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...