1010478 Deer Park Golf

This very, very 1980s clubhouse, attached to the currently non-operational Deer Park Hotel, is open to the public and normally operates as a restaurant under the control of the Wright Group.

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I hauled myself up Howth Head, in very warm weather, to find that the restaurant was pre-booked for First Communion dinners and only drinks were available - but at least I was able to slake my thirst, get it ticked off and take a look at the views before rolling myself back down in to Howth.

Once littered with hotels, Howth currently has zero operational - this having been the last open; but the owners intend to replace the current structures with a new 142-bed setup, so you will likely be able to enjoy a pint with these views for some time yet.

1014505 Clayton Hotel Dublin Airport

It's extremely hard to get to this hotel without driving, or using their shuttle bus from the airport - its fairly isolated and there's poor footpaths. I got a taxi in from Priorswood, and a taxi back out; so bear that in mind if intending to come out here.

The bar here is substantial, easily the biggest in a main brand (Clayton/Maldron) Dalata hotel I've been to; but that is because the hotel itself is pretty big, and with a constantly transient customer base. There's even a dedicated "delayed flights" checkin desk, handling those who have been boarded here by their airline during disruptions. It may also be a legacy of this having been one of the Bewleys Hotels which made up an early bulk purchase for Dalata, 

The bar itself has a fairly good range of drinks on offer, and the staff I dealt with were friendly and chatty - but there's an oddity with the layout, where the seats that are in front of the bar are actually for diners only. It's bar seating or lobby seating for the drinkers, something some people may not like. The lobby in particularly was quite loud with the volume of people checking in when I arrived; and I expect it's like that until late.

1015067 ONE Ballsbridge

Two restaurants have failed in rapid succession in this new, pub-licenced unit; so I decided I'd better be quick, lest lightning strike a third time - and then still took nearly six months to get out here.

The first two were run by household names - Dylan McGrath and Richard Corrigan, and this one is run by someone who's probably close to a household name. Oliver Dunne has held a Michelin star and done a fair bit of TV work, and has previously reacted rather badly to a review, but may not be quite as well known as the previous tenants here. 

That may be for the best, as premises can get a reputation as "cursed", and attaching another extremely well known name, or promoting a fairly well known name hugely in connection to it could do far more harm than good.

Unlike a lot of pub-licenced-restaurants, where drinkers are either barely catered for, or not catered for at all - the licence being bought to make drinks service and production of cocktails more legally simple than on other classes of licence - there is an actual dedicated bar here; and its big at that. The second floor is a nicely fitted out bar; and there's also terrace seating outside on the ground floor that held the majority of the drinkers during my visit - it was a very nice day; but I'd already been outside, walking between the previous writeups, for long enough in that sunshine.

Its an interesting enough bar, in a premises that will hopefully be third time lucky. Just in case, maybe visit quickly to get the tick!

S3437 Radisson Blu St Helens

I was going to say this was the most expensive hotel for pints I've ever stayed in, but in the time between my visit and the writeup, I've been to London for work - and even a discount hotel there makes the €9.30 I was charged in the Orangery here seem fairly reasonable.

The hotel is a fairly minimally messed with, mid 18th century mansion with a modern bedroom wing attached, and underground carparking hidden under the front approach, and is by all accounts quite nice. But there's absolutely no reason to go here just to get a drink - unless it happens to be in the last ~75 places you have to visit in Dublin, that is!

1021852 Super Social

The last of the 'experience pubs', for now - and finally one that isn't underground!

This is my first visit here, but it's not the first time I've written about the premises - as this was originally built as the ill-fated Baileys Icon Centre, which closed some years before I was allowed drink; and was briefly a nightclub - Rocksy - that the internet has basically forgotten existed. And then it sat empty, licenced, awaiting its fate.

When Club 92, the famed nightclub in the racecourse pavilion, closed in 2018, there was some mention that something was going to open in this space - and eventually a planning application went in to restructure the space, with some being hived off for retail and the rest being changed to pub/restaurant style use.

Rather than reopening as a nightclub type space though, it has reopened as a sort of amalgam of all the other experience bars, but with a large, conventional bar on the ground floor. There's virtual golf - like Pitch, darts - like Flight Club, but also shuffleboard and "The Arena", something I've not quite found a good description of yet; and I don't think would have been much fun to do on my own.

Apparently €5m has been spent on the fitout - a fraction of the ~€26m, inflation adjusted, that the Icon Centre cost; but still a very substantial amount. Hopefully this is more attractive to visitors and lives a longer live than the Icon Centre, or the Rocksy for that matter.

(no number yet) Lane7 Dundrum

Unlike the previous Lane7, this is not a small, subterreanian, awkwardly laid out bowling alley - its a large, penthouse, awkwardly laid out bowling alley!

The bar remains expensive, but there's actually some reason to come here for drinks - the bar is large, spacious and has views over Dundrum from two sides. There's slightly more choice of drinks than in the city centre location, but prices remain high.

Rooftop bars aren't much of a thing in Ireland, and Dundrum certainly isn't the most interesting vista to look out over - but it could be worth heading up here. Like all Lane7s, you can just come in to drink without bowling or using the paid arcade games.

1018537 Donnybrook Fair Dundrum

This is another high end food store using a pub licence to cover various operations within; and another case where I decided that buying and drinking some off-sales inside would probably get me thrown out - so I had to come around when the restaurant was actually open.

At the time of my visit, all they were doing here was breakfast/brunch, with the fairly limited hours that entails; but I managed to haul myself down here early enough - and hungry enough - for a brunch and a bottle of beer. Licence ticked.

The food was decent enough and, despite being fairly close to full, the restaurant is a lot less hectic than eating in many of the Dundrum Town Centre restaurants might be. Later service has been promised for a while and may have actually resumed by now.

N2582 Carlton Hotel Blanchardstown

This is another wildly misnamed hotel, being in Tyrrellstown and not Blanchardstown; and indeed the only place to go for a drink in Tyrrellstown now - the pub in the development itself having shut down some time ago, and had a planning application lodged to convert it to apartments.

