S3556 Sugar Club

Why did a semi-state sugar processing and canned foods company need a private theatre? Whatever the reason for it, the mid 1960s headquarters of the Irish Sugar Company was built with a theatre in the basement. There were other corporate theatres in Dublin at the time - Guinness's Rupert Guinness Theatre; and the Players Theatre at the John Player factory on the South Circular - so it may have been due to this. 

The Irish Sugar Company had commissioned a borderline agrarian propaganda movie about sugar beet production in the early 60s, but I don't think they'd need to retain a private cinema just to show this!

When opened, the venue was dubbed the Erin Foods Theatre - Erin being the canning arm of Irish Sugar, and was used for various events over the years; but it was more commonly known as the International Cinema, which operated there, non-exclusively, from around 1967.

It then became - exclusively, this time - the Arts Council's Irish Film Theatre from 1977 to 1984, the venue then lay empty until 1999 when it reopened as the Sugar Club; initially a regular nightclub but now a venue for music and comedy performances, club nights and occasional use as a cinema. And it was one of those nights that I went to tick it off.

While there are occasional, but rare, club nights here; the interior is set up more for cinema or theatre performances, with tiered seating - that has tables. There isn't really a dance floor, as such - although that didn't stop a number of people dancing during the concert movie I was watching. They also do food, specifically pizza, delivered to your seat, not a very common feature of a club style space! 

I am worried for the future of this venue, as the building was up for sale in 2022 and, as a ~60 year old office building, is likely to be a redevelopment target. Planning consent for redevelopment of cultural spaces sometimes includes requirements for replacements; but these replacements are rarely as useful and even more rarely successful. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

1019413 Mama Yo

I didn't manage to finish off the various elements of Press Up before the entire entity basically ceased to be, but I got there in the end. At least until Eclectic open somewhere entirely new, that is.

This is a deceptively large - the single shop unit width at the front opens out hugely behind - very generic and very expensive Chinese restaurant, that really does not need to hold a pub licence for the way it serves drinks.

I don't recommend going here unless you have a good reason to, as there's better alternatives on the same section of street let alone elsewhere in the city.

Revenue licence numbers - what do they actually mean?

Across this site, and the map, and my own records I make use of Revenue's licence numbers to keep track of what is and isn't a qualifying pub. They are matters of public record and also used in the CC-BY licenced register so there shouldn't be any issues with this; and I can't think of any other system for it. But its not instantly clear how it works to outsiders, and even ten years in this is somewhat of a guess!

Systems:

There are two different numbering systems in use by Revenue:

* Alphanumeric registration for liquor licences alone, issued by licencing court district, used until (approximately) late 2007 

* Sequential numeric National system used since late 2007 - which is used for all excise licences

Alphanumeric

The alphanumeric system appears to have been introduced in the 1970s and applied to existing premises in a roughly geographical basis. You will see sequential numbers for pubs in a single area of the city, and occasionally a "missing tooth" of a number where a pub has closed down, or has been re-numbered for some reason.

There are five legacy areas that have, or had, alphanumeric licences in Dublin - Northside, Southside, Drogheda, Meath (Trim, presumably) and Arklow. There are a significant number of NXXXX and an even higher number of SXXXX licences for the first two, a handful of DgXXXX licences for Drogheda, one for Meath and formerly one for Arklow - these are MhpXXXX and ArpXXXX - the p standing for pub. The solitary Dublin-located yet Arklow licenced pub - Arp0667 Blue Gardenia - has permanently closed.

Clearly the districts do not strictly cover county boundaries - while the Mhp and Arp pubs are very close to the border, the Dg district comes as far south as Loughshinny. The N and S division also does not respect the Liffey, or the postcode even/odd split, with plenty of "Northside" pubs to the south of "Southside" ones out to the West of the city. This, I imagine, covers older district and circuit court boundaries, many of which have been minorly altered over the years as court houses close or other changes are made - and this may have in part lead to the replacement of the old system.

