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196- "One Molotov Cocktail & a Soya Latte please"
121 Plays21 days ago
In the first of four special episodes airing this summer, Mark talks to Ant about the first Vegetarian Cafe in Dublin, and its unlikely links to revolutionary movements of a political kind....
As ever, we love hearing your views on the topics under discussion (or anything else!) so do drop us your thoughts via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com
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Enough of the Falafel is a community of people who love keeping on top of the latest news in the world of veganism & animal rights. With the Vegan Talk podcast, we aim to develop listeners' (& our own) thoughts around key issues affecting veganism & the animal rights movement; giving our opinions, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we home in on one topic in particular and pick it apart in more detail. If you have a suggestion for a future show, do get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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Thanks everyone for listening; give us a rating and drop us a message to say "hi"; it'll make our day!
Mark & Ant
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Announcements
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to another Enough of the Falafel podcast. We've recorded over 200 of these shows now, all relating to veganism and animal rights.
00:00:14
Speaker
And because of all that hard work, each summer we give ourselves just a few weeks off recording. But don't fret, we're not leaving you in the lurch. You are still going to have twice weekly bits of brilliant content and shows to listen to.
00:00:29
Speaker
They're just going to be a bit different. Coming out on the next few Thursdays are going to be a special history series where Mark and myself look back at some of the lesser reported aspects of animal rights history. And each Monday, we're going to share with you one of our favourite episodes from the Enough of the Falafel Archive, an episode that we've gone back and listened to again and we thought you might enjoy having a second listen to as well or maybe you'll be coming across it for the first time.
00:01:02
Speaker
We really hope you enjoy these special shows that we've put together for you, that you're having a great time whatever you're up to this month while we're having a little bit of time off recording week to week and normal service will be resumed on the 1st of September.
00:01:18
Speaker
So sit back and enjoy this special episode from Enough of the Falafel.
Vegan Stereotypes and Book Extract
00:01:26
Speaker
So I think vegans go looking for trouble even when they're not looking for trouble.
00:01:30
Speaker
That's not what butter's used for. Protein. Take your flab-grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida. What about your protein and what about your iron levels? Should I call the media and say, hi, sorry. They're arguing like, oh, poor woe is me.
00:01:45
Speaker
Hang on a minute. You always pick.
00:01:53
Speaker
social injustice has connection another. That's just what people think vegans eat anyway. As long as you didn't get the wee brunions with the horns you'll be all alright. Does veganism give him superpowers?
00:02:05
Speaker
No I cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision. Hi, Anthony. Hi, listeners.
Early Vegetarian Restaurants in Ireland
00:02:14
Speaker
Today, I'm going to read an extract from my book, The Humanity Trigger, a book which explores the evolution of and action for animals in Ireland from the RSPCA to the ALF, essentially.
00:02:27
Speaker
So I will read a section of the book that concerns the bit of nuanced history that we will be discussing today. Inside the Restaurants at the Heart of the Revolution. The first vegetarian restaurant to open its doors in Ireland was in Belfast in 1890, established by antrim man Leonard McCauhey.
00:02:47
Speaker
It gets a brief mention in a report written by the Belfast Vegetarian Society that year, and not much more is known about it, including even its name. Next came Dublin's Sunshine Vegetarian Dining Rooms at Grafton Street 1891.
00:03:03
Speaker
A review of the restaurant in the Irish Times notes good food and the place being extremely patronised since opening. Established by the Dublin Vegetarian Society, the venture lasted only about a year before closure.
00:03:16
Speaker
Again, little else is known about the restaurant except it offered luncheons, dinners, special afternoon afternoon teas in delightfully pleasant rooms. Again, taken from ah review in the Irish Times, August 1891.
00:03:32
Speaker
These humble beginnings were merely an aperitif for what was soon to come. In 1899, the College Vegetarian Restaurant was opened in Dublin by Leonard McCauhey again and quickly proved to be popular amongst the city's small but growing vegetarian population.
00:03:50
Speaker
intellectuals, playwrights, and poets mixed with Indian students, suffragettes, and revolutionaries over plates of vegetarian food. McCoy had a chain of four vegetarian restaurants in ah Belfast, Leeds, and
Revolutionary Hubs and Historical Events
00:04:04
Speaker
Glasgow.
00:04:04
Speaker
ah Interestingly, the old Glasgow branch is ah situated on 6 Jamaica Street is now McDonald's. The Dublin restaurant was a gathering spot for Sinn Fรฉin and the IRA, then known as the IRB, the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
00:04:20
Speaker
prior to the 1916 rising, and provided revolutionary-minded Indian nationals residing in Dublin a place to meet with Irish nationalists and discuss ridding both countries of the British Empire.
00:04:33
Speaker
not to be outdone by the Irish Farm Produce Cafe, of which more later in the drama stakes, the Irish Times in 1912 reported that one of the restaurant's chefs was discovered in the cellar of the premise ah the premises with his throat badly cut and a razor by a side in an apparent suicide attempt.
00:04:51
Speaker
It's not known if he survived. A mere 10 minutes walk away at 21 Henry Street was the in Dublin, city centre of Dublin this is, was the Irish farm produce vegetarian restaurant run by feminist, Republican and vegetarian Jenny Wise Power, wife of Gaelic Athletic Association founder John Wise Power.