But despite this, it's incredibly difficult to actually get in to the hotel from Tyrrellstown. Not due to any issues with letting in outsiders - despite having been told some years ago that they didn't serve non residents, they do; with absolutely no issues doing do - but instead the issue is pedestrian access.

The hotel isn't causing this - they even have a pedestrian walkway out to the road, bypassing their long driveway. The issue is that the road is a dual carriageway with a concrete median and no crossing points. Google Maps even suggests a walking route that involves walking around a roundabout - on the road!

That aside, it is possible to run across and skirt the edge of the median, or get a bus one single stop - definitely the safer option on your way back from pints!

After dealing with the access issues, you get a fairly standard hotel bar - plush enough but not incredibly fancy, but still in the mould of "if you've seen one, you've seen them all". You'll have to decide whether it's worth the risk of death, or a short distance bus fare, to go here for that.

N2417 The Paddocks

A very busy and VERY LOUD suburban shopping centre pub that's also a massive pain in the hole to get to, this ended up being done extremely late for a long established premises on the basis that it's basically only really possible to get here from the city and not anywhere else - and it's a long way out on a dead-end.

The lounge was 'wait to be seated', doing food services and appearing to be completely full; and the bar hadn't got any free seats when I arrived, so I ended up standing to drink my pint; possibly looking more like an undercover Garda trying to fit in somewhere than ever before. 

The pubs exterior design is one of the strangest of this category of pub that I've ever seen, with the semi standard clocktower at one end, running through what looks like an attempt to make it look like a row of small houses, down to a stone round tower at the other end, literally towering over the main entrance. It is, unfortunately, nowhere near as weirdly decorated inside!

1010656 The Green Phonebox

This is the fourth name in two years on the premises which was previously Peggys On The Green, Three Storey and previously 10 St Stephens; and which always seemed to be closed when I was anywhere nearby. 

Peggys opened in April 2024, closed in Autumn 2024, reopened briefly for Christmas and then closed again - a refit had been advertised when closing in Autumn, and that hadn't finished. It reopened on May 1st as The Green Phonebox, a rather odd name that is at least justified by the addition of a retro phonebox to their small front outdoor area.

I didn't get a great immediate impression of this place, as I assumed the sign outside offering Irish food and drink would mean there'd be some beers not made by Diageo or Heineken on the taps... and there wasn't.

Pointing this out on social media lead to someone I'd never interacted with giving me abuse for stating the facts that Diageo and Heineken Ireland are not Irish companies; which is very particularly strange as I frequently say vastly more controversial things about pubs and breweries than that without anything being said!

The pub itself is very, very touristy - greebling by the metre from some wholesaler, menu offerings of what tourists expect to be able to buy, and the aforementioned Diageo/Heineken only drinks. It would be more suited to Temple Bar, realistically.

1021842 Bewleys

The last branch standing of the once substantial Bewleys coffee shop chain obtained a Publicans (Theatre) licence recently; which has a solid claim to legitimacy as there is actually a theatre in the building. However, I think they are slightly stretching the rules about service hours under that licence - not uncommon - as you can now get cocktails with meals instead of just wine as before.

And that is what I did, rather than going to a show. An Aperol Spritz along with a slightly mad, yet extremely nice, concoction that could best be described as eggs-benedict-as-a-burger served as a late lunch here and got me a licence tick.

While not always possible - the cafe is vast, with many side rooms that are frequently closed, and can be very busy in the areas that are open - a wander around here after you've eaten is worthwhile, as there is artwork, sculptures, stained glass windows and various artefacts from the past of both the Grafton Street branch and other bits of the chain on display throughout the premises.

(no number yet) Sandbox VR

A third underground "experience bar" writeup in a row - they were actually across two different days - the main attraction here for those not partaking in the VR setup is the "robot bartender", a pair of robotic arms that can make a range of fairly simple cocktails. 

Make them fairly badly, more specifically - they haven't managed to replicate any conventional shaking motion so things aren't as mixed or diluted as you'd expect; but its probably worth doing once for the novelty; and then get your other drinks from the humans at the main bar.

With an interior that feels like the set of a 1980s kids TV show - maybe if Parallel 9 had been made 10 years earlier, on 10 times the budget - the blue lighting and sharp angles may not make this somewhere you want to spend a prolonged period in; but like the other places, you do not need to be doing a VR session to use the bar.

1021725 Pitch Golf

The second of the "experience bars", as I think they're best called, that I needed to visit - I don't have to go to Flight Club as it is the same licence, down to the serial number, as when it was Samsara/Sam's. This time, its publicans liquor licence was already confirmed in advance of my visit, so I wasn't risking spending a lot on a pint and it turning out to be a rules-bend on a restaurant licence or similar.

I just ended up spending a lot on a pint anyway...

Like the previous post, this is also an underground venue. Unlike the previous post, the bar is a lot more bar like,sort of a normal sports bar that happens to be surrounded by the virtual golf pods. The venues website heavily promotes the bar as something you can just drop in to, with DJs and cocktails being less commonly pushed as features of a sports bar.

It wasn't particularly busy when I visited, so this could actually be a useful place to remember if looking to watch a match in the South city centre.

Revisited pubs, June 2025

Forgot to take notes on this one, so hopefully it's complete... I was also away for a substantial amount of the month, so this can't be too long

S0027 The Lombard - I now work closer to Pearse Station, so the pubs around there will get more visits

S0048 Kennedys - Remember what I said about Pearse Station one line ago?

1017216 Dockers - I also work close to here, and sometimes my wallet doesn't scream at me for considering it...

N0006 Brew Dock - Connolly continues to get some use, and I continue to need dinner

N1620 Boco - Regular-ish meeting location

N0097 Underdog - across the road from same, and it'd be rude not to pop ine

 

(no number yet) Lane7 Chatham Street

A few months (by the time this scheduled post goes out) ago, I wrote about the weird trend of the majority of new bar openings in Dublin being some form of "experience" rather than a conventional bar. This is the first of those I visited, assuming it would have a pub licence on the register in time - there's some writeups that have waited over a year for the licence to surface, so I'm holding with that assumption for now.

