How Many Pubs *Are* There In Dublin?

Quick answer: Nobody knows. But every figure you've seen is wrong

Long answer: Nobody knows, but here's why. And I'm going to give you an estimate that's much higher than any figure you see elsewhere. And it'll still be wrong, in some ways, to some (or all) people - and that's fine.

Let's go through some of the claimed figures, and the huge range within:

The Dublin Pubspotters Guide book, as used by Yuya Abe to attempt to visit every pub in the city (which he did, quicker than I ever will - albeit using a different list of pubs), claims there are "over 900" pubs. I have this book at home and know that it lists many pubs which had been demolished by the time of the books publication, as well as a small number of places that are not pubs. However, this figure is the closest to reality; as it's based on physically counting all the actual buildings, basically.

AI Slop machines, and the dying ruins of search engines, usually tell you there's 772 pubs in Dublin. This is a figure that appears to date from 2018, from the "AIB Pub Outlook Report", a document which I now cannot find; and which probably didn't specify it's sources. 

DIGI gave a figure of 759 in 2022.

My guess that both of these figures are taken from the Revenue licence register, counting 7 Day Ordinary pub licences - but I don't consider this valid for many reasons, which I'll go through below.

At the other end of the scale we get this nonsense number. Lovin Dublin cite a UK report claiming there are 251 pubs, and give a population figure of 1.26m for that - so they mean the city and most of its suburbs in that case. The data for that report is apparently Tripadvisor, which certainly does not list every pub (and in some cases lists things that are not pubs, as if they are). It is also likely only core city entries; despite giving the population for a much wider area.

There's two main reasons nobody knows the answer to this, and arguably a third that's less of a main reason, but probably has the largest impact.

What Is A Pub?

This first issue is pretty important in deciding a number. Are you only counting places with a Publicans (7 Day Ordinary) licence as "a pub"? 

If you do, you're excluding some of Dublin's most famed bars like the Horseshoe in the Shelbourne; the Cellar in the Merrion and the Library in the Central/Hoxton Hotels, because these have Publicans Ordinary (Hotel) (Public Bar) licences, as you might guess from the name. There are also some former hotels that are operating solely as pubs, but retail a Hotel licence.

You are also excluding the small, but valid, number of pubs with Railway Refreshment Rooms licences; a number of premises that absolutely look, act and feel like pubs that have Publicans Ordinary (Theatre) licences; as well as gig venues. Plenty of people consider some of these to be pubs

You might not want to count *all* of these; but I could direct your attention to the number of restaurants, off-licences and even a university conference centre with 7 Day Ordinary licences - if you start cutting a category, you need to look at all categories.

I wrote about this issue back in 2020, when we were pondering the future of pub opening at all.

How Do We Count Them?

The second major issue is that there's no solid source for where to get a figure from. As you'll have seen above, there's lots of different figures given, with very different sources.

The LVA occasionally state a figure for the number of pubs in Dublin; but they are stating this from estimates based on their membership.

While trying to distance themselves from the actions in a Publicans (Theatre) licenced premises in 2020; the LVA stated that they don't represent hotel bars, restaurants or theatres (see tweet embedded in the previous link) - although one of their board members at that time only had business interests in hotel bars and supermarkets; and I'm pretty certain I've seen LVA plaques in a hotel bar before. 

They believe that 75% of pubs in Dublin (and Bray, which is traditionally LVA and not VFI) are members; but don't give figures to back this up. Their figures are usually in the 700-ish range, so they are correcting for this; but will still not get a perfect figure.

So lets just use Revenue's figures - the file is public, right?

The file right now shows 775 Publican (7 Day Ordinary), 49 Publican Ordinary (Theatre), 136 Publican Ordinary (Hotel), 5 Railway Refreshment Rooms and a handful of other types that I consider to be valid to some extent; to a total of 979

But that figure isn't right either. The file shows pubs which have renewed their licence at a given month end, and cannot be taken to be a list of every pub. Some trading pubs do not appear on the licence for years at a time.

Also, the licencing year runs October to September; so while the file right now contains a full years worth of renewals; the file next month will probably be missing 40% of the pubs.

There's also multiple pubs on the register that have been closed for years, or occasionally even decades. These renewals are usually processed immediately too, so they'll be on a partial register from November and all. Do you want to count these?

What Is Dublin?

This one may sound like I've suffered a recent head injury until I explain it...

If you cut the Revenue licence file on "Dublin", you miss a handful of premises which Revenue have decided are in different counties, but actually aren't.

In terms of trading premises that I consider to be pubs, this is currently one pub Revenue believe is in Meath, two that it believes are in Kildare. There was formerly one it believed to be in Wicklow (the Blue Gardenia), but this has permanently closed; another one in Kildare that may reopen; and also the bar in Weston Airport if you wish to count Aerodrome licences - this is also actually not in Kildare, although much of the runway is.

So how many *are* there?

Nobody knows. Didn't I tell you that already? But I did say I'd give my figure.

My running register file at home, which includes trading pubs temporarily missing from the Revenue list *and* the pubs in Not Kildare and Not Meath, is currently exactly 1000. It has been as high as 1012 before. But this list includes premises that are very, very closed or very, very inaccessible for drinking (e.g. now an off-licence), which I have marked off as undoable. Taking these out and we're at about 965

I actually wanted to call this blog "1000 Pubs in Dublin", but in 2016, the file was only in the high 900s; before I got old files from Revenue to locate numbers for some trading yet missing pubs.

Depending on exactly how you want to exclude places that really don't look and feel like pubs, but have licence types that are more like them; and dropping off places that are long-term closed and unlikely to reopen, I'll give you about 850 as a figure. It varies week by week as places close, open or reopen. Some of that 850 you will still probably not consider to be a pub, but they're open and trading and you can get a drink there.

You might need to buy a ticket, or buy a meal; or haul yourself to a hotel in a business park; but they have Publicans licences or one kind or another, or something damn close to it.