1002618 Taylors Three Rock

Would we get some respite from how busy the Southsides pubs were here, in this vast premises?

Would we bollox. Only one area appeared to be open to normal punters - this is a show bar, and the buses for same arrived when we were leaving later - and despite this section being pretty big; we ended up perching at a barrel inside the door.

This is the final premises I needed to visit that gives me a double tick - there are two licences here; a hotel (public bar) licence and a theatre licence - a duality that allows serving during normal hours without requiring there to be a performance on; and to serve during a performance without needing a specific late exemption. 

Once upon a time, these were common across Dublin - most nightclubs and some late bars had them to allow late opening, which at times went much later than what became allowable after the 2008 "reforms" - the first stage of the neo-prohibitionist streak of recent decades. Many premises have got rid of the theatre licence still, but Taylors is still present. I'm not sure if the hotel is actually available to book these days, but there is no requirement to keep the hotel going to keep the licence going; once it is a public licence - the residents only version, which I don't cover, needs residents to exist.

I assume that the bulk of the trade in the section that I visited was locals, rather than people early for the show; and it gives the impression of a nicely busy locals pub from that crowd.