Wednesday 30 November 2022

S0295 Jack O'Rourkes

This pub had one of the most substantial number of different Irish craft brewery taps that I've seen outside of a dedicated craft bar - five taps with the only brewery duplication being a Larkins tap and also Curious Society Atlantic 353 tap - a Larkins sub-brand.

The pub was relatively busy, but I was able to find myself a corner table in the front area, which meant I had space to get food. A quite traditional pub food menu is on offer, and I went for a very traditional option even from what was there - soup and a sandwich. Which was nice.

Its quite a large pub, and the toilets (surreally) make a claim to fame - the place in whcih the idea of Rock Shandy was invented!



Second pub in a row that I'd be very happy to come back to, frequently, based on a first visit. Must. Stop. Liking. Pubs. In. Towns. I. Can't. Afford.

Tuesday 15 November 2022

S0293 Conways

Every so often, there's a pub where the first impressions make me think it'd be perfect as my local. 

Its always somewhere I simply cannot afford to live, though. Blackrock is probably the most out of my league so far.

Conways joins S0194 The Hill (the prior incarnation - I can't say whether it would still have the same impression) and N0250 The Villager in this club. The house right next door to The Villager has been for sale in the past few years, and I did consider it...

This is quite a traditional pub, albeit with a few craft taps, and does feel maybe a little out of place in Blackrock these days. A fire, some curated books to read if you're having a quiet one, and some old Irish breweryana on the walls

One slight thing to note here is a recurrent trend to the lower rated reviews on Google/Tripadvisor/etc here; nothing I saw there on the night I visited however.

Saturday 12 November 2022

S0298 The Old Punchbowl

This used to be one of my uncle's local, until he moved to Wexford. And weirdly I thought I saw my aunt there; but it was actually just someone that looked a fair bit like her - I don't think they make regular trips back!

One of the older pubs (with genuine claims to it) in Dublin and definitely one of the oldest in suburban Dublin, I have always been convinced this pub used "Olde" instead of Old in the name. Google and the Irish Newspaper Archive both tell me no, though.

The pub claims to be "Dublin's Rugby Pub", a title I imagine would be hotly contested. Considering there will be specific pub to club loyalties, I suggest that a blitz tournament could be arranged to decide that title for certain. 

There was a Brighton game on TV while I was here, but there was no lucky pub type results against one of the big boys this time unfortunately. However, it was a decent place to watch that game even if some of the fairly large tap selection was off.

The pub is up for sale currently, but still trading.

Wednesday 9 November 2022

November 2022 Licence Update

Two new additions this month, and both are restaurants with full pub licences.

Additions:

1019365 The Food Hall, UCD - a Wright Group venture; this is explicitly open to non-UCD customers

1019413 Mama Yo, Camden Street - yet another Press Up restaurant

Monday 7 November 2022

1019279 Maldron Merrion Road

This hotel had only just opened when I visited, but it replaced one of Dublin's well known hotels on the same site - the S0188 Tara Towers, a quite ugly and entirely not towering concrete block that had stood here since the 70s. Towards the end, when the hotel was already being managed by Dalata (who operate the replacement), it was being promoted as a "70s retro hotel" on their official Twitter!

The old hotel had a larger bar, showing live sports and appearing far more like a pub in a hotel rather than a hotel bar. The new offering is a hotel bar through and through; although one where you can still walk in off the street and get served.

Its quite like any other Maldron or Clayton bar really, with the same drink offerings and the same furniture etc. I expect they will get some local trade, as there's not much else nearby.

Sunday 6 November 2022

S0165 Merrion Inn

Nice pub. Exceptionally expensive - but what are you expecting out here? It's also the only pub for a vast, vast area of very expensive houses, so I'd be quite surprised if it wasn't expensive.

There were some interesting taps here, albeit you'd pay >€7 a pint for them - the online menu also shows a very good range of bottles.

Thursday 3 November 2022

October 2022 revisited pubs

Despite a rather mental month of non-socialising stuff (I've gone back to college, in the evenings, which will probably limit things for the next academic year; for instance), there were still a few revisits this month.

