With the 'Irish pub pandemic', does Manchester have too much of a good thing?

Dear readers — we are the editors of The Mill, writing to you pre-bank holiday. As it stands on this fine Friday, the weather is glowing, the edits are flowing (?), and it’s almost time for a three-day weekend. But how does it look from where you are? Did something awful occur over the last three days? Has this intro aged terribly? Did the weather turn foul? Did Sacha Lord neglect to pay his promised £2,500 bar tab at famed Joey Holt pub The Ape and Apple? The truth is, it’s still Friday where we are, and we just don’t know.

For that reason, we won’t be providing your usual on-the-ball briefing before this piece; your round-up of over-the-weekend occurrences and recommendations for the week ahead. What we can tell you is this fantastic news: Since the remarkable success of his book Manchester’s best beers, pubs and bars (edition 2: 2 best 2 beer), and his recent article for us on the same topic, acclaimed drinks writer Matthew Curtis is now on board at The Mill as our semi-regular drinks correspondent. Today he comes to you with his first article since claiming said role — a piece that asks the question: Does Manchester have too many Irish pubs… or, alternatively, not enough of them? That’s after your briefing, which isn’t a briefing at all, but instead a series of responses to Jack D’s bakery reviews, where he asked the other question on everyone’s lips: Where the hell can we get a good vanilla slice?

Your briefing

🧁Chris Burgess writes: “The Best Vanilla Slice? Absolutely no contest… Archers Bakery Marple, Stockport. On the edge of Greater Manchester, but worth a trip. Get out more!” No need for that last bit, Chris.

🎂 Jean Taun informed us that the “[b]est vanilla slice [she] had in years is from Stockport - Sticky Fingers - they are Polish style and huge. 39 Gt. Underbank for the shop, also open in the indoor market hall on certain days only.” What is it with Stockport and vanilla slices, and is the subject worthy of a separate article?

🔪 And Mill-regular Robert Pegg commented that “Years ago when it was still a going concern I popped into Patisserie Valerie on Deansgate. I was handed a menu while I was in the queue and in a moment of panic I realised I had no idea how to pronounce mille feuille so I ducked out and went round the corner to Greggs on Cross St for a vanilla custard slice. It’s the same thing anyway.” To which he later adds: “apparently it’s ’Meel fwoy’ or summat”.

🍥 Elsewhere, Kathleen Murray contests this: "Not Gregg’s, not Greenalgh’s. Decades ago Turner’s confectioners in Waterhead made the best!” Whereas Tracy Hulme states: "Summerseat Garden Centre. A trek if you’re not a Bury local but worth it!"

Plus: Thirty years on, The Mill is revisiting the IRA bombing of Manchester in 1996. Were you involved in the investigation? Do you have any knowledge of the suspects or why they were never charged? Did you receive one of the warning calls or have contact with the suspects? Please contact us at editor@millmediaco.uk. Confidentiality assured.

With its Irish Pubs, Does Manchester Have Too Much of a Good Thing?

It’s 5:30 on a Tuesday afternoon when I arrive at Nancy Spains. There’s just me and a group of four men in the window, three of them drinking lager, one on Murphy’s stout. I order a pint of the latter for myself. While waiting for the customary two-part pour to settle I ask the lone bartender what this venue used to be, but she doesn’t know. The truth, I later discover, is this: Before this Northern Quarter venue became an Irish pub, it was, in fact, an Irish pub.

Formerly known as The Corner Boy, what it lacked in its current heavily-themed decor it made up for with good Guinness and the occasional bit of live music. Reopening as Nancy Spains in March 2025, there is now no hiding from this pub’s intent: Every surface, every floor, every wall has been clad in dark, roughly finished repurposed wood; low, orange-hued lighting illuminates the emerald green upholstery; Irish folk music is piped in without pause. So heavily layered is the decor, it almost feels like this pub has been here for years, not 15 months. 

“There’s two types of Irish pub,” Peter O’Halloran, one of two brothers that founded Nancy Spains (and also run two London pubs of the same name) tells me over the phone. “The clichéd, themed ones — and the real, authentic ones like us. I think the majority of people can tell the difference.”

Manchester is no stranger to the Irish pub. Long home to institutions like Mulligan’s of Deansgate and Didsbury’s Station Hotel, recent months have seen a spate of new Irish-themed establishments opening across the city.