Darkey Kelly’s – Dublin
Of all the bars in Dublin, few interested me as much for its Irish music and sordid history as Darkey Kelly’s. But first let me describe how I got there. Walking along the River Liffey, I am soon in one of the oldest parts of Dublin. A street that has existed since the 13th century, made of rough and damaged cobbles, leads up Fishamble Street towards Christ Church Cathedral. The street is so named because of the old fish market that used to take place here. I can only imagine what the smell must have been like in a time before refrigeration.
Trendy shops and restaurants line the streets up from the river and I find myself looking in through a window at a young man with his back to me playing guitar. A few steps further and a beautiful red arch displays the name of my destination in black and gold Celtic script, Darkey Kelly’s. In the main foyer is a plaque scrawled with the dark history of the bar.
But I’ll get to that later. I walk into the welcoming and expansive pub teaming with a diverse crowd of young and old, all eating and laughing together. The next musician is coming to the stage and is carrying some type of 8-stringed, round-bodied lute that he props up on one knee. He begins to play an eclectic blend of Irish and Italian folk music, dancing his fingers lightly across the strings, mixing in the melody with a harmonica propped up in front of his mouth by spindly metal arms. The acoustics of the place is facilitating and his voice rings clearly over the sounds of the busy bar. The walls advertise an assortment of Irish libations, from Guinness Stout and Powers Whiskey, to the house favourite, Writer’s Tears. Blue triangle flags for Leinster rugby team hang from the ceiling, and an Irish flag is displayed proudly on the wall. In the middle of the room is a large U-shaped bar with a fine assortment of beer and a shelf full of whiskey.
I amble my way over to the bar and order the beer of the week, McGargle’s Red Ale, on special for 5€. The brew comes in a huge handled mug, and is heavy, sweet and malty, with hints of chocolate and plum. I sit down at a strange little half bar overlooking the stage in time to see a throwback character straight out of the 80’s struggle to plug in his guitar. The overage rocker looks like he took some wardrobe advice from White Snake, with his leopard print shirt, frizzy dark hair, ripped jeans and dark eyeliner. The open mic MC proclaims him to be Jason B Bad, a house regular of Darkey Kelly’s.
The man starts to sing an upbeat rock song that you can’t help but laugh along with. “All the Bars That I’m Barred From” tells the story of all the Dublin bars he’s been kicked out of for various misconducts. He runs through the gambit of Dublin taverns, and all the reasons they won’t let him back in. Like the time at World Bar he got too wasted and started to hump the dancefloor while there were people still on it. Or the other time that he chugged someone else beer at Whelan’s then puked on the bar and got thrown out on his ass. When he’s finished his song, I walk up to him and congratulate him on his music.
He’s a surprisingly down to earth guy behind the cheesy name and black eyeliner. Jason has been a musician in Dublin for over 35 years and has seen the city go through a number of stages. Even in a place like this, where music is plentiful, he has seen his share of ups and downs. At the moment he plays in a local 80’s tribute band that play shows around Dublin. I guess this explains the leopard print shirt and black makeup. He was actually on his way to a show that night and stopped in to play a song at Darkey’s before hand. He’s seen the country go through two recessions and laments the way that the politicians always seem to screw the city up.
He talks about a time when Dublin was one of the richest places in the world because the politicians gave a bunch of incentives to companies like Apple, Facebook and Google to put their corporate headquarters in Dublin and pay the lowest tax rate possible in the western world. But the only people who seem to be getting any money at all from the companies are the employees and the landholders, another group of corrupt individuals who have manipulated the market to enrich themselves for the last half century. It seems that Dublin has a special relationship with corruption, heading all the way back through history.
Which brings us to the infamous story of Darkey Kelly.
Towards the start of the 1700’s a brothel was located next to this spot called the Maiden Tower Brothel in Copper Alley. To be the Madam of a brothel in 18th century Ireland you had to be tough and cunning, traits that weren’t necessarily admired in a woman by the Catholic patriarchal society. Darkey Kelley was fiercely protective of her girls and ran her brothel with an iron fist.
One legend has it that her troubles began when she got pregnant with the Sheriff of Dublin. Things turned dark when she demanded from him financial support for their child. The Sheriff was enraged and ashamed by this request and went about concocting a story about her to rid him of her troubles. The story circulated that the child was born but then sacrificed by Darkey in a blasphemous Satanic ritual to bring down the house of Lutrell. Although the Sheriff could not prove anything incriminating then, the time would come when he would not need to.
On St. Patrick’s Day, 1760, John Dowling came stumbling into Darkey Kelly’s brothel to pick a pretty girl to lay with. But he was drunk, and not a nice one, so he began to mistreat one of the girls, something that Madam Kelly could not stand for. At the sound of distress, she burst into the room with fire in her eyes and a sharp blade at the ready. She brought down the swift hand of justice and smote him where he lay, naked and vulnerable. This was not the first time Darkey Kelly had administered retribution, but it would be her last.
The next day friends of the murdered man came around the brothel looking for him and found his murdered body before Kelly could dispose of it. Kelly was arrested and convicted for Downing’s murder and Sheriff Lutrell was able to exact his revenge on her for her insolence. Not only was she charged with murder, but for witchcraft as well, which would make her punishment doubly horrid.
First, she was partially strangled, made to suffer the hangman’s noose until almost dead, then saved at the last minute only so that she could meet her end by fire. Tied to a wooden stake, the faggots were placed at her feet and set alight. On January 7, 1761 the fierce brothel manager met her fiery end.
Only afterwards were her true crimes revealed. According to legend, years later, when the brothel was being renovated, they found the bodies of five more men hidden under the floorboards of the basement, five more men who had gotten on Kelly’s dark side had met their end at her hands. If they were all killed by Darkey Kelly, then she just might be the world’s first recorded serial killer. It just goes to show that all women should be treated with respect, especially women of the night, because who knows what lengths they will go to protect what their own.
