‘You cannot eat a better sweet’.

So ran the slogan for Lemon’s Pure Sweets, immortalised by James Joyce in Ulysses, and a vital part of Dublin’s social fabric for over a century. Set up by Armagh native Graham Lemon, the brand soon became a household name in Ireland and beyond. Famous for the use of safe, natural ingredients, the sweets were said to be favourites of such illustrious personages as Queen Victoria and Pope Leo XIII. Lemon’s shop on O’Connell Street, The Confectioner’s Hall, was a mecca for generations of Irish children, and its window displays at Christmas time were as famous as those of Switzer’s on Grafton Street.

This nostalgic look back at the story of Lemon’s charts the highs and lows of the company, from its heyday to its eventual demise when free trade and increased competition led its Drumcondra factory to close its doors for good in 1983. Yet even today the iconic name lingers on with tins of Season’s Greetings at Christmas and in the sweet memories it still evokes among the people of Dublin and Ireland.

Author Biography

Dr Cormac Moore is a historian-in-residence with Dublin City Council and a columnist with The Irish News, where he also edits the ‘On This Day’ segment. He has published widely on Irish history, including the books The Root of All Evil: The Irish Boundary Commission (Merrion Press, 2025), Laois: The Irish Revolution, 1912–1923 (Four Courts Press, 2025), Birth of the Border: The Impact of Partition in Ireland (Merrion Press, 2019), and The Irish Soccer Split (Cork University Press, 2015).

Alan Tate is a grandson of Thomas Tate who, with his son Frank (Alan’s father), led and modernised Lemon’s from 1917. Alan remembers his grandfather and many visits to both the O’Connell Street shop and the factory in Drumcondra very well. His interest in family history spurred him to assist Emma Blain with her book ‘A Sweet Life’: Recollections of Frank Tate and to assemble and preserve the family collection of Lemon’s official records and other memorabilia, much of which is referred to in this book.

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