Set in the basement of the building with all the watch shops in it (replacing a number of more interesting buildings that housed multiple restaurants etc), this is an awkwardly laid out bowling alley and arcade, with a very expensive bar. It was exceptionally busy with an after-work crowd when I visited, and while you can go in and just get a drink; I don't see why you *would* - go here for the bowling not the beer, realistically.

1014544 The Ivy

The Ivy Collection is a British chain of mid-to-high-range restaurants with surprisingly bland menus - deliberately so, as some of the items are considered comfort food for their regulars - and they entered Ireland quite some time ago with this giant restaurant on Dawson Street. It has held a pub licence the entire time; but their behaviour towards their staff put me off coming here.

What behaviour, you may wonder? Well, it was a tips policy so egregious that it quite possibly caused the introduction of the legislation which require places to advertise how they handle tips.

That legislation means they can't do that anymore, but a WRC ruling that staff were dismissed in part due to union membership also made me fairly unwilling to go here; but a lack of recent stories; and a dire lack of other places to tick off, meant I finally did it.

What I got was mid-range food at far more than mid-range prices; but clearly it appeals to enough people that they are now opening a second restaurant on the same street, albeit this time as Ivy Asia. I sincerely hope it does not have a pub licence too!

N0039 Noctors

You* can all stop asking now. 

Claimed by many to be the roughest pub in Dublin, and potentially with a little bit of basis in fact; I worked around the corner from Noctors for a number of years. I was doing this blog/mission, but I never went in.

Part of this was because I assumed it might eventually close down, and another part was that there was a Garda car sat at the corner of Oriel Street effectively monitoring the pub during opening hours, this being months after a mistaken identity murder outside the pub.

But the pub never closed down, and with very few remaining premises to go to, I had to tick it off eventually.

The pub is a single room setup straight out of the 1980s, with a limited selection of beer - more limited even than the illuminated tap heads suggest, as some things were off. My cash-only pint of Guinness was perfectly drinkable and relatively cheap, and consumed in no danger. Despite apparently looking like an undercover Garda (see prior commentary on this in older writeups), my presence wasn't treated as unwelcome at any stage.

However, it is definitely a local pub for locals - I wouldn't recommend you go out of you way to go here; or even possibly bother going here if you have moved in locally. 

*Twitter users when I say that there's very few "rough pubs" left in Dublin 

1014840 The Devlin Hotel

For a hotel with it's own (small, but public) cinema, the visit here was surprisingly unmemorable - it's another former McKillen venue, so the bar experience is exactly what you get in all of them.

It may be more memorable if you stay here - I believe the rooms range from very small to absolutely tiny.

S0236 The Dunmore

During the time I've been doing this blog, this premises has had a slightly awkward operating history and was closed down on all three times I came through Rathmines to tick previously; initially as Toast but latterly as The Bowery. I believe The Bowery had very irregular opening towards its end too.

Eventually, the pub was reopened as The Dunmore, a branch of sorts of a pub from Dunmore East - The Strand Inn. It is branded as a "bar and restaurant" which can often mean "restaurant that doesn't really want drinkers" - but in here, about half the floorspace is set up as a bar/pub seating rather than dining tables. 

This includes a nice mezzanine section above the front door, which could take maybe 12 people. This is good for people watching as well as getting somewhere a little quieter within the pub.

I only tried the drinks options here rather than the food, but these were interesting enough - including a number of beers from Dew Drop Brewhouse in Kill; a brewery operated by a small pub chain who formerly ran S0186 Ashtons

S0239 Murphys

This pub seems fairly accessible for something so late in my visits - and indeed, it was a nice round number, which I'll get to shortly - but I'd been sort of "keeping" it, intending to visit it with someone specific who lives nearby.

However, they were busy and I needed to get it ticked off, so I'll have to come back with them - for once committing myself to a revisit before I've even written the whole writeup!

Oddly quiet after a series of absolutely rammed carvery spots; they were doing food here too - my next visit wasn't incredibly busy either; so either I'd come after an earlier rush, or the diners of Rathmines eat later.

This turned out to be my 900th, rolling register basis, Dublin licence tick. Considering it's a mix of an older city pub with elements of modernity and suburban pubs to it; it's a fairly apt pub for a "big number visit", even if I never planned it as such. 

1001237 The Morgue

I almost baked myself to death in this pub; but had that happened they wouldn't have been able to lay me out on a slab here - not without a time machine at least.

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As I mentioned when putting a photo up on Instagram, sometimes pub nicknames stick and owners just roll with it. The Templeogue Inn is never called that anymore, but instead The Morgue - a reference to the use of the pubs cold room for storage of dead bodies under Victorian legislation.

At this stage, with only The Morgue name above the door and on the pubs website, is it even the Templeogue Inn anymore? The name does still appear on the side of the pub, but realistically The Morgue is the name now.

It was a warm day to begin with, but I could swear the heating was on in the front bar of the pub, which was busy enough with racing punters. A Kinnegar Scraggy Bay tap is a rare but welcome sight in a bar like this (common enough in the lounge, of course) and that kept me cool enough during my trip.

July 2025 Revenue register update

Nothing*, again. Actually the smallest update I've ever processed.

 

*(well, there's a new liquor licenced boat, for Howth Cliff Cruises, but I'm dropping boats as they completely fail the quack test of being pubs...) 

S2261 Spawell / D'Arcy McGees

Getting to this pub felt like going to urbex somewhere, as I entered the Spawell compound through a hole in the fence.

This wasn't planned, but poor bus connections meant I walked much of the way from the previous pub, and this gap took half a kilometre off the distance. 

I had been here once before, many many many years ago, as an underage teenager, not drinking - a long story involving a long wait for the AA to come take a look at someones car - but I decided that didn't count as a visit. As far as I can remember, the interior looks completely different to well over 20 years ago - what a surprise!

