N0242 Myo's

This pub always sounds like it should be in a village halfway up a mountain in a coastal county, and not at the main road junction in a busy suburb - but it is quite an old pub. 

The pubs name is an odd one - allegedly, according to then local FF TD Jim Tunney in the Evening Herald, September 26th 1975; it is a corruption of "Miahs", as in a shortening of the name Jeremiah; from a former owner Jeremiah O'Donnell. This shortening is a bit more common in Cork than elsewhere in Ireland, as far as I know.

This could, of course, be absolute nonsense - a nearly 50 year old quote from an over 20 year old dead TD is not something that can be queried for accuracy. 

I unexpectedly ran in to an old colleague on my visit here, which provided an interesting distraction and probably stopped me from doing a danger run of trying every one of the numerous 5 Lamps taps, considering I've generally avoided drinking them anywhere else. 5 Lamps picked up a lot of tap space in the wake of the early 2023 Heineken price rises, so I wonder if the same thing here.

N0971 Roselawn Inn

Many of the 40s - 90s housing developments around Dublin centred on a shopping centre with a pub - usually at one end - and the Roselawn Shopping Centre is no different. Featuring Dublin's last 24 hour Tesco (last being in the past tense, as there's none now), and an assortment of other shop including an independent bookshop, this is on the larger side for an estate shopping centre.

The pub would also be on the larger side if upstairs was pub floor space - I am assuming it once was, but it is currently a Nepalese restaurant. This restaurant (Vayga) actually has very good reviews and I should probably drop back, as I've had good experiences with Dublin's other Nepalese restaurants.

What is on the downstairs is still a decent size, and had the oddity of a Veltins tap - a passable, and usually dirt cheap, independently brewed, German lager. This came in at a fiver a pint - rare for stout or Smithwicks and really unheard of for lager in Dublin outside of Wetherspoons in the past few years. This is a tad odd to pop up here, as its more often seen in craft beer heavy pubs that want a draught lager, but this pub isn't really that far from Grand Cru (the Irish distributor)'s base which might explain things. I forgot to look at the fridges to see if they had various Grand Cru cans or bottles.

The pub was relatively quiet - it was a Sunday with minimal sports on - and I was able to sit in the window area with natural light to read the paper for a bit. Something of limited interest except to pub, and possibly broadcasting, nerds was that the pub still has a functional CRT television, although it isn't the primary one by any means. It is located near the bar and I am assuming is a secondary TV for showing the news or similar on to the bar seating crowd.

N1058 The 79 Inn

Another large pub, and another pub with quite a nice interior - this one showing a few signs of the wear and tear of time; albeit perfectly clean and presentable (a recent post on the pubs Instagram is showing the work of a power washer firm on their beer garden tiles, so I imagine this is something they are proud of)

This post is now 7 weeks on from when I visited, so I'm not 100% certain on this; but I believe this is where I found a Beamish tap, with the pint dropped to my table when ready. Due to specifics of bus times to get me home, and not at all because I'd found a nice pint, I had a second here. There was food on offer, but on the recomendation of my brother - a former Ballyfermot resident - I went to the chipper the other side of the former cinema / now discount store.

Said food offering here used to be advertised by a memorable sign (I remembered it from driving past), swiped from a 2009 Streetview pass below:

Carvery Now Reopened Under Old Management

We must assume it had a positive reputation, and had closed for another reason such as the general economic malaise of the time.

N1057 Downeys

Downeys smelled funny.

But not in a bad way, just a vaguely indescribable way. It was sort of a mix of the smell of a cinema - minus the popcorn - and a new car. But specifically a new car in the 1990s. Even more specifically my Dad's friends Renault 21 at that. Smell memories are very odd and very specific sometimes.

After looking around at the immaculately turned out interior, I came to the conclusion that it was probably very new seat covering fabric providing its own equivalent of new car smell.

Anyway, odors of a non malodorous nature over and done with, this was quite a nice pub inside. There's a slightly odd layout, with a tunnel of sorts past the bar bringing you in to the lounge, which shares its gents toilets with said bar. The lounge is large, with multiple sections and a relatively quiet corner can be found even when there are sports on TV in another section.

