N1804 Travelodge Dublin Airport

Prepare for a journey through space and time! You're going to be whisked to Somewhere in England, and somewhere in the early 1990s. And while this may accidentally sound like some era-appropriate Scooter lyrics; there's a reason for it.

This pub was a Little Chef. As in the semi-recently defunct brand of roadside restaurants that you're more likely to remember from family holidays in England than from Ireland. And if you know what their standard architecture is, this jumps out immediately as one

To those of us who are or were roadwarriors at some stage, this is blatantly a Little Chef. It's now a little chef with a liquor licence (I wish that was more perfectly alliterative); and that's why I came here on the bus. pic.twitter.com/dY3PTWajWV

— Cian Duffy (@cian_duffy) March 30, 2024

The Little Chef brand entered Ireland for a decade or so in the early 1990s; all co-sited with Travelodge hotels, which were in shared ownership at the time. I believe there were 5 Little Chef locations in Ireland at peak, at hotels on major roads. In 2005, these closed and those outside Dublin became Eddie Rockets; with the two in Dublin remaining with the hotels as their restaurant - these hotels were both in relatively isolated locations, this one on the by then bypassed N1; and the other near the M50/N3 interchange in Castleknock.

With the knowledge that there was a licence here, I knew I'd have to drop by at some point; but when driving past I noticed that the former Little Chef was now branded as a Smokin Bones - you'll have seen the photo already. And Smokin Bones website mentioned a full bar. Its also rather better food than I was expecting to get at a Travelodge.

When you go in to Smokin Bones, you don't get much indication that this was ever a Little Chef - no decor remains, and the menu is very different. A burger with pulled pork topping and a pint of Hope isn't quite what I'd eaten in Welsh Little Chef's out of dire need ten minutes before closing time when racing back to Holyhead at night anyway.

However, if you go to the toilets, you'll walk straight back in to that 1993 Little Chef; with fixtures and fittings the same as installed over 30 years ago, from giant pastel plastic door handles to hand dryers with 6 digit 01 phone numbers on them.

There's always a period between something becoming dated before it becomes retro chic, or indeed worthy of preservation - as possibly the only 90s Little Chef interior left in Ireland, this could end up reaching the final category in time!

1013980 Premier Inn Airside

Premier Inn now have a number of hotels in Dublin, with a subset of them having public licences on the register (so far); but this one has been on the register since day one of this blog. For many years, their only property in Dublin - or indeed in Ireland - was this one, the result of an acquisition.

Whitbread, the owner of Premier Inns, purchased the UK chain Golden Tulip in 2007; who had only recently expanded in to Ireland with this hotel; and while they retained it, they showed little interest in expanding in Ireland for many years. They have now started expanding at an immense pace, so presumably they eventually saw a market here!

I've stayed in many Premier Inns in the UK and in Germany; which give you very different ideas of whether the bars are public are not - UK ones are usually either built beside a pub (older style locations); or have a bar buried somewhere deep within; whereas the German ones I've stayed in have had a very public lobby bar. My previous brief glance at the other currently public licenced Premier Inn in Dublin - 1018396 on Georges Street - had failed to even see a bar; so I suspected we may have UK-style bars here; but I was in the area and decided to wander past.

And indeed we do have a UK style bar, behind reception; but it's easily visible from outside and its quite easy to just walk past the reception desk. 

I was not asked for proof of staying there to get served; but I'm not sure you'd be bothered - there's a limited tap selection, and you are drinking in a hotel bar overlooking the carpark of a retail park. But a tick is a tick.

Celeb's Favourite Pubs: 1985 style

Another archives dig and another bit of gold - the Sunday Press gave a full page in August 1985 over to asking Irish notables, possibly a bit less "celebrity" than an equivalent piece today, what their favourite pubs were. 

As the Sunday Press was a national paper, there's plenty of pubs outside of Dublin, and because there's only ten I may as well list the lot of them

Neil Jordan

Neil references two pubs, one of which we'll have to guess at as its not named. "A pub on the quays, beside the cinemas. It had a big marble table and the dockers stood around drinking their pints" - this sounds like what is now, after a high quality refurb, 1018821 Meaghers on Eden Quay, which sits beside two former cinemas; the only place which had cinemas plural on the quays anyway.