I was possibly the only person in the place not there for carvery, and it felt like half of Tallaght and Templeogue were both there for that. There's even a more school dining room style section of the place. But this is a pub, with a pub licence (despite being in the middle of a sports complex) and I'd presume when the carvery demand dies off it feels more like a normal pub too.

S2636 Penny Black

A large suburban pub with awkward public transport access... however did this end up so close to the end of the list?

If you approach this from the South, you may see the hulk of a building within the Castletymon Shopping Centre which looks like an 70s estate pub. This isn't the Penny Black, this is the former library of all things, which has been replaced by a much more modern building. 

The Penny Black is actually from the late 80s, in a more traditional looking building around the side of the shopping centre, complete with a small clock tower - a feature a few pubs from then had. It is also quite traditional inside, albeit with mostly an open plan layout like most "newer" pubs ("newer" meaning "about as old as me" is a bit of a stretch; but when there's so many 100+ year old pubs around, they are newer).

There's a sort-of "museum" snug section near the front, mostly consisting of photos, covers Dublin trams amongst other things - despite this pub not being terribly near either the original or current trams serving Tallaght; and due to that, it was mostly O'Connell Street stuff that I remember seeing!

S2818 House Dublin

Another "Cian goes ticking on Sundays" problem venue, as this only opens for brunch on Sundays and I don't think opens on Bank Holidays at all; and the first two times I tried it fell down at this hurdle.

Third time lucky actually worked in this instance, and I was admitted and seated at the bar - albeit I was offered tables, it was middlingly busy and I felt they may want those for diners rather than drinkers.

This isn't really my kind of bar - cocktails and southside partying - but I don't think I'd have fit in during its past era when this was a hotel with a nightclub rather than a hotel with a large bar-restaurant instead.

1015609 'Ohana

Dublin's only tiki bar, and also possibly the conventionally licenced bar with the most restrictive, yet regular, opening hours in the city - being open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from early evening/late afternoon only. I do a lot of my ticking trips on Sundays (for quieter pubs) and usually try end them by about 8, so this evaded me for years as a result.

It doesn't have fake rain, a feature of many tiki bars (provided by anything from lighting effects through to a hose in some places) which is allegedly designed to encourage drinkers to stay longer; but the Irish weather obliged with the real stuff, so I did actually stay for a further cocktail.

In addition the cocktail menu - of the types of cocktails you get in tiki bars, so don't necessarily expect the classics that other cocktail bars do - there's an immense rum selection here. The current claim on the menu is of over 150 different bottles available

1012980 Irish Whiskey Museum

This independent (as in non distillery owned) whiskey museum opened a number of years ago; but I assumed you had to go on a tour and just hadn't got around to arranging one.

However, when passing to go somewhere else, I noticed a sign suggesting you could come in to watch the rugby - which wasn't actually on that day - and headed up.

There is a very small bar here that is before the ticket desk, and which you do not need to pay for a ticket to visit. It has even less taps than you might imagine for its diminutive size, but has a huge whiskey list - many of them at exceptionally competitive prices.

I didn't go for anything adventurous, just having a Black Bush for the same price you'd pay for Bushmills (white) anywhere nearby; and this was far from the only good value option there.

I wouldn't try get in here with a crowd - you simply won't fit - but it's definitely worth a look if going as a couple or on your own.

1012867 Temple Bar Inn

This hotel has one of the largest bar/restaurants I've seen in a newer hotel; and when I visited, basically no other customers - two English women, hotel residents, were finishing up and left while I was there.

Part of this is that there is no indication from outside that the bar is even here, and indeed initially there was no bar when the hotel first opened - it bought in the licence from N0741 Edenmore House a year or so after opening.

The hotel surrounds the Tesco on the ground floor of its building - the reception, restaurant and bar are under the Tesco and the rooms above. You need to go down the stairs or lifts immediately after entering, and may need to tell the security guard what you're doing - but there are no problems going in.

If you really need to meet someone in/near Temple Bar, and don't like how busy everywhere else is, this should be perfect - until enough people have realised it's here, I guess.

1018953 Fallon and Byrne

The first of a very small number of cases of a high-end foodstore using a pub licence to cover multiple reasons; Fallon & Byrne have theirs to cover off-licence sales in the food store as well as wine sales and their twin restaurants.

I went for the cheaper, less formal option of having a pizza in the downstairs wine cellar, where they also have a few Irish independent brewery options to drink as well as sometimes very low corkage (€1 off-peak) on wines from the shop.

A mortadella pizza isn't something I'd thought of doing at home, but it worked well; and overall this wasn't incredibly pricey. I may go back.

1019160 Hampton by Hilton, Chancery Street

Rather like the toilets of the near-ish N0072 Chancery Inn pub (now closed), you need to be buzzed in here.

I could have made a comparison to the Hacienda or the VCC; but people actually *want* to go to drink in those. Here it feels more like somewhere you go to drink by accident of having stayed in the hotel.

It's a very generic hotel lobby bar, albeit quite a big one. You actually also need to be buzzed in to the toilets too, because they're really not set up for outside drinkers - but they do allow them. If they like the look of you, I guess.

1019365 The Local, UCD

"Wait! Students union bars don't count! You've said that here somewhere before..."

Well, for whatever commercial reason, the new foodhall in UCD Village is run by the Wright group; and they need a liquor licence for that; and have a 7 Day Ordinary like anyone else would. Also, to try drum up trade during quieter periods for students, the foodhall and its bar are advertised to the public.

However, if you're over 25 and  go there during the college year (or probably summer when there's language students around either), expect to feel *very* out of place. 

The bar itself isn't that big, and is fairly cheap; with the stand out attraction of the foodhall being the burger place, Mikeys; which was really quite good.

S0394 The Horse & Hound

This is the Cabinteely pub, and not the Northside pub of a very similar name. In that writeup, I comment on how "Horse & Hound" is a very English type pub name; and realistically that's one of the most notable things here.

I've repeatedly mentioned about how having little to write about a pub is almost always a good thing - local pubs that are solid parts of their community often don't need anything distinguishing about them. 

