N1115 Timothy Crough

This is a rebuilt/replacement premises for an older pub; and is the ground floor of an apartment block. It suffers from this, as its quite larger and a rather odd shape which seemed to have trouble holding an atmosphere.

I was particularly intrigued by repeated signage around the room along the lines of "all drinks ordered at 9pm will be served at 9pm", which suggests there's daytime and nighttime pricing in operation - completely legal but something I haven't seen outside of Temple Bar recently.

There's quite a few pubs in a relatively small area here - all of which I visited before the blog, repeatedly in the case of N1111 Black Lion and N1109 McDowells - and honestly all of which I'd visit again in preference to Croughs. There was nothing strikingly wrong with the place; but the other pubs are just nicer - and the Black Lion does decent grub. My trips to Inchicore are usually football related and often begin in the Black Lion and end in McDowells; but in a previous era when I worked for a CIE contractor, lunch in the Black Lion was also a thing.

N1110 The Glen of Aherlow

I had a few hours to kill on a Friday evening and figured out that hitting the remaining pubs in Inchicore I hadn't been to might be the quickest thing to do - as they're relatively close to the buses back home, and if I did them rapidly enough I could get the last Xpresso service (that run down the Chapelizod Bypass) back rather than have to switch in Lucan.... I ended up switching in Lucan!

The Glen of Aherlow - or Donoghues as most of the external signage says - is the first of the pubs along Emmet Road and despite attending many games in Richmond Park, I had never gone in - N1109 McDowells or occasionally N1124 Tom Taveys getting my business instead normally. 

Externally, the pub looks like it could be in some rural village - a set of rusting petrol pumps wouldn't look out of place on the path as there is more than a little of the look of a garage to it with the curved elements to the roof

What you get inside is an old-fashioned Dublin boozer, not in a bad way however - and not the country pub/grocer/undertaker that the outside might suggest! Cheap pints and a good atmosphere for what was relatively early in the evening made for a decent place to spend some time. 

N1121 Palmerstown House

I've fallen a bit behind in the pub write ups, with an entire page of unfinished stubs in the correct order awaiting me to fill them in, because I couldn't think of anything to write here. So its back to the shorter writeups from a few years ago.

Large suburban pub, part of the Louis Fitzgerald group and as far as I know, housing their head office. Its extremely generic. If you've been in any other Fitzgerald pub it'll be very familar - lots of wood, standard pub knick knacks on the walls, furniture that's all seen better times, sub-par off licence attached. 

December 2019 licence update

Only two changes of note this month

Addition
1015855 - Marlin Hotel, Bow Lane West

Reapperance
S3908 - The Well, Stephens Green West. Formerly Dandelion and off register for many years.

N1245 Cottage Inn

I've never made myself leave a pub due to the smell of food before; but there's a first time for everything. Now, I've been put off by smells before, but normally of something else - and normally negative

In this case, the smell was that of pepper sauce coming from that days lunch special, which smelled so delicious I needed to ensure I was as far away as possible lest I end up having a second, and then third lunch. I think it was a beef pie, but I would have just taken a bucket of the sauce based on how good it smelled.

Back to the pub itself - this pub feels like it could be out in the countryside, and indeed it sort-of was when it was built. This was the edge of the city, but the fields beyond were developed for industry by the 1960s and the small cottages that sit surrounded by industrial and retail warehouses now look quite out of places.

There's basically one room here, without any attempt to divide it in to a bar and lounge. This is what I'm used to in pubs outside of Dublin moreso than inside the M50, which is where most of the country feel comes from. It's also a single storey building, a rare enough occurrence even for suburban standalone pubs in the city.

Some day I'm in the area and I haven't already had a massive lunch at a previous pub I must drop back in and see if the "special" is actually a regular on the menu.

S3304 Sheldon Park Hotel

If I don't know a hotel well, I usually do a quick check of its website to see how heavily it promotes its bar facilities - some have been very hidden and really residents-only despite having public licences (1014503 Hotel 7 being the most complex so far). The website here suggests that guests "meet the locals" in the bar, so it was clear this would be easily open to the public

There is an absolutely huge bar here, taking up maybe half the entire ground floor of the hotel - which is relatively large. If standalone this would be reliant on its carvery trade as that took up a lot of the space and was on the plates of most of the other customers when I visited.

This area of the city is due for a huge increase in population in the next few years - right next door, a few small cottages have been replaced by a large apartment block that is finishing off construction now; with apartments planned for the Concorde Industrial Estate and Royal Liver Retail Park also. I'd expect at least one new pub in the Royal Liver development; but there's definitely a potential for splitting this in to a carvery and a more modern pub for the additional clientele in a few years.

S3176 Abberley Court Hotel

The "Hotel" in the name here is currently misleading - the hotel accommodation has been converted to a "Family Hub" for emergency accommodation. A number of smaller Dublin hotel have changed to this in recent years; but the Abberley is the only one that has retained its bar facilities.

These are still operating as before, although the nightclub section is gone, permanently, having been converted to more bedrooms.

The remaining pub is a fairly standard larger outer suburban pub; newer than most of the others of that scale that are relics of the old licencing structure but strikingly similar in how it operates. Large bar, uncountable number of TVs showing multiple sports channels at the same times and toilets big enough to let the entire pub in at half-time in a big game.

As an aside, I worked in or near Tallaght for a fairly long time a this was the usual planned location for planned "after work drinks" back then, but they rarely happened - or made if further than S1593 Cuckoos Nest (when in Airton) or S3757 Browns Bar (Citywest era) both of which have since closed! That a similar fate has also befallen the pub underneath the previous offices of that company (S4517 Bennigans in Parkwest) may be an omen of sorts, or just a direct consequence of pubs in/near business parks not really working anymore.