00:05:13
Speaker
Also established in 1899, it was another nexus of radicalism and food-centered politics. Powers' broad political and social interests attracted a range of rebels and revolutionaries under one roof, and the place quickly became a de facto rebel vegetarian canteen, meeting room, and arms dump.
00:05:33
Speaker
Future Irish president Arthur Griffith met other revolutionaries there every day in the year prior to the 1916 rising. Indeed, it was in this very establishment where seven signatories of the Irish Declaration of Independence um put pen to paper in 1916. There was eight signatories in the ah and Declaration of Independence. I assume the eighth guy ah ended up going to the wrong, the only other vegetarian restaurant by accident.
00:06:02
Speaker
Both buildings, filled as they were with undesirable revolutionary types, had undercover cops known as G-men permanently stationed across the street, patientlyly patiently noting down who was frequenting them.
00:06:15
Speaker
One surviving G-man's notes writes of Tomรกs McDonough, one of the leaders of the rising and a lecturer in UCD, being seen entering the restaurant with another Sinn Fรฉin activist carrying, i quote, a heavy bag containing guns.
00:06:28
Speaker
In other words, these restaurants were the complete opposite to an average McDonald's where all the wankers are on the inside while the radicals are standing outside handing out what's wrong with McDonald's leaflets. Coincidentally, and those what's wrong with McDonald's leaflets were co-authored by a guy called bomb Bob la Lambert, himself an undercover cop who infiltrated an ALF arson cell in the 1980s.
00:06:51
Speaker
The restaurant is even name checked in one of english English literature's finest works no one no one ever finishes, Ulysses. This fact only recently came to light because no one had read that far to the book until now.
00:07:04
Speaker
The Irish Foreign Prodigies Cafรฉ remains one of Ireland's, maybe Europe's, most exciting establishments to have had lunch in, filled as it was with rebels storing guns and bombs, Indian students plotting revolution with famous Irish playwrights and poets.
00:07:18
Speaker
regular raids by inebriated shell-shocked British squatties, arson attacks by IRA rebels, free deliveries to local revolutionary strongholds, more on that later, and, quote, the best food in the easiest digestible form at an affordable cost, end quote.
00:07:34
Speaker
There was never a dull moment. The place constantly teetered on the edge of exploding both literally and metaphorically.
Vegetarianism and Social Justice Movements
00:07:42
Speaker
It's enough to give you indigestion and to think Anthony Bourdain thought he was a hard nut for snorting cocaine from a frozen pig carcass.
00:07:52
Speaker
Okay, and that is the end of the the book bit. That's direct from The Humanity Trigger. but So Anthony, did you know that the the early IRA and the early vegetarian movements in Ireland were once closely entwined with overlapping membership and a very similar ah outlook? Is that something that ever popped up on your horizon?
00:08:14
Speaker
No, nor nor would it have been something that would... that would have popped up i mean that that image that you describe of of all different people meeting in this melting pot of this you know these early vegetarian cafes i can imagine how people could you know mix in in in these circles and you could end up with something like that but no on on the face of it that's that's going to be a bit of a jaw drop moment for most people i would have thought yeah i think i mean it it was for me as well until i put all these bits of history together because they're they're fragmented they're all available online which is where i found all this stuff but it's fragmented and disassociated and it doesn't know ah bits of information aren't aware of the other bits of information so i put it i mean it is amazing so the
00:09:03
Speaker
the link with the Indian students is that Ireland at the time, so prior to 1922, I think, Ireland was a part of the British Empire. So we're talking about a at period 1912 to 1916 and Ireland was very much a part of the empire. Then ah Dublin was um ah very much a Desres city in the empire. It was it was a very beautiful city.
00:09:28
Speaker
ah full of Georgian buildings and ah and all sorts. And as India was part of the British Empire as well at the time, middle-class Indian students would be able to get um into colleges in and who anywhere in the empire, including the UK, including in Dublin.
00:09:44
Speaker
And in Trinity College of Dublin, a very esteemed, very famous u university in and Ireland, A lot of Indian students ended up there studying to be lawyers or doctors.
00:09:56
Speaker
And because they were Indian and Hindu, they were vegetarian. And there was only two places in Dublin and in in Ireland also that served vegetarian food. they were pure vegetarian restaurants. So that was the sunshine rooms and the Irish home farm produce rooms, both inextricably licked and linked with the sort of progressive moons at the time. So ah people who had patronized places and the people who ran these places, both of these restaurants, wore vegetarians, there were there were suffragettes, there were militant republicans, there were anti-imperialists, there were socialists, ah not all of them but a lot of them, you know?
00:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's do do we know to what extent the institution itself, i'm I'm talking the cafe here, do we know to what extent they were explicitly putting themselves out as a kind of counter-cultural hub or or Or did that just happen? I mean, I ask in that, you know, i i set up um not the first ah vegan cafe in in my city, but at at the time we were the only one and we were the only one that had been there for 20 years. You know, they'd been
00:11:06
Speaker
one that had started much before us and had had failed within a year. But very soon we became a place where people would meet. And we didn't shy away from the fact that we were vegan, but we didn't sort of set out to be this this hub of radicals and and alternatives. But yeah I see how it happens.
