EPITR: LEP209 The Lobster Pot

The first addition in quite some time to my Rosses side project, I took this cold and potentially damp April afternoon as a good reason to head out to Burtonport rather than limewash my house; after checking that the Lobster Pot would be open before committing to the walk, and the ferry fare.

Conventionally, this pub - and noted seafood restaurant - only opens five days a week, Wednesday to Sunday; but they added Monday and Tuesday this week due to the Bank Holiday and school holidays. They had a reasonable number of customers, primarily there to eat, during my visit; so I suspect the additional days were worth it.

Burtonport once (in my lifetime - there may have been more before) had four pubs in the core village area, five in the wider area, and a sixth a bit further out; but it now only has the Lobster Pot and LEP208 Jimmy Johnnys, in the imposing former railway hotel building just slightly closer to the sea that the Lobster Pot.

The two pubs are quite the contrast inside - the Lobster Pot being heavily greebled and featuring framed GAA jerseys on the walls and ceilings, with Jimmy Johnnys being comparatively quite modern and austere in decoration terms. The Lobster Pot has Errigal IPA on tap, compared to Errigal Oir lager further down towards the pier.

I didn't eat anything on this visit, mainly because I wasn't hungry; but also because I don't really eat seafood; despite being descended from a fishing, and fishing boat building, family. This is what the premises is really known for, and while I still think I'd prefer to do serious drinking down the road; I doubt you're going to find a better seafood restaurant nearby. And they certainly won't have a proper bar like this place does.

Revisit ~20 Years On: 1014760 The Grattan

I forgot to write this up after having revisted it a few weeks ago; and I definitely think it deserves a revisit writeup for having changed so much in the interim.

An exceptionally long time ago, I went in to the pub in this building - at least three incarnations of pub name let alone operator ago - because the signage outside said they did food; and I wanted food before going to seen Finn Harps play St Pats down the road.

After buying my pint, I found out they did not sell food and had not done so for a very long time. The barman was quite snarky about the painted signs saying they did... 

The pub was dead quiet and astoundingly run down, neither a sign of somewhere that has a bright future ahead of it. I never returned; and soon enough that era of the pub closed down. 

It clearly reopened, and has gone through multiple incarnations since. I think the current one may be Brazilian led - that it has a sushi offering in the building now only further supports this as there is some inexplicable Brazilian sushi connection that we can see elsewhere in Dublin

The new operation bears no resemblance to my last visit. It's clean, its busy and it does actually serve food. I'd still prefer other pubs in Inchicore; but it is at least somewhere you might actually want to drink now.

Revisited pubs March 2026

A month with quite a lot of revisits, and absolutely no new visits  - because there's nothing easy to visit left.

N0006 Brew Dock, many times
N1111 Black Lion
1014760 The Grattan, last visited as the Village Inn
N1123 Slatts 
1017068 Rascals - These last four on a trip to Inchicore for my now annual commemeration of the last proper night out before COVID
S1468 Thomas House
S1447 Drop Dead Twice, freshly reopened after a devasting fire some years ago
S1456 Lark Inn
S1465 Dudleys - written up as Bakers but visited many more times as Dudleys
1008963 Tapped
S0077 Nearys
S0015 Ginger Man
Daphni  - Still unable to get a seat!
1008645 Molloys
N1061 Mooneys
N1074 Madigans North Earl Street
N0191 Pantibar
N1070 Nealons
S3383 Alexander Hotel

Revisit 19 Years On: N1074 Madigans North Earl Street

I last visited this pub the same day as I last visited the previous place - just before going to see Tiësto play in The Point in 2007.

We ended up here as the Abbey Street Madigans didn't serve food - then or possibly ever, I think; but the North Earl Street one did; and the bar staff suggested we go their then sister pub for our dinner.

It still does serve food. It also still looks quite a lot like the Abbey Street no-longer-a-Madigans, with a lot of coloured glass in the internal decoration; and also promo posters in the toilets for Fransican Well beers that neither pub can possibly still sell due to their recent shutdown. 

It's a very central pub, close to where I work and where I have worked most of the time since 2013; but it never comes up in my mind as somewhere to visit. And it likely still won't. 

Revisit 19 Years On: N1061 Mooneys

It's ten seconds before sunrise... or more accurately, its about 6pm on a mid summer Saturday evening; and you've just met up with an acquaintance (a good friends Best Man, eventually) on your way to see the then biggest DJ in the world play his last ever good show in Ireland; only about 7 months since his previous show in the same venue.

