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Tuesday, 26 October 2021

Back From The Dead: Lengthy pub closures

The most recent pub opening in Dublin that I'm aware of, right at this moment, is Dockers on John Rogersons Quay, a L'Estrange Group pub in one of the few remaining original buildings along the South Docks.

But there was a pub here before, until ~2005, also called Dockers - it had a narrower frontage, as can be seen in photos from the time. I haven't been in yet so have no idea if there's much original content left.

This was due to open in early 2020, but COVID intervened and it was delayed until October 2021; giving us a 16 year closure.

While this is a considerable enough period for a pub to be gone and yet come back, Dublin has had similar recently, some more soon and hopefully some more again in the future.

Press Up Groups 1014121 Lucky Duck opened in 2018, in the building which had previously been the Aungier House, which closed in the late 1990s. The building was in a significantly derelict state, but some original features remain - including some of the Victorian basement toilets.



Press Up feature again with the Bottle Boy bar of their 1016228 Mayson Hotel having been Vallance & McGrath, a famed pub for its trad music history and which closed in the mid 00s. After a significant renovation, the bar reopened in December 2019.

This wasn't the first hotel to open with a resurrected pub as its bar. The 1015221 Aloft Hotel was built around and atop The Tenters, which closed in the mid 00s, with the hotel opening in May 2019. In this case, little remains bar the external walls and the name; however.

These are the pubs which have come back from the dead so far, but they should soon be joined by some more:

A third, and last at the moment, Press Up resurrection is underway at N1130 The Foxhunter in Lucan, which has been renovated from a derelict condition and appears to be ready to open at any minute. This pub "only" closed in 2012

Another imminent opening is that of Meaghers on Eden Quay - this is in the former "Liffeyside Mooney" pub ("Mooneys sur mer" in Ulysses) which was later and better known as the Horse & Tram. 

This has had a messy past few decades, having been sold for a significant sum in 2001, having had a brief incarnation as a gay bar, two periods of being a strip club and a time as an Indian restaurant. It would appear to have last been licenced as a pub in ~2005.

There's a potentially vain hope here as the last item:

N1097 Conways on Parnell Street has been shut since 2007, and is in an extremely vulnerable condition - held up by steelwork, a stench of damp coming from within. However, in the masterplan for the Hammerson redevelopment of the North end of O'Connell Street, it is claimed to reopen. Possibly as the bar of a hotel - this has been rumoured, but the planning applications in so far cover the Southern end of the site only. Notably, it is still licence and its licence has been renewed annually for the entire time it has been shut

There are a number of other licences which are sitting valid attached to long closed pubs, or even notional premises on a site of a pub, which will eventually be reused for a new hotel or pub on the site - but they won't be the old building renovated like these examples.

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