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of the city is due for a huge increase in population in the next few years - right next door, a few small cottages have been replaced by a large apartment block that is finishing off construction now; with apartments planned for the Concorde Industrial Estate and Royal Liver Retail Park also.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.

1008408 Glashaus Hotel

The area around The Square in Tallaght was extensively built up towards the end of the Tiger era, with two hotels, an Marks and Spencers and a Captain Americas branch amongst the various things built. Three of those are gone; the area having been hit very hard with closures.

The Glashaus did actually close at the same time and along with the Tallaght Cross Hotel which is to reopen next year, was used for short-term accommodation for a while. But it was bought by the Comer development group and reopened as a hotel in 2014. There are now plans in to add another 24 bedrooms to the hotel.

For a relatively small hotel there is a decent sized bar, that seems to mostly work off food trade. I had lunch here, which was more than acceptable - more traditional than what I had in the nearby N2581 The Brass Fox a few weeks prior, but nothing wrong with that. My pint glass survived the closure and reopening, as it happens; and a complete rebranding of Smithwicks by Diageo in the interim.

N0137 Harry Byrnes

I thought I'd finished the Victorian Pubs Of Dublin set when I did the few out in Ranelagh, I really did. Nearly everyone judges this off the Kearns list, which gives various criteria - and would leave me unfinished due to S0303 Finnegans which I have not yet been to.

Harry Byrnes does not appear on that list however. And, if you trust the pubs website - I have no reason not to - for good reason- that would be because its actually Edwardian; having been rebuilt in 1906 - but many of the stated Victorian pubs are nowhere near as original as this. You'll get a better Victorian experience here in not-Victorian splendour really.

Externally, the pub looks fantastic (I hasn't researched the history before I posted...) and the interior is every level of dark wood, partitions and old advertising signs that you could ever want. I was there on a relatively busy weekend afternoon/evening and you could still find the type of dignified solitude with a pint that's normally only found in a snug of an otherwise dead pub.

I think there may be a more modern bit at the rear of the pub - I didn't go wandering as much as I usually would as I had a train time to head for in my mind - but I know where I'd stay drinking if this was my local.

N0177 Horse & Hound

This is one of those 1950s pub-in-a-row-of-shops premises that turns up occasionally - my last one was N0176 The Watermill and before that 1013317 The Four Provinces. Well, its almost one of those - its actually a nearly standalone building beside a row of shops. But the location, off the main road in the middle of a housing development, is exactly matching the norm.

The layout here is in the single room format that's the norm for that type of pub - one narrow enough, very very long room. There's an elevated section at the back and I think the toilets are in an extension behind the neighbouring barber shop to increase the main floor area.

This was traditionally a relatively rough area of Dublin, but by now absolutely nothing gave me any negative impressions on my visit. There were some dodgy looking kids with pallets for a bonfire on my walk back to the bus - but I've seen this some allegedly posh areas also. The pub seems to have a decent regular custom with a mix of the traditional bar traffic (there is a bookies in the row) and family events. My usual Google of a pub turned up an odd case, but it has nothing to do with the pub itself and doesn't reflect negatively on it.

Of some potential historical interest, this pub has one of the really traditional UK pub names - which we never really had in Ireland; with most pubs known by their operators surnames instead. There is, however, another S0394 Horse & Hound on the southside in a very different "class" of location so it isn't unique in Dublin.

November 2019 licence update

The November file is the Great Reset, when the licencing year moves on and >200 premises drop off for a few months until their renewal is fully settled. So there's no removals listed here as I wouldn't be able to tell for certain!

New licences:
1015162 - Hogs & Heifers, Airside. This was the open daily bar element of the Wright Venue but now has its own licence since the operator split from Jam Park. Conveniently I've drunk in both of them already!
1015887 - Hyatt Centric Hotel, The Coombe

Reappearances:
1004780 - Fleet Street Hotel second licence. Haven't a clue why
S1268 - Rathfarnham House, Main Street Rathfarnham. This won't die, it keeps reappearing after removals despite the pub being closed for a decade and converted to a creche. The licence is still in the name of the owner from then, who has other pubs/clubs/hotels

Renumberings:
1015892 replacing S3217 - River House Hotel, Eustace Street.

N0845 Madigans Kilbarrack

Don't drink in a pub with a flat roof, don't drink in a single-storey pub, don't drink in a pub with no windows, don't drink in a pub in a shopping centre - all bits of advice I've seen (or given) as quick rules of thumb. And I broke every single one of them here.

As Dublin was expanding Northwards in the 1970s, there was often only one pub built in each suburb and that was often built with the main retail development - that was the case with my previous visit, and its the same again here.

They do attempt to make up for the lack of windows internally with backlit stained glass features along the long wall at the top of the pillars making it seem like there is daylight coming through, and it doesn't feel quite as much like a shopping centre pub as the Donaghmede Inn did either, although why is hard to quantify.

This is a large, fairly comfortable suburban pub run by a professional operator - Madigan Group - and doesn't have the negative reputation that some similarly located premises have acquired.