00:11:26
Speaker
I'm just interested, do do we know if if that was explicit from the start? Oh, absolutely. For the proprietors for Jenny Wise Power, and she was deeply political.
00:11:37
Speaker
very much she She was born middle class and was was middle class all her life, but retained a real radical socialist edge. the The vegetarian side of things was seen very much as as an essential part of the overall package. And people involved in the anti-slavery movement and child labour reform and civil rights generally, and the land league in Ireland and anti-slavery campaigns, the the overlap between all those movements and the vegetarian movement was profound.
00:12:10
Speaker
Not everyone who was vegetarian was involved in these movements, but most of the leadership and a lot of the membership of all of these campaigns saw the intersectionality of things.
00:12:21
Speaker
There is a tendency, if you were to listen to jim too much Jordan Peterson, to think that intersectionality or vegans and vegetarians with a broader political outlook other than just animals is a new thing. It isn't. it was the founding basis of the movement.
00:12:37
Speaker
What's new is the tendency to segment off these causes as if they're fundamentally separate. So ah studying this history, it was amazing to see how ah consistent the movement has been in positioning itself as the ultimate peace movement, that it's not just concerned with animals or just concerned with slavery or child labor abuses or what have you at the time.
00:13:00
Speaker
ah all All of these things mattered, of these things things mattered equally, and they had to all be addressed. So that that is nothing new. and And it was very, very interesting to see that. So they were very much connected to the to the vegetarian movement. Obviously, they the the Dublin Vegetarian Society, which helped financially and morally, I suppose, the establishing of the Irish Foreign Produce Cafe was part of the broader UK vegetarian movement because again, Ireland was still a part of the empire then.
00:13:30
Speaker
ah The UK vegetarian movement had split some years earlier. it was founded in 1847. In 1888, the UK vegetarian singular movement split in two when the more radical London vegetarian movement, which promoted raw food veganism,
00:13:48
Speaker
and decided to to separate from the ah national movement because they thought that the national movement wasn't going far enough. so um ah So the London Vegetarian... and that split didn't re didn't reconcile until 1969, so it lasted over a century. So at one point
Tensions in UK Vegetarian Societies
00:14:07
Speaker
there was a number of vegetarian movements in England or in the UK acting independently of each other. ah Interesting enough, Donald Watson, who obviously goes on to co-found the Vegan Society, was was was a member of the London Vegan Society, not the and what was what was known as the Manchester, aka the UK Vegan Society. So he was he would have been considered extreme by the UK movement. So he was in the London Vegetarian Society.
00:14:35
Speaker
He was kicked out of that to form the Vegan Society. ah very interesting fact I discovered today when I was getting some notes for that was that I had always assumed that I hadn't thought too much about why the Vegetarian Society didn't allow ah subgroup of vegans to form sort of a subcommittee or a subgroup with within the vegetarian society. What what what what skin off their nose is this?
00:14:58
Speaker
They actually had a vegetarian so supporters club where people who still ate chicken and fish were allowed to participate in the vegetarian society's social events and paid a slightly less annual membership to be part of the society, but they were still eating meat. So why did they not allow people who wanted to go one step further ah stay in their movement. And it turns out the reason is is religious. So the vegetarian society was heavily influenced by a group called the Bible Christian Church.
00:15:29
Speaker
who advocated for the inclusion of eggs, dairy products, and honey in their diet based on biblical teachings and had no plans to reduce their consumption. So the refusal of the vegetarian society to accommodate vegans was religiously driven. Veganism was seen as a slap in the face of Jesus.
00:15:47
Speaker
And that slapping a guy who can't defend himself because he's been crucified is like a double slap in the face. So ah it's it's interesting there in that I think...
00:15:58
Speaker
I have a tendency, certainly, to look at the history of animal rights, the history of veganism, and to think that the closer we get to the present, the more, I suppose, apologist vegans might be, and that we have flexitarians, we have Meat Free Monday, and, you know, you You might have people coming on board the movement, but also sort of living quite conservative or not very progressive ways to, but they do identify as vegan.
00:16:25
Speaker
But actually, of course, like you say, going way back to the start of the movement, you'd be more likely to have um apologists for a better word who aren't quite there but just to kind of help help have some momentum going because otherwise it just it'd just be you yourself wouldn't it there'd be there'd be no one else so so having someone that's like well you've occasionally thought of not eating some animals so you' you you'll do um whereas i think i think we i don't know
00:16:59
Speaker
I look back at the last 50 years and sort of just think the further back in time you go, more sort of, not extreme, but the more disciplined and the more forthright people would be. But I guess at the start of a movement like that, well, it's not that you have to, but you can see an argument for casting the net a bit wider for who you include in it? I think as a survival mechanism, it was probably essential.
00:17:26
Speaker
ah I remember when when I was first, very first looking into, and when I went vegetarian first at the age of 13, and there was a standalone Dublin vegetarian society that I i sent a letter off to in the old school hard copy post and received the magazine back a you know a few weeks later.
00:17:44
Speaker
And you could join up and there was two tiers of membership. There was three tiers. There was a supporter, you could be a meat eater, but support the cause and pay certain amount.
