Friday, 26 September 2025
Revisit 20 years on: S0164 Horse Show House
Tuesday, 16 September 2025
Revisit 20 years on: S0018 Bowes
My previous post her set out an intent to try revisit some pubs that I'd last been to over 18 years ago; or least where the last time I can remember was that long ago.
In the case of Bowes, I cannot recall being in here since meeting someone to watch a football match in 2005. I wrote the RetroReview in 2020 when there was planning being attempted to merge the pub through the former Irish Yeast Company building behind; and thankfully this plan seems to be dead.
As you'd expect with a pub with a Victorian interior, very little has changed in the 20 years since my last visit. The TVs are newer, and there's various craft beers on the taps and in the fridges; and a lot of the smaller distilleries they have whiskey from didn't exist in 2005 - but the fundamentals are still the same.
This is a nice pub in a very central location. I'm not sure why I wasn't in here in the past 20 years; but I'll try make sure I get back in before 2045.
Tuesday, 9 September 2025
Aged Visits - revisiting pubs last visited >=18 years ago
As I'm all but out of places to tick off - and entirely out of conventional pubs until some open or reopen - I've decided that I should try figure out which pubs I've not been to for the longest and potentially revisit those, to update what are often extremely outdated "RetroReview" postings here.
I don't have dates and times for visits prior to starting the blog a bit over 9 years ago, and recording my re-visits from late 2019, so there's nearly 15 years and just under 100 pubs that haven't been recorded as visited on here, other than the RetroReview
Rather than post the full list here, and tie myself to actually visiting them all, I'm going to list a few places I know are approaching, at or beyond the 20 year mark since my last visit; and which I'll vaguely try to get to at some point in the next few years or so. I am deliberately leaving out ticketed venues (race tracks, theatres, cinemas)
* Hoxton Hotel (former Central Hotel) - I believe I was last here in 2004. It's reopening soon, which is a good excuse to visit
* The Bridge 1859 - 2005
* Horse Show House - 2005
These three above were all last drunk in before I was 18, so definitely deserve a legal revisit! The rest below are all a bit later; but still last visited so long ago, that someone born on the day would now be old enough to drink:
* Bowes, Fleet Street - circa 2005
* Fagans, Drumcondra - circa 2005/6
* Kennedys, Drumconda - circa 2005/6
* The Old Storehouse - circa 2005, when it was Eamon Dorans
* Quinns, Drumcondra - 2006. Also reopening soon
* IFI, Eustace Street - not sure I've been here since 2006. Yes, this is a cinema, but the restaurant and bar are open to all
* West County Hotel, Chapelizod - circa 2006
* The Old Boro, Swords - not been here since 2006, well before it was Wetherspooned
* The Betsy, Swords - 2006, as the Slaughtered Lamb
* Intercontinental Hotel - 2006, as the Four Seasons
* Talbot Hotel, Stillorgan - 2006, as the Stillorgan Park Hotel
* Mulligans, Abbey Street - 2007, as Madigans
* Madigans, North Earl Street - 2007
* The Grattan, Grattan Crescent - ~2007, as the Village Inn
Saturday, 6 September 2025
N1205 Abbey Theatre
Thursday, 4 September 2025
Revenue register update, September 2025
I still have no further writeups to post, so another routine posts gets moved to being a scheduled post!
Reasonably large update to process this month, albeit a lot of it is just renewals of extant premises. However, there's still a few changes of note:
New:
1022169 Lane7, Chatham Street - already visited
1022390 CitizenM Hotel, Bride Street - already visited
Renumbered:
1021887 Plunkets, Middle Abbey Street - formerly N1939
Removals:
1009401 Citywest Hotel, Citywest - this hotel has been purchased by the State and is extremely unlikely to ever reopen
Tuesday, 2 September 2025
Revisited pubs, August 2025
With a current pub writeup backlog of zero - everywhere I've been since 2005 is written up, as far as I know - the revisit post for August is being promoted to the status of being a regular scheduled post for the first time in many years.