His second mention is for N0171 Manhattan in Raheny

Anne Doyle

Ann, as they call her for some reason, choses S0012 The Duke, then widely known as Tobins

Ivor Kenny

(Ivor Kenny was a founder of the Irish Management Institute)

Ivor opts for Kelehans, Bushy Park, Galway; a pub which is still trading but obviously outside my scope for normal content

Gay Byrne

Gay Byrne opts for two pubs in Dungloe and, by random coincidence of where my family is from and having done a writeup of Dungloes pubs, I've actually been to one of them, even though it is currently not trading

Beedys was, and indeed now is again shut (it did reopen), when I did my writeup; and Johnnies, as he calls it, is Mulherns across the road from it. I don't know its licence number as it appears to have not surfaced on the register whilst open; and has been shut for a while. 

Mary McEvoy

S0035 Mulligans, Poolbeg Street is given here; along with Tí Johnny Shéain in Inverin. This pub is not trading as a pub, but has been converted to a cafe, Pota. I believe this pub was popular/important with people involved in TnaG/TG4 in its early days; as it is extremely close to it - but this list predates TG4 by 11 years!

Lord Henry Mountcharles

The 'rock and roll Lord' gives four different answers here, after his own home bar (whether this was reinstated following the fire, I don't know); and may indicate that he was not frequently in Dublin despite opting for three there.

S0059 Buswells Hotel - as a Fine Gael politician at the time, this would make sense, location wise; the Champagne Bar in the Phoenix Park Racecourse (this having recently reopened), and for after the races, N0205 Ryans of Parkgate Street.

He also picks Morans Oyster Cottage in Clarinbridge, for its seafood but also its pints.

John Hume

John Hume opts for what he refers to as a "talking pub", Da Vincis on the Culmore Road in Derry. This is now a hotel of the same name.

Noelle Campbell-Sharp

(Noelle Campbell-Sharp was a magazine publisher at that time. She is still alive at time of writing and now better known for arts involvement)

Noelle opts for the Horseshoe Bar of S0061 Shelbourne Hotel, for its cocktail prowess

Jim Kemmy

(Jim Kemmy was a Democratic Socialist Party and later Labour TD for Limerick)

Jim's choice is the White House in Limerick, which claims to be Limericks Oldest Bar

Fergal Quinn 

(Fergal Quinn was the founder of Superquinn, a Senator and, at the time, chair of An Post)

Fergal opted for a pub that was already gone, Mary Maher's in Corofin, Clare.

RetroReviews: S3454 The Odeon

This RetroReview is up next, because I checked my revisited list and found it sitting there as one I've not written up yet.

The visit was in 2019, from when I started doing the revisited lists; but never mind. I think that means I have a writeup published or scheduled for every Dublin pub I've visited since August 2016, be it new or a revisit.

So this pub is a train station. Its not a pub *in* a train station, like the selection of Railway Refreshment Room licenced premises we have in Dublin (S3132 O'Reillys, N0002 Madigans, S1512 Galway Hooker, N1879 Bloody Stream); it is a train station. Or, it was a train station.

Harcourt Street Railway Station operated for just under a century, from 1859 to 1958; when it - and the line, which connected Harcourt Street to north of Bray - closed. The station building continued to operate as, aptly for my purposes, a bar and restaurant and also the CIÉ Liquor Museum, for about a year afterwards but the building was sold and converted to offices. 

And offices it remained, until the 1990s; when it was converted in to two licenced premises - the train shed and basements becoming the S3032 POD nightclub complex (which will likely be the last RetroReviews to get written when I go back and fill in places that shut pre 2016, cause I'll do them in sorted order); and the booking hall and railway offices becoming The Odeon. 

POD opened in 1993, with The Odeon opening in 1998. The "The" in the name seems to be semi optional, it isn't always used; and the name itself needs some explanation - the Odeon cinema chain had left Ireland in the 1950s and only re-entered under their own name in 2012, having managed the UCI and Storm chains for a few years before. The pub opened when there would have been no clash with the name.

So, after all that history, should you expect a particularly historic interior? No. The 60s office conversion put paid to most of the interesting features; and while the interior is that of a quite classic and plush bar; it's not a railway ticket hall, let alone an original railway dining room - you need to go to aforementioned Galway Hooker for that.

