1015609 'Ohana

Dublin's only tiki bar, and also possibly the conventionally licenced bar with the most restrictive, yet regular, opening hours in the city - being open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from early evening/late afternoon only. I do a lot of my ticking trips on Sundays (for quieter pubs) and usually try end them by about 8, so this evaded me for years as a result.

It doesn't have fake rain, a feature of many tiki bars (provided by anything from lighting effects through to a hose in some places) which is allegedly designed to encourage drinkers to stay longer; but the Irish weather obliged with the real stuff, so I did actually stay for a further cocktail.

In addition the cocktail menu - of the types of cocktails you get in tiki bars, so don't necessarily expect the classics that other cocktail bars do - there's an immense rum selection here. The current claim on the menu is of over 150 different bottles available

1012980 Irish Whiskey Museum

This independent (as in non distillery owned) whiskey museum opened a number of years ago; but I assumed you had to go on a tour and just hadn't got around to arranging one.

However, when passing to go somewhere else, I noticed a sign suggesting you could come in to watch the rugby - which wasn't actually on that day - and headed up.

There is a very small bar here that is before the ticket desk, and which you do not need to pay for a ticket to visit. It has even less taps than you might imagine for its diminutive size, but has a huge whiskey list - many of them at exceptionally competitive prices.

I didn't go for anything adventurous, just having a Black Bush for the same price you'd pay for Bushmills (white) anywhere nearby; and this was far from the only good value option there.

I wouldn't try get in here with a crowd - you simply won't fit - but it's definitely worth a look if going as a couple or on your own.

1012867 Temple Bar Inn

This hotel has one of the largest bar/restaurants I've seen in a newer hotel; and when I visited, basically no other customers - two English women, hotel residents, were finishing up and left while I was there.

Part of this is that there is no indication from outside that the bar is even here, and indeed initially there was no bar when the hotel first opened - it bought in the licence from N0741 Edenmore House a year or so after opening.

The hotel surrounds the Tesco on the ground floor of its building - the reception, restaurant and bar are under the Tesco and the rooms above. You need to go down the stairs or lifts immediately after entering, and may need to tell the security guard what you're doing - but there are no problems going in.

If you really need to meet someone in/near Temple Bar, and don't like how busy everywhere else is, this should be perfect - until enough people have realised it's here, I guess.

1018953 Fallon and Byrne

The first of a very small number of cases of a high-end foodstore using a pub licence to cover multiple reasons; Fallon & Byrne have theirs to cover off-licence sales in the food store as well as wine sales and their twin restaurants.

I went for the cheaper, less formal option of having a pizza in the downstairs wine cellar, where they also have a few Irish independent brewery options to drink as well as sometimes very low corkage (€1 off-peak) on wines from the shop.

A mortadella pizza isn't something I'd thought of doing at home, but it worked well; and overall this wasn't incredibly pricey. I may go back.

1019160 Hampton by Hilton, Chancery Street

Rather like the toilets of the near-ish N0072 Chancery Inn pub (now closed), you need to be buzzed in here.

I could have made a comparison to the Hacienda or the VCC; but people actually *want* to go to drink in those. Here it feels more like somewhere you go to drink by accident of having stayed in the hotel.

It's a very generic hotel lobby bar, albeit quite a big one. You actually also need to be buzzed in to the toilets too, because they're really not set up for outside drinkers - but they do allow them. If they like the look of you, I guess.

1019365 The Local, UCD

"Wait! Students union bars don't count! You've said that here somewhere before..."

Well, for whatever commercial reason, the new foodhall in UCD Village is run by the Wright group; and they need a liquor licence for that; and have a 7 Day Ordinary like anyone else would. Also, to try drum up trade during quieter periods for students, the foodhall and its bar are advertised to the public.

However, if you're over 25 and  go there during the college year (or probably summer when there's language students around either), expect to feel *very* out of place. 

The bar itself isn't that big, and is fairly cheap; with the stand out attraction of the foodhall being the burger place, Mikeys; which was really quite good.

S0394 The Horse & Hound

This is the Cabinteely pub, and not the Northside pub of a very similar name. In that writeup, I comment on how "Horse & Hound" is a very English type pub name; and realistically that's one of the most notable things here.

I've repeatedly mentioned about how having little to write about a pub is almost always a good thing - local pubs that are solid parts of their community often don't need anything distinguishing about them. 

The pub hasn't got a website, or any active social media and doesn't turn up in media reports for anything happening there (again, this is almost always a good thing - newspapers don't often report on positive events in pubs these days!). Pretty much all you'll find on searching is some local coverage of it reopening in 2021 as pandemic restrictions lifted.

A perfectly functional local pub, one I'll almost certainly never go back to as it's quite difficult to access if you're not a local. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.