00:17:56
Speaker
You could be a demi-vegetarian. wasn't semi-vegetarian. It was demi-vegetarian. and So you ate some animals. It didn't define exactly what that was. it just that meant ah it implied that you didn't eat some, but you ate others. and then there was, there was a Mediterranean. So, ah but again, it was because probably or possibly because they felt that they needed to get, get i mean, anyone's money was going to do. So so they just created the these, these sort of tiers of support.
00:18:22
Speaker
where you didn't even need to be a vegetarian in in order to send them money. I mean, it was just, as I say, financially, it was probably an imperative. So things have changed.
00:18:33
Speaker
ah it's Another thing I came across today was that the vegetarian movement in the UK is thought to have originated in a chapel in Salford, Manchester called Beefsteak Chapel.
00:18:45
Speaker
where Reverend William Cowherd extolled the virtues of the meat-free diet. So this is prior to the formation of the society. But could it get any unlikely? We're going to meet in the East State Chapel with ah with Billy Cowherd to talk about that.
00:18:59
Speaker
If you made that up and yeah you wrote that down in the work of fiction, you'd be like, oh, that's ridiculous. It's like something you'd have seen in Viz. You know, youre like comic Viz? Yeah, and yeah.
00:19:11
Speaker
It's Billy Carver, the vegetarian. i'm thinking of um I'm thinking of ah Harry Potter, where you've got like Professor Sprout, the herbology teacher. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:21
Speaker
Is that the best name you could come up with? Yeah, yeah. So Billy Carver, start the movement. Could it be any more unlikely? So, um yeah.
Irish Nationalism and Vegetarian Ideologies
00:19:30
Speaker
Right, so you just talking briefly...
00:19:32
Speaker
ah Background to the IRA and the whole Irish question. I know that and it isn't it isn't that well taught over the British educational system. ah I lived in the UK for 16 years and I found that the sort of the knowledge of the goings on and the sort of background and history of this sort of conflict you know isn't well known. but Well, if I can quickly interject, Mark, like as a complete lay person with no sort of specific teachings on it, my perception, all all you hear and all I heard growing up was was just negatives.
00:20:09
Speaker
You know, it's just like, a oh, that's that's it. It's just a ah you know, an aggressive militant group that that causes trouble. And I think the only the only hint of anything different was a a song called Johnson's Motor Car that ah was sung by the Dubliners.
00:20:28
Speaker
And that was talking about, I think it was sung from an IRA perspective. And I sort of realised by the end of the song, oh, actually, this is pro-IRA. That's interesting. Yeah.
00:20:39
Speaker
That's the only incident. is I mean, it's a very jolly song. um But um yeah, i would I would completely agree with your generalisation there that Those in the the rest of the UK, our knowledge of it is very, very polarised, very one-dimensional and negative, I would say, unless you start really off your own back looking into history.
00:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, um unfortunately, that is the case, yeah. so So in the same year that the UK vegetarian movement was created, 1847, That was the same year as's known as Black 47 over in Ireland because it was the peak of the what was called the Irish potato famine, which lasted about five years, give or take.
00:21:24
Speaker
And it wasn't a famine. A famine is when there's no food. What it was was the inevitable result of feudalism meeting potato blight.
00:21:35
Speaker
And potato blight was a particular disease that struck one species of potato, the lumbar of potato, which was the predominant one grown in Ireland. Now, the question that always people have is that, right, so it wasn't a famine and there loads of food in the country, then why were people starving? It's like and there's a cheese shortage and thousands of people die because there isn't enough cheese. you know it's just there's lots of other food.
00:21:59
Speaker
The Irish had been, the the it was mainly an agricultural society had been for five, six thousand years. since the island was occupied after the last ice age, they knew how to farm. they were That's how's all they did. That's sort of all they knew. So it wasn't that they didn't know what to do. It was that the system created by the empire was that a man had to give out equal portions of his land to all his sons.
00:22:25
Speaker
There wasn't the prime janitor or whatever it's called that you had over in England, where it's the firstborn male, gets all the land. So what you had was as a result of this constant carving up of land because people were having sons and their sons were having sons and so on, and it was all getting carved up more and more into tiny parcels of land.
00:22:43
Speaker
Because of that, and because they lived on they lived in a feudal economy where the land they lived on was owned by a landlord who demanded they work in their farms, these massive estate farms, four days a week.
00:22:55
Speaker
One day a week, you sort of, or two days a week, Friday and Saturday, you tend to your own tiny plot of land, and I'm talking tiny. And then Sunday is a day of rest and you go to church. and So because they had tiny bits of land to play with, ah what over time, at the potato, particularly the lumbar potato,
00:23:13
Speaker
ah came into its own because it was multi-crop annual grower, gave a few crops a year, it was easy to grow, it was hardy, and it was easy to propagate, and potatoes are actually a type of superfood, they're full of all sorts of nutrients. So there were communities in the west of Ireland in particular who were essentially surviving almost totally on potatoes and some beer, which was also full of nutrients.
00:23:39
Speaker
because water wasn't as safe to drink and it kept him going very much very much falling into a stereotype there aren't we absolutely i mean this is where it came from you know there was there was logistical practical survival reasons as to why the potato was chosen as the pre-eminent crime i mean did they had other stuff and it varied as you went around the place but In the West, if you divide Ireland right down the middle on the West side, the West half of the country was particularly prone to this sort of agriculture. so it was a monoculture and it wasn't just potatoes. It was a very particular type of potato, the lumbar potato.
