1009200 The Laurels

This labyrinthine pub was very difficult to navigate, due to being exceptionally busy - but, like the previous pub, I found a quiet block of seats. 

In this case, the available seats had no decent view of a TV; but as Ireland were already winning comfortably I didn't feel much need to latch myself to every second of the game

Over a decade before I eventually made it here - even writing that it was that long ago makes me feel incredibly old - so many work nights out that never happened involved The Laurels. I was working in the Airton Road area of Tallaght with quite a few colleagues that lived in Clondalkin; and there were repeated suggestions of "we'll go to The Laurels and see where it goes from there". None of which even got far enough to actually get in to The Laurels; let alone find out where it would go from there - I suspect the Red Cow nightclub, probably.

But I made it here, eventually; and I'm getting towards the end of the Louis Fitzgerald pubs in Dublin. A tad reluctantly, as I loathe to give my money to a chain that both employs awful people (there are also some incredibly sound people working in the chain), and are directly responsible for me getting assaulted (by virtue of ejecting someone incredibly drunk and disorderly in to my path); but as long as they have Dublin pubs I need to tick them off. 

Compulsory Closure - CPOs on Dublin pubs

The requirement to demolish N0236 Hedigans Brian Boru for the proposed Metrolink project has been covered in the media quite extensively recently. While losing a nice pub - with exceptional food photography on their social media - isn't something I'd be in favour of; this is a case of the greater good, and the owners of the pub had proposed demolishing it themselves anyway.

But this is far from the first time a Dublin pub has been demolished as a result of a compulsory purchase order. These have always been justified as being for the greater good - it has to be, to justify getting a CPO. There have been various forms of CPO legislation, going back to the 1890s, but I'll let someone with legal expertise explain those.

Four bodies have CPOed pubs in the records I have found - Dublin Corporation (City Council), Dublin County Council, Pembroke District Council and the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

I'm going to list the CPOs I've found, the reason, and the date published or known to close, below. Some of these may not actually have completed ("vested") for some time afterwards, if ever; but the pubs are still gone!

Something of interest is there are various claims at various times when, due to public opposition to losing their locals, the Corporation promised any replacement construction would include new pubs. There are some notes in the list about this.

Social Housing / "Slum Clearance"

As documented elsewhere, including the excellent Building Healthy Homes book, much of the housing stock in Dublin City was of a terrible quality well in to the 1960s. Slum clearance works occurred across the city enabling the construction of new Corporation housing; and larger landbanks were CPOed for development of large housing estates. These are the pubs that I have found CPOed for housing purposes:

Birthistles, 11 Cuffe Street - 1932 - road widening was an element here, but the CPO was officially for housing

James Meagher, Camac Place - 1938 - I was never aware of this pub prior to this trawl. I suspect that S1429 Bridge House was a replacement for this as the owner requested a nearby site.

Carrolls, 19 Gloucester Place Lower - 1938

Caseys, 13 Marrowbone Lane - 1956

Brian Cullen, 146 Dorset Street Upper - 1956

Murrays, 10 South Earl Street - 1957

Goldenbridge Tavern, 32 St Vincent Street West - 1960

Green Kilt, 121 Gardiner Street Lower - 1983 (marked as disused by this stage)

Lowrys Diamond Bar, 11 Sean McDermott Street Lower - 1983

Murrays, 13 Sean McDermott Street Upper - 1983 - The Dagmar on Railway Street was claimed to be a replacement premises for this

Man of Aran, 30 Ellis Quay - 1985. A replacement pub, most recently N0195 Mission was built for it on the same site but inside an apartment block

Tower Inn, Rivermount, Finglas - 2000

The Red Lion in Newmarket was CPOed in 1944 and again in 1970, for public housing development, which never actually vested either time. The pub closed in the early 2000s, was demolished in the 2020s and now has a Premier Inn hotel on its site.

1002238 Jobstown House was included in the original scope of the 1971 mega-CPO to purchase the land to develop the Jobstown social housing scheme, but was excluded after the public inquiry. Similarly, the (currently closed, but soon to reopen) S1593 Cuckoos Nest in Greenhills was removed from the scope of another social housing CPO.

Road Widening

Dublin has had roads widened on many occasions, going back to the Wide Streets Commission era; and again after motorised road traffic became common in the 30s. However, things got a lot worse in the 70s.

Plans for the Inner Tangent "motorway" - surface dual carriageway with flat junctions and traffic lights - around the city centre in the 1970s actually began, to some extent, with significant widening of the bulk of Parnell Street, Summerhill, Bridgefoot Street and some other areas. There is detailed coverage of this and other parts of this insane traffic plan online already, and I see no need to replicate someone else's work here!