The pub hasn't got a website, or any active social media and doesn't turn up in media reports for anything happening there (again, this is almost always a good thing - newspapers don't often report on positive events in pubs these days!). Pretty much all you'll find on searching is some local coverage of it reopening in 2021 as pandemic restrictions lifted.

A perfectly functional local pub, one I'll almost certainly never go back to as it's quite difficult to access if you're not a local. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

S0284 Druids Chair

Another awkward pub to get to, up a hill, served by an irregular bus which feels like it's having significant trouble even fitting on the roads.

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The pub is laid out as a single room but with some dividers, one of which in particular - glass with what I can best describe as fronds - gives it a very 60s feel. That is high end 60s, not the formica horrors of that era that thankfully rarely remain. I did sort of expect a Connery-era Bond to sidle out from the seats in that area.

All in all this was quite a nice pub, but the difficulty of getting here; and the implausibility that I'd ever be able to afford to live nearby, mean I will probably never be back,

S0307 Haddington House Hotel

A Victorian townhouse hotel with a cocktail bar and a nice sun terrace, this was again a fairly expensive drink experience; having a Negroni to achieve my tick.

There's been a hotel here since the 1930s, with the buildings having previously been a "ladies college" since the late 1910s; and a private dwelling before that.

 

The cocktail bar is nice, the staff were very good; but my wallet was slightly tender after the visit. But despite Dun Laoghaire having a reasonable number of pubs, there isn't really as good a view over the harbour from anywhere other drinking venues except here, the previous expensive visit... and the Wetherspoons. So wallet emptying may be repeated. 

S0962 Hartleys

There's been a series of "lasts" as I come towards the end of the list - last pub or hotel in this chain or that mostly. This instead is the last of a type - this bar operates under a Railway Refreshment Rooms licence.

In theory, these are only meant to serve customers with tickets for a 10 mile distance; but this is effectively neither checked nor enforced; and anyway - any Leap card can become a ticket for this when tagged on (However, when Good Friday drinking was restricted, any Railway Refreshment Rooms that were actually open did check for tickets)

This was, I believe, the final 'refreshment room' actually operated by Irish Rail, under their Network Catering division as Brasserie na Mara; but when Irish Rail ceased doing it's own catering, the restaurant closed with it. 

Hartleys opened here in ~2008 and has traded since, with drinkers accommodated on a terrace and diners inside in the Victorian railway dining room. The drinks are exceptionally expensive, even for Dun Laoghaire; but there is often live music and the terrace is an interesting place to sit and view the harbour, so there may still be a reason to go here for some.

S3046 The Swallows

While I still had my driver, I decided to get a pub that would require multiple bus-changes to get to knocked off the list.

The Swallows must be the newest (and second-last, I believe) 'grocery pub' in Dublin; but like the other - the White House in Baldoyle - the shop is separate from the pub; in this case sharing only the front door and much of the signage.

The pub is of the big single room / open plan layout common of 90s suburban pubs, although it looks to me like the floor area can be halved with a moving wall, presumably to make it more manageable when quiet.

S4405 The Address Citywest

A week or so before this visit, I had stayed in the Sligo sister hotel of this, also called The Address - and had snarked at the bar/restaurant being called North, as I wouldn't consider Sligo to be particularly Northern.

On arriving here I found that the bar is again called North. They're all called North in this chain, which is from Donegal and has what I'd consider a legitimate claim to the term. All's good.

The hotel here is an old country house with an added bedroom wing; with the bar and restaurant in what I assume are some genuine outbuildings. There's a more restaurant-y bit, but you can drink there; and what seemed to be a bar or function room section that was quite loud. The outdoor area is very nice in the right weather, even if the plastic sheep are a bit of an odd choice...

There is a bit of housing being developed nearby here, so this is likely to be their local, as such; considering none were ever developed in the bulk of Citywest and both S3757 Browns Barn and the pub in Fortunestown has closed.

S1661 Green Isle Hotel

I'd been to this hotel a few times before, using the conferencing facilities - most notably, many years ago, an all-hands meeting in work telling us that a certain % were being laid off because the CEO needed a new 911 "times were tough"; but I'd never drunk here prior to this visit. 

The bar of the Green Isle is large, and was busy and even slightly raucous when we visited - this certainly stands in for the lack of any pub in this bit of Clondalkin. 

The hotel itself seems to be extremely popular with trades/builders from down the country using it as their Dublin base - there are even signs asking you to clean your boots when coming in from the carpark (incidentally, one of the worst designed / tightest carparks I've ever been in); so I suspect the bar is also busy with that custom on weekday/Sunday evenings.

It is still, however, clearly a hotel bar without much attempt to make it feel more like a pub - for instance, it is accessed behind reception.

Revenue register update, June 2025

Nothing of note this month, not even in nerdy details.

S3226 Maldron Hotel Newlands Cross

Dalata hotels don't really seem to look at their bars as major profit centres, with them often being very constrained or even closed; so I was vaguely expecting another bottle of Heineken in a lobby like my most recent Dalata visit.

But no, there is actually a fairly big bar here, open to the public up until the mid evening. It isn't particularly interesting, but there isn't another pub in this end of Clondalkin - well, not until the next hotel - so it may be useful for weekends.

S4515 Louis Fitzgerald Hotel

There are seven hotels along the Naas Road in Dublin, starting from the Red Cow and working outwards.

The first two (the Red Cow and the Ibis) and the seventh (City West) are currently not open to the public, and the Ibis only had a residents bar licence anyway; but the other four are fully trading; and despite having been at events in some of them, I'd never drunk in any of them.

So, with the help of a driver, I got all four done in fairly rapid succession.

First up is the Louis Fitzgerald, a very rare case of a hotel named after a living owner - excluding family surnames on some hotels that is. Built beside his longer standing Joel's restaurant, there is a further restaurant in the lobby here; but there is also a normal bar.

