Caffrey’s of Batterstown has long been a landmark of the area, its history stretching back to a time when Ireland’s great figures roamed these roads such as Daniel O’Connell and the Duke of Wellington. In its early days, the pub served as a coaching inn, offering weary travellers a place to rest on the busy route between Dublin and Trim. Over the centuries, Caffrey’s has remained at the heart of the community, a place where history lingers in every corner and where the warm welcome of an old Irish pub is still alive and well.
The Liberator
“Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong.”
Daniel O’Connell (6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland’s Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Ireland through to the poorest class of tenant farmer helped secure Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and allowed him to take a seat in the United Kingdom Parliament to which he had twice been elected.
He is said to have dined in Caffrey’s on his way to the monster meeting at Tara on the 15th August 1843 held in support of the repeal of the Act of Union. He was a pioneer of peaceful political reform and his methods were copied by Gandhi and later by the civil rights movement. He later helped introduce the anti-slavery laws for the British Empire.
Duke of Wellington
A widely held local belief claims that the Duke was born in Caffrey’s of Batterstown. It contends that his mother, the Countess of Mornington, was induced into labour by a pothole in the road while on her way from Dangan Castle, Summerhill to Mornington House in Merrion Street, Dublin and was delivered of a baby there. The family, who were of the upper nobility, could not have admitted having frequented a lowly inn even for an emergency and so announced the birth of Arthur Wellesley on the 1st of May 1769 at Mornington House. However, his baptismal cert is dated the 30th of April.
He went on to become commander-in-chief of the British Army, defeat Napoleon at Waterloo and was Prime Minister of Great Britain and Ireland when Catholic Emancipation was introduced. George IV is said to have remarked “Wellington is the King of England, O’Connell is King of Ireland, and I am only the Dean of Windsor.”