A final note of mild interest - the exit doors to the street had a warning on them, which I attempted to get a photograph of, but blazing sunlight outside and general pub dimness inside over-stretched my phones image handling . This warned to watch out for e-scooters passing on the footpath. Such a specific warning sign suggests there has been an incident before!

N1125 Younges

This pub has to be the most misspelled pub in Dublin, as nearly everything online has the pub listed as Youngs - no e, including some semi-official things like a Facebook page for it. But the e is definitely there in a name above the door. My own map of pubs had it down as Youngs until shortly before this post, even though I'm sure I knew that was wrong. 

This is a fairly large pub, and despite having quite a decent crowd, still had a lot of empty space due to that. No pub in Ballyfermot was as busy on the day of my visit as N1203 Chasers was, for whatever reason - possibly Chasers aircon!

The upstairs music bar is currently branded as "Vinyl Bar" - I'm not sure if there is much of a guarantee of the music being played off vinyl (this is no N0099 Big Romance), but it wasn't open when I visited so I couldn't stick my head up to check.

N1120 The Manhattan

My previous post mentioned how it is relatively unusual - in Dublin anyway - for a pub to have no ground floor (other than an entrance way). 

However, they do seem to exist in clusters - around Stephens Green for instance, Dawson Lounge, Slatterys, Harrys on the Green, Captain Americas and The Bar are all close enough to each other, and Brown Thomas's bar a bit further up Grafton Street is entirely upstairs. And we have that closeness here too, with The Manhattan being on the first floor of its building.

It used not to be this way, however - when this was Fowlers of Grange Cross in recent memory, the main bar was on the ground floor. The bar moved upstairs - I am assuming in to what was an existing fitted out function room, as the fitout is not new - and the downstairs was put up for rent in a stripped out condition a few years ago (~2019). Yangtze restaurant now occupies this space 

Neither the restaurant or the bar have particularly much in the way of branding to make it obvious that they are there, or when/if they are open - The Manhattan was and Yangtze was not when I visited.

The cheapest pub in Ballyfermot, at the time of my visit; there was plenty of space here, but it wasn't deathly quiet either. A musician was setting up beside where I had been sitting - they weren't named on the various posters up, but music, karaoke and darts seem to be the regular entertainment here.

Licence Register Update, July 2023

Nothing major this month but we do have yet another licence to tick

New:

1019594 The Whiskey Reserve, Temple Lane - This opened as, I thought, an extension of The Temple Bar - but it has its own licence. Oh no, I'll have to go have some whiskey - the horrors

Renumbering:

1019163 Twin Oaks, Castleknock renumbered from N2474 - this is in my write-up queue after visiting currently

1019507 Wellington Hotel renumbered from 1018822 - this hasn't even opened yet!

N1203 Chasers

This is yet another pub that brings the old Revenue N/S licence codes in to question - Ballyfermot is very much South of the Liffey, but has an N code. From memory there is even an N in Tallaght, but no S anywhere North of the river.

It is also one of the very few pubs that has nothing on its ground floor other than an entrance and a staircase - albeit we will visit another of those very shortly. Chasers itself sits above a vape shop, bakery, discount store and bookies; the latter three of which have been there for as long as Streetview has data; and with the bookies possible being almost original to the building - albeit heavily rebranded over the years.

On a very warm day, I was appreciative of the fact that the pub was air conditioned - an exceptionally rarer thing in Dublin pubs to begin with let alone suburban or older ones. This was the busiest pub I visited on my trip to Ballyfermot, with various sports on TV in different parts of it, and also my least favourite pub feature - gambling machines - catering to clientele beyond just drinkers.

As the nearest pub to it, I believe this gets some of the student crowd from BCFE, so during term time you may be drinking with a future Oscar winning animator or a radio presenter - I should probably do a thing on student bars past and present using the TUD Arrow archive of student publications actually.