The story of Dolan's, a Limerick live venue institution, is one of family, friendship and risk-taking. Dubliner Mick Dolan never intended to live in the city, but when the purchase of a pub in Clare fell through, Mick and his wife Valerie, who had sold their house in Dublin, were left looking for options.
With friends and family living nearby in Adare, Limerick beckoned. Mick was a Merchant Navy officer for six years, so the port area of the city was familiar to him. In 1992, he bought the original Dolan's pub down on the Dock Road. Locals thought he was mad. Mick carried on unperturbed, opening the pub and venue in 1994.
Ever the keen traditional musician, Mick programmed live trad in the bar seven nights a week within a month of opening. It was decided that there would be no cover bands or DJs in Dolan's, but Mick soon realised they had to capitulate on that plan.”You have to do what people want as well as what you want,” he says.
Dancing on the bar
When the Limerick Leader put a picture of a regular dancing on the bar on the front page of the paper in early 1995, things started to look up.
“Everyone saw it and though 'what's going on down on the Dock Road in Limerick?' because it wasn't a place to visit – it was a red-light area down the by docks,” remembers Mick. “Everyone started to get interested then, and by March that year we were a busy bar.”
Ever since then Dolan's has being on a path of growth. Now housing four spaces for live music, from the pub for sessions to the upstairs venue for emerging acts, to the Kasbah for alternative music, the Warehouse for larger gigs, and The Big Top marquee for special big gigs, Dolan's has firmly established itself as a Limerick hub for live music with acts like Mumford & Sons, Franz Ferdinand, The Waterboys, Chic and Kasabian having played there over the years.
A genuine intimacy
Mick says acts like the fact that there's a genuine homely intimacy to the place. "The original room is a lovely one to play in," he says. "It only holds 100 people. Artists love that you walk into the bar and you can have a drink, have something to eat and listen to traditional music, then go in and do your show and come back out and join in the session."
That sense of home extends to the Dolan family. Their children grew up living above the pub before it expanded. His daughter, Sarah, is an opera singer by trade and Neil, his son now books music in the venue.
With venues that can accommodate rising bands as well as marquee ones, Dolan's has seen its fair share of big acts start in a small room to a smattering of people.
“You're talking about Damien Rice coming down on a bus to play in the pub doing support to the Hothouse Flowers and then building it up. A lot of the bands start with 10 to 20 people and they'd build up to full houses in the Warehouse, like Mick Flannery, Damien Dempsey and Bell X1 who are still doing great and supporting us.”
“One thing that pisses me off is people asking 'what time the main band is on', instead of going to watch the support bands who are going to be headlining in a couple of years time,” says Mick.
“I remember we had Duke Special on in the upstairs venue and Duffy was doing support and three months later, she was a superstar. That's the calibre of acts all around. People aren't taking a chance on music as much as they used to.”
Supporting local
Mick mentions bands Hermitage Green, Fox Jaw and Windings as examples of Limerick's local scene and recent rising artists he enjoyed in the venue include American artist The Suitcase Junket and Paddy Dennehy, a local singer-songwriter. Hermitage Green in particular, have grown into the venue's bigger rooms but Mick says the lack of support for live music is a stumbling block to emerging bands.
“It's just not on the agenda,” Mick argues. “Trad gets a bit of touring money, there are a few things for recording and for going abroad but in general, there's nothing. If you write a play, you go to the Arts Council, you sort your finances, the actors get paid for rehearsal time, rehearsal space is paid for. What do bands get? There's absolutely no help coming there at all. Music has to be part of art. Live music isn't included on the same level as visual art or theatre.”
Newfound positivity
Limerick though, has improved in recent years and has a newfound positivity. Dolan refers to the city's tenure as City Of Culture in 2014, which was a stark contrast to when Dolan's tried to establish the Big Top in 2008.
“The council thought there'd be riots, that people would be sneaking in on boats off the quay wall. It cost a lot of money to do because there was an attitude that you couldn't do it in Limerick. Like, we had to go to Lloyds of London to get insurance because no-one in Ireland would insure us. That's all gone now.”
Mick Dolan's status in Limerick has gone from the crazy Dubliner who opened a pub on the dodgy docks to an integral part of the music fabric of the city, so it's no wonder Mick is backing Limerick's bid for European Capital of Culture 2020.
“2014 showed people like the council, the guards, everyone, that you can open things up. There were people in the council before that who said 'you can't do that' and now, they say 'you can'.”
Whatever happens, booking live music in his venue remains Mick Dolan's passion.
“If you were an accountant, you wouldn't do what we do, taking big risks for small returns,” says Mick. “I love what I do and the longer I can keep doing it, the happier I will be.”