While this plan was eventually dropped, sporadic widening in parts continued until the early 2000s with Cork Street and Clanbrassil Street being the last two majorly affected areas

Additionally, the installation of left turn lanes - something now being removed as unsafe for non-motorised road users - took out at least one pub. 

Michael Delahunty, 2 South Great Georges Street - 1932

James Quinn, 26 Upper Bridge Street - 1938

Teresa Whelan, 33 Saint Augustine Street - 1943

O'Beirnes, 30 Kevin Street Upper - 1970, finally vested in 1991 but pub closed and demolished in the interim

Jim's Tavern, 29 Bolton Street - 1971 (and again in 1980)

Bourkes, 1 Ushers Quay - 1977. This CPO also destroyed the arched entranceway to S1475 Brazen Head.

The Commodore, 21 Parnell Street - 1979

Dunnes, 12 Patrick Street - 1984

Joe McDonald, 21 Patrick Street - 1984

Birchalls, 25 Patrick Street - 1984

Byrnes, 36 Patrick Street - 1984 (but shown as already closed on CPO order)

Lowes, 7 Dean Street - 1984

Larkin Bros, Clanbrassil Street - 1984

Bunch of Grapes, Clanbrassil Street - 1984, closed 1989 (I believe S2517 Peadar Browns is the notional replacement for this)

White House, 45 New Street South - 1984

Summerhill Inn, 121 Summerhill - 1985 - there had been a previous CPO in 1947 that was not acted on

The Hamlet, 137-138 Summerhill - 1985

Hogans, 39 Cork Street - 1985

New Inn, 68 New Street - 1993 

Gaffneys, 21 Cork Street - 1998 - previously CPOed 1985 but never vested

N1097 Conways, 70 Parnell Street was CPOed in 1979, but never vested. This pub is still licenced to this day, but has not traded for decades

Other Reasons

Norths, 16 Fitzwilliam Street, Ringsend - this area was CPOed in 1918 under an "improvement scheme", but was replaced by Ringsend Library and not housing

Marie Grealishs (8 North Wall Quay) and the Liverpool Bar (11 North Wall Quay) were CPOed in 1998 for the general redevelopment of the North docks; but both were long closed - the Liverpool is closed in 1990 press photos - and possibly even demolished by this stage.

1989's 100 Best Pubs

Exactly 35 years ago today, the Evening Herald published a "100 Best Pubs" listing, compiled by the late writer and satirist Paddy Murray. Billed as an "extended pub crawl", it listed 100 Dublin pubs - the Herald was still very much a Dublin paper at this stage, with a 1-20 listing and the remaining 80 listed in a selection of rather odd categories.

I've done a run-down of a now 17 years ago 100 Pubs listing - a Dubliner book rather than a newspaper article in that case - so going back twice as far should be of some interest anyway.

Interestingly, despite trawling the newspaper archives for pub related content, this never turned up in a search. I found a copy of the first page of it on a newspaper wall - the number 2 entry - during a recent visit and managed to eventually find the article based on phrases within it. I knew it had to be the Herald and had to be ~1988-1990 based on the price of a pint mentioned, which reduced the search window.

So, first on to our Top 20. I am going to list pubs as they are named in the article, with any further info as I see fit

1: Clarkes of Irishtown - this will be the original Clarkes, now S0160 the Merry Cobbler not the current S0158 Clarkes. Same operating family, however

2: S0397 Byrnes of Galloping Green - at the time of writing this, I have visited but not yet written up my trip to Byrnes. It certainly has plenty to recommend.

3: N0205 Ryans of Parkgate Street

4: S0300 Gleesons of Booterstown

5: S0282 The Club, Dalkey

6: Kitty O'Sheas, Grand Canal Street - long demolished and replaced, but S0179 The Gasworks operates using its licence. The old pub was sort-of used for a template for copy and paste Irish bars across the globe, which I will eventually write about.

7: S0182 Smyths of Haddington Road

8: N0134 Gaffneys, Fairview

9: The Horse and Tram, Eden Quay - this was closed for many years and has reopened as 1018821 Meaghers

10: N0169 The Elphin, Baldoyle Road - the only extant pub in the top 20 that I have yet to visit

11: Kellys, Sir John Rogersons Quay - the first completely gone pub in the list

12: S1527 Bradys of Terenure

13: S1760 Terenure Inn

14: S0167 O'Reillys of Sandymount

15: S0112 O'Neills of Suffolk Street

16: N0137 Harry Byrnes, Howth Road

17: N1066 The Bachelor Inn, Bachelors Walk - this is the first extant but not trading premises on the list. I expect it will reopen

18: S0091 The Long Hall, South Great Georges Street

19: 1007737 Peters Pub, South William Street

20: S0010 The Dawson Lounge, Dawson Street

There's some odd clumping of premises here, and there's some that'd be nowhere near my personal top 20; if you tied me down and forced me to write one. But these are always subjective.

