S0032 Moss Lane

For about 25 years, the only way in to this pub was to be invited. Or be the one issuing those invites.

Attached in terms of ownership to S0031 O'Neills at various points (this was D'Arcys pub when the corner section of O'Neills, not yet then part of the pub, was D'Arcys shop - same D'Arcy - in the 1840s); this was their private function bar and only opened when pre-booked. I had considered having my birthday here one year to get it ticked off; but a sale of O'Neills has changed things.

New operators and one renovation later, Moss Lane has opened here as a normal pub, in terms of access arrangements. The drinks offering here is heavily whiskey based; but with an interesting facet of offering a house beer that isn't just a rebadged stout or session IPA from a large independent brewery.

Instead, the offering is Moss Lane Red, from Barrelhead Brewery, an interesting red ale. There's some O'Haras products among conventional macro offerings. 

Dublin has quite a few reopenings or deep renovations of pubs that have opened since late 2021, so it isn't that unusual to find a pub with an immaculate interior, new toilet facilities and so on; but you get all that here too, for anyone keeping track. I feel like I'll be conscripted to write Pub Spy if I talk about the condition of toilets too much, though.

1014500 Trinity City Hotel

Better known amongst older drinkers for its Fireworks nightclub - closed for approaching two decades and still unused as far as I know (looking through the windows you can see random bits of hotel fittings in the space); the Trinity City does have a normal bar as well.

The bar is quite large, albeit a bit chaotically laid out; with a small smoking terrace that can catch the sun, when it's willing at least. Much of the seating areas are away inside the structure of the hotel and not obvious when entering the bar from the street.

The hotel was exceptionally busy checking in two tourbuses of English tourists when I visited, and I imagine the cosier corners of the bar could be quite nice when its quieter.

On the topic of noise, I do wonder how well soundproofed the hotel structure is. Located partially in the old Central Fire Station and *on top of* the main hall of the current Central Fire Station, the potential vehicular noise day and night here could be quite high!

S3249 Herbert Park Hotel

I'd always somehow thought this was a 5* hotel, and that it would be rather unapproachable to just wander in and get a pint in. 

It isn't (it markets itself as "luxury 4*") and it isn't - you can walk in to the bar without passing reception.

The bar itself is exceptionally limited, having the now common Heineken Ireland lineup - albeit a very small subset of what some pubs do - with a Guinness tap on the end. I'm no Guinness rater, I don't put much in to the mythology of Guinness, and the Leinster game the previous day probably ran many a keg through the lines, but the pint was at the top end of what I'd expect from a hotel bar

When an otherwise Heineken Ireland Only bar doesn't even have the full range... Note the Islands Edge barmat. Surprised they had the branded glass even pic.twitter.com/uwKwWA5oXB

— Cian Duffy (@cian_duffy) May 15, 2022

The food was also good, albeit not the type of menu I was expecting - being very conventional pub food. There is another restaurant here open for evening service.

When did Ireland get Beer Gardens?

The previous post (at least it's the previous as I begin writing this) post has what I believe to be an early use of the term "Beer Garden" in Ireland to refer to what we're currently used to - an outdoor area, with furniture, the ability to drink beer from a pub if not full on service and possibly its own bar, and some level of covering for rain or sun shade - from summer 1953. I felt this was quite early, even if a pub garden had been a critical requirement in London for Orwell in 1946.

The term Beer Garden is obviously much, much older - it first appears on the Irish Newspaper Archives nearly a full century earlier in 1854, but it was only used as a reference to those in Germany and German-influenced areas, or somewhat insultingly - e.g. a court report on a rowdy pub referring to it as "turning in to a beer garden". So when did people start using it to refer to those spaces that we became so reliant on in 2020/2021?

The first reference I can find to the term being used by somewhere for its own facilities is from 1936 by the then Dollymount Hotel, latterly the Dollymount House which closed in about 2006.

Evening Herald, July 29th, 1936

This is still referencing the German concept, but saying that its available in suburban Clontarf.

Unlike the Cherry Garden, there are no photos or further descriptions to confirm that this is like what we're used to now.

The next reference is from August 1938, to an entirely indoor "Beer Garden" simulated by painting the ceiling to look like the sky, at the College Mooney (now S0009 Doyles). I don't think that would have got around 2020/1s outdoor dining requirements!

Otherwise, the only other references I find are further ads from the Dollymount Hotel, until 1941.

In 1941, however, there is:

* a sale listing for the Ballydowd Inn (latterly N1130 The Foxhunter) mentioning its beer garden

* a sale listing for the Blandford Inn (now N0312 Coachmans Inn) mentioning its beer garden

* an ad for a pub in Tramore mentioning its beer garden

* a letter complaining about proposed beer gardens on Bull Island (which never happened) - possibly back to the disparaging use of the term!