00:24:13
Speaker
So when this disease hit and it hit all over the Europe at the same time, Russia, Poland, England as well. But because those those countries weren't still feudal societies, Russia sort of was, but it was a bit different. They had other food to fall back on.
00:24:29
Speaker
So the potato blight hits, the Irish go to their little tiny plots of land and pull out these rotting black puss sort of dripping dead things that used to be potatoes.
00:24:42
Speaker
and They're still going and making and growing food for the landlord who was then exporting it to to England to feed the the growing working class there. So as a result, a million die, a million emigrate. It drives, I mean, the post-trauma, the trauma and the post-trauma of that event was deeply radicalizing for the Republicans at the time.
00:25:05
Speaker
And that led to the formation of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. who were the precursor to the Irish Republican army. And that gives background to the level of militancy and violence they were prepared to engage in because they they thought, right, the a famine the so-called famine was the sort of final straw, really.
00:25:25
Speaker
And if we're part of the empire, shouldn't we be treated equally? As as if, I mean, if if this famine had happened in London or Birmingham, would the reaction of the British government have been the same?
00:25:37
Speaker
Wouldn't they have helped those people? Why did they leave us to die? Why do we have this system? So, yeah, it was deeply radicalizing for those people. and But they were also interested in socialism and women's rights to vote and getting kids out of working in factories and animal rights, even if it only went as far as vegetarianism. So the sort of the the top tier of...
00:25:59
Speaker
All these movements, as I was saying, most of them were were vegetarian and they used to mingle with other people, as I say, including the IRA. So it was it was part of an overall drive to fight against oppression, I suppose.
00:26:13
Speaker
But it it is something that is it's not talked about by the Irish Republican movement and it's unknown or was relatively unknown until recently. amongst the vegetarian but I thought it was a very interesting slice of history really. Yeah, it's again one of those where we can very easily fall into a trap of thinking that the way things are now is all very contemporary and is, you know, that's the apex of existence whatever.
00:26:43
Speaker
And just with regards to intersectionality, that can feel like a very woke progressive idea But actually, as you've said, and you've you've said it on on other shows that we've recorded together, very often when you go further back in history,
00:27:00
Speaker
People that are concerned about one social justice issue do tend to be concerned about more than just one thing. It's actually the recent phenomena is the almost the siloing of social justice causes and and just other causes. You know, it's it's perhaps a ah the contemporary thing is that you can be interested in one thing and only that thing.
00:27:24
Speaker
um Whereas this example points to the fact that actually if you've got a conscience, if you're compassionate, then you're going to be moved by more than one cause. Yeah, um absolutely. it It is sort of tempting to think that, that is as you say, it's ah it's a relatively new thing. It isn't. It's been there from the very beginning.
00:27:41
Speaker
and It's really interesting with the Indian students who were meeting Irish IRA guys in this vegetarian restaurant. Some of them individuals, the the Indian guys actually took part in the 1916 Rising as ambulance drivers.
00:27:56
Speaker
And when they were chased out of Dublin by the G-men, by the the state police, because the state police had been spying on them, they knew they were interested in Irish republicanism.
00:28:06
Speaker
They were chased back to India and these guys went on to found Indian labour unions and inspire Gandhi. One of them, V. V. Geary, ended up as the president of India, this guy who had met these revolutionaries in the Irish Home Farm Produce Cafรฉ.
00:28:23
Speaker
and were inspired by these guys. So this little restaurant was actually had worldwide impacts or had impacts in Ireland, obviously, and therefore in Britain, in the UK, and also in India.
00:28:36
Speaker
It is fascinating to to to think of how one tiny little room can be so important for so many different things, you know, and ah during during the 1916 rising itself, which was centered on the general post office, the the GPO in Dublin,
00:28:53
Speaker
and That was about and five walls away from the Irish home farm produce cafe. So during the rising itself, which lasted about a week, the guys in the restaurant blew holes in the internal walls all the way through to the GPO and then provided the rebels with vegetarian food direct from the vegetarian cafe for the first half of the week until the GPO got surrounded by British troops.
00:29:18
Speaker
So 1916 rising at pivotal moments in Irish history, the rebels in the GPO, the the sort of and ground zero of that revolution were being fed vegetarian food from the nearby vegetarian cafe because they had blown holes all the way through from one end to the other end.
00:29:35
Speaker
So, you know, these guys, you know, they they weren't just talking about revolution. They were actually, they there were the sort of canteen of that, you know?
Cafes and Irish Independence
00:29:43
Speaker
And again, this is not mentioned in traditional Republican history. There is a plaque on the wall besides, beside 21 Henry street, which is where the cafe was that ah celebrates and informs pastors by that. This is where seven out of the eight signatories of the declaration of Irish independence, a hugely pivotal,
00:30:03
Speaker
piece of paper in Irish history was signed in in this cafe. It doesn't mention that it was a vegetarian cafe, unfortunately, for for for some reason. I'm not sure if they even knew that. and But yeah, so it's it's it's alluded to and nodded to, but the thread of history has never been sort of connected before.