Now we get on to the un-ranked, 21-100 pubs; categorised in their odd ways

We have the "Just Trendy" pubs

* N0128 The Sheds, Clontarf

* S0411 Stags Head, Dame Court

* S0001 Kehoes, South Anne Street

* 1003271 Joxer Dalys, Dorset Street - this is not the first 80s article I have seen claiming this to be trendy. While still a good pub, this has really, really changed!

* S0243 Comans, Rathgar - sort of still trading via the Bottlers Bank element of the premises

* N1097 Conways, Parnell Street - licenced yet closed for decades

* 1007228 The Clock, Thomas Street - recently reopened as Love Tempo

* N1126 Kennys, Lucan

* S0265 Dunphys, Dun Laoghaire

* S0279 Fitzgeralds, Glenageary

* Vallence & McGrath, North Wall Quay - another odd entry here I'd think. Reopened some years ago as 1016228 The Bottle Boy

* 1017216 The Dockers, Sir John Rogersons Quay - reopened recently after a very lengthy closure.

* S0207 The Lower Deck, Portobello

* The Pier House, Howth - now N0772 O'Connells

* Smiths, Malahide - now N0315 Fowlers. This I believe is a typo from Smyths too.

* S0198 Cassidys, Camden Street

* S0181 The 51, Haddington Road

* N0241 Halfway House, Ashtown

* S0024 Hartigans, Leeson Street

* S0084 The Norseman, Essex Street

* 1014863 The Yacht, Clontarf

Then we move on to "Trendy and Yuppie". 

* S0187 The Dropping Well, Milltown

* S0295 O'Rourkes, Blackrock

* O'Dwyers, Lower Mount Street - now the Leinster Hotel after a long time of being Howl at the Moon

* Larry Murphys, Baggot Street - now S0143 Thomas R Mahers

* 1013257 Gibneys, Malahide

* S0061 Horseshoe Bar, Shelbourne Hotel, Stephens Green

* Bartley Dunnes, Lower Stephen Street - replaced by Bartley's bar in the Grafton Hotel, was Break for the Border

* Harrys Bar, Point Depot - gone since the 00s redevelopment. A replacement Harrys Bar ended up as a subterranean nightclub but has also been removed to allow construction of the Exo building and Glasshouse bar.

* N0594 The Cedars, Raheny

Then there's "Just yuppie". These are meant to be the authors favourite bars, so presumably he is defining himself as yuppie?

* S0304 McCormacks, Mounttown - this never struck me as yuppie when I was brought here in the 90s; and with the notorious Mounttown flats basically next door back then; I don't think it ever was!

* Scruffy Murphys, Powers Court - closed

* Bellamys, Ballsbridge - now 1011804 The Bridge 1859

* S0186 Ashtons, Clonskeagh

* S0394 Horse and Hound, Cabinteely

* The Other Place, Lower Mount Street - now S0150 O'Connors

* The Magic Carpet, Cabinteely - now a Dunnes Stores

* S0172 Waterloo House, Upper Baggot Street

We now move past the mild prejudice and in to what are considered pubs "for drinking men".

* S0035 Mulligans, Poolbeg Street

* N0078 Kavanaghs, Glasnevin - The Gravediggers to most people

* N0234 The Hut, Phibsboro

* Fingal House, Glasnevin - now a Tesco

* S0088 Foggy Dew, Foynes Street

* S0048 Kennedys, Westland Row

* The Submarine, Walkinstown - now reopened in part as S1476 Rory O'Connors

* The Regal Inn, Hawkins Street - now S0023 Chaplins

* N0222 Mulligans, Stoneybatter

* S0368 The Blue Light, Sandyford

* S0254 O'Dwyers, Kilmacud (visited but not yet written up)

* Eagle House, Dundrum - now S0250 Pye

* 1006700 County Bar, Ballyfermot

* N1203 Chasers, Ballyfermot

* N1057 Downeys, Ballyfermot

* The Long Miler, Long Mile Road - now N1119 Castle Inn

* Regans, Tara Street - most recently S0040 Ruin before being demolished

* N0166 The Summit, Howth

Some of these pubs have changed significantly in style since, but for the most part, these are correctly categorised

There is now a list of "Rugby pubs". This was not a brilliant period in Irish rugby history - we had won the Five Nations in 1985, but were in the doldrums by 1989 - but there's always rugby pubs

* S0162 Crowes, Ballsbridge

* S0172 Waterloo House, Baggot Street - yes, this has been listed twice

* Horgans, Baggot Street - I haven't got the vaguest idea what this is; and this is the only thing in the Newspaper Archives to mention it.