N0097 Underdog - a regular that needs no explanation
S3103 Christchurch Inn - one stop of a few on a Sunday afternoon wander around the city
1014121 John O'Dwyers - and another
S0198 Cassidys - and another
N0082 McGraths - another regular
S0106 Tapped - with two hours to kill before a work event in the next-but-one entry, I had time to visit a few places in Dublin 2...
1007394 Davy Byrnes ...some of which were less busy than all their also famed neighbours on a sunny Thursday evening, presumably due to a North-facing outdoor area
1019597 Hyde - this was where said work event was.
Saturday, 30 August 2025
1017882 IMC Cinema Santry
Thursday, 28 August 2025
S0259 The Willows
Just when I'd announced I'd finished all the "normal" pubs in the county, it gets revealed that one recent enough closure that I'd just missed - it shut before I did a sweep-up of that bit of suburbia - was to reopen on the August Bank Holiday weekend.
I didn't make it out that weekend - I was elsewhere in the country; but I did the weekend after.
This is another Irish "estate pub", an entirely different idea to that in the UK - a pub in a small row of shops in a housing estate; often these days not containing any conventional shops at all. Streetview history shows that the normal shop here closed some time between 2014 and 2018.
Most of these pubs were built in the 1940s to 60s, this coming from the latter end of that period by the looks of things, but it has been extensively updated - I wouldn't say "modernised", as that would imply a loss of character - before its recent reopening.
The food offering, at least initially, extends to toasties; and the drinks offering has some Four Provinces to break up the monotony of Diageo and Heineken products. I expect more food may be offered here going forward.
The pub isn't too far from Dundrum village and the Luas stops there; but there isn't another pub for quite some distance in all other directions, so there should be catchment here to keep it going.
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
1001687 Smock Alley Theatre
One of the newest, and also oldest, theatres in the city centre; Smock Alley opened in 2012 in what had been, for my generation at least, the Statoil Dublin Viking Experience. (That attraction is not to be confused with the still operating Dublinia)
However, that was just a temporary cultural use of the building, which had formerly been a Catholic church - apparently the first obvious one within the city for centuries, as it opened pre-emancipation. And this church had been built on the site of, and retaining various features from, the 1735 Theatre Royal.
That theatre itself had replaced a 1662 building on the same site, and a little of the fabric of that building appears to still survive. I don't believe there's another operating theatre in Dublin that can claim, even tenuously, to have that length of history - but this really isn't my specialist subject.
What there is now is a complex with a number of relatively small rooms, including a banquet hall above the main stage. It's here that I had my drinks; as there was an option to purchase charcuterie prior to a show, in what have to be some of the most impressive surroundings of anywhere you can actually get a drink in Dublin.
But you do have to go see something being performed here to get a drink, either in the banquet hall or the small bar in the lobby. I saw a modern, Dublin-set interpretation of Moliere's Misanthrope; an interesting experience for someone who last attended a theatrical performance in the early 2000s!
Saturday, 23 August 2025
1013760 Savoy Cinema
Once a grand, nearly 3000 capacity single screen cinema, the Savoy has been chopped up so much over its nearly 100-year history (opening in 1929) that there are now THIRTEEN screens in the building.
I watched a documentary, on my own, in Screen 12 - which I'd swear is what the ladies toilets for the main screen used to be - with what was actually a fairly reasonably priced pint, of the only beer they serve - Moretti.
I wanted to see the documentary anyway, and the screen was cooler than the air outside, so I got a comfortable enough visit to tick the place off.
This limited beer or wine offering isn't all the Savoy has ever had, pub-wise though. The adjacent branch of Madigans was once the cinemas bar (and also the first pub on O'Connell Street in the modern era - there's still only three other than the hotel bars, which isn't a lot) but eventually separated in operation and ownership and trades entirely independently and on its own licence.