Non-retail types of licences such as restaurant, wholesaler and manufacturers also used this system; with suffices relating to their licence type added to N and S licence numbers, and the "p" for pub swapped out for the same letters in other areas. Bafflingly, their un-suffixed numbers can collide -  S0012 is a pub and S0012SR an unconnected restaurant a number of streets away

Sequential

The national/sequential system gives no indication of where a pub is, but it can sometimes be used to infer when it first opened by comparing to the age of pubs with nearby numbers above or below it.

There are huge gaps in the numbering at times - as this system is used for all excise licences of all types. 1000064 is a pub in Dublin, but 1000065 is the road fuel excise licence for a petrol station in Mayo, for instance. In particular, as entire classes of excise licence have been registered, blocks of numbers have been used at once - much of the 1003/4/5xx blocks are marked fuel (green diesel etc) licences.

I had assumed that these numbers started at 1000000, but a 6 digit number starting with 9 has appeared in some previous registers - this may be a solitary error, and it isn't currently there either.

Renumbering

A licence number is for life, not just for a specific operators time in a pub... except when it isn't. Every year a reasonable handful of premises change licence number.

I can't tell for certain what the rules are for a new number being issued; as some cases of extremely long closure have led to the old number being kept, but I suspect it has to do with redefining the licenced area of a pub - generally if a premises undergoes works which alter this, the number is changed - but this doesn't seem to be consistent. Two pubs near me out in Kildare which have had huge reductions in floor area - conversion of nightclub/function room areas to flats - still have their old system numbers.

A change of licence *type* will usually cause the number to change also, but not if it is a a Hotel (Residents) to Hotel (Ordinary) - a small number of these have appeared with their old number intact, including one where it was on the old system

1018497 Six by Nico

A branch of a chain of restaurants, Six by Nico operates on a slightly odd gimmick - all they offer is a six course tasting menu, which changes every six weeks.

A week or so before we visited here, I had been in Vigo and had had a tasting menu at a 1* Michelin restaurant. With wine parings and a few small extras, I left that restaurant very nearly €300 lighter.

And I preferred what I got in the gimmicky, Scottish chain place for less money in a much dearer city. But I do point out that I'm no restaurant reviewer.

You can't just come in here for drinks, but the pub licence is well used - there's an actual bar, with a cocktail barman; an option for cocktail parings for the six courses that looks dangerously boozy and is fairly reasonably priced; and some Irish independent beer offerings - I can't remember the brewery specified on the menu, but it was unavailable that evening, with Heaney offered in its place.

I may well go back here, if a future menu looks interesting.

August 2025 Register update

After many months of basically nothing, we get a reasonable update this month - all already visited!

New: 

1021935 Lane7, Dundrum Shopping Centre
1022058 Sandbox VR, Nassau Street
1022267 Priory Market, Tallaght (writeup scheduled for next week)

Renumbered:

1022218 Mercantile Hotel, Dame Street - formerly S3175

N1776 St Margaret's Golf & Country Club

Now, this tick absolutely needed a driver - the clubhouse here is 1.6km from the nearest bus stop, which itself does not get a particularly frequent bus service. It is possibly the last tick I'll do with a driver - or at least, the last on a multi tick trip.

I'm not quite sure how this is a "country club" - the facilities appear to be golf, a public restaurant/bar, and some conferencing facilities. But they do use the term across their branding.

The bar itself felt like a members bar somewhere, but is absolutely open to the public. Prices are a bit closer to what you might expect in a members bar, but I doubt many people come here to drink, due to that extremely long walk in from St Margarets village

N2410 Roganstown Hotel & Country Club

Another possibly not actually inaccessible without a car premises - there are ten buses a day, seven days a week from Swords or Balbriggan - this was sort-of on the way to somewhere truly inaccessible and would have taken probably five to six hours round trip to tick on its own, so it was done with a driver regardless.

A fine Georgian house restoration with two golf courses and a leisure centre, the term Country Club is fairly accurate here, when it is often a stretch elsewhere. The bar is a large room, with dark wood and relatively ornate decoration - and notably, not a television in sight as far as I could see.

The range of draught beer here was not interesting, but they actually have some Irish independent products in bottle - once sort of common in the earlier days of independent breweries getting in to bars, but now rarely enough seen. My Galway Bay Full Sail was delivered with a branded half pint glass, and was a fairly fresh bottle, going from the best before date.