1002238 Jobstown House

One of the most historic suburban pubs, this large and nicely appointed old roadhouse has even survived a CPO for the development of the large housing estates that surround it.

Owned by the same family for three generations, the pub walls are covered with various historic artefacts. As is often the case, it is some documentation that caught my eye first

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But I was interested in what appeared to be a painting of a *different* pub on the wall in the bar - I couldn't surreptitiously get a photo, but it did not resemble the current or any former form of the Jobstown House that I've seen. A strange thing to have.

NecroReview: S4466 Odessa

Back when I worked in radio, we had a Christmas party here. At the same time, a rival radio group had their party on another floor and we strongly suspected they were sneaking down to use our 'free' (to a point) bar by claiming plausible deniability if asked if they were at "the radio party"

Other than that I don't remember much. The premises closed for a refit quite some time ago, with a small hotel planned; but this has dragged ridiculously. The surrounding buildings, on both sides of the road, are or have been re/developed as hotels in the interim so there must be some demand for it - possibly it's just slightly too small.

Closed For The Duration - Licenced, but never open, pubs of the last decade

As we enter the tenth calendar year of doing this - I started keeping my spreadsheet and posting writeups in July 2016; although I'd been deliberately trying new pubs out for a while before that - I'm beginning to run out of places to visit.

I've previously written about this, and reduced the frequency of posting, and the end of my writeups of pre-2016 pubs soon will probably lead to a further cut in frequency, although a scavenger hunt of missing writeups has bought a few weeks worth of content.

During those ten years, a number of premises have remained licenced the entire time, but never opened their doors for trade at any point; with a few more where I could have purchased alcohol but would be very unlikely to be allowed consume it on the premises.

There's some mythology that a pub has to be open one day a year to keep its licence, and indeed I've had this repeated to me *by a licence holder* in recent years. This is not correct and I'm not quite sure where it came from. These pubs have held their licence, for far longer than the 5 year lapse period that was introduced in the early 60s; and could in theory reopen - if their fire certs were valid, and in one case, the building even really existed!

I'm going to record those here, with a bit of explanation where possible. Some of these are going to be getting vaguely in to hypothesis, as the future intent for the licences is very unclear.

N0229 Dolly Heffernans, Blanchardstown

Will it be a hotel? Will it be a nursing home? Neither of these proposals has actually progressed, with the hotel plans having first surfaced in 2006. This once rural pub now sits incongruously opposite a large car dealer and within a growing industrial estate.

N1223 Laurence Lounge, Ballyfermot

An early 2000s rebuild, with retail and apartments above, on the site of an older pub; this pub has been shut for the entire period of my interest with no obvious happenings at all

N0202 Millennium, Benburb Street

Planning permission has been refused to replace this pub with suites for the almost adjacent Aisling Hotel

N0877 Phoenix Park Racecourse

This licence appears to be registered to no premises whatsoever, seeing as the remaining pavilion of the Racecourse was demolished a very long time ago. Still held by the developers, my assumption is that is it being kept valid for transfer to a future pub on the development site; although to what building it is assigned currently is a mystery. 

Even after the racecourse had closed, "The END" nightclub in the pavilion continued to operate, but I believe it had closed significantly before the beginning of redevelopment in 2004.

N1097 Conways, Parnell Street

Rotting away, Conways closed in slightly murky circumstances including claims it had "lost its licence", but the licence remains; and the pub will apparently be renovated and reopen if the Dublin Central development ever finishes.

N2152 Barcode, Clontarf

A nightclub that targetted younger (legal age) drinkers, and did the "drink while playing sports" thing that is becoming the theme of 2025, twenty years before. But it remained somewhere I never visited.

Planning troubles contributed to the clubs closure in 2010; and nothing has been heard since - but the licence remains.

S0218 Houricans, Leeson Street

This closed very close to the time that I started the blog, and has remained licenced. At the time of writing this, it is finally up for sale.

S3504 TramCo, Rathmines

There are plans afoot to renovate and rebuild the hotel here and reopen, but this sometimes controversial nightclub still sits empty. Proposals will reduce the space from vast to just a normal hotel bar

Special Category I - off-licences using pub licences

S1349 Spar, Baggot Street - the former Henry Grattan pub, the signage of which appeared during renovation works. 

