S1139 Clayton Hotel, Burlington Road

When I arrived here, the bar wasn't open. It was a weekend afternoon, usually prime time for a hotel bar to be slinging out pints and meals; but instead I was reduced to getting a bottle of beer from the lobby coffee shop. At least the visit wasn't wasted!

This vast hotel, the biggest still operating in Dublin and possibly even the country, has a stored history; including some low points. In the days when most hotels had nightclubs, the then Burlington Hotel's "Club Anabel" was a major attraction, but its name became forever associated with the death of a patron in circumstances that lead to many attempted prosecutions, years of court cases and very little outcome.

To not have an open bar during the day in the biggest hotel in the city is strange enough; even more so for a venue with 50+ years of history as part of Dublin's day-and-nightlife; but the current operators are not known for chasing external trade even if they do still allow it - their other hotels, with limited exceptions, generally have small bars with minimal external advertisement.

N0253 Brock Inn

After a modern roadhouse that had become a hotel, and a modern roadhouse that is still a roadhouse; we come to a much older roadside pub; once called The Thatch and still featuring the former adjacent shop. 

The different atmosphere compared to the Coolquoy is down at least in part to that old pub feel. The areas inside the pub are laid out a bit oddly, there's old decoration and equipment - worryingly, we can definitely consider the VCR that's above the bar as part of this - and just generally more of a "proper pub" feel to it; despite the services on offer being basically identical. 

An interesting side note here is that, according to a newspaper feature on the pub in the 1980s, this was a Beer House until 1961 - only changing its licence to sell wine and spirits at that point.

I've given up always recording the "round number pubs", particularly as a register change can re-set them on me, e.g. I've got two 600th pubs due to the hefty number of previously visited places which closed in 2021; to the level that I'd need to do a count-back to find out what pub 800 might have been; but this time I'd only updated the register the day before and can confirm this was my 850th. 

A decently round number for a decent traditional pub.

RetroReview: S3744 Sandymount Hotel

Seems my cross-checking of lists wasn't thorough enough, and I did actually miss at least one more pre-2016 visit entirely.

I attended a wedding afters in this hotel, but actually experienced the normal bar also despite there being one in the wedding room - we arrived a bit early, and the main dinner bit was still going on and I think that lurking around the edge while people were eating would be a little weird.

The bar here is, unsurprisingly given the location, rugby branded like some other hotels nearby - The Lineout. My now fading memory was of a hotel guest being slightly miffed as to the limited selection of whiskey on offer, but this was a decade or more ago at this stage and has very possibly changed since.

May 2025 register update

Small enough update yielding only one useful result

Returned to register:

N0197 former Soup2, North King Street, which I also visited and wrote up as Taproom 47; and is possibly about to become something else, now it's re-registered. Unless it's drastically different again it may not get a third writeup!

N1381 Coolquoy Lodge

The Coolquoy Lodge, in the townland of Coolquoy Common, is the local pub for the residents of Coolquay - the spelling that basically everyone except the authorities and the pub owners use for the area.  There isn't an actual quay anywhere nearby, but "quoy" just looks a bit weird in English I guess.

This is quite a generic pub, a roadhouse on the old N2 that is still going after the bypass was built; presumably helped by the local trade which some since failed roadhouse pubs did not have. There's a sizeable bar area and a big restaurant section to the premises; which are well maintained but just a bit, well, bland.

That said, for a village to have a pub at all is no longer guaranteed, let alone one that does food. 

Revisited pubs, April 2025

A relatively big list this month, as what has been a very effective month for new pub ticks has often left me with long bus waits, or going somewhere to wait for a dinner reservation time to come around

N0099 Big Romance - waiting until it was dinner time to go tick off a pub-restaurant

N1084 Pipers Corner - and then going somewhere after that had more interesting beer

S4500 Brickyard - guts of an hour wait for a bus up to Sandyford Village

1004031 Bison Bar - dinner after a days pub ticking, as the bus home leaves from outside

1016206 Brewdog - another pre dinner wait

S0271 Walters - one hour wait for a bus up Killiney Hill

N1062 Flowing Tide - it was raining and I had a relatively long wait for a Luas that went past Connolly

 N0006 Brew Dock - pre-train dinner

S0010 Dawson Lounge - a surprisingly terrible pint

S0080 Bar Rua - while deciding whether to descend in to Lane7

N0880 Kettles Country House Hotel

I was not expecting a pub that's so difficult to get to - until recently enough it was only accessible by the 41B bus with as little as two services in some directions a day - to be quite so busy.

However, the carvery here is the main attraction and as a result, I arrived to find a full lobby of people waiting for tables coming free.

On explaining what I was there for, I was brought past the waiting groups to a seat at the bar - there were a total of three bar stools, though possibly space for some more. During the time I was there, some other solo drinkers or diners were seated here too, so I hadn't skipped anyone waiting for any reason other than being alone.

Due to the buses, I had to spend an hour here before heading on; and on checking my likely times at further pubs, I decided to go to the carvery.

I think I can see why it's popular enough to cause queues - reasonably priced and much better than average quality.

While this is a hotel, it functions as the local pub for Rolestown; and indeed it once was that - the original early 70s Rolestown Inn was demolished and replaced by the hotel in the mid 00s; remaining under the ownership of the Kettle family that had owned the Rolestown Inn for decades prior.

The 197 bus made this rather a lot easier to get to than the days of just the 41B, but it still isn't the easiest. However, I left it off my previous sweep up trips of North County Dublin pubs via car, due to knowing that it *could* be done by bus.