Louis has an admitted reputation as hoarder/collector, and it seems the hotel he's named after himself gets the best goodies - his GB£80,000 1904 Wolseley 6hp

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This is the last Fitzgerald Group premises for me, for now - Louis is likely to add some more.

1016097 Mackenzies

This is the last of the "random womans name" Paddy McKillen Jr restaurants for me to tick, and it's just as generic as them all. Except here, you really do need to eat - there isn't an option for a bar booking; and indeed you do need to book because walk-ins were not being taken on the night I was here.

I seriously doubt I'll be back.

S0257 Buglers Ballyboden House

I'm not sure there's a current pub name I have to try so hard not to misspell - the Colosseum in Walkinstown no longer holding that name, thankfully. "Bulgers" seems to scan better, despite Bugler being a semi common surname, and a type of musician at that. I may just be remembering a horrific incident that was heavily reported when I was a kid, though.

There's more than a few newspaper archive references to "Bulgers" as well, covering both the pre- and post-spellcheck eras of newspaper editing (the pub has been Buglers since 1954) so at least it's not only me.

Another packed pub - three in a row, albeit they aren't all that far apart - I ended up in a corner of the bar rather than in the fairly recently renovated lounge, or the covered outdoor area so new you can see the demolition of the old one on Streetview.

1010020 Eden House

Approaching this pub from the road feels a bit weird - as the pub doesn't address the main road at all. 

When you do get in to it, via the start of a housing estate, it becomes clear that the pub is in a very old building - a Georgian manor house called, appropriately, Eden House.

Eden House - the manor, that is - was redeveloped in the mid 1990s in to the pub we now have; with a small retail/office development and a housing estate built on the lands.

The pub itself has a variety of Georgian or Victorian features left inside, and has quite an unusual layout due to the room layout of the house itself. It was also absolutely and utterly rammed when I visited, so I ended up outside rather than continuing to wander around inside. This may be worth a revisit when quiet; but the reason it has ended up so late in my ticks is that it isn't quite the easiest place to get to!

S1328 Ballinteer House

Another single storey, shopping centre carpark pub but with rather less of the semi-architectural interest of the Coach House - this is a bit of a box.

And a very busy box it was too; with not a lot of free tables and a huge amount of food being served at the time of my visit. Surprisingly, there was a single Irish independent tap on offer - Trouble Ambush - which is what I enjoyed at the only free table I could find.

The pub apparently features a six-table snooker hall - with snooker tables very rare in pubs to begin with, and even more than one cue sports table of any description being rarer this is not something you're going to find often.

S0251 Sandyford House

Sandyford, the business park area, has lots of buses; and is walkable from the Luas. It has two not-really pubs and once had a hotel.

Sandyford, the village it's named after, has one irregular bus and eluded me for quite a while - it took close to three hours to get here due to poor meshing of public transport timings; and a lengthy amount of time to get to the next pub afterwards; but I made it.

The Sandyford House claims to date to the 1690s and certainly bits of the pub are very old; but with the 16 years of Streetview passes showing three completely different paint jobs and multiple different approaches to outdoor seating, they certainly aren't unwilling to modify this place! The balcony seating, removed since the earliest passes, is an interesting loss.

I didn't venture any further than the front bar - named Boss Crokers, after the Irish-American politician and former namesake of a pub on the Quays, most recently N0185 Index. I got one of the window bays on my own, as the bar was not terribly busy when I attended. 

A longer visit than normal ensued here, due to the bus times; and I took a few photos of some of the historical paperwork on the walls... which I now can't find. I'm certainly not going on another five hour round-trip mission to re-take them!

S1177 Coach House

If I ever do get around to writing something on the morphology of Dublin pubs, the single storey, high roofed open-plan pub (often, but far from always, beside a shopping centre) will probably take the place of the "generic 80s suburban pub", even if some examples are not from the 80s. And they're a type of pub we're rapidly losing, as many of them succumb to the appeal of their car parks to apartment or supermarket developers.

And indeed, we may yet lose the Coach House - planning was granted in 2023 to demolish and replace with apartments and a "cafe/wine bar" a quarter of the size of the current pub. However, it is still trading currently.

A good example of that form of pub, and with a better range of drinks than many pubs in the city, I'd probably be fairly annoyed if I was local and this was proposed for demolition.

N0023 Admiral

This place currently trades as a restaurant and as such, you do need to eat to get served here. It has previously - while still Admiral - had external signage stating that it was a karaoke bar; but this seems to have been removed around the time the fake bow and prow of a ship were added to the outside walls!

A pan-Eastern-and-Central-European restaurant, this was frequently formerly described as a "Russian" restaurant; but the prominent Ukrainian flags flying from outside the premises should dissuade you from this.

The pub itself is under a multi-storey car park, the construction of which involved demolishing an older pub - The Peacock - further down Marlborough Street. The name, and I assume the licence - such a low serial number indicates a very old licence - moved up to the corner with Cathal Brugha Street after that. The Peacock was sold off in around 2002 after multiple legal issues including an attemp by Gardai to have its licence removed.

There were a few other brief incarnations after this, including an Eastern European bar "Baltika", but it opened as the marine-themed Admiral in the late 00s.

I'm barely a bar reviewer, so getting a food review from me isn't happening - but I was happy enough with the schnitzel I got. Beer choices on draught are more than you'd expect in most restaurants, but do primarily consist of the national draught lager/pilsners of the countries that the restaurant serves the food of.

DG0489 The Bus Bar

Another of my "opened too late in the evening" Skerries misses from my 2021 visit; the Bus Bar burnt down in late 2023. Unlike the slow progress of reopening we see with some other pub fires of the past few years; work started very rapidly here and the pub reopened within ~13 months.

Since the pandemic, a portion of the front of the pub has been taken up by a coffee shop; and this is retained in the rebuilt pub. This leaves a small bar to the front, but with a large lounge to the rear.

Said front bar is quite nice, a one-manner in layout that could convince you that you are in a tiny pub somewhere rather than an element of a bigger setup.