[The] Odeon ends up being an "events bar" for me for whatever reason - I've attended everything from 21st birthdays to company Christmas parties there; and had my own leaving party from the job I spent the single longest period in (I've worked for longer in one company over two stints) there. I suspect that may be quite a major element of their business, with the premises no longer even opening Sunday or Monday

DG0508 Balrothery Inn

Balrothery lies just beyond even my willing walking distance, at 2.5km from the previous pub; but the frequently scheduled, and Leap accepting, Bus Éireann 101 service connects the two. With headways of as little as 20 minutes, this should have been an easy method to connect between the pubs.

It wasn't.

Multiple buses were no-shows; with Bus Éireanns Twitter claiming that the company was unable to mark buses as cancelled on RTPI (I used to work in CIÉ and can confirm this is a lie); directing me to their own website where apparently the service cancellations would be listed.

They weren't.

The buses in use - when one turned up - look great, but are also absolutely horrible to enter and exit for those of abnormal height; with a downstairs cabin that is significantly below 2m in height. 

I eventually got to the pub, very pissed off with the entire experience. Thankfully, the pub is quite nice.

The pub was set up for floor service of food, but I was directed to sit where I wanted. On ordering a Beamish, the barman expressed his desire that more people would drink it as it might quell Diageo's desire for constant price increases, the latest at the time having been announced a few days earlier.

It was a relatively nice day, but the outdoor seats I noticed were those facing the carpark, not the best to sit in - there's photos online of a much nicer set that I assume are out the back somewhere. However, the traditionally looking lounge was a more than sufficient place to wait.

I timed my pints here to the scheduled time of another 101 bus; heading out when it was due... and it didn't show up. Of course. The next one, ~25mins later, did - I'd have much preferred another pint than standing in a bus shelter during that time!

1000734 Bracken Court Hotel

There's quite a big bar here, but its bordering on the hotel lobby feel rather than being more like a pub. It did, however, have some non-macro beer on tap; something completely missing from the rest of the then open pubs in Balbriggan.

The hotel is a modern build, dating from 2000; but on the site of a late Victorian hotel - the Hamilton Arms. That building appears to have survived the Sack of Balbriggan, but not the Celtic Tiger.

DG0482 The Central / Mrs O's

"Vape / electronic cigarette devices are banned from the 1st of April" stated the signs in here, in the very dying days of March. I didn't see anyone actually vaping inside to celebrate their final days of being allowed to; though - possibly this was far less of a problem than the number of signs would indicate.

Since my visit here, a pub has (re)opened in Balbriggan with an even more prescriptive set of rules - banning the wearing of hats and coats indoors and strongly suggesting you need a collared shirt and shoes; something that reminds me of nightclubs when I was a teenager. Maybe Balbriggan just likes rules. I'm much more in favour of banning vapes inside than banning runners though, considering I do need to actually get in to pubs myself.

Rules aside, this was a decent local pub with nothing terribly memorable about it - as explained many times before, this is actually good in nearly every case - if I remember something particularly special it's usually bad!

RetroReviews: S3908 The Well

This is almost certainly the most frequent entry in my Revisited Pubs list that didn't already have an article to link to. This is because a monthly event I attempt to attend - the brick.ie Lego meetup - has normally been held here since the Lego store opened on Grafton Street. This being the venue is at least partially my fault, having been able to run through potential options that would have the space that we were used to in the old location; and have food. We are occasionally unable/unwilling to get a booking due to a clash - the meetings are not particularly raucous and sometimes there's something else on in The Well that really is!

Now, The Well only opened in 2018; which is after the late 2016 date where my cutoff for pre- and post- blog is. But, as the letter-series licence number indicates, this is a much older premises than that.

Originally opening along with the extension to the Stephens Green Centre (that gave us TK Maxx and the Fitzwilliam Hotel), this was Dublin's short-lived branch of Planet Hollywood. I never attended - the other Fifth Class in my primary school had their school tour there while we went bowling, the bastards - but it was actually open for a bit longer than I remembered; December 1997 until October 2001, although it had been sold to Capital Bars in the interim.

And Capital then converted it to what I first attended it as, the Dandelion nightclub/bar - its name referencing the Dandelion Market, which once operated on part of the site that the Stephens Green Centre was built on, and which was a legendary gig venue in its own right.