I'm relying on my phone spying on me to remember some of the incidental visits that could be five weeks ago at this stage - I find it unlikely that I wasn't in McGraths in October, but the spy in my pocket says no!

N0053 Graingers, Amiens Street - a lengthy train delay caused by bad scheduling - my inbound DART arrived just as the outbound train home left!

S0083 Beer Temple, Dame Street - last visited in its previous The Oak incarnation - this name still applies to the original The Oak bar section, of course.

1001292 Olympia Theatre, Dame Street - I refuse to use the branding here

S3908 The Well, Stephens Green


Wednesday 2 November 2022

N1989 Radisson Blu Dublin Airport

Another hotel bar to tick off the list, this time in the recently internally modernised Radisson at the airport. Built in 1998 as a Great Southern Hotel (the brand then being owned by Aer Rianta who operated the airport, it competes with the much older Maldron slightly closer to the terminal, as one of the two on-site hotels at the airport. 

This will likely change, however, as there are plans to build a new hotel beside Terminal 2 as well as another on the surface carpark of this Radisson. Also, unless Dalata have bought the Maldron without it being reported somewhere easy to find; their 10 year lease on the property (owned by the DAA since its bankruptcy when operating as a Clarion) expires in 2023 and it may be time to consider a replacement structure for the now 50 year old former Forte Posthouse premises.

The Radisson offers a very basic bar with a limited range of taps - many of which were off or having extremely slow keg replacements - and a subset of the still not huge menu from the hotel restaurant. Its still going to be fine for the normal customer of a hotel airport, though.

Tuesday 1 November 2022

N0211 Clarkes City Arms

This is the still extant bar of a former hotel (that is now an unrecognised university); you may think this pub is just in a small building beside the former and hefty City Arms Hotel - but it extends underneath the hotel building for quite some way, and is actually a rather large premises.

The main building has quite the history - having been the home of the Jameson family, and with its once large gardens converted in to the city's cattle markets - now long gone, but which were important in the development of Stoneybatter as we know it today. 

It became a hotel in the 1870s or so, and ran as such for about 100 years. During this time period, it features in Ulysses, as a former workplace of Molly (and residence for her and Leopold) Bloom.

The cattle market trade would have been a very significant element of the trade - there are references to people being refused service for not being cattle dealers, potentially during the time of a specific exemption order to allow early trade; and the closure in 1971 of the markets presumably hugely impacted this trade. A nearby 60s office building, Park House, is often claimed to have been under construction as a modern hotel for this area of the city before a late conversion to offices before opening - so there was certainly not a lot of business going (assuming this oft-repeated claim is actually true)

The hotel ceased hotel services at some point in the 1970s or very early 80s - it is hard to tell, as the bar was often still referred to as the Hotel until the 1990s; but newspaper archive entries for conventions, auctions and other things that happen in hotels tail off in 1977.

Francis Clarke appears on a licence transfer document in 1978, with a planning application in his name in 1981 to convert the ground, first and second floors to office use. This would not have affected the bar which occupies only the basement, and a separate building

(as an aside, as far as I can tell 1013026 Dominick Inn is also the surviving bar of a gone hotel - in this case the now demolished Midland Hotel next door)

The pub traded, at least in part, as Leopolds Disco Bar, in the late 1980s; a reference to their former fictional neighbour.

The Saor-Ollscoil was founded in 1986, but appears to have moved in to the old hotel building in 1994. A 1992 retention permission request for the hotel function room to be changed to a printing studio would suggest there were other office uses in between the hotel closure and 1994

Dragging ourselves away from the building history, and on to the present day pub - my impression was of a decent Dublin local, with a reasonable number of locals in for a mid week night; albeit probably boosted by a Liverpool game on TV. 

Veering back to history - some of the pubs history is still visible, in the form of a reminder of beer long since sold - a Perrys of Rathdowney shield on the backbar. One of the many breweries that Guinness bought and merged, directly or indirectly, in the 20th Century.