The term is pretty solidly established at this stage, definitely referring to a seated outdoor area and not some attempt to ape a German setup. There is continuous use of the term from 1941 onwards

S1478 Cherrytree

Like *twitches* Pet Shop Boys, there are things where I feel I really must add the word "The" before their name. This pub is one of them - it is not The Cherrytree. Or at least it isn't now.

I headed here for lunch, but it seems that they only do it on weekdays. Which meant that I was forced to get a Hillbillys instead - what a terrible imposition!

But I could still get a pint and tick it off the list - and could have got coffee and cake, as they are operating a takeaway coffee shop window out of the side of the bar.

Only the main bar area appeared to be open - there were more sections darkened, and stairs going upstairs - but this was still a decent size. A few regulars were in, and there was floor service with a decent enough range of drinks on offer.

I can't nail down when the pub opened, but there was an extensive spread in the Evening Herald in June 1953 about the opening of their new "Cherry Garden", a beer garden (that actual term is used) that doesn't look like it would be too out of place in 2022. Of interest is the promotional plug for Cairnes Ale, making two suggestions that would absolutely not be allowed now!

Evening Herald, June 4th 1953

The "The" falls off the pub name in media references and Thoms by the 1960s. The current pub social media was using a 20 years hashtag about 3 years ago, which would suggest the current owners have been there since ~1999.

Its near neighbour, S1484 The Kestrel has had multiple proposals to replace with apartments; but with a tighter site I'd hope that that common death of a suburban pub doesn't even get suggested here.

(No number yet) The Samuel

The latest Dalata hotel to open in Dublin, The Samuel skips their normal naming convention - presumably as there are already a ridiculous number of Clayton (their standard 4* brand) hotels in the Docklands.

It also skips having an obvious bar - there is a coffee shop on the ground floor with a door opening to Mayor Street, with the main hotel entrance being on the new street (this seems to be on the path of the original Wapping Street, as opposed to the adjacent New Wapping Street, so possibly called that); and this doesn't serve alcohol. Its not even open yet, actually (as I write this).

The bar and restaurant are instead in the basement - although they have extensive windows to an atrium which comes down to that level. They are very much open to the public - promotional material advertising it as a lunch venue was sent in to my work place - but not many people seem to have noticed that yet.

The bar/restaurant has some design elements that suggest the first class dining room of a 1930s ocean liner, and interestingly for a new hotel bar, actually has a wider range of drinks from different suppliers, all macro but not a Heineken monoculture like so many others.

I had a pint of the Open Gate Citra - which I haven't see in some time, but which tastes the same as I remembered it; and a burger - which was good, while being more of the old type of pub burger, with a much thicker burger than would be common now. 

I may be back here soon enough, as somewhere near work where getting a seat on a Friday lunchtime doesn't require booking is always useful. I am in the process of (hopefully) changing jobs, though!

Revisited Pubs April 2022

Extremely scant revisit list this month:

N2741 The Boat

1015538 Tallaght Cross Hotel

This hotel opened (briefly!) in March 2008, as a sister hotel to the significantly smaller and marginally older 1008408 Glashaus Hotel nearby. Both closed in January 2009, as the recession started to really bite. During this brief opening period, the hotel only held a residents bar licence - so while I was working in Tallaght at the time, it wasn't somewhere I missed out on getting to drink in before it shut.

The Glashaus reopened in 2014, but the Tallaght Cross only reopened in February 2020 - scant weeks before lockdown closed it again for months - operated by the owners of the nearby S3446 Plaza Hotel. 

There are no signs of the hotel being 14 years old inside - the refit for reopening in 2020 was thorough and everything is holding up fine. 

Its a nicely fitted out hotel, the food was good - but with a total of five taps, two of which were Guinness and one other of which was off - the bar offering is not one for the seasoned drinker. I suspect this is not their target audience to begin with.

May 2022 Licence Update

Only one change of even some note this month, and its not a type I usually bother tracking:

Licence holder change: N2168 Blockburger, East Point Business Park is now down as Cirillos - this may be connected to the Italian restaurant of the same name on Baggot Street. Blockburger did reopen after the first lockdowns but re-closed in early 2021.

Many Of The Pubs In... Tullamore

Unlike my two previous "travelogues" of sorts, I was never going to get close to full completion in a day. Tullamore has a population of ~15k, but the pub to population density is much higher in many provincial towns - particularly with the large GAA stadium bringing in visitors and the hospital providing significant employment.

A quick check of the licence register shows 21 pubs and 2 hotel public bars in Tullamore, but this is not always a guarantee that there aren't either more currently unlisted, or some listed but not open. I didn't even complete half of these, albeit I'm sure it was more than half of those open. One of these licences is the distillery (1018528), and another is the former, closed, distillery heritage centre (1014867) - which I'd actually been to anyway.