Dandelion had a number of incarnations, including as a more serious dance venue, and latterly as a more food focused bar. 

The Well has some occasional events that hark back to the nightclub era; but is generally run more as the food focused bar that the late stage Dandelion was, offering Italian main courses and pizzas alongside the nearly entire Molson Coors tap lineup - Aspalls Cyder instead of the Bulmers or Orchard Thieves taps you'd regularly find in Dublin being a notable standout from that.

DG0486 The Harvest Inn

This is the sister pub of the previous (non-RetroReview) pub; and for all the standard Irish pub of the 1990s vibe that the Milestone has; the Harvest has the vibe of a (very) high end pub of the 1980s. Palm trees and marble are in the lounge, at least - Google shows me other interiors that may be the bar and grill side of the operation.

This was the quieter of the pair, and I'd probably head in here for a pint if I was local, waiting to see if Joan Collins would turn around the corner. Probably see her shoulder pads before I'd see her.

RetroReviews: S0119 Against the Grain

There couldn't really be a worse time to do a writeup for a pub first visited a few months before the blog (January 2016), and visited many times since - having just recently been sold from the Galway Bay Brewing chain and rebranded as "Teach Tábhairne" (yes, they've called a pub Pub, basically); it is unlikely to be anything like it was before.

Like a lot of the GBB pubs, this premises had more names than you should care to remember in the ~10 years or so before GBB took it over - they were a stabilising force in the pre private equity ownership days; and it ran as their Dublin flagship for many years. S0083 Beer Temple now realistically holds that role, being a bigger and more central premises.

The similar elements of the non-hotel GBB bars were all here - the bockety furniture, the stickers, no TVs except maybe during free-to-air games; and a huge difference from every other pub on 'the strip', as I've seen some people hideously attempt to call the Georges-Aungier-Redmonds Hill-Wexford-Aungier Street alignment.

It's immediately clear that it won't be like this now - one of the first social media posts from the new operators was listing multiple GAA and rugby matches that they would be showing over the weekend.

RetroReviews: 1017068 Rascals Brewery

Back during the horrors of 2020/1, I padded out the months between getting any new ticks - or indeed any pints that weren't drunk outside of the one pub in my suburb still serving takeout - by writing up reviews of pubs I had visited before starting this massive consumer of time "journey" in August 2016.

I got, on the licence register of the day, through all the numeric licences, all the N licences and the start of the S licences before pubs reopened. But I really need to finish the S licences; and catch anything that was missed from that page or otherwise snuck under the radar. So here starts an occasional revisit to the RetroReviews series.

And this premises is one that snuck under - I had first visited it (and had pints there) when it held a Special Restaurant Licence, so when it appeared with a Publicans (Ordinary) licence, I just ticked it off - and it doesn't appear on the pre-2016 list, as that first visit was in 2019. 

But it appeared on last months Revisited list, with no post to link to - so it's time to rectify that. I'm going to do posts for any pub that appears on Revisited; as a start towards finishing the list and actually having a post for everywhere I visited.

Anyway - on to the pub. This is the only 'traditional' tap room in Dublin, being a large industrial space in front of Rascal's actual brewery, and with a few of some elements of the brewery. Tours are offered; but you can come in here for beer, for pizza or to get takeout, or any combo of those - the wonders of having a Publicans licence. The music is generally curated to a high standard - Rascals marketing manager being an long term radio professional.

The beer's good - although the tap list can vary significantly depending on what guest and specials are tapped at any given time - and the pizza's good too. I would recommend a booking unless coming here on a weeknight - I have been here on some very busy nights, but also on some much quieter ones during the week.

Revisited Pubs, April 2024

edit: forgot the first pub initially

S0048 Kennedys, Westland Row - waiting for a train in Pearse; and the Ginger Man doesn't open Sundays.

