Its nearly time to do the April list, which caused me to find I hadn't done the March one to begin with!
N0312 Coachmans Inn - funeral afters had me rather off my beaten track here; but I had been before.
1017068 RascalsHQ - I've just realised I've no visit writeup here as my first, and possibly second visit happened when it was a restaurant. I'll fix that.
I've previously written about how "estate pub" is bordering on a slur in England, but doesn't really have the same meaning here. This needs to be mentioned again, as the Lord Mayor is very much an estate pub, but also not to the English meaning.
Situated in the Meakstown area of Finglas, this pub was built in 2005 when much new housing was built in this area, and is directly across the road from the Meakstown shopping centre that was built in the same general time period.
The pub takes its name from the then recently held political position of its owner, former Labour Councillor Brendan Carr - he has since been the actual Lord Mayor but has not upgraded the pubs name! In a slight oddity, the pub is located just within Fingal, whereas Brendan was a Dublin City Councillor and hence Deputy Mayor/Lord Mayor of Dublin City.
Some stuff I found when looking up background info suggests there was a refit done here during lockdown, and the pub does indeed look in very good nick inside and out. I had lunch here, which was surprisingly expensive, but quite good - at least as good as it needed to be for the price.
The former Long Mile Inn, this premises had recently enough closed when I did my trip to the pubs of this end of Drimnagh, so its reopening created a blue pin on the map I use for my own trip planning (not the same as The Map of all pubs) against a surround of green. However, opportunities for pub bagging have been limited recently with work, eventually catching COVID and house renovations amongst other things, so my usual individual trips to "correct" / catch reopenings and new pubs have been rare.
However, I've now made it.
The pub has been renovated inside and out - albeit ignoring the de-Beamish'ed clock which shows two incorrect times - to a high standard.
The interior could be seen as faux-old, but this pub isn't particularly new itself. It became the Long Mile Inn in the mid-late 70s, but traded previously as Slatterys, probably opening in 1956.
This Slatterys was a small chain of pubs in 50s/60s - I don't know if they are connected to any of the other pubs with this name, but none of them are called Slatterys now - and while "Slatts" (126a Tyrconnell Park) must have got its name there, its licenced to a Noonan. One of these is now a Tesco!
Back in the present, the pub trades with a large bar and large lounge, and an upstairs/outdoor seating area. The food operation would appear to be a franchise, as there are separate ordering and payment systems, but this isn't all that uncommon in suburban pubs.
There are better known pubs in Drimnagh, which I've written up before their change in ownership, and didn't like to begin with... so its really between N1118 Halfway House and here; and while the Halfway gets points for having Macardles (or at least it did when I was there - quite some time ago), the Castle feels nicer over all.
Welcome to the second in a rare series where I try to document all the pubs somewhere in a single day. Having done (or failed to do, looking at it another way) Dungloe a few weeks ago when storms affected my weekend; this time I drove up rather than face Dublin Airport's security queues. And while driving and pub bagging are incompatible, I was able to park up and do this the next day - and drive home two days later!
Arranmore currently has six licenced premises. I have now drunk in all of them, but I can't document all in this post.
The first problematic premises is LEP015 Killeens Hotel - up for sale for some years, it is not currently trading. I last drank here in ~2016. If anyone wants to run a 24 bed hotel, please study the sale (or rent, as I now notice) documents.
The second problematic premises is LEP431 Smugglers Nite Club. I also last drank here in ~2016, and would have gone back - except it rarely opens before midnight. There is a conventional bar (the Seaview Bar) attached to the club, but it has not opened regularly for decades (as far as I'm aware, but I have been in it); and I wasn't up for turning an afternoons drinking in to an exceptionally late night.
This leaves me with four operating premises. When I was a kid, there was a seventh pub - Pallys - but it closed for good in 2002. There was another pub in the 60s/70s - Proctors - in the "factory" - a Gaeltarra Eireann facility in a former dance hall which still exists now as the community centre, sans licence.
[not sure] Neilys
My local up here. My Grandads local til he stopped being able to go to the pub (in ~2005). In the middle of the island, there was an adjoining shop here until Summer 2021 and this was where my interactions with it as a kid were. Neilys now manages to succesfully ride the line between being a locals pub most of the year, and the coolest place on the island when there's lots of tourists and holiday home owners in during the summer - cocktails, craft beer and a pizza van in summer give way to pints and football on Sky in the winter. I started and ended the days trip here - being closest to my house and on the way to and from anywhere else.
Neilys appears on the licence registers as LEO002 - an off-licence code, and recorded as a spirits off licence; and I've never seen its pub licence recorded, but a pub it absolutely is so this is likely a Revenue issue - some Dublin pubs have been unlisted for years. Neilys is the most modern looking and feeling of any of the pubs and worth the walk in to the middle of the island.
1009262 Phil Bans
The only pub I hadn't yet drunk in, despite often being in it as a kid - and always using its shop. Right on the beach near the ferry, I suspect that Phils gets the bulk of the lazier tourists, and is a decent pub despite never having fallen to my drinking patterns before. A larger front room is somewhat divided off from a back room that often matches the surface of the sun in air temperature - due to a turf fire - which has waves almost lapping against its windows at spring tides. Phil Bans shop fed my Irn Bru and McDaids Banana consumption as a child - I only took to Football Special as a teenager.
For whatever historical reason, like Neilys the shop has its own spirits only off-licence with the fantastic licence number of LEO001 - Letterkenny court area, off-licence, licence number one
LEP014 The Glen Hotel
Paging Francis Brennan.... After nearly a century operating as a hotel, there is a need for significant investment in facilities and services here. Unbeatable beer garden when the weather suits, though.
LEP013 Earlys Pier Bar
The place that gave Daniel O'Donnell his start, and the only pub that consistently has food available all year (as of the time of posting this). We got a decent dinner here; and left just as a huge hen night arrived for theirs - thankfully. Jerry Early is very active in promoting the island for tourism; and supporting the remaining commercial fishermen, so this is the pub that most media people end up going to. With a small front bar and a large performance space out back, this pub is least like the others - which are all really single room affairs, albeit maybe big rooms (Neilys) or with a divider nearly splitting them (Phil Bans). Earlys has been modernised significantly in recent years, albeit not the level of Neilys
Decent number of changes this month:
Additions:
1018822 Wellington Hotel, Wellington Quay - this is a renovation and upscaling of a prior guesthouse and restaurant (the Eliza Lodge / Italian Corner); not a new hotel as such. May not be open just yet.
1018663 Lennans Yard - new restaurant on Dawson Street
Renumbered:
1018851 formerly S3352 - Merrion Hotel, Merrion Street.
Reappearing:
N2528 formerly Jack O'Neills, Tyrrellstown - cannot find if anything is open here or not though.