* S0184 Leeson Lounge, Leeson Street - currently closed after a period of being a wine off-licence

* S0212 McCloskeys, Morehampton Road

* S0163 Paddy Cullens, Ballsbridge (visited pre-blog)

The next category is "Institutions", which I would have thought was at least partially covered by the Drinking Mens Pubs, and while there's no crossovers there, there is a double entry with another category.

* N0024 Hogan Stand, North Circular Road

* N0243 The Anglers Rest, Chapelizod

* N0245 The Wrens Nest, Chapelizod

* S0194 The Hill, Ranelagh

* N0241 The Halfway House, Ashtown - apparently both an Institution and Trendy. 

* N1099 Sackville Lounge, Sackville Place

* S0336 Johnnie Foxes, Glencullen (visited pre-blog)

* S0086 The Palace, Fleet Street

* S0230 The Yellow House, Rathfarnham

* The Four Seasons, Bolton Street - now N0097 Underdog. An institution to me, perhaps not the type they meant here.

A small category for "Literati" next

* S0018 Bowes, Fleet Street

* Burkes, Hill Street - closed permanently, was N0096 Hill Street Sports Bar most recently. This entry seems out of place in this list

* S0002 Doheny and Nesbitts, Merrion Row

* S0029 O'Donoghues, Merrion Row

"Music Pubs" get an even smaller listing, oddly

* Mother Redcaps, Christchurch - newly opened at the time and long closed by now

* S0302 Purty Kitchen, Dun Laoghaire

* The Baggot Inn, Baggot Street - now S0004 Xico, rather different in its music sensibilities

The final category is almost like one I'd do - Paddy lists pubs that are already gone!

* The Princes Bar, Princes Street - closed ~1974

* The Pearl, Fleet Street - closed ~1973

* The White Swan, Burgh Quay - I have this recorded as the Silver Swan; closed in the 70s. Licence transferred to the ill-fated Stardust nightclub

* Rices, Stephens Green - had only recently closed

* Sinnotts, Stephens Green - original pub had only recently closed, replacement pub with this name in the redeveloped shopping centre

So, only a few of this top 100 are still outstanding for me - I must do another check on the Dublin 2007 listing, as it was written up a while ago and I've mopped up much of what is left since.

S1485 Quinlans Black Lion

Clondalkin Village features four pubs that are exceptionally close to each other; and this is the one closest to the bus stop which I was alighting from, so it was the first of four for me on this trip.

A vast pub with a very modern fitout, the bulk of the pub was absolutely rammed due to the Ireland rugby match that was about to start - however, for whatever reason, despite having TVs the area inside the door was all free; so I was able to get a seat pretty easily.

It isn't much of a spoiler to say all four pubs in the village (and the fifth outside a bit) were on the busy end of things on this trip, but I'd say that - this seating area aside - the Black Lion was second busiest, and coming second, when even fifth is still doing trade that plenty of places would kill for, suggests significant popularity here.

The usual suburban put setup of sports, food and evening music are all heavily signalled on their social media and on signs inside the pub.

N0269 Killians of Naul

Open from 16:30, said Google Maps; so I rearranged the order of pubs I was being driven to so that we wouldn't arrive vastly before then.

On arrival at ~16:10, the pub was clearly already open. Oh well.

As we stepped inside, an indication of why the Google times might not be entirely up to date became apparent - Killians is cash only, so I don't get the impression than modern things like "the internet" are the most important thing for them (although they do have an Instagram page). My emergency 50, which has previously come in handy when one till in the otherwise card-only 3Arena had no card reader and allowed me to queue hop, got deployed again here.

A nice small-ish pub that is somehow both one room and two rooms at once - a linear setup with space either side of the main door - the bar doesn't go in to the unusual barrel roofed bit of the building.

If there was more tourist draws to Naul - there is the Seamus Ennis Centre, which as it has a theatre licence, I do need to visit - this would probably be quite well known as a pretty, traditional pub. I'll try make sure to drop back in whenever I do go see something in the Seamus Ennis.

N0308 Quinns (Garristown)

I visited Garristown on a previous roadtrip, to tick off Gormleys Pub across the road. During that visit, the then Garristown Inn was a sorry sight, approaching dereliction after many years of closure.

