Item IE LMOD 776 - 1991 Jonathan Philbin Bowman by Conor Horgan,

Photographic paper, ink

19/10/2011

There is a messer in every Dublin classroom. Jonathan Philbin Bowman was a freelance messer, at large in the city at a time – the late
1980s – when most of his peers were at school or college. The son of broadcaster John Bowman and his wife Dr Eimer Philbin Bowman, Jonathan had little time for conventional education, and was almost comically precocious. A fine mimic and boisterous conversationalist, he parlayed avocation as a journalist into an unlikely role at the centre of Dublin society. In the Coffee Inn, a famous dive-café on South Anne Street, the house speciality was the Bowman Burger (20p): one microwaved bowl of hot air. Their best customer was, of course, JPB. A great Dubliner, he died in 2000 at the age of 31.