Thursday, 21 August 2025
1022390 CitizenM Hotel, Bride Street
Bride Street was once lined with pubs - eight by my count, and another 3 on Werburgh Street which continues directly from it. Of those, one one of the Werburgh Street pubs - the famed Lord Edward - still exists.
But as part of the recent redevelopment of the area, Bride Street now has two hotels. One, a StayCity, only has a residents bar - licenced as such and out of scope for me. The other, the new CitizenM, has a conventional bar open to the public.
Or at least it does by the time you're reading this. On the day I visited, they had not yet got their full Publicans Licence (Ordinary) Hotel in place and were only able to serve wine and soft drinks. But a wine is a wine, I was in the bar and I'm counting it against the full licence they were expecting to have by the end of July. I think the hotel opened a bit earlier than was originally advertised so this may explain the period of no full licence.
The bar is a hotel lobby bar, but a fairly nicely fitted out one. With no beers actually yet on offer, I can't comment on what the beer selection is like; and I know next to nothing about wine either, but I was able to drink what I bought!
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
DG0499 Stoop Your Head
Two weeks or so ago, my writeup of the Yacht in Loughshinny caled it the last - last open and trading at that time, anyway - very conventional pub in the county for me to visit. This visit is the last place that vaguely looks and feels like a pub; with everything else being at best a hotel lobby bar. It's 927th on my rolling register basis, so not a nice round number; but very significant all the same. I still have 30-something pub-licenced premises of less obvious pub character to visit, and new places do still open - but we are approaching the end. Anyway: on to the writeup.
Probably one of the oddest named pubs in the entire country, this premises claims to have been the first gastropub in Ireland, opening as such in 1959, in what had been Duffy's pub (a rarely, but sometimes, seen pub name despite how common my surname actually is).
Last time I tried to go in here, I was denied service because I didn't want food - but this was during the late 2021 pub opening period, with all its paperwork and reasons why somewhere might want to keep their limited seats for diners. I was instead told that the neighbouring, and co-owned since that 1959 reopening, DG0500 Joe Mays would serve me if I didn't want to eat.
The issue there was I had just had lunch. In Joe Mays. Oh well.
This time I was advised that eating in might be required if the pub was busy, so I arrived hungry. The food options here are mostly seafood based - this could easily be the only food focused pub in Ireland that doesn't offer a beef burger. Despite my fishing industry parental family background; my food choices tend towards the generations of retail butchers that my mother is descended from, but cod basically taste of nothing. The over-branded fish and chips ("Fresh Cod Fritté") was perfectly to my expectations; and I was able to down it with a pint of O'Haras. My drinking partner for the day was happy with his moules frites, even with the baseline of having much experience of eating them in France!
While I was there, there were people just in for drinks, so I probably didn't *have* to have food here, but I don't regret doing so. From past experience, Skerries pubs and food don't often mix, and I did need to have lunch somewhere.
As for the name - it's not explained on the website. There is a low doorway inside the pub which has the pubs name repeated on a warning sign above. But my immediate thought was of a command to duck before a sail boom goes around while tacking in a sail boat, of which there are plenty outside in Skerries Harbour. Locally, and when referred to on its own website, it is "Stoops" rather than the full name. Despite this, I don't believe it has any particular SDLP connection...
Saturday, 16 August 2025
1022267 Priory Market
Dublin's first example of a European indoor food market - or, arguably, first in the almost a decade since the Epicurian Food Hall was converted to a giant Dealz - is somewhat strangely located in an industrial estate in Tallaght village, a reasonable distance away from the high frequency bus routes and tram line that serve the Tallaght area. But it's worth the walk.
This is because it is co-sited with, and run by, Priory Brewing who were already there. A social enterprise, Priory has been around for a few years, but I believe did go in to a hiatus for a period before returning recently.
