S1470 Agnes Brownes

The name. The history. The music. This pub gives it all

It can't be much of a jump to assume that the pub is named after the fictional character, presumably - from the spelling -  the much more acceptable books-and-movie version vaguely based on Brendan O'Carroll's mother (a Labour Party TD!) and depicted by Anjelica Huston; rather than the modern version depicted by O'Carroll in drag. But its probably closer to the latter.

This pub has a very interesting recent history, with more name changes than basically anywhere else, and that's only the ones I've tracked. In its various incarnations - all relatively recent - it was a Booze2Go off-licence; it was the example of a working class pub in a piece on their decline, and it was a rather rough gay bar called the Wig & Pen, which had men-only nights "enforced" by a €50 entry fee for women. I now can't find the account of it online, but a number of women decided to pay in one night with interesting results!

The current incarnation is very similar to the one described when it was The Hilltop in 2013. But the notable thing on the night I visited was the music. Early 2000s commercial/chart trance music made up the majority of it - it was just like listening to Ivan Boreland on Highland Radio when I was 15 again.

The pub is almost comically rough, but seemed safe enough the night I was there, which was a Saturday at that.