N0104 Parnell Street Off-Licence - formerly Forum and a variety of other names, this has traded solely as an off-licence for almost 20 years.

Special Category II - Out of action throughout this decade, but visited by me prior

N2030 The Good Bits, Store Street - written up as a NecroReview in January, The Good Bits closed in about 2011; but remains on the licence register to this day

S0398 Dunnes Stores, Blackrock - I visited this when it was a TGI Fridays, but it was closed for an incredibly long time and reopened as a supermarket.

S4467 Croughs

This pub is in an area of Tallaght that seems to be a bit difficult to define - Google tells me it's in Jobstown, except sometimes it says Whitestown. The adjacent shopping centre is named after Fortunestown, but has the Springfield post office in it. The Credit Union nearby just calls itself Tallaght West.

I believe, from reading newspaper reports and also a Valuation Tribunal report, that the opening of the pub was possibly just as difficult, with a many year planning battle, going from the early 90s to when the pub actually opened.

A fairly standard, quite large suburban pub; the potential catchment area here is quite large but, as pointed out, in the Valuation Tribunal report, there is local competition from sports club bars. Possibly as a result of this, the pub was not incredibly busy when I visited.

32 Pints - The Adrian Chiles Challenge

Adrian Chiles has written about his desire to have a pint in every county in Ireland - something similar to my intent here with pubs in Dublin, but something even more logistically difficult. He brings this desire up as he mentions a couple trying to visit every pub in Britain, something I would find financially, logistically and probably liver impossible to match in Ireland.

Ignoring the temptation to try visit every pub in the entire country and just focus on one per county; I decided to see how far along I was already. 

I can remember 20, so more than half, less than two thirds; but I have little intent to push on further. I picked up a lot of these while working as a field engineer, over a decade ago, and that's why its extensively hotel bars. LOI matches provide a few here too.

My last additions to the list were Westmeath, in August 2024; Offaly in April 2022 and Sligo in August 2021; so there isn't a rapid gain rate here.

Going to go for a quick list, including a/the premises when I remember

Dublin - about 900 different premises so far, documented nearly in full on this site

Kildare - multiple across the county, considering I live here

Meath - Citynorth Hotel is the only one I can remember confidently. I think I've had pints in the newer hotel in Ashbourne too

Louth - some pub near Oriel Park

Antrim - multiple pubs in Belfast, Portrush

Down - The Coach nightclub in Banbridge

Derry - Magherboy House Hotel just over the county line in Portrush.

Donegal - tens of premises including a project to visit Every Pub In The Rosses

Sligo - multiple premises including the Swagman

Mayo - various hotels in Westport and Ballina

Galway - multiple premises including Tigh Neachtains 

Kerry - various hotels in Listowel

Cork - various hotels and bars including the Old Oak

Waterford - Harveys Bar near-ish the RSC

Wexford - various hotels and bars including Simon Lambert & Sons

Wicklow - multiple premises including Royal Hotel in Bray before a match in the Carlisle Grounds

Carlow - The Foundry nightclub

Kilkenny - various hotels and bars including Matt the Millers before a match in Buckley Park

Offaly - most of the pubs in Tullamore 

Westmeath - various hotels and bars in Athlone including Dead Centre

NecroReview: S3757 Browns Barn, Citywest

A barn - a stables apparently used for the Bianconi horse coach services - converted in the main in to a barn of a pub and restaurant; this place was a regular location for work lunches and even the odd work party when I worked in Citywest.

I still have a pint glass that a work colleague took from here when heading to a taxi home; and then left in my house before getting back to his.

I don't think that pint glass is why they closed; though, but instead the prevailing economy of the time and possibly a change in where drivers stopped for food - this was really more of a restaurant than a pub, but was quite close to the city, and became quicker in time when the Newlands Cross upgrade finished.

The licence was sold out to the Clontarf Baths restaurant, which itself isn't trading right now (at time of writing), but has been sold to NolaClan and I expect will reopen by this Summer. 

S1581 Muldowneys

I've previously commented on it being a tad odd that two of the four pubs in Rathcoole are thatched. Well, it turns out that Muldowneys also was - at least until gutted by fire around New Year 1961/2

Irish Press, December 30th 1961

For some reason, I'm struggling to write particularly much about this pub - it's nice, it was fairly quiet, but it wasn't particularly memorable. Usually the less I remember the better the pub is as a general "local" I guess.