The pubs name intrigues me; but I presume is easily explained by the bus stop for various services from Dublin (and to Balbriggan and rarely Dundalk) being pretty much right outside the door. It has been called that name since opening in the early 1930s.

DG0495 Nealons

I missed this on my previous trip out to Skerries as it opens quite late on weekdays - as then did half the pubs in the town - and I could only really get one of the early evening openers done before going for my train.

The front of the pub looks like something you'd see in a tiny village, not a large enough suburb / seaside resort. The inside extends well beyond the area that the shopfront would suggest, with a rabbit warren of small areas to the front, where you should be able to find somewhere to wedge yourself in, even when busy. It all opens out a bit at the back with a smoking area and big screens. 

I still haven't been to all of the remaining pubs in Skerries - the town still has a sizeable number despite a significant decline in recent years - and while DG0492 The Gladstone Inn is definitely a more traditional pub; Nealons brings in a bit of modernity in a completely inoffensive way.

DG0480 Dempseys

A pub reopening should always be a good occasion, but finding out that one is about to reopen just as you're ticking off all the pubs near it can be a tad annoying. And so it was when I visited Balbriggan in early 2024 and found Dempseys approaching the end of its refurb. 

Formerly The Millrace, one of those pubs where the sales ads online linger for years after being sold; and indeed it lingered for years closed too - the last social media activity for the pub was in 2015 but it may have survived til the pandemic.

The refurb was extensive and the fairly dated interior you can (currently, anyway) see in the linked sales ad is gone; replaced with the faux-old type that has returned to fashion in recent years and should hopefully age well. Despite trying to look old, it's definitely the most modern pub in Balbriggan as it stands.

On opening, a relatively strict dress code was posted, with one entry - "no coats" - raising a lot of eyebrows in a country with a climate that often requires them. This, I suspect, was there to ensure that anyone wanting to flaunt a jacket from specific brands that have acquired a particular reputation wouldn't bother coming in.

That said, I wasn't barred from entering with mine on, despite it being from one of the brands sort of on the edges of that - but it wasn't black or grey so that might have been enough!

N2723 The Hamlet

This pub is a rare enough beast in Dublin - it is a new build, ground floor pub in an apartment block that actually seems to be doing pretty well. 

Lots of apartment and/or retail developments in the 00s included a proposed pub, and often they never opened or have struggled significantly to take off. The closest one to me, just a bit outside of Dublin admittedly, eventually opened as a restaurant about ten years after construction; not holding a pub licence at all. It is possible that being the only pub outside of the town centre in Balbriggan may have helped, as some equivalents are near existing pubs; but there are still a litany of failures elsewhere.

The exterior is rather bland, being that mid 00s retail design of yellow brick and large aluminium windows; but the pub inside is fairly nice and well staffed, with my pint being dropped over after it had settled. 

Revisited pubs, May 2025

May's revisits have a few 'new' entries, as in not the ones you see every month; but the old classics turn up regardless. Also, as I now have so few city centre places to visit anew, I end up in places I've been before more and more often.

S0083 Beer Temple - pint before dinner time
S0106 The Porterhouse - dinner time. Not sure why I didn't just have a burger in the Beer Temple, but that isn't important
N0097 Underdog - regular visit
S0172 The Waterloo - hiding in a snug wasting time before a work event nearby
S0027 The Lombard - bus was so delayed due to roadworks after said work event that I had 65 minutes wait for a train from Pearse
S0077 Nearys - regular meeting location
S0088 Foggy Dew - burning up time before a bus, and seeing some tourists making a scene of themselves
1000393 Gilbert & Wright - going in to the Wright Group Time Machine, as the pub I was trying to tick off was completely full
N0006 Brew Dock - dinner again
S0026 Lincolns Inn - waiting for a dinner appointment nearby, writeup to come
S0048 Kennedys - after said dinner
1016206 Brewdog - waiting for a different dinner appointment in a different pub-licenced restaurant

Revisit writeup because I feel like it: N0097 Underdog

Every month, I do a post listing the pubs I've revisited in the past month - I can tell from the views that people actually do bother reading these; and it provides some evidence that I don't just chase the new places.

One extremely regular entry on that list is Underdog, on the corner of Capel and Bolton Streets. 

The writeup I have been linking to for it is from August 2016, is very brief, and refers to three incarnations of the pub ago - it having had two different Galway Bay Brewery pubs in it between then and now. 

I don't usually care if I link to an old writeup - the Beer Temple will continue to get a pre-GBB The Oak visit linked forever probably - but this one is so poor I'm updating it; particularly as I'm usually there monthly. 

The physical pub here is a Victorian corner pub, extended in to a modern building at the rear. In the past, I suspect it went in to this building also; for this was a hotel for a number of decades in the early 20th century. The interior is not Victorian, so it isn't on the lists of Victorian pubs - but in this part of the city, most of the pubs are well over 150 years old. It spent a bit of time between pub incarnations as a chain off-licence, before becoming a sort-of craft beer bar nearly 15 years ago. It hasn't moved too far away from this since.

On to the current operations. Underdog is basically the last full craft bar in Dublin that isn't owned by a brewery; and potentially the only non brewery owned bar that doesn't sell Guinness. 

There's a small number of bar staff here - including the owner, all well educated in the product they sell. There aren't really any fixed taps; but there are some near permanent products here - all from Irish or international independent breweries. You'll find something to drink.

The kitchen here hasn't operated as a regular thing since the last Galway Bay era; but it may yet reopen. Until then, if you need food, you really don't need to go far - this section of Bolton Street has multiple interesting and good quality Brazilian places of various kinds, as well as other pubs doing food.

N2648 Travelodge Dublin Airport South / Metzo

A few weeks of writeups ago, I commented on the use of "Airport" in a hotel name to avoid telling you where it actually is. In this case, "Airport South" is being used as there is already another Travelodge - a much older one from the chains initial rollout in Ireland - with Dublin Airport in it's name.

