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.

N1422 Leonards

"Regulars Only" is something you'd think I might hear from door staff occasionally doing this - but I don't, because I usually go during the day when there aren't any.

In the case of Leonards, it was written on the doors instead. But considering the pub advertises its daytime food offerings extensively - social media posts as well as signs outside - I just pretended I temporarily couldn't read and went on in. And was served without proving any regular status.

This ticking trip was on Good Friday, a day on which I have little experience of the potential crowds - we've only had a few that we can drink on, with a pandemic in the interim; and I think this is my first ticking day on a Good Friday. From this pub on, there was a noticeable element to the Good Friday crowd -  tradesmen who have done a mornings work and knocked off early for the long weekend - with a table of Des Kelly fitters having a fried lunch amongst the customers here.

The "Regulars Only" sign is clearly there for a reason; I am guessing relating to weekends and evenings; but there seems to be no problem popping in here during the day to try stake out your regular status. This is very much an "estate pub", but in the Irish tradition - it is in a housing estate, it is in a shopping centre; but it has a pitched roof (well, it has a mansard roof - but its not a flat roofed box), it is in good condition inside and out and it has windows. 

S2031 Merry Ploughboy

Maybe if we move on again, we'll get some space?

No. And even though the two bus loads that arrived here, another show bar, were directed upstairs; there wasn't even a perch in here. But there was a covered smoking area - and a vastly larger partially covered, but still completely soaked one, that looks from Streetview to have been built for the 'outdoor summer' of 2021.

This trip was never about finding a nice comfy pub to sit down in, it was to tick places that are harder to get to public transport - and despite the large bus park here, you can't get here easily on regular buses - there are eight services a day to/from Dundrum Luas stop on weekdays and zero on weekends.

It also wasn't about watching the rugby match, which was creating much of the demand in the pubs; and ended badly while we were standing inside the pub before heading outside. At least the ticking trip was a success.

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.

S0369 Step Inn

What were we thinking, doing a drive (I was not the driver, the driver was not drinking) around the pubs of a stereotypically wealthier part of South Dublin during a rugby match?

It wasn't easy to get in to the Step Inn - its carpark was rammed, and from the carpark it isn't obvious how to actually walk in to the pub - and it wasn't easy to get a seat either; or get an order in at the bar for that matter - however, once sat, there was sufficient floor service that this wasn't a real issue.

Despite the Step Inn being incredibly busy, Stepaside doesn't seem to quite have the numbers to support two pubs - the second one (Morgan and Macs, Fern & Co, Wild Boar at various times) across the road is currently closed; and remains unticked (and untickable) as I'm not entirely confident that I did actually visit there for lunch when kitting out the medical centre in a previous job. The area has grown significantly, and continues to grow, but changing patterns in pub attendance may be cancelling this out.

The pub it does have is a decent suburban pub regardless, assuming you can get in.

1001184 Farmer Browns Kilternan

As I usually don't get to write a pub up immediately, there is always a risk that something significant will happen before I get to do the writeup. And in this case, the pub has closed down.

The Golden Ball pub, as was, was bought by Greg Kavanagh for the land around it; and with this redeveloped - looking nothing like the original proposal - he sold it on in November 2023. During his ownership, the pub was leased out to the restaurant-and-occasional-pub chain Farmer Browns, and I visited during the latter days of their operation.

This pub was the 750th on a rolling register basis, albeit I've visited two other new pubs that are not yet on the register before this, so it is only 750th by default really.

Under the Farmer Browns operation, there was a restaurant area and a bar area, with my visit being constrained to the bar as I'd already had lunch; but this may not be the same once the new owners take over.

(no number yet) Krewe South

This post may end up being pointless for ticking purposes; as I don't yet know if this is going to have a pub licence; but as its sister premises (N2805 Krewe North - since visited but not written up yet) has a pub licence, and this one has a similar setup, I'm assuming it does.

By not being on the register, it has been robbed of being Pub #750 on a rolling register basis - it can't be marked as such, as its not there to mark. But maybe it isn't even a pub anyway.

From the off, things didn't look good here. Their booking system told me there were no seats available for a single diner; possibly ever - but when I looked for a table for two, I was offered any and every 15 minute slot I wanted that evening. I didn't book one lest I had to make up a story about a missing date; but just turned up in person.

As expected, there were plenty of seats available. The next issue is that the tap list here is bloody awful.

However, the food is the main draw here; and is fantastic - this is going to be subjective, but they manage to hit exactly what I want, taste wise. 

Fix the booking system and get one, just one, Irish independent product on the taps and I'll give it 5/5 every day. 

Something I noticed on my visits to the toilets - the food is quite messy, and that's where the sinks are - was that the music playout appeared to be stuck there, with a single track repeating. This is apparently deliberate.

S0971 Leopardstown Inn

The rotating bar is gone.

I only came here for the rotating bar (and to tick it off the list). Bah.