In the corner of the market that is beside the brewery, Priory have their bar. The offering here is four bright tanks of their four main beers - a pale, an IPA, a session IPA and a lager, albeit the lager was sold out when I visited - as well as keg offerings of the rest of their lineup (on the day of my visit, this was a weiss, a double IPA, a red, a sour, a stout and possibly more) and some other Irish independent guest beers.
There's also a cocktail bar, a significant source of the long queues that were at the bar at times while I was there - they were not a permanent fixture, as the number of staff behind the bar would increase to reduce the queues when needed.
I'd had lunch just before getting on the bus to head out here, so I didn't actually try any of the food options. The longest queues, by far, were at the ice cream vendor - but it was mid 20 degrees outside, so this is understandable; but plenty of the others seemed fairly busy too.
I'll head back though, and try get some food on that visit. Now to lobby the NTA for more buses...
Thursday, 14 August 2025
S3556 Sugar Club
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
1019413 Mama Yo
I didn't manage to finish off the various elements of Press Up before the entire entity basically ceased to be, but I got there in the end. At least until Eclectic open somewhere entirely new, that is.
This is a deceptively large - the single shop unit width at the front opens out hugely behind - very generic and very expensive Chinese restaurant, that really does not need to hold a pub licence for the way it serves drinks.
I don't recommend going here unless you have a good reason to, as there's better alternatives on the same section of street let alone elsewhere in the city.
Monday, 11 August 2025
Revenue licence numbers - what do they actually mean?
Systems:
Alphanumeric
Sequential
Renumbering
Saturday, 9 August 2025
1018497 Six by Nico
Friday, 8 August 2025
August 2025 Register update
After many months of basically nothing, we get a reasonable update this month - all already visited!
New:
1021935 Lane7, Dundrum Shopping Centre
1022058 Sandbox VR, Nassau Street
1022267 Priory Market, Tallaght (writeup scheduled for next week)
Renumbered:
1022218 Mercantile Hotel, Dame Street - formerly S3175
Thursday, 7 August 2025
N1776 St Margaret's Golf & Country Club
Now, this tick absolutely needed a driver - the clubhouse here is 1.6km from the nearest bus stop, which itself does not get a particularly frequent bus service. It is possibly the last tick I'll do with a driver - or at least, the last on a multi tick trip.
I'm not quite sure how this is a "country club" - the facilities appear to be golf, a public restaurant/bar, and some conferencing facilities. But they do use the term across their branding.
The bar itself felt like a members bar somewhere, but is absolutely open to the public. Prices are a bit closer to what you might expect in a members bar, but I doubt many people come here to drink, due to that extremely long walk in from St Margarets village
Tuesday, 5 August 2025
N2410 Roganstown Hotel & Country Club
Monday, 4 August 2025
Revisited pubs July 2025
N0053 Graingers - now the Connolly bar is gone, Graingers suffices for the quick inter-train pint
DG0495 Nealons - these three were all part of a day trip to Skerries to
S1468 Thomas House - and these two a Sunday wander around D8
S0106 The Porterhouse - escaping the tourists in Temple Bar on the way to another tick
Saturday, 2 August 2025
DG0503 The Yacht, Loughshinny
Friday, 1 August 2025
1021424 Blue Bar
Thursday, 31 July 2025
N1508 Shoreline Hotel
Wednesday, 30 July 2025
1020755 allta
Tuesday, 29 July 2025
1014271 Dunne & Crescenzi
A pub-restaurant that apparently doesn't serve drinks without food; although on the day I was told that, there was a TD sitting outside with an Aperol Spritz and no sign of having a meal... but I came back for dinner another day anyway. I believe pre-pandemic, the Wine Bar element, still advertised on the awnings, was an actual thing here; but it is now entirely restaurant.