You end up being appearing on the tour DVD for about three frames of video (I can't find this to link to anywhere, but trust me, it happened).

But beforehand, you go to two city centre pubs - one for pints, and another for dinner, before getting a taxi out to the Point Depot. This is the first of them. 

This isn't a particularly memorable pub - if anything, that it vaguely looks and feels like you're drinking in someone's conservatory is about all there is to remember; and my RetroReview writeup was exceptionally terse due to this.

It's now more notable, to me anyway, for pretending to be a former JG Mooneys premises - the actual Abbey Mooney was two doors down, but a little inaccuracy never hurt a Dublin pub in marketing terms.

The Sally O'Brien Lookalike Contest - Harp promo from 1983

I recently took possession of a collection of beermats, dating from at least the mid 1960s (based on there being Time mats) to the mid 00s - mats I remember being current in my drinking era as well as specific 2003 Rugby World Cup ones.

These will provide some much needed content on here and on Instagram for the next while, considering the lack of pubs left for me to visit; and the exceptionally limited number of new openings there have been so far in 2026 (and with little expected to come soon).

One thing that struck me was the number of cases of the mat being a competition advertisement (and often, but not in this case, an actual entry form), mostly in the first half of the 1980s. And while a lot of these were for prize draws - tickets to events, holidays, and electronics being the common prizes - one particularly stood out.

Harp Lager, which has started to reappear in Dublin's pubs in recent years (particularly after Diageo lost the Budweiser brewing contract to C&C), was a dominant player in the lager market in Ireland for decades, but by the 1980s was beginning to lose market share to other lagers, particularly those being brewed by Beamish in Cork (who produced Carling, Miller and at one point, Carlsberg under licence). I am assuming this is what lead to a significant marketing campaign, which most people remember for one line in the TV advert:

"and Sally O'Brien, and the way she might look at you"

Guinness Ltd then decided to see if they could find a case where Sally looked like you, launching a Sally O'Brien lookalike contest, with a regional heat format.

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The contest was launched by Vicki Michelle - the original Sally you needed to look like - in March 1983, with five regional winners to be decided. There was a very strange system where the person who sent in the winning entry won as much as the actual winner for each region, a then substantial £500 (around €1900 currency converted and inflated). Vicki was one of the judges, along with Harp's marketing director, and the award winning creator of the Harp ad, along with other noted Guinness advertising. The overall prize was a trip for two to Hollywood, plus £1000 (€3800).

The contest was heavily advertised in the press, and the regional winners were all pushed in adverts in their regional papers once selected. These winners were:

Dublin: Catherine Keane 

Limerick: Aileen O'Sullivan

Cork: Eileen Galvin

Galway: Geraldine Holmes

Waterford: Deirdre O'Brien

Catherine Keane won the overall award, a quite convincing lookalike based on the photos. Catherine was a teacher in Navan at the time and I presume remained at that profession, rather than becoming a waitress in a French bistro as Vicki Michelle had since become vastly more famous for than for appearing in a beer ad.

 

Evening Herald, May 12th, 1983

Occasional unofficial lookalike contests get organised for various celebrities to this day; but I seriously doubt we'd ever see a brewery doing such a thing again. Indeed, modern regulations (statutory and voluntary alike) on alcohol advertising mean the chances of their being a known named character in an ad to begin with. I also don't think the submitter prize would really wash these days - the women were the stars here, and giving an equal amount to someone else for posting in a photo is at best pointless.

March 2026 Revenue register update

This has been out for weeks at this stage, but there wasn't a huge amount to report, but I may as well post it for consistency reasons.

There were a relatively large amount of administrative/procedural changes and nothing particularly interesting:

Reappeared

N0229 Dolly Heffernans, Mulhuddart - long-term closed and drops off the register only to reappear.

S0228 The Ton Tin, Rathfarnham - also closed. Licence still held by former operator it seems.

S4356 Metro Cafe Bar, Tallaght - licence claimed to be held by a struck off company - may be preparation for sale of premises or licence

Renumbered

1013563 -> 1022852 National Gallery café, Kildare Street

S3099 -> 1022653 Hoxton Hotel, Exchequer Street (this confirms 1022738 The Globe remains on its own licence)

1015221 -> 1022635 Aloft Dublin City Hotel, Blackpitts