1017068 Rascals Brewery Inchicore - for Christina Wade's book launch

1013315 Button Factory / Crowbar Curved Street - for a gig I'd rather prefer not to have gone to

S0083 Beer Temple Dame Street- just checking it's still there, with everything going on in GBB

1003309 Hogs & Heifers Airside - just food, but there for long enough (note that H&H is now in the former TGI Fridays unit. I also visited its original unit while it was in the Wright Venue; but before the licences were split. This is a very confusing, short bit of history)

DG0485 The Milestone

While nowhere close to the Irish Pub Company 'standards' of the 90s, this is almost what you might get if you ordered "small town Irish pub" from a catalogue. Dark wood, dark patterned fabrics, glass, uncomfortable chairs and a general feeling that there's a food service time and a drinking time to the operating hours.

I arrived to drink during food-time; and initially sat at a table that, after a quick visit to use the facilities, had a table with young children beside it. I moved to another area and found that I was, again, beside kids - somewhat older this time though. At least I was only staying for one.

This pub is owned by the same group as the pub directly across the road (and the previously visited Balscadden Inn); both of which feature a 1923 construction date prominently on the facade. Without doing any proper research in to this, I'm going to guess they are both replacement buildings from after the Sack of Balbriggan in 1920.

(no number yet) The Morris

Yet another tick that doesn't register, initially - The Morris opened in December but is yet to grace a published licence register. I could probably just ask them for their licence number, considering I've had a conversation going with whoever does their Instagram for a while now.

Not to blag - I don't lower myself to that - but to find out when they are open; as the pub has fairly limited, fairly late opening hours; and I had attempted to go in on a Saturday afternoon before when it was not yet open.

These later hours don't seem to be affecting trade, though; as I arrived within 30mins of opening and the place was rammed. Not rammed beyond being able to get a seat; but that would come shortly after.

The shopfront here - preserved in part from the Morris Wallpaper Stores that gives the pub its name - has a central door, but you actual enter through a smaller door to the left. This does not make someone approaching the place after a few pints and trying the main door look the most competent, and may help the door staff in decisions; but I was let in regardless.

There's a mix of craft and macro taps here; and pizza on offer - I suspect from an external source, but I didn't dig in to it. An interesting new addition to the range of pubs on Talbot Street and quite different from the rest of them.

1012141 Holiday Inn Express

This hotel, a conversion of the former Eircom HQ, has had a public bar licence for quite some time now - but despite briefly looking at it, I never noticed where the bar was. I suspect I was paying too much attention to the coffee shop on the corner, thinking it might be in there.

It isn't - its in the overall reception area. I noticed it when passing on foot and decided to dive in.

There is a small bar with a small range of taps; and it really isn't set up for outside customers - but they do allow them. You need to be buzzed in to the toilets by the reception desk for instance, due to not having a room key and them not having some dummy jacks-only cards at the bar like other places sometimes do.

Anyway, the mission was to tick the place off, and that's done. I don't need to come back here and see if they do get to destroy the outdoor area of the Living Room.

Licence register update, May 2024

Big licence file change list to process this month, with a lot of late renewals (for whatever reason) needing to be filtered out of the results

Additions:

1020980 The Glasshouse, Point Square

1021092 Clink, Upper Abbey Street - Ireland's biggest tourist hostel and the third hostel with a full bar licence in Dublin

Renumbering:

1020988 Wild Duck, Sycamore Street - formerly 1014978. Currently closed and for sale.

1021081 Blackbanks Bar & Grill, Kilbarrack Shopping Centre - formerly N1352.

Licence type change:

(Normally,  all licence type changes cause a new number to be generated; but this specific type does not appear to, and has happened before)

N2771 Metro Hotel, Ballymun - conversion to Publican Ordinary (Hotel) Public Bar from a Residents Bar type. This now means the public can be served alcohol without restrictions beyond that that applies to a pub.

N0716 The Village Inn (Finglas)

Urgh, more fruit machines. At least they were shoved in to a corner here and I could sit well away from them.

This pub is possibly still better known by its long-standing previous name, the Jolly Toper - a toper being a consumer of alcohol. Indeed, on leaving the pub and heading towards the bus to the next premises, I was called over by a woman who had pulled in in her car to ask me where the Jolly Toper was. I did consider answering "2006", but considering the last pub I did consider whether I was skirting the edge of a time continuum failure and could actually be in 2006!

Why did the pub change its name? Well, someone was shot there; an event that almost always leads to a name change or the pub closing for good; and indeed the name was changed by the first Streetview pass the year after.

