Wednesday, 1 February 2023

S0182 Smyths

This was reported to be one of the last residential pubs (a pub where the owner or manager lives on-site) in Dublin when sold in 1999, and as it is now owned by the name-above-the-door owner of another pub, I don't think it still is.

There is still at least one residential pub in the city - N1090 The Hacienda - so that 1999 sale did not fully end the tradition, but it is something that has mostly slipped away. In some cases, the owner would not live on site, but some/all of the barmen would - looking at the 1901 and 1911 censuses you can find some premises with significant numbers of staff present on the night.

But otherwise, the pub does not seem to have changed hugely since the sale out of the family. The current owners received permission to rebuild the rear of the pub in 2006, but it does not appear that anything has happened out there. The front of the pub has a vastly more significant outdoor seating area introduced during the pandemic, but the building itself is not much changed.

There's not many of this style of pub - older style, but neither real or faux Victorian old - in the city, and even less in the posher bits of it, so this is an interesting relic of a different time.

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