00:30:22
Speaker
And yeah, i thought it was I thought it was a fascinating slice of history. Yeah, absolutely. And the fact that they're they're literally fueling the revolution whilst it's happening.
00:30:33
Speaker
that's That's remarkable. I mean, do we know what happened to the this specific cafe? And I mean, you mentioned there was there was a ah chain of them, effectively. to do Do we know how their history continued?
00:30:48
Speaker
So pre-1916 and 1916 is the sort of so the year that Ireland's history sort of moves around celestially almost. Pre-1916, they were expanding all the time. They opened up two more premises around Dublin's city centre, Baking Bread and another small cafe.
00:31:07
Speaker
They took part in the 1916 Rising. They were targeted by British troops because of that in the in the in the in the years after that. But then there was the Irish War of Independence, which started in 1919 and came to a conclusion in 1922 or 23. The Irish won that, but they split in two.
00:31:25
Speaker
There was the pro-treaty and the anti-treaty IRA. Jenny Wise Power, the owner of the cafe, sided with the pro-treaty side, making her an enemy of the anti-treaty side.
00:31:37
Speaker
So the pro-treaty side went on to form the Irish state as we know it today. The anti-treaty side stayed the IRA and declared war on the new Irish Free State because they thought they felt they were collaborating with Britain and that the revolution was incomplete and needed to be pushed forward until the British were thrown out of Northern Ireland as well.
00:31:59
Speaker
Okay, so Jenny Wise Power and her cafe were now a target for the renegade IRA. And her premises was firebombed by IRA activists in 1923, I think. the The fire didn't take, it didn't burn down, but she was targeted by the IRA and from from then on.
00:32:19
Speaker
She actually became a senator in the Irish Senate, I think around 1928, and closed the cafe then. But it was going for about sort of 15 20 years. through some of the most turbulent times in Irish history, mean, right at the epicentre of the front line of this conflict, you know, for the for that time, you know, which Dublin city centre was.
00:32:39
Speaker
So it closed after, i think it was 20 something years in business. So a very respectable period of time, especially given the amount of... negative attack, you know, the anti-treaty IRA where were sort of throwing bricks through windows on a regular basis or trying to burn the place down.
00:32:56
Speaker
ah British soldiers were coming in, tossing the place over, trying to find guns. The IRA were storing guns in the basement. I mean, this place was just, it was just, it was so much more than a cafe. But it is significant that the vegetarians were right there on the front line from the get-go with this.
00:33:13
Speaker
And the IRA had no problem with sort of fraternizing with people who they wouldn't necessarily, the IRA aren't necessarily a ah radical political force. They describe themselves as the most conservative revolutionaries in history. And that is true. So ah them fraternizing and being intertwined with what are non-Catholic progressive causes, ah is is a bit unusual, you know?
00:33:38
Speaker
What comes to my mind at the moment and is, and we've we've touched on it already, personally, all of this like really
Modern Vegan Cafes as Activist Hubs
00:33:48
Speaker
motivates me. I love i love the idea of of you know these these hubs where you're exchanging ideas and the and the the linking of different social justice causes are coming in together.
00:34:02
Speaker
And I think i think nowadays it's fair to say that it would be a lot more difficult to persuade some vegan cafe owners to so sort of let their business become such a hub.
00:34:20
Speaker
it It might excite a lot of us. and And of course... it's it's someone's prerogative to to do with their organization or their business what they want. to know if if If their thing is, I want to set this up, I want it to be all about the food and that's it, then that's your right, fair enough.
00:34:39
Speaker
But I can i can imagine there there being fear around doing so or or letting that happen, losing control, or or maybe it's a free market capitalism thing and and now you know, the inclination of ah those starting a business, even if it is a business that's got veganism at its heart or all closely related to it, maybe it's it's is less likely to be a thing. I was i was thinking when you were talking, like,
00:35:11
Speaker
How many places have I been bi to that I could imagine this being um similar to? And actually, there's not that many, but ah I do think um that there'd be the Change Cafe in Worcester that we we set up.
00:35:29
Speaker
I do feel it it had that feel. I mean, we we had um anti-fascist demos going on outside. We had women's groups meeting. We had LGBTQ plus stuff going on. Like that stuff just naturally happened. That wasn't really, don't want say it wasn't encouraged by us because that may that's sort of like a euphemism for saying we disapproved.
00:35:48
Speaker
But We didn't have to work hard to make those things happen. and i But I don't know to what extent I see that in other places. I don't know whether that's been your experience going to vegan cafes. ah I don't get that feel very much.
00:36:04
Speaker
as brilliant as many of them are yeah no i i spent um i was i lived in brighton for a good decade or more and obviously it's got a huge range for its size uh of veggie vegan specific or very friendly eating establishments right across the board so you have and i think every town if it can, should have variety. So you have the Cowley Club in Brighton, which is sort of essentially an anarchist volunteer run social center, vegan cafe, gig venue, bookshop, meeting place and all of that.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great place. It's fantastic. And it's been going and for many years and is a great hub of community activism. And then you have places like Terra Terra. And there's probably a lot of other I haven't been there in many years, about 10 years now. But there's high end places where you go out and you spend a lot of cash on cuisine. it's's It's amazing food. So you sort of get and there's everywhere in between. So you get the all the rainbow, all the palette are from vegan curry slop in the Cowley Club for, you know, for two pounds of a whole to, you know, some delicacy that you'd see on Gordon Ramsay or something like that produce, and but vegan in territory, you know, for, you know, for 50 pounds or something. So if if you have access to all of that, it's great, you know, and it shouldn't be either or, but
00:37:29
Speaker
I think people who are naturally inclined towards welfare and generosity towards animals are also inclined with the same things towards people. And and it does tend to, and these places do tend to be a magnet for that, you know, um or one of them will, you know.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and And I suppose we we have outlets now in terms of social media, for example, where people, You know, you you you can have dialogues with people across the world without having to meet in ah in a central cafe and and and and and things like that. And that that's, of course, that has its advantages.
