How the mighty have fallen! the sad decline of the Shannon Hotel (‘Chippo Hotel’)

Photo courtesy: Robbie Mason.

Every day in this late monolopy capitalist hellscape brings fresh horror. It starts to numb you. But as I recently scrolled thoughtlessly through Instagram in a desperate bid to mine some hidden store of dopamine from my social media wrecked brain, the algorithm produced a reel so blood curdling I dropped my phone and let out a shriek, startling nearby passengers on the inevitably not-moving Sydney train.

The “Chippo Hotel” the ad proudly declared – it’s a venue on Abercrombie Street in Chippendale – was now Australia's “first 100% fully vegan pub and bistro”.

Now I have nothing against entirely vegan outlets being opened. It is a dietary choice made by many people and it should be catered for. 

No. My blood was chilled because this is hallowed ground. This was once the mighty Shannon Hotel.

“The Chippo”, a very presumptuous, overly familiar, “matey” nickname, is of course actually The Chippendale Hotel. This renaming trend is a process in which every inner-suburban pub seems to revel. This attempt to fake actual public affection distracts from the fact that 80 percent of the floor space in your average Sydney pub is taken up by poker machines.

Long before this was “The Chippo”, before even that brief unspeakable phase when it was “The Lybrary” and its walls were plastered with fake-book wallpaper, this was the Shannon Hotel.

The symbolism of the decline of human civilisation could not be greater. What is now Australia’s first ever 100% vegan pub and bistro was once a dive so great I wrote my first ever blog post 18 years ago in its honour.

Stuck in a then non-glamorous location in Chippendale in inner Sydney (this was before they ethnically cleansed the Redfern Block just up the street), it was a hangover from a brief period in the 90s when Irish pubs were considered a bit trendy. 

The trend ended, leaving Paddy, the Shannon's grey-haired Irish bar manager, to pour beers for what one online reviewer called “drunk losers”. 

That critic missed a key point: the very fact it was “filthy” and “a complete dive” meant that the patrons might be drunk losers but the patrons were few and far between.

In the Shannon, Monday to Sunday, you could have a whole pub almost entirely to yourself. And if you caught a slight whiff of urine from the toilets, that just meant you needed another drink. 

No worries, Paddy would sort you out – a one-man rebuttal to those who think the “alcoholic Irish” stereotype is unfair. He remains to this day the only bar manager I have ever seen escorted from his own venue for being too intoxicated. 

And you had to be very intoxicated to be escorted from the Shannon Hotel.

Back then, the place was just up the road from The Resistance Centre, where a bunch of us “radical activists” worked long hours dedicated to building the socialist utopia that the world is today. We did a lot of Palestinian solidarity campaigning, resolving that conflict once and for all. Transforming the world is thirsty work, the Shannon was close and cheap.

It had entertainment that the “Chippo” will never match. There was a jukebox that Paddy would gladly sling you a bunch of $2 coins from the till to play on the unspoken agreement you would always and without fail play "Ordinary Man" by famed Irish folk singer Christy Moore. 

That sad ballad decrying the devastating impact of Thatcherism, told through the eyes of a working-class man chucked out of work, seemed on endless repeat. For a decent chunk of my life, I knew not just every word but ever beat of the song and the despair in Moore’s voice as he sung "you stripped me bare!” It’s seared into my soul. 

It had other attractions too.

Wanna play pool? Paddy – I think he was keen for company – would chuck you more two buck coins from the till. Once you learned to avoid the cigarette burn pockmarks, you could play a decent game, with most of the balls generally present. 

You could also play darts. 

In yet another example of health and safety gone mad, very few places these days are willing to hand over a half-dozen sharp miniature metal arrows to a bunch of drunks to fling about. Not a problem at the Shannon.

Not that Paddy didn't take health and safety seriously.

Once I was there drinking and playing pool with the impish Young Tim (he's older now but he's still Young Tim to me). Having consumed more than the medically recommended daily intake of standard drinks, Young Tim thought it would be a good idea to try to “spear” me by chucking his pool cue half way across the room in my general direction, rather than just taking his fucking shot like I wanted. He managed only to smash his own half-filled schooner, sending glass and beer flying.

When Tim went to the bar, Paddy poured a new beer to replace the spilled one, no charge. Then Tim spilled another. And then another. 

Finally, after the fourth beer, a fed-up Paddy shook his head as he poured one more “free of charge” replacement, and sternly told Young Tim it was his “last one”.

At the end of the night, as Tim staggered towards the door, Paddy thrust a $20 note into his hand to get a taxi home safely. That is a concern for health and safety that I will happily gamble the “Chippo” will never match.

Another time, a bunch of us were sitting at a table with high chairs, and someone poked Emma (who, to be fair, was already not walking straight when we arrived). This naturally caused her to topple off her chair, spilling her gin and tonic.

Paddy rushed straight round from behind the bar, helped her back up into her seat and then returned with a fresh g+t, free of charge.

Now if you've ever seen what a drunk Emma could do when denied a g+t, you would appreciate Paddy's commitment to the health and safety of all patrons, and broader society in general.

The Shannon also had its resident weed dealer, Toothless John. He was an aging hippy who’d seen better days, and earned the nickname. He sat in the corner most nights, nursing a beer and doing the crossword. If asked, he’d sell you some really crappy weed, but only in really small deals.

In clearly poor health, surviving mostly on the disability pension, Toothless John taught us how to play the darts games Micky Mouse and Killer. His weed may have been crap, but he was consistent. You always knew where to find him.

He used to live in a shitty apartment not far from the Shannon, struggling with the effort of the stairs as he went to collect what he considered $20 worth of weed scraps. There are no Toothless Johns in Chippendale these days. With the medicalisation of cannabis, even the poor guy’s livelihood – selling poor quality weed – has been taken by Big Pharma. We no longer get wasted with homemade bucket bongs. Instead we pay much higher prices for prescriptions to “treat our conditions”.

Ultimately, the Shannon could never survive. Even without the gentrification, giving a bunch of broke alcoholics an endless supply of two buck coins to play Christy Moore songs is not much of a business model.

The decline of the Shannon started long ago. I published an Open Letter on my blog back in 2008 warning of the inevitable consequences of a bunch of rennovations then under way.  This is just the final inevitable conclusion of a long process.

Are there any Shannons anywhere today? From what I can see, soulless pokie palaces have replaced outer-surbuban dives as well. There is always a bar attached so they can still call themselves a pub on a technicality.

The pub scene is bleak. The Shannon Hotel is now “The Chippo”, Australia's first 100% vegan pub and bistro. Jesus fucking wept.