My main takeaway from the now entirely stationary pub is that its a lot, lot smaller than I imagined. The extensive radio advertising (for the rotating bar) made me assume this was an absolutely massive complex. Its not small, but its probably half the size I'd assumed in my mind.

My static pint was fine, but I wanted to get marginally dizzy.

S0397 Byrnes of Galloping Green

A wonderful traditional pub, with a wonderful name, that could be in any rural town in Ireland and yet could also only be in Dublin. Rather hard to describe in words, this is well worth a visit, and has a 46A bus stop right outside it - so no excuse not to visit really.

Amongst the greebling here - an A/B payphone, old photos and old breweryana - is a framed newspaper clipping that has lead to my single highest view count on a post to date.

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(I had actually taken a photo of the framed clipping, but the glass was so reflective you'd mostly see me; not the clipping - so here's the INA version of it)

I didn't manage to get a seat throughout my entire visit here, the pub being that busy - and yet its probably the only pub I'd be willing to go stand in again (at my age, with my knees - I was never told that your body started failing in your 30s).

The outside of the pub has signage stating it to to be the "Philipstown House"; a name I can't find an obvious explanation for - the name of the area on all old maps is Galloping Green, with no suitably named adjoining townlands.

S0400 Stillorgan Orchard

This thatched premises - why are there comparatively so many thatched pubs in suburban South Dublin? - has a few different bars within to choose from, and I went in to the "sports bar".

This felt like a hotel lobby. A nice hotel lobby, but a lobby none the less. One major factor was the provision of living room style couches, facing the large TVs, which are not quite what you expect as normal furniture in a sports bar.

This also wasn't particularly busy, albeit other areas of the pub might have been busier. One of the cheaper pints in SCD, at 5.80 for a Smithwicks on the day of my visit, this might be somewhere to go for a quieter and marginally less wallet-shattering option to watch a match.

S0401 Bolands

After one totally normal, and one totally normal but soggy, pub in this general area I was expecting a third (and a fourth, etc etc). But that I did not get. 

Bolands is quite a large pub, and yet despite its size, is completely decorated inside with music, movie and comic book content/memorabilia. From 7" singles on the ceiling to movie posters on the walls, there isn't really an inch left without some form of pop culture decoration. It's certainly a change from the oil cans and anvils greebling that many other pubs have.

The pub wasn't massively busy for the time of day, and particularly compared to the Millhouse; but we'll see that trend a bit further in the next pub. The area may be slightly over-provided with pubs; even with the complicated restaurant-bar-then-nightclub of Blakes / Burn / whatever you remember it as across the road being a cleared site now

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The pub has been up for sale a few times in recent years - 2017 and 2022 - but I'm not sure if it has actually changed hands.

1013865 The Millhouse

Have you ever wanted to experience a hybrid of a sauna and a pub? Because you can in Stillorgan.

Walking along the outside of this pub, I noticed that all the windows were covered in condensation inside; and on entering the premises I was hit by a wall of wet - I am not used to having steamed up glasses on a dry day; but I got them here.

This appears to be a side effect of the kitchens here; but every other pub that does food manages to not sweat out the customers in the process

I'm sure the pub is nice enough to sit in when its *not* serving food; but I was happy to knock my pint and get out in to the cool February air outside to dry off. 

Revisited Pubs March 2024

Only some absolute regulars this month:

N0006 Brew Dock -  waiting for a train and needing dinner

N0053 Graingers - waiting for a train without needing dinner

S0254 O'Dwyers

On a bus trip some weeks after visiting O'Dwyers, I saw a promotional banner for a printers stating something along the lines of "a business with no sign as a sign of no business". And indeed, O'Dwyers has basically no signs for itself, being externally swamped by signs for Scotts - the restaurant upstairs from it. But it still exists.

Inside has a bit of a sign overload also, which placards on every table and at multiple locations behind the bar flagging the presence of allergen info for customers. This type of strong notification can come from a negative event; which I really hope is not the case here. Having a non-anaphylactic peanut allergy, I do occasionally check the allergen info folders when eating and I do want to know that they are there - but they legally have to be these days.

Once you can find your way through the sea of signs, there's a decent pub underneath them all.

S1487 The Waterside

The previous pub writeup had a bit of history, and so shall this. Actually, this ends up being quite a bit of history.

This cavernous structure is a replacement for a much older pub on/near this site, which was one of the series of pubs that sat alongside nearly every lock on the Grand Canal. 

Formerly the 9th Lock, and latterly the puntastic Lough & Quay, the pub building was replaced in the early 2000s with a building including a large pub, multiple retail units and a restaurant unit that I don't think ever operated as such - it is now a gym.

Many of the locks on the Grand Canal had a pub (or hotel) beside it, primarily because the passenger flyboats that plied trade on the canal would have stopped at each lock awaiting the water level changes required to pass said lock. This would provide time for crew and passengers to sink a pint. These were also often the official boarding points, so people may have been waiting for the boat to arrive.