What they're hiding from you, location wise, is that this is in Ballymun; part of the mid 00s redevelopment of the town centre. Outsiders may not care about Ballymuns past reputation, but search engines exist and fudging both the location and the distance from the airport itself probably seemed worthwhile.

If you didn't know that it was a hotel bar, you wouldn't really tell that Metzo - or the Fishbowl as it is commonly nicknamed - is; except possibly for its extremely strange layout. It is accessed mainly (or solely, possibly) from the street outside rather than the hotel and is not branded as a hotel bar in any way.

The weird layout is made use of, with the semi isolated bit behind the toilets used for darts; and the area between the bar and the windows featuring a singer somewhat murdering soul standards at the time I visited.

While Ballymun had two vast pubs in the original shopping centre across the road - N0824 The Towers and The Penthouse; it now only has the bar of this hotel; a fraction of the size of even one of the two old pubs. Residents have complained to the media about the size, or lack thereof, of this.

N2771 Metro Hotel

Yet another case of deploying the DW-from-Arthur meme here, and ignoring the largest set of signs telling me that a hotel bar is residents only; specifically because a former work colleague drinks here frequently; while not living in the hotel

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Indeed, he drank here when the hotel only had a residents bar licence, but a year or so ago the licence changed type to a public bar one - the serial number not changing in the process oddly enough.

On barging past the further set of signs inside the lobby telling me I would not be served in the bar, and further ignoring a sign telling me to wait to be seated; I was served and able to sit where I wanted. 

The pint wasn't the best either, possibly because they aren't selling very much when clearly trying to dissuade people from coming in!

N2433 Astro Park Coolock

I don't visit sports club bars, because they don't have pub licences. Except when, for whatever reason, they actually do. This is going to be the first of, well, only two I believe; that get written up in the next few weeks.

Astro Park, a provider of 5 a side all-weather pitches, has two locations in Dublin and both are fitted with bars. However, as far as I'm aware the one in Tallaght uses a members club licence and also hasn't been open for years - it has been listed for rent on and off for as long as I've been checking pub ads. 

Coolock, though, has a normal pub licence and the bar is very much open to the public

A slightly dated (there's CRT TVs built in to the walls, not turned on anymore though) sports bar occupying nearly all the first floor of the clubhouse building, this offers a wings-and-burgers type food menu and a reasonable range of pints, and lots of working TVs showing various sports - I think there was a Premier League / GAA split two ends of the room on my visit.

There's a distinct lack of pubs around this part of the city - the nearest to the East (N0173 Swiss Cottage) and West (N0909 Liz Delaneys/Black Sheep) have both closed permanently in the last ten years, so I would have expected this to be busier - while not quiet, there were plenty of seats available. There is live music on Saturday evenings, so there is slightly more on offer than sports.

N0852 The Concorde (as Green Fields)

It isn't often that I arrive at a pub and find that it has changed name without me knowing - indeed I don't think it's ever happened before. Pubs have shut down completely on me a number of times, so it's not like I pick up everything of course - I have even got a bus specifically to try tick somewhere off to find it dark and empty; having shut actual years beforehand (N0138 The Hollybrook, formerly Gilbert & Wright Clontarf).

In this case, even Google was unaware that The Concorde was not The Concorde anymore; having changed at some point since it was offered for sale in 2021. That article mentions the pub being kept in excellent condition, so my initial assumption that it had been renovated after sale may be inaccurate - it is in very good condition throughout.

You'll notice I've said "was". In the time between my visit and the writeup being published, the pub has reverted to The Concorde. It's just as well my correction on Google Maps wasn't accepted!

It's a large enough pub and it's sort of hard to say whether the area I was in was a bar area or a games room; featuring a pool table, and also some of my most disliked things in a pub - gaming machines. However, unlike some other pubs, they weren't right inside the door or blaring noise; so I'm more tolerant of them here.

Edenmore formerly had a second pub, N0741 Edenmore House, but this closed in the mid 2010s. The licence was moved to 1012867 Temple Bar Inn, one of the last licence transfers I ever saw reported in detail in a newspaper - court reporting of less salacious cases being an early victim of cuts in journalism! 

N1343 Racecourse Inn

After the previous pub writeup heavily featuring a fire, you might not expect the next one to do so too; but the Racecourse was damaged in a fire in 2012, although not anywhere near as extensively as Graingers was in 2002.

Named for Baldoyle Racecourse, which closed in 1972, the pub and adjacent Racecourse Shopping Centre are not actually built on the lands of the race course, which remain extensively un-redeveloped to this day. 

 

There's large Hope adverts in the road-facing windows of the pub, but the vast lounge I was in didn't serve it. Looking at the layout from the outside, I'm guessing it's served in a bar which I missed - craft in the bar rather than the lounge isn't the most common thing!

 

The lounge was fairly lively for the time of the afternoon it was, before there was any particularly high interest sports on TV; with a mix of racing viewers, families dining and groups of lads in five-a-side kit; presumably *after* their match rather than before making up the bulk of the customers.

N0125 The White House

Creches - not something you usually associate with a pub; except possibly as an insult for somewhere known to be a tad lax with age requirements... 

However, in a previous incarnation, this pub had a creche for the children of its customers, opening in 1996, but not mentioned in reports of the significant fire in 2002 which gutted the pub - for the second time in ten years, it having previously been burnt out in 1992.

The reports on the €4m arson in 2002 do mention another continuing oddity - the pub had, and still has, its own newsagents - currently branded as an XL Stop and Shop. 

While common in rural areas to this day, pubs with their own shop are extremely uncommon in Dublin, excluding the dwindling off-licence sections that some pubs still retain.

I'm aware of only one other conventional one (S3046 The Swallows in Deansrath features a Daybreak), plus the ability to buy some of the decorative hardware in S3271 Marys. Even the rural village pubs of North County Dublin don't retain shops at this stage - albeit there is one still intact at N0253 The Brock, it appears to be closed down by even the 2009 Streetview pass.

Despite this slight anachronism, the pub is modern and well presented, having been refit extensively in 2015. It's on the bigger side for older suburban pubs, so there's a few areas to pick from.