But during the 2020-2021 lockdown, the pub was sold and extensively renovated before reopening as a pub and guesthouse in 2021 (as far as I can tell, anyway). Its re-appearance on the licence register let me know it was open, as pubs outside the city centre get fairly little coverage and often don't get suggested to me on social media either.

You can tell that the fitout is quite new as the pub is immaculate inside, done in a relatively modern style, but not to a level that makes it out of place

We - this is still on the driver trip - got a light lunch here, which was good; off an interesting menu - and were amongst the last people to do so (for now at least), as within days the closure of the kitchen due to costs was announced. This is unfortunate and hopefully it can come back at some stage in the future.

DG0478 Man O'War

One of the most traditionally rural looking pubs in Dublin has one of the oddest names. And its thatched, too, for peak quaintness.

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It isn't the only thatched pub in Dublin; but they aren't common - there is a cluster of sorts in South Dublin (The Glenside, Taylors Three Rock, Stillorgan Orchard) and one in Lucan (Courtneys) as well as possibly more; but these are all in urban settings.

The pub is named after the area it is in, which has been called that for three hundred years or more. The pubs website provides multiple different potential sources for the area name; and also claims that it dates to 1595 - as with most pub age claims, this cannot really be verified but is likely more solid than some of the early dates claimed in the city centre. The pub is sited on the former Dublin-Dunleer (and onwards North) turnpike, long since bypassed and bypassed again, but definitely in a site that had passing traffic that long ago.

One bit of its heritage that needs some urgent work is the simple mosaic doorstep on the way in to the bar, which is currently crumbling - many tiles are missing and some were completely loose when I visited - but otherwise the pub is in good condition. 

Food is a major draw here; considering it isn't that easy to get here without a car, but there is still a drinks focused bar at the end. Like the previous pub, this is interestingly greebled - there's a large aircraft propeller above the bar, which may be real or may just be a prop prop (quite possibly the worst pun I'm ever going to write here).

DG0488 Balscadden Inn

This was the first of a road trip - I had a driver, don't worry - of North County Dublin rural pubs; a repeat of sorts of one done a few weeks before the pandemic closed everything down back in 2020; but on a much nicer day weather-wise.

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The Balscadden Inn is a pretty country pub, with a few different areas including a beer garden across the road from the building. Currently owned by the Reilly Group, who also have two pubs in Balbriggan, this pub has changed hands a few times over the years and doesn't have a particularly detailed documented history anywhere - the owners seem allergic to having websites - they have a group domain for email but with no website, and the other pubs only have their websites as Flipdish frontends to order food.  

Regardless, it is clearly quite old. The outer door to the bar is just high enough for me to stand up in; and the inner door requires crouching. 

The bar area is interestingly greebled, and offers quite reasonable prices, there's wifi for uploading your Instagram pics when there's no mobile coverage inside the thick walls and other facilities are in decent nick.

This is by a decent margin the Northernmost pub in Dublin - Stamullen and Gormanstown having none that creep over the border. 

Revisited Pubs February 2024

Bit of a mix of revisited pubs this month, with one not a regular by any means featuring in a short list for a short month.

N0082 McGraths - regular train gap location

N1129 Ball Alley House - I needed to change bus at some point, and directly outside a pub is as a good as any, and I was left with a 30 minute gap.

S3908 The Well - regular meeting location

March 2024 Register Update

Tiny update this month, just the one thing of note

New:

1020862 NYX Hotel, Portobello - new hotel from what was Jurys Inns at Portobello Harbour

N2258 Salmons

Another pub where it was rather awkward to actually get to the bar to get a pint. I wonder if I start a campaign to keep a drink orderers area clear - rather like the service area often left clear in pubs for staff - if anyone else would support it.

This is another Very Very Big Pub, in a suburban shopping centre. The current pub building is an early 2000s build, replacing the previous structure which was destroyed in a gas explosion in 1999. 

I believe the new build may have moved slightly from the original footprint, with the original site having lain empty until a new Iceland - now becoming a Tesco after Iceland's second exit from the Irish market - store was built on it a few years ago. 

The large lounge area has a larger dart board... painted on the wall around the normal size one. I might be able to consistently hit the outer one, I suspect.

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A busy enough premises even as the match was drawing to a close, I was able to get a table under one of the TVs after having found it slightly difficult to actually get to the bar. For my second pint, this was ordered over the people at the bar and dropped down by the staff - so the crowding on the bar stools isn't actually a problem.

The pub has kitchens, but they were not operating when I visited; and this made me go a little quicker after realising I could make a train home in time for dinner rather than need to source food elsewhere.