Pat Liddy's Pub Crawls

While raiding my mother's bookshelves for potential research material, I found well-worn copies of Pat Liddy's Walking Dublin and Secret Dublin, from 1998 and 2001 respectively. I completed the majority of the walks in these books back in the day, but as I was vastly underage in 2001, the two pub crawls include were off-limits.

Pat does a number of scheduled walking tours, but a pub crawl isn't one of them; and the book doesn't seem to be in print so I doubt a quick listing of the pubs and some commentary on what's happened since 2001 is going to be a problem.

The city centre was split in to a Northside and Southside route, each staying roughly parallel to the river. The Northside tour is particularly interesting for the scale of change which has occured in only 16 years. Both consisted of more pubs than it is sensibly safe to drink in in one session, however there were recommendations to this effect!

The Northside tour starts at the Jameson distillery, which had just reopened with the new visitor centre. The old Whiskey Corner visitor centre was still operational as a bar at this stage and is the second stop; but this is now closed.

The problems in completing the crawl continue, as the third pub, The Quill, has been closed for some time and planning has been applied for to change use from a pub to a coffee shop. However, it would have been worse even a few weeks ago, as the fourth stop, the Legal Eagle, has just reopened after a long closure and refurbishment.

Fifth up is the Chancery Inn which has been reported as closed on boards.ie (although I haven't verified this). Its status as an early house was not mentioned, but it wouldn't have been much use if you had to skip the first four due to them not being open

The semi-drought continues, as the next premises is the Ormond Hotel, which must be closed for a decade at this stage. Planning has been received for redevelopment and this will likely reopen.

The next up is the Morrison Hotel, which is fully operational; then Zanzibar which is closed with plans for a replacement hotel; then Pravda which is fully operational - under its new name of the Grand Social.

We get a good run for a bit now. The Arlington Hotel's Knightsbridge bar, Madigans on Lower Abbey Street, Wynns and the Flowing Tide - all of which are very much open. Life in the Irish Life Centre (demolished) and The Plough (shut for years but still extant) bookend the Abbey Theatre (open) however.

The last pub is the Harbourmaster, which is operational.



The Southside crawl has no such problems - all pubs are extant with only two name changes. It starts just across the river - the book suggesting that the foolhardy could consider doing both in one day.

This starts with Mulligans, continues to The Bridge (O'Sullivans now), The Palace, Buskers, Blooms Hotel, The Oliver St John Gogarty/Left Bank, Eamonn Dorans (Old Storehouse), The Auld Dubliner, The Temple Bar, The Norseman, Fitzsimons, The Clarence Hotel, The Porterhouse, The Stags Head and Davy Byrnes.

There's some very significant gaps between pubs towards the end of this tour, with a few potential venues open in 2001 that I would have suggested instead of the cluster in Temple Bar; but there's still a good variety of pubs on each - more so with Dorans and Buskers as they were in 2001.