An Irish pub has been serving Guinness and craic for a quarter of a century in Liverpool city centre.
Situated on Tithebarn street, Shenanigans pub was opened by brothers Daragh, Conor and Fionn McDonald in 1997. All in their twenties at the time, they didn't just decide to come and live in Ireland's unofficial second capital — they brought a bit of their homeland with them.
Their great-grandfather owned bars in Wexford in the South East of Ireland which were passed down to their grandfather before, eventually, being sold. Their father, Tommy, started visiting Liverpool in the 1990s and along with a friend from Dublin was inspired to open an Irish pub in the city.
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Daragh and Conor first began training in a pub in Southport which led them to eventually open their own business on Tithebarn Street. Now a quarter of a century on, the business continues to attract loyal customers some of whom have been there from the very start.
Fionn now lives in Dublin, but Conor, 48, and Daragh, now 50, are still the faces of the business. Conor told the ECHO: "Just before we opened this, we were in the pub next door that we were renting for £50 a week and there was a pub across the road called the United Powers.
"On a Saturday afternoon the guy John who was barman or manager would sit outside on a deckchair. I would do the same on a nice day and you could talk to each other across the road.
"A car didn't come up and down Tithebarn Street, there was nothing. The Bradford Hotel had been burnt out, New Century Building was closed, there were no student places. Exchange Station was empty as far as I remember and the list just went on.
"We were kind of crazy or naive to even consider opening the pub where it was. We saw a gap and we just thought we’d give a good service and have the craic and all the rest.
"Because we were quite young I suppose we attracted a younger crowd. I suppose coming from Dublin we understood pubs and what people like in a pub and it kind of stemmed from that and was driven by a bit of family nostalgia."
Located on one of the original 'seven streets' of Liverpool, Shenanigans is historically part of one of the city’s oldest pub venues. The first date the team found of a pub on the Shenanigans' site was in 1841.
The licensee was a Hugh Skellern and the pub had no official name. The earliest name found for the pub was 'The Revolving Lamp' in 1894 and over time it changed hands to become known as Spirit Vaults, Walker's and the Rising Sun, before Shenanigans opened in 1997.
The pub has kept a lot of its original features, from tiles to window arches. Years ago the brothers discovered boards from the Rising Sun which now hang downstairs.
Conor said: "It’s always been a pub presumably. When you get to think about it you're only a part of that. I'm sure the fella in here in the 1800s thought he was the pub and it couldn't survive without him and low and behold 130 years later there’s someone else here.
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"We're in a funny little corner here. We have the local community that are in Vauxhall Road, you have the students and the business community and you have Pall Mall and Peter House.
"We're right in the middle of that so it’s a real melting pot for those aspects. Sometimes it’s just very interesting to watch when you see an 18-year-old student having a pint with an older customer."
He added: "Most people that start drinking in here end up being regulars and kind of become part of that family, that community, that pubs often are. Our first customer, a chap called Peter, he still comes in today. Shenanigans has been half of my life and the better half I might say.
"Everyone I've met and friends have really been linked to this. It’s hard to separate Conor and Daragh from the business, it becomes part of you. Liverpool has been very good to us."
Conor said he has "an exhaustive list" or memories and that the place has always been "full of character." He said: "We had a chandelier downstairs that people used to continuously swing on and we eventually had to put it higher. Thankfully nobody ever got injured.
"We had a beach party and had three tonnes of sand in the pub and had parasols, there were blow up sharks. We were bringing out merchandise a few years ago and we got some of the staff and customers to model on this red carpet."
Along with the downstairs bar, the pub also has another two floors and a rooftop area that have been developed over the years, as well as an eye-catching mural outside.
But as their refurbishment came to an end, the pandemic hit and they began selling Guinness in capped milk bottles to customers, which attracted the attention of ITV's Good Morning Britain. Open for St. Patrick's Day, Conor said the celebration will be a long-awaited reunion for many.
He said: "We try and concentrate on serving good pints of Guinness as always and having a weekend rich with music. This year we’ll be opening for breakfast, a full Irish from 8am.
"The day should be good fun and I think this year in particular will be kind of a catch-up. I think it will be a bigger celebration than usual - if that’s possible."
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On April 30, Shenanigans will be celebrating 25 years in business. Conor said if he "could have a legacy" he would be proud for it to be the business.
He said: "Liverpool is arguably the pub capital of the world and, from our point of view, to be a part of that Liverpool pub scene, to be some sort of influence on that wider scene, that’s something to be proud of. I'd really like to put a calling out to anyone who has ever been here to come back and have a look.
"There’s so many people who’ve met their partners here. They went to college and came here and then graduated. Pubs are part of people's lives like that, it's where things happen and are celebrated so it would be good to get everyone back.
"I'm in this for a chunk of time, but hopefully the building will be here in 100 years and someone will be sitting here and pints will get floated out on some sort of electric hoverboard or by a robot bar person. But we'd like it to still be here and for us to have played our part in that journey of keeping the building alive.
"If you could have a legacy I’d be very happy with this as a legacy. Nobody will remember an apartment I owned or a boiler we fixed, but I think this, they might just remember."
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