May 02 2013
Judge not that ye be not judged…
These are my Great Grandparents James and Margaret Doyle with their children about 1895. My grandmother is sitting on the left. Margaret Doyle ran a very successful Prostitution and Shebeen business in the North Inner City area of Dublin up to the time of her death in 1917. She died a week after my grandmother, her daughter. On one particular occasion she was arrested and held in Grangegorman Women’s Prison for the Shebeen business. She was told that she’d serve at least six months. When she appeared in front of the old judge he looked down at her twice and realised that she was the owner of the establishment that he was so fond of frequenting for some nice girls and cheap booze. Case dismissed…