RetroReviews: S0107 Lundy Foots / Czech Inn

My motivation to keep writing these retrospective writeups has been repeatedly hit by further levels of restrictions - but there's going to be no pub specific content until December (if even) and I don't have much of a pipeline of unspecific, historical posts either so here we go again. Lets see if I can keep writing them for more than a few days this time...

This pub is in a modern building, but has a low licence number in the old geographic based sequence - because, as far as I can tell, it is the licence of the former Red Hackle on Parliament Street, the site of which was part of the overall development here.

This premises first opened as Isoldes Tower, for the remains of this part of the city walls was found during the excavations for the redevelopment of the site in the early 1990s, when there were grand and optimistic plans to make the overall Temple Bar area a critical cultural quarter - which rather fell apart; but having a niche bar in an apartment development very much matched the plans of the time. 

That incarnation had a reputation as an after work pints place; and also for being somewhere between a gay-friendly pub to being a 'soft' gay bar, like its near-ish neighbour at that time, S3178 The Front Lounge, which later tilted to branding itself as a gay bar.

However, its more recent and still somewhat extant incarnation as a Czech bar - not really a Czech themed bar, more a bar for the Czech diaspora in Dublin - is probably better known. The Czech Inn element of the pub - which was the main 'drinking' bar anyway - still exists upstairs, but the downstairs section has now been converted to what seems to be a faux-old bar in the style of a Press Up venue, albeit its actually not run by them.

The current name comes from a tobacconist who traded on Essex Street & Parliament Street in the 18th/19th century and follows a trend of naming a premises after a former business on-site or nearby, e.g. 1007830 JT Pims or S0005 JT Sweetmans

I've not actually been in since the premises was solely the Czech Inn, and its not like that can be corrected any time soon!