First pub up was TUP448 Eugene Kellys, a relatively small and quite traditional pub sitting beside the Grand Canal. With no TVs in the lounge, relatively low lighting and significant greebling, you get more than slight feelings of N0221 The Glimmerman in Dublin, albeit somewhat smaller, and without a smoking area of the same scale. The pub was very quiet when we went in, but picked up significantly with fans attending the Louth vs Kildare match in O'Connor Park nearby - something that would provide a large customer base for the next number of pubs.

A very short walk down the road to TUP447 The Goalpost found the first of a number of pubs that have clearly had quite a bit of cash spent on them recently. Small enough inside, but with a vast covered and heated outdoor area featuring a second bar, toilets and TVs, this place was quite full with match attendees but still had plenty of available seats outside. The outdoor area looked to have been rebuilt in the last year or so, with sockets and USB chargers at most tables

A few doors down, TUP446 Digans provided much of the same, but bigger - a larger bar comes with an even larger outdoor area - this one maybe prepped a bit more for locals trade than the matchday traffic. A pizza oven and DJ box were part of the fittings out here. This somehow feels like my local in Maynooth (O'Neills) to me, even though it has more indoor space and a less cohesive outdoor area (and a better drinks selection - it was notable that nearly everywhere sold the same, limited beer collection with Moretti or possibly Madri as the most interesting tap)

It was getting towards the match start time, making it a good time to try find a quieter pub. The walk to the next pub brought us past the first obviously closed pubs, The Hideout - which seems to have maybe shut in 2016 and is not currently on the licence register; and TUP425 Annie Kellys which seems to have closed after 2018. Both were for sale in recent times.

However, there is still a pub open on the street - TUP514 Wrafters Old Habour Bar. Although it doesn't actually look up from the street - only a side door was open, and the internal layout is... strange to say the least. Another odd feature was a CRT TV showing the match - with only the green and blue electron guns still working. There is something particularly surreal seeing a team that play in red and white playing a team that play in just white, on a TV with no red. 

The fifth pub was the one I have least interest in going back to - albeit its still not an obviously bad pub. A sports bar, TUP470 Fergies seems to actually be named after a person and not the former Man United manager; but there is plenty of Man United stuff inside so I may be wrong. There is also some greebling that relates to the Irish Brigade in the Spanish Civil War... I don't usually judge any political stuff up in pubs, but I don't think there's any way to see O'Duffys "efforts" in Spain as having been anything but on the wrong side of history. A large pub, there are signs up relating to its Black & White Pub Awards win in 2003 and I suspect that may be roughly when it opened. Of the pubs we visited, this was probably the one most in need of investment - and yet was still in quite good nick. 

Food was now obtained, not in a pub.

Another closed pub was now passed on the way to the next boozer - The Hole In The Wall. This has been up for sale for years it seems. 

TUP422 Joe Lees was our next pub, a Victorian pub - albeit without as much of a Victorian interior as a Dublin drinker might expect. The match was now over and some people were starting to return back to the pubs afterwards - and most were tapped up for the local GAA club lottery by one of the barmen. We felt somewhere left out not to be asked!

TUP423, the Newtown Bar was nearby and is similar to the Goalpost and Digans from early - a relatively long pub with a modern smoking area out the back and which seems to have had quite a bit spent on it in recent years. There weren't quite as many match attendees here, although the barman did notice my Kildare non-accent and ask if I had been at it. Apparently this was owned by D. E. Williams, e.g. Tullamore Dew, at some point, according to an extensive local history of Tullamores pubs.

This street featured another closed pub - TUP424 Gallaghers Manor, which was also recently up for sale with eight apartments above. This has a recent-ish name change on the licence file so may be about to reopen.

TUP434 The Brewery Tap back on High Street was populated with a significant amount of GAA players, rather than fans this time, all in their finery. The annual dinner dance was on (I believe in TUP488 the Bridge Hotel) and this appeared to be the main pre-drinks, but they cleared out quite quickly. The pub name does relate to having been a Brewery Tap, for Egans, the long defunct local brewery who also had a distillery - but not the local D. E Williams distillery that is much better known.. This brand has been brought back in recent years, albeit using sourced whiskey. Interestingly, this was the only pub where I saw any non-macro products on tap - a single Wicklow Wolf tap - which is suitable for its history connected to an independent brewery.

The final pub of what had been a very long day was 1014867 The Phoenix, which seems to have only opened in 2018. Fitted out to a very Southside Dublin standard, this is a late bar and presumably targets the younger population of the town. Multiple wines on tap

This wouldn't have been the final pub, except there was a pay in event at TUP436 Hugh Lynchs that we decided not to bother paying in for. I'll be back to complete the town at some stage anyway.