One of the older restaurants still standing in Dublin - a 1999 opening being practically ancient history for a non fast food premises, and potentially getting towards being on an "oldest restaurants" list as older places die off (see Come Here To Me!'s 2010 list, with 1989 being new enough to get mentioned, and many closures since marked); this only got its pub licence in more recent years, possibly for the aforementioned wine bar, or for the administrative ease compared to the rules around serving beer and spirits with a Special Restaurant Licence.
I'm not a restaurant reviewer - as I've said before, I'm barely even a pub reviewer really - but I enjoyed the meal here. It was however a very expensive tick to get!
Monday, 28 July 2025
1009141 Castleknock Golf Club
To get to the clubhouse of this early 2000s, Bernard Langher designed golf course, you need to walk on a footpath that changes side a number of times, and through the, erm, path? (I'm not great with golf terms and haven't picked up a club in nearly 20 years...) of at least one, possible two holes - and for one of them I did need to wait back as two people hit a drive (?) over the entrance road.
There's a public licence here because the restaurant and bar are open to the public, with a small members area of the bar at one end. This is where I was seated by the staff, however, as a solo drinker/diner with some larger groups expected to take up the other tables.
Food was decent, drink prices reasonable, and my timing good enough that I arrived in the door just as the skies opened, and ate my lunch while an unseasonable torrent came down - and then left to go back to the train as it became sunny again. I'd probably recommend driving if you're going here for food, though - it was a bit of a walk from the previous place, which itself was a bit of a walk from public transport!
Saturday, 26 July 2025
1013947 Castleknock Hotel
A second slightly awkward to get to hotel writeup in a row - but at least this time, it was all flat. Now that I'm approaching 50 remaining premises to do, they all get harder to visit in some way or another - and this ones delay was due to access.
This is the sort-of flagship of FBD Hotels, the leisure investment arm of the only remaining Irish car/home insurer; a mix of businesses I've always found quite odd - but then again, Sean Quinn did both insurance and hotels too. FBD however have not needed a massive bailout!
It's a big hotel, with multiple dining options; and was very busy when I arrived - but there was bar seating available. There was nothing particularly memorable about the bar, or anything else, until I was leaving - when I saw a staff member vacuuming the concrete outside the hotel!
Friday, 25 July 2025
1010478 Deer Park Golf
Thursday, 24 July 2025
1014505 Clayton Hotel Dublin Airport
Wednesday, 23 July 2025
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!
Tuesday, 22 July 2025
S3437 Radisson Blu St Helens
Monday, 21 July 2025
1021852 Super Social
Sunday, 20 July 2025
1021935 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.
Saturday, 19 July 2025
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.
Friday, 18 July 2025
N2582 Carlton Hotel Blanchardstown
Thursday, 17 July 2025
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!
Wednesday, 16 July 2025
1010656 The Green Phonebox
Tuesday, 15 July 2025
1021842 Bewleys
Monday, 14 July 2025
1022058 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.
Saturday, 12 July 2025
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.
Friday, 11 July 2025
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 in
S0199 Devitts - before going for dinner in a new tick nearby
S0024 Hartigans - before going to a show in a new tick nearby
1022169 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.
Thursday, 10 July 2025
1014544 The Ivy
Wednesday, 9 July 2025
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
Tuesday, 8 July 2025
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.
Monday, 7 July 2025
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
Saturday, 5 July 2025
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.
Friday, 4 July 2025
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.
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.
Thursday, 3 July 2025
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
Wednesday, 2 July 2025
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!
Tuesday, 1 July 2025
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.
Monday, 30 June 2025
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
Saturday, 28 June 2025
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.
Friday, 27 June 2025
1012867 Temple Bar Inn
Thursday, 26 June 2025
1018953 Fallon and Byrne
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
1019160 Hampton by Hilton, Chancery Street
Tuesday, 24 June 2025
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.
Monday, 23 June 2025
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.
Saturday, 21 June 2025
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.
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,
Friday, 20 June 2025
S0307 Haddington House Hotel
Thursday, 19 June 2025
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.