Spirit grocery

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Spirit Grocery

A type of retail business common in Ireland in the 19th Century and early to mid 20th Century. A typical spirit grocery combined a public house and an ancillary retail business, usually grocery or hardware. The requirement to provide both alcohol and retail goods profoundly affected the design and character of traditional Irish pubs throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Several spirit groceries can still be found in the more remote parts of rural Ireland, however they have become increasingly rare in recent years with the arrival of national and multinational retailing chains.