00:38:07
Speaker
But in terms of there being a place where... a physical place because that that does open up different connections, different pathways in the mind, different motivations as well.
00:38:19
Speaker
But also I'm i'm just thinking the the incidental factor. I mean, I suppose the way social media algorithms work, you could and you do happen upon content and discussions that you perhaps aren't initially seeking, but they can pique your interest.
00:38:38
Speaker
But i'm I'm just thinking of all the people who, in ah in a physical location, could accidentally walk in somewhere, have a nice you know slice of cake or a pasty or whatever, just just for somewhere to sit down, to take a load off, to grab something to eat or whatever, and just be slowly inculcated in in this movement and and have their eyes opened.
00:39:05
Speaker
There's nothing quite like that, is there? Of course, there was a real... ah Trend of social centers. um When I was involved in the anti-globalization movement around 1999, 2000, 2001, and so on, there was a lot of events that we were going to around Europe, it Italy, France, Germany, places like this that had highly organized networks of social centers, which were squatted or very cheaply rented from a left-wing council ah buildings.
00:39:36
Speaker
That would be voluntary run, mutual aid, sort of a narcos type of stuff. There'd be punk bands playing. There'd be dance nights. There'd always a vegan cafe, ah free shop, all this sort of stuff. There are hubs of the various progressive...
00:39:52
Speaker
courses that were sort of really ah popular at the time. And there was a whole network of these things. There was an attempt to import that to the UK. It sort of worked in Brighton, which which ended up in the Cowley Club.
00:40:05
Speaker
and There's a few places in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and stuff like this. And they were they were very much providing for that niche of ah vegan activists who wanted places, needed places. This is a bit pre-internet, really pre, really common internet, and take me off where people would meet physically and discuss things and have food. There were,
00:40:28
Speaker
and that they wanted to eat. So it was always vegan. The equality the food wouldn't be that great. It was generally referred to as vegan slop, but it was nutritious, very cheap and and vegan. so And there'd be bars where you could buy beer and social events. And there were alternative community systems, I suppose.
00:40:45
Speaker
But that stands in stark contrast to say something like plates that vegan restaurants in London that recently won a Michelin store. Yeah. um I would love to go there.
00:40:57
Speaker
I would absolutely love to go to plates. And if I ever get the money and the chance and if I ever in London, I'm definitely going to go there. I fully appreciate ah people who can turn plants into such beautiful things to eat you know i mean it's a real skill and it shouldn't be ignored or or diminished i think that that there as i said there is room for all of these things from the squatted narco center social club to to plates in central London from yeah i i do like the uh the idea of a group of people in balaclavas, you know, booking a table or, you discussing some some sort of revolutionary plot in between the 16-core taster menu. that's ah
00:41:42
Speaker
That's a really nice image, isn't it? Yeah, and asking the owners if they if they can stash but bags full of guns in their basement for the upcoming yeah ah Rising, you know? And the owners saying, yes, of course.
00:41:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, ah as I say, um with with our cafe, there was um we had the English Defence League do a rally in the square that that we were based on.
00:42:07
Speaker
ah right and And so, yeah, we had people from the the local anti-fascist group contact us and say, like, number one, can we base ourselves there? But number two, can we go in your upstairs room that at the time hadn't been converted?
00:42:24
Speaker
So it was it was just sort of upturned chairs and tables we weren't using and a bit of a stock room or whatever. can we Can we sort of squirrel ourselves in there and have one of our camera guys filming?
00:42:38
Speaker
Because there'll be people there that we can bang up um if we can get footage of them appearing at an EDL rally. I mean, I never found out how how successful they were, but yeah there were there were um interesting conversations going on again without us seeking them out they they just happened and we were a magnet for these things i mean there's there's obviously a risk there obviously you've got a business you've got you've got premises you've got you know your stock you've got stuff that can be damaged or you you know you you or your or your business could be targeted if if the likes of the edl were to find out this was going on right i mean there's
00:43:15
Speaker
there' was there Was there ever any animosity or or did direct confrontation because of what you were doing? In a very in a very twenty first century way. so um the only animosity.
00:43:28
Speaker
were um ones star reviews So ah we we got about three one-star reviews in yeah quick succession because ah few of the EDL guys, before the rally, we knew it was going to happen, came in looking for something to drink um because the the pub on the square, quite a rough pub, um had shut for the day. they They knew what was coming and they thought, no, we're just going to shut.
00:43:54
Speaker
So three of these guys with with no net, covered in tattoos, came in, ordered the first thing they could see on the menu, which was banana smoothie. And we were sort of faced with, well, are we going to say, no, we're not serving you?
