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.