This pub was, as you'd guess from the old name, at the 9th lock; and had lock-neighbours with pubs; but they're all gone.

The 10th lock is relatively close to the West, and the 11th even closer to the 19th; so the next lock with a pub that direction was the 12th - where the imaginatively named 12th Lock Bar burned down in the early 1990s (the 13th lock is well in to County Kildare).

Going East, there was nothing at the 8th lock, at least that I'm aware of; but the 7th lock had... can you guess it yet? - the 7th Lock pub; or as it was called latterly, the Killeen House. This pub closed for an apartment development in about 2006, recently enough to still appear in some online directories. I began working nearby in 2007 and do not remember the pub; but my office was directly above a different pub (most recently S4157 Parkwest Tavern), so we didn't travel much.

The 6th, 5th, and 4th locks now all appear very quickly; but the 3rd also had a pub at it - and it finally breaks the naming scheme; but not the thing of being closed; for it was N1117 Blackhorse Inn.

So, the Waterfront is a survivor amongst these lockside pubs. It's also busy as hell, based on my single visit.

On entering the pub, I was asked by a manager at the door as to what I was looking for - and at this stage, I wanted food. There were, however, no tables available so I was sat at the bar to wait for a table and have access to drinks. And, unfortunately, forgotten about. 

After two pints, and reminding them that I was actually waiting for a table, I was whisked to an available one; and service from this point on was impeccably attentive (it had been fine at the bar to begin with). The food was, also, good

S2026 The Steering Wheel

I actually tried this pub between the Laurels and the Central, but couldn't find a seat or a space to wedge myself in - this being the busiest, at least in terms of space, of the lot. A smaller room, downstairs anyway, than any of the others; this felt more like a traditional Dublin pub than a suburban pub. 

Some of this may be down to the fact that it, well, was. This is a rare case of a pub that moved - The Steering Wheel was on Bolton Street, but (at least) the name moved out to Clondalkin in the early 80s.

Why it moved has one obvious reasons; and some possibly other ones. The Bolton Street pub went on fire on May 8th and May 14th, 1979 and was seriously damaged - but it did reopen for a brief period as the Judge and Jury in the 1980s.

Also in 1979, The Stores pub in Clondalkin was demolished as part of a retail redevelopment that includes the premises currently occupied by the Steering Wheel - going on the location of the remaining buildings in that photo, it was slightly further East than where the pub currently sits. The new pub opened as The Steering Wheel in the early 80s.

I don't know for sure that this was anything other than a case of borrowing the name of a known pub; but there's good reason to have taken a city centre pub out to suburbia. As road widening and redevelopment ate up much of the original structure of the North city centre in the 70s, and Clondalkin grew as a new suburb, a reasonable proportion of the old regulars will have moved out of the city, and probably a decent percentage to within range of Clondalkin Village. This would also apply to just appropriating a name, though.

The licencing application to move The Stores licence to the new premises was made by the then operating company of The Central - I should probably figure out if they owned the Bolton Street pub to tie down whether it is a "move" or just an identical name.

Assuming the bar is similar now to what it was then - it is quite traditional - what they may have got is a nice bar, with traditionally shirt-and-tie'd barmen and a decent crowd of what seem to be regulars. I didn't go upstairs, to the more modern section of the bar - which has changed names a few times recently, having been Gunpowder and now the Tree Top, but it appears to be well reviewed.

April 2024 Register Update

Hotels all the way down in a slim enough update:

New:

1020358 Chancery Hotel, Ship Street - new hotel

Renumbered:

1021019 The Marker Hotel, Grand Canal Dock - formerly 1006717

Re-appeared:

S0149 The Leinster Hotel - this was Howl at the Moon. The preserved licence number removes any guilt about not revisiting...

S1486 Purty Central

It isn't common that a pub has a generally accepted name which is never actually written on the outside of the building at all; but The [Purty] Central is one - outside of some window graphics with Purty on them, the pub is completely externally branded as The Central Bar currently; although Streetview archives show both Purty Central and The Village Inn branding in times past. All their social media uses Purty Central as does their domain name. I suspect only a regular or a staff member can answer as to why it uses both; and knowing the way this goes, one or both may turn up in the comments or on social media to tell me!

Again, a busy pub; but there were a few more seats available here than in previous visits and attempts in the village. I located myself at a table in the window, and realised that I could actually see both previous pubs from my seat - the Laurels clearly, the Black Lion if I craned my head a bit. There aren't many if any other places where you can see two different licenced premises from your seat; and this shows the density and competition within Clondalkin village

My seat was well located to see the second half of the Ireland rugby match, and also clearly on a prime route for floor staff coverage - the second my glass went down empty, the offer of delivery of another would come; and it would rapidly arrive with card reader in hand. I would probably have bailed out to check for space in The Steering Wheel a little bit quicker if I wasn't ambushed by pints.

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.