Dan Burke’s is named in “A Painful Case” as Duffy’s go-to lunch spot in the city. Although he lives in Chapelizod, he works in the city center, at a bank in Baggot Street, and must therefore find sustenance near his office:
“He had been for many years cashier of a private bank in Baggot Street. Every morning he came in from Chapelizod by tram. At midday he went to Dan Burke’s and took his lunch—a bottle of lager beer and a small trayful of arrowroot biscuits. At four o’clock he was set free. He dined in an eating-house in George’s Street where he felt himself safe from the society of Dublin’s gilded youth and where there was a certain plain honesty in the bill of fare” (108-109).
According to Thom’s 1892 Directory (pictured above), Daniel Burke and Co., “grocers, tea, wine and spirit merchants,” had establishments at 50 Lower Baggot Street, as well as St. James Street East, 3 King’s Street South, Ballsbridge, 11 Sandycove Road, and 107 and 108 Stephen’s Green West. A previous directory published in 1883 (embedded below; see left column near top) also lists Daniel Burke as “grocer, tea, wine and spirit merchant” in several of the same locations. An established and expanding business with stores located around the city, Dan Burke’s would have been to Duffy a reliable establishment that appealed to his regard for consistency and order.