Other than it taking a bit longer than I'd expect in a quiet pub to get served at the bar; there was nothing else negative to note here. The pub was a good bit quieter than the other three in Finglas village, which may be useful at a busier time.

1000933 Bottom of the Hill

It takes quite a talent to renovate a pub after a fire and make it look like it hasn't been modernised since the Celtic Tiger; but they managed it here. Or possibly they just fixed the roof and reopened a bit that wasn't as badly damaged.

The Bottom of the Hill was gutted by fire in 2018 - it is notable that the section shown here is not the section I was in - but was quickly repaired and reopened in 2019. However, the owners have long-term plans that involve demolition; so I suspect the renovations may have extended to weatherproofing and cleaning up the bar that I was in to let it reopen...

So, going back to 2006 - but with two decades of wear and tear on top - I was greeted with a cash only bar; my second since the pandemic but first in an urban area. I was also greeted with many of the taps being off, including Smithwicks - forcing me to have a Guinness. Which was fine.

The pub has multiple fruit machines - both questionably legal and not that common a sight in Ireland - to add to its wonderful atmosphere. Thankfully there's other choices of pub in Finglas village.

N1312 O'Riordans / Drogheda Lodge / Full Shilling

A pub with three names. Or only one name; going on its external signage.

The street frontage of this pub says O'Riordans, a name I didn't have recorded and had to rapidly resort to google to verify that I was in the right place; but once inside the fixtures and fittings had Drogheda Lodge on them. Going back on Streetview shows that in 2014, the frontage said Drogheda Lodge but with O'Riordans visible on the lower section; by 2017 it was just O'Riordans - so this isn't a recent change. 

The Full Shilling name is emblazoned on the *back* of the pub, but to an area only accessible via one of two laneways. The entrance to one of these laneways used to be branded for it (and even further back used to feature a pub clock, the remains of which are in this image), but no longer is and indeed I believe was locked up when I visited.

Despite this, the Full Shilling name is still used for part of the premises, with it being the only name still active on social media, advertising their nightclub.

The main bar section of the three-named pub also has TVs with two purposes - there were specific TVs with "RACING TV" or "FOOTBALL TV" on placards beneath them, presumably pre-empting arguments that have happened before and would again without them.

It also has USB chargers everywhere, which proved quite handy after the bunker-like construction of the last two pubs - and this one - hammering my phone battery to a ridiculous extent.

Shamrock Lodge

"Lounge to be vacated by 6pm, ticketed after 6pm" said the signs on the door - and I forgot to ask why; assuming I'd find it out online afterwards. It turns out that all I can find online is the special food menu that was offer for Good Friday here; not that it was easy to miss - the pub stank of fish.

The barman apologised for this without prompting - the chowder was specifically blamed - and I sat in the then still free to access lounge to have my Beamish.

This pub has a signed members/regulars only section, a pool room in this case - something I've only ever seen once before; and which I now believe to be gone, in N0199 Delaneys in Smithfield. It is a room between the bar and the lounge here, whereas in Delaneys it was the front bar of the pub.

I should probably have had food here - the regular menu was on offer for non-Catholics, so I didn't have to eat the chowder I'd already smelled too much of - but I assumed there'd be another pub doing food in Finglas village. There wasn't; but I survived.

N0624 Abbey Tavern (Finglas)

Don't judge a book by its cover a pub by its history. In this case, the pub has a former operator that many would rather forget ever held the keys to the premises - Catherine Nevin (who I had forgotten was actually dead) - and a series of shootings, one fatal. 

Back in the 1980s, this premises - as the Barry House - was the first pub that Catherine & Tom Nevin ran, before moving on to Jack Whites, where he was murdered at her behest in 1996.

A pub with a chequered history beyond that, and has been the scene of a number of shootings, each it seems under a different name best forgotten - including the Cappagh House, Cappagh Nua and the Finglas Inn (not connected to other pubs of this name).

After a fairly lengthy closure, and a full refit - including a new traditional pub shopfront to stop it looking like an oversized breeze block - the pub reopened in 2018 and has not hit the headlines since, thankfully. 

What's here now is a fairly normal suburban pub, welcoming and open to all. There was a single craft tap on offer - my local Farringtons - but there were issues with the keg, so I had to slum it with a (bottled - I believe keg has finished) Macardles; what a terrible pity.