Manchester Pub Sign – The Famous Paddys Goose

THE FAMOUS PADDY’S GOOSE *** 29, Bloom Street, Manchester. M1 3JE

I’m always wary of pubs adding ‘Famous’ as a prefix to their name when it isn’t absolutely clear why they want to be regarded as famous. Is it the pub itself that is famous? Is it that someone famous once went in for a drink? There are no plaques on or in the pub to indicate any particular events or draw attention to any famous individuals.
The pub is one of only three bars in the Village to retain a pub sign (The Rembrandt and New York New York, being the others in a sea of about a hundred café bars and clubs.. Paddy’s Goose is the most traditional pub in the area, and therefore a popular meeting and rendezvous spot.
The goose itself seems amusing enough – but hardly likely to be famous. The pub may have once served goose among its range of food offerings (the current excellent menu does not include goose). A Paddy’s Goose can be a politically incorrect aside suggesting that the Irish couldn’t tell goose from chicken.
Clientele vary from the village Transvestites, to people waiting for their coaches (the bar is within sight of Chorlton Street coach station), to those seeking a traditional old fashioned boozer. I first discovered the pub when a creative writing group I attended on the same street had post meeting drinks in there.

There is one famous association for the pub, which I had to trawl deep to find online, and that is its link to James Prescott Joule (1818-1889), a scientist at the then University Of Manchester Institute Of Science & Technology (UMIST). Joule gave his name to a unit of energy, the Joule. His family owned the Joule brewery in Salford. He briefly became the brewery manager. Paddy’s Goose, then known as The Fleece, was a pub that sold Joule’s Ales. It is the last of their pubs to remain open under any identity. It’s an association the pub fails to identify in any form of commemorative marker, though it justifies the claim to be /famous’ once and for all.

Link to a page about J P Joulle – http://www.johncassidy.org..uk/joule.html

A pub in Sale, Manchester, dedicated to Joule

Arthur Chappell