The long shotgun bar was the first building to be acquired and was named Maggie Mae’s in 1978. The name was influenced by a person and a place in Liverpool, England. Maggie May (original spelling) was a lady of the evening, who was notorious for rolling sailors in the hay and then “rolling” them for their clothes and valuables. She was eventually caught and sent to a penal colony in Australia.
Lime Street had a worldwide reputation for “ladies of the evening”, with one name particularly associated with that trade, but as the closing line of the traditional sailor's song tells us “she’ll never shine in Lime Street no more”. It has been the informal anthem of the city of Liverpool for about 180 years.
In the 1800′s, especially during the so-called “naughty nineties”, when Maggie and her contemporaries offered their services to seamen and others on Lime Street and in the public houses, which lined that famous thoroughfare, Maggie May, herself, was known to plie her trade in the American Bar. The American Bar exists on Lime Street in Liverpool today and is known as “McHale’s Irish and American Bar”.