00:44:09
Speaker
oh Or are we just going to do it? And and my thinking was, well, Do you know what? We don't agree with your politics at all and probably a lot of the ways that you conduct your life.
00:44:20
Speaker
But if you just want some plant-based food, I'd rather sell you that than you go ah few doors down and go to the newsagent and get a, you know, milky coffee or whatever.
00:44:31
Speaker
So we we served them and didn't didn't mention what was going on, anything like that. um I made sure as they left, I said, well, have a very peaceful day. um And that was that.
00:44:42
Speaker
But a few people who were sort of in the crowd wanting to see what was going on, but very much not supporting the EDL, had seen that we had served them and then left us a one-star review saying, if you're serving these people, you're condoning them, blah, blah, blah, blah. blah So that was as far as it is it got.
00:45:01
Speaker
Right, interesting, yeah. yeah And there was a point mid-afternoon where we did... we put a notice on the door saying bookings only now because it was starting to get quite feisty outside.
00:45:14
Speaker
And we thought, oh do you know what, like let's just take precautions here. But no, it's ah a few bad reviews is as ah antagonistic as it got. and And so did did the EDR guys know they they were in a vegan restaurant? Absolutely not.
00:45:29
Speaker
Absolutely not. but there was there no with Without wanting to generalise, because I wouldn't want to lower myself to their level, I'm not sure how intelligent... and nice good number yeah so despite the fact that it said vegan on the wall I'm not sure they put two and two together nor whether they are able to put two and two together generally that's hilarious and they just pointed to to the first thing on the menu without even reading or knowing what literally yeah yeah yeah
00:46:01
Speaker
and is yeah There we are. so did do There was there was a there's a place in Cork City, which is where I'm from, in Southern Ireland called the Key Co-op. And it's been going around since the 70s. And it's a big sort of rambling building of a vegan cafe and and all animal rights oriented stuff and lesbian and gay sort of meeting place. all And when it was established first in the early 70s in deeply Catholic conservative Ireland, it was it was the regular attention of sort of local um his I don't want to call them skinheads because that's making them sound too organized, but they were sort of glue bag sniffing guys with no hair and ah sort of crossed eyes that would go in there and cause hassle and throw stones at the place and people would cross the road to avoid it, to sort of avoid passing it by directly. And the police used to raid it every so often often and looking for subversive literature and
00:46:57
Speaker
All this, I mean, the the amounts of negative attention that they got ah sit simply for existing.
Episode Conclusion and Series Recap
00:47:02
Speaker
And they they didn't they they didn't invite any of this stuff. They didn't bang on about it. There wasn't posters sticking out the out the window, sort of upsetting people. It was it was all quite low key. and and but it's still got this really bad attention i mean it's fine now but yeah they they really had to put up with a lot of crap there yeah yeah interesting checkered histories these places but that thank you so much for that mark that's that's been an absolutely brilliant conversation um that i've i've learned a lot from and i know our listeners
00:47:33
Speaker
We'll have two. As we mentioned at the top, this is part of a series. Can you give um a bit of a ah taster for listeners as to what we might be discussing in some of the other episodes in this little summer series that we're doing?
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So the series really is looking at nuanced, largely unknown slices of animal rights, animal related ah history from around the world, but primarily Ireland and England and the UK generally.
00:48:04
Speaker
which is which is where I'm um most familiar with. So upcoming episodes will include the collusion between the British state and the Animal Liberation Front.
00:48:15
Speaker
Some of the biggest Animal Liberation Front actions ever taken were supported practically and tactically by the police. And it's a very interesting interesting interesting story. I'll be going into the rise and demise of the Animal Liberation Leagues, which flourished in the early 80s and then were nailed to the wall by the state and never reappeared.
00:48:36
Speaker
I'll be talking about the curious history of Nazism and vegetarianism. And there was one or two other topics. I don't have the notes in front of me. I can't find them right now, so i can't they're about. No, that's absolutely fine. And um I mean, unless you are listening to these in ah in a timely fashion within a couple of days of them coming out, then you will have access to all of them now. So you just just go into your podcast player and you'll be able to see the the different bits that we've we've covered over this summer.
00:49:05
Speaker
But um that's absolutely brilliant, Mark. And thanks very much indeed. Thanks, Ant. I'll be in touch soon. And I'm looking forward to the next episode.
00:49:19
Speaker
This has been an Enough of the Falafel production. We're just a normal bunch of everyday vegans putting our voices out there. The show is hosted by Zencaster. We use music and special effects by zapsplap.com.
00:49:34
Speaker
And sometimes, if you're lucky, at the end of an episode, you'll hear a poem by Mr Dominic Berry. Thanks all for listening and see you next time.
00:50:00
Speaker
This episode may have come to an end, but did you know we've got a whole archive containing all our shows dating back to September 2023? That is right, Dominic. There's over 100 episodes on there featuring our brilliant range of different guests, people's stories of going vegan, philosophical debates, moral quandaries, and of course...
00:50:21
Speaker
around a dozen news items from around the world each week so check back on your podcast player to hear previous episodes and remember to get an alert for each new episode simply click like or follow and also subscribe to the show thanks for your ongoing support wherever you listen to us from