traders to obtain the best price before returning to the market and selling on the goods for a tidy profit. In 1947, she marries a chap called Joe Riley and they had four children together. Bear with me, I will get there eventually!

Tess Riley. Image Credit pubsgalore.co.uk

In 1970, when her kids had grown up, she retrained in the pub industry and undertook her apprenticeship at the Pig and Whistle and the Old Mona. She then took over the ropes as The Jester for five years before she bought the freehold of The Beehive in the Mount Pleasant area of the city in 1978.

Her novel approach of installed a free jukebox that only played songs from the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s captured the zeitgeist of the era and the once quite pub was transformed into one of the busiest places in Liverpool. They also staged live music at quiet periods and on Sundays where Tess herself would step up alongside the resident organist to contribute a couple of ditties. She was reportedly very glamorous, and this provided the launching pad for her retirement on board cruise ships.

Her eldest child Joan also moved in the family trade and ran a couple of successful pubs using the same tried and tested template. In 1996 they purchased a unit in the former Blackler’s building and then decided to name the pub in honour of her mother. It remains a lively place to this day thankfully staying away from karaoke, but they do have live music and on my one visit I saw a local lass called Annie perform there.

Directly above Tess Rileys is the Liverpool Central Sports Bar, which is a very popular wall to wall sports viewing establishment, but they also stage live music, and I once saw a local fella called Edwin play there.     

Celtic Corner. Image tripadvisor.co.uk

Nearby to there on the intersection point of Lime Street and Ranelagh Street you would find the Liverpool Celtic Corner. As I am sure you can glean from its moniker, it is another Irish based hostelry. It initially opened in 2017 taking over from the old retail site of the Army and Navy stores. It is a very large establishment with an enormous room downstairs and a function room for hire situated in the upstairs area.

There is an abundance of seating at the front for the sunshine days. It also had a mechanical rodeo bull that kicked into life every Saturday from 3pm but I believe that has been retired and sent to pasture a couple of years ago. There is a sizeable standalone stage, and I saw a decent local singer Lochlan undertaking a gig on that very stage.

Nearer to the main train station on Lime Street is located the Liverpool McHales Irish American Bar. The establishment is a single room bar and when I visited, I saw a singer called Michael perform there. Its history runs back to 1830 and at that point in time it was positioned on the other side of the street. It was initially closely linked to the nearby Empire Theatre and then became a very popular haven for US naval men during the First World War and was known as the American Bar or more colloquially as the ‘Yankee Bar’.

One urban legend is that there was a local prostitute called Maggie May (or Maggie Mae) who used to frequent the bar, and she later featured in a skiffle folk song telling the tale of her robbing a ‘homeward bounder’. The latter term relating to a sailor coming home from a round trip. The song is potentially crafted from a similar 1856 American slave song called ‘Darling Nellie Gray’.

Maggie May songs EP with a picture of the old thriving Liverpool Docks. Image Credit ebay.co.uk

The 1950’s version referenced featured a direct reference to Liverpool in the lines ‘Oh, dirty Maggie Mae, they have taken her away, and she’ll never walk down Lime Street anymore’. The composer Lionel Bart used the tune and back story to devise a musical called Maggie May set in Liverpool Docks, which ran in a London theatre for two years.

The most well-known recorded version was by the Vipers Skiffle Group in 1957, but the BBC decided to ban it because of the lyrics ‘sexual content’. There were also covers by the Searchers, the Spinners and a 40 second edition by the Beatles which serves to curtail Side 1 of their final album ‘Let it Be’. Rod Stewart also stated this song was an inspiration for his No 1 hit of the same name.  

Liverpool Venues 17 to 20

I return this week to the endless plethora of Irish bars in Liverpool where live music seems to be taking place on a seemingly constant basis. First up I shall cover the Liverpool Irish House, which is located on the busy vibrant Ranelagh Street, residing next door to Lanigans Bar.  

It has a large main room with the traditional wood surrounds, complete with the scarf and flag adornments dotted all around the walls and ceilings. There was wall to wall sport showing on the multiple big screens and they also have regular live music taking place there and, on my visit, I saw a chap called Seamus playing on a small stage in the corner.  

Over on Great Charlotte Street you wouldfind Liverpool Nelly Foleys which is an archetypal faux décor Irish bar which consists primarily of one sizeable room and has the seemingly obligatory cheap drink offers. It is an eminently forgettable establishment with the dark spectre of karaoke also on its roster. I have visited just the once and I saw a chap called Freddie playing there.   

Nelly Foleys. Image Credit nearer.com

Also, on that old main drag you have Liverpool Grand Central Smokie Mo’s, part of a brand chain that has had a suite of branches around Liverpool ever since they were founded back in 2007. They are named after the owner Maureen Blackwell, who was already an established leisure industry operator.

She also has been commendably responsible for setting up the Top of Town cards scheme which issued out over 35,000 cards to local pensioners to enable them to be eligible to purchase cheaper drinks. To link the establishments together, it is worth noting that Mo is the daughter of the aforementioned Nelly Foley.

They had previous sites in the Mount Pleasant and Mathew Street areas before the Lord Mayor opened a larger venue in 2019 within the Grand Central complex, the location of which had previously housed the Barcelona Bar and Quiggins.

The new establishment encountered financial challenges as the landlady was involved in a long running £1.2m rent dispute concerning water issues and dry rot which had been encountered in the old building. It escalated at one stage in 2022 to her being locked out of the entire site when she returned one morning from buying the staff breakfast at the local Greggs, resulting most importantly in the bacon butties going cold!

The Smokie Mo’s joints are known for their American-themed layout and décor, and they stage drag queen nights and regular live music nights. On the evening of my visit there was a male vocalist on stage called Paul Gillies who plays there regularly.    

Post pandemic there was a Grand Central Irish Village created within the auspices of the Grade II listed Grand Central Hall on Renshaw Street. This contains the two previously mentioned bars and also incorporates Roe’s Bar and The Liffey.

New Century Picture House. Image Credit reddit.com

It originally opened as a Methodist church in 1905 and still contains the 100-year-old pipe organ. It also housed the New Century Picture Hall cinema and from 1933 to 1939 it was the temporary home of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra whilst their bespoke venue was being repaired after a fire.

The rental dispute referenced above subsequently resulted in the bars moving out of the village alongside the Grand Bazaar food hall. Thus, the modern-day complex now contains an art nouveau Grand Central Hotel which has 46 rooms and an expanded Liverpool Dome. The Dome now has a 3576-capacity venue and stages Irish festivals, cabarets and champions league nights as well as numerous live gigs. Upcoming gigs on the roster include The Coral and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Liverpool Dome. Image Credit flickr.com

It originally opened in 2011. The refurbishments eleven years later included improvements to all aspects of the venue to cope with the increased capacity. My one attendance thus far was earlier this year as part of the Sound City festival, and I was impressed as it was a terrific old fashioned style venue.

The band playing was Corella who met whilst at university in Manchester and initially started to receive some attention when their single ‘Barcelona Girl’ gained some airplay on ITV’s Good Morning show. They have gradually moved up from the ‘trainee’ Joshua Brooks and Zombie Shack venues up to headlining New Century Hall later this year. They got an appreciative reaction from the audience and reminded me somewhat of the Beta Band.