S2784 Lough Inn

On walking in the door of this large pub, I was met with a choice - do I turn right in to the lively, bordering on raucous bar; or do I walk straight ahead in to the quiet lounge.

I chickened out and walked straight ahead. I strongly suspect the bar would have been more interesting, and indeed my pints came from there, the barman skipping the tap in the lounge for one that was probably moving more quickly.

On the wall beside the bar counter, the pub proudly displays some certificates issued by the - now defunct, I presume - Guinness pub training programmes. I want to do a writeup on these, but I suspect there's not a lot of info available; but basically Guinness Group, pre-Diageo, ran training courses for publicans, bar managers and bar staff with certification issued. These are very rarely seen now, N0240 Hole in the Wall being the only other place I've seen one.

The relative silence of the lounge made it easy, if not inevitable, to overhear a conversation going on; in which someone expressed their dislike for a notable regular Dublin pub music scene figure's singing style in a manner which was hilarious but also unrepeatable. Not everyone beloved is beloved by all.

The relative inaccessibility of this pub - Google Maps sent me here through housing estate laneways, and there aren't a huge amount of buses from the stop right outside - 'forced' me to have two pints here, as a nearly 30 minute wait was on the cards after just missing the bus I needed. What a terrible imposition to have put upon me!

N0183 Quarry House

In the first of the four posts, I mentioned there was some odd repetition of features across the pubs of this trip. 

I'd previously posted a photo of a pub toilet corridor with "Men to the Left, because Women are always Right" and directional arrows to the respective toilets. This was to be seen in The Willows, and also here in the Quarry House.

Martins featured a small sign on one end of the bar claiming to be something along the line of "auld bollix corner" - that is likely not exactly what it said, I forgot to take note. This is also visible here in the Quarry House.

I'd never considered that this type of signage would become as much of a pub trope as, say, the standard set of pub greebling (old radios, old farm equipment, replica signs); but clearly they have. 

Anyway, there's more to the pub than that. And in the case of this pub, there was also more to their music volume - it was increased from a tolerable background level to Very Very Loud and back to normal again a few times while we were there. There was someone setting up a table quiz, which might have been the issue.

Minor ear splitting aside, this is a nice, large and fairly modern pub. There's a pizza van in the carpark as a food option, which I was going to use and then didn't - instead the fairly cheap and pretty good Marsellas chipper around the corner provided my dinner.

N0154 Cremore House

The route down to the Cremore House from Martins brought me past a friends house, so I knocked in to see if he could come out to play for a pint, and as a result I now had local company for the final two pubs of the evening.

The Cremore was up next, a very old fashioned looking premises inside and out - with the now uncommon high level windows* outside, and dark upholstered furniture inside. The toilets are also on the dated side, but perfectly functional, and I'm not Pub Spy anyway.

Relatively cheap pints were obtained, and we watched Mark Allen's 147 before heading on to the next pub.

An item of odd pub interest is that the entrance door feature door stickers for many beers that are no longer available within the pub, or possibly Ireland in general, such as draught Miller.

*these, allegedly, were required to be replaced with 'normal' window on pubs in the city centre by Garda request - but I've no evidence of this. They can still be seen in some other suburban pubs though

N0153 Martins

Martins isn't the easiest pub to confirm the opening status of - a Facebook dead since 2012, and no other online presence. However, Google had a busy-ness indicator - itself not always accurate as I've seen it tell me a pub that was physically closed at the time was "busier than usual" - and recent reviews; so I could assume it was open

Plus I'd walked past it 45 minutes earlier and actually seen that it was open. That's usually good enough.

A slightly older pub inside than The Willows, but also a lot busier. There was a short queue to get served here, and drop to table - but I'd ordered a single pour drink this time, so there's no real reason to have that.

This is the first pub I've ever seen people openly vaping inside, albeit I've seen very many a surreptitious puff. It wasn't flavoured/scented and wasn't near me, so not something I was bothered about.

N0601 The Willows

Finglas East / Glasnevin North / Its Not Ballymun has four open pubs, and I went to all of them in one evening. I did consider popping in to its former, fifth pub - the Fingal House - which is now a Tesco, but decided it would only be suitable for an in-joke on Instagram, so I didn't.

Each pub is going to get a writeup, but it is worth noting that there were some similarities to all of them which I'll mention across the reviews. 

The Willows, as the northernmost, was the first of my visits - I was getting off the N4 bus and aiming at Broombridge train station so this direction made most sense. 

The most modern internally of the four pubs, with up to date fitout including "neon" - LED tubes - logos of the many of the beer brands on tap, The Willows is a comfortable if slightly loud place to go for a pint. A 'best of 2013' or so music mix was being played at just a tad over the volume I'd have chosen. Volume issues would actually affect me again on this trip, but not in quite the same way.

It is possible that the recent fitout inside is connected to the fire that damaged its outdoor drinking area during the 2020 lockdowns, but I don't know this for sure - there is little online to confirm that there was any indoor damage.

Something interesting here is that, if the pubs website (last updated in December or so) and Instagram are correct, the pub only opens five days a week - Thursday to Monday. This set of days, capturing Monday night football matches and people who are fed up with the new week, while avoiding quieter nights, is fairly common for restaurants near where I live but I've not noticed it on a pub before.

There wasn't a particularly large crowd here, at least in the lounge; and it was quiet enough for a "I'll drop that down to you" pint order.  

S0393 Bradys of Shankill

In my posts on the way out here I pondered as to whether this is the most Southerly pub in County Dublin.

It isn't, Johnny Fox's is. A record it has a totally legit claim to. I've been to Fox's, but before the blog; so this is the furthest South I've been on a specific ticking trip, and as a result one of the furthest trips I've had to do. The temperatures weren't quite Polar Expedition, but I did regret not digging up my gloves.

Looking back at the pubs social media as I usually do, it seems I managed to locate a particularly small part of the pub and didn't notice any ways through to any other sections. 

If I'd looked at my own historical notes (on the map), it should have been obvious it wouldn't be the smallest pub - this used to be the Shanganagh Hotel, with this name turning up until the 1990s although I'm not sure if it still did rooms by then

It's still a fairly substantial pub, but I ended up in a cosy enough lounge area, drinking Beamish out of an antique glass as is often the case - I must write up some musings on how Beamish glasses are often approaching 20 years old.

N1553 The Ploughman

A medium to large size suburban/shopping centre pub with a huge catchment area - the next pub East is in Malahide -  the Ploughman meets the expectations for this type of pub. Well, it actually exceeded mine.

I was heading here for food before a work event - nowhere nearby, but nearly on a direct bus route and allowed me to get food somewhere other than the party venue. This food was delivered to me quicker than any meal in any pub has ever been before - even Wetherspoons, where you are only limited by the speed of the microwave.

I suspect they were cooking large volumes due to the number of parties on that night; but what was brought out to me was freshly prepared. I ordered, went to wash my hands and had my meal on my table within a minute of returning. It was a smashburger and fries, a relatively quick thing to cook; but even then you are usually left waiting a bit longer.

The food itself met expectations and the floor staff were in sufficient numbers to deal with the large enough crowd effectively and professionally. 

My table was beside the wall of upcoming music posters, showing that they had booked two of the biggest names on the Dublin pub music scene (Laurie Hartz and James Brown) for two of the bigger nights of the year (26th and 27th December); so clearly the entertainment offering is important here. 

N0842 Maldron Dublin Airport

This place touts for my lunchtime business but doesn't want me in in the evenings, based on a "residents only after" rule for the bar, with the cut-off being 16:30 as far as I remember.

Rather than get sloshed during a working day; or take a half day to do it more sanely, I waited until I had a pre-6am flight and stayed the night. The price for the room was competitive with paying for the close in carparking, although I hadn't considered that I'd get a taxi home on my return due to the appalling weather. Still, if I'd been driving I couldn't have had Deutsche Bahn Pints on my way to the airport the other side.

The offering is a generic hotel bar with a very poor selection of pints; but the food is fine and the service attentive. 

January 2024 Licence Update

This update is a little late, as I had to ask Revenue to re-export the list as it somehow didn't have counties on it. I could have tried to tie it all together, but it would have been exceptionally hard. Its not a huge list of changes, though

New:

1020755 aalta, Grand Canal Dock - new, highly rated restaurant

Removed:

S0285 Ramblers Rest, Ballybrack - I can't find evidence this has been open since March 2020; but it has been sold. May reappear. May even be open!

Renumbered:

1020305 Radisson Blu Royal, Golden Lane - formerly S4478

1020697 Odeon Point Village - formerly 1012553

1020698 Odeon Charlestown - formerly 1014887

1020699 Odeon Coolock - formerly 1010645

1020776 Black Forge, Crumlin - formerly S1477

1019594 The Whiskey Reserve

This well stocked whiskey off-licence, operated by the adjoining Temple Bar pub, has its own full pub licnece. On a previous visit, it was quite busy and while I could probably have made a pretence of looking at something expensive and paid for a taster of it; I just moved on.

As the final of my "in these circumstances" visits (see previous two posts); I popped in again and noted that they have a small - it might sit ten people - circular bar at the back of the shop. This features the ability to buy a measure of nearly every whisk[e]y in the house - far more than just Irish products are on the shelves - and also has two taps, Guinness and Open Gate Citra

I stayed longer here than I would normally do on a ticking visit, as there was interesting conversation to be had with the small number of other customers - an American couple and another American solo tourist. The circular bar is perfect for this and its quite likely that the customer mix will be similar at other times.

It is rather pricey, but you do know what you're getting in to when you go in.

Revisited Pubs December 2023

I was away - Donegal x2 and East Germany - for a lot of this month so there aren't many entries here

N1989 Radisson Dublin Airport - work party

N0097 Underdog, Bolton/Capel Street - Beoir party

N0313 Kealys, Cloghran - a different work event. Actually two, but no 10:30 pints were obtained on the second one!

N0082 McGraths, Drumcondra - long train gap, as caused most of my visits here from 2006 to now.

1008192 Drury Buildings

This is a pub that I believe you normally have to book in to; and also might be expected to eat in, at least on a weekend afternoon like my visit.

However, with the circumstances mentioned in the previous post (this was two days after the riots), a stool at the bar was available without any problems. As were tables. In hindsight I should probably have eaten here as I don't know when I'll ever remember to make a booking to come back to try the food.

The tap list here is on the very good end for somewhere more food-focused, featuring multiple Irish craft products.