Toby, Berni and JDW - British chain pubs in Dublin

The presence of English chain pubs in the Dublin market - currently, just a smattering of JD Wetherspoon premises and no solid plans for any more - is unpopular with many, but it isn't particularly new.

While the first JDW to actually open in Dublin was 1009755 Three Tun Tavern - since sold and renamed The Blackrock - in 2014; JDW had been sniffing around Ireland for quite some time prior to that. They had purchased a building on Capel Street with intent to convert it in to a pub in 2003, however they fairly rapidly sold this, writing down €900,000 on it and other costs involved in the abortive project.

They now operate three suburban and three city centre pubs - N2358 Old Borough, Swords, N2244 Great Wood, Blanchardstown, S3795 Forty Foot, Dun Laoghaire; 1015767 Silver Penny, Abbey Street, 1017594 Keavans Port, Camden Street and S4345 South Strand, Grand Canal Dock. A handful of pubs outside Dublin have all been sold off, and development plans for further pubs cancelled.

JDW aren't the only British pub chain to have poked around at Dublin and backed off.  Mitchells and Butlers have been reported as having kicked tyres on a number of large pubs various times up until 2014, as have Greene King - the latter apparently having gone as far as appointing advisors to negotiate with pub owners in 2013. Whitbread - the owner of Premier Inn who are expanding at a great pace in Ireland currently, formerly operated pubs (and a brewery) and were also apparently looking to buy Irish pubs in the late 1980s.

However, JDW and other assorted big chains are nowhere near the worst of what you could import from the UK, and Dublin certainly had those extremely tacky ones too.

There was a single branch of the Berni Inn pub steakhouse chain, in the premises which is now Tapped on Nassau Street. This chain was best known for offering the exceptionally cliched menu of a prawn cocktail, a steak and chips, and Black Forest Gateau; although clearly this was not compulsory. Drop the prawn cocktail and I'd be quite willing to eat that still, but anyway...

This was a joint venture with Clayton Love Group, the frozen peas to property entity, who had bought Jammets Restaurant that operated on this site before the Berni Inn. It opened in 1970 and seems to have closed in 1986 or early 1987, with there being bar and club elements open alongside the restaurant - such as the Ploughmans Bar and Mac's nightclub. There were proposals for more Berni Inns around Ireland but it appears none ever opened.

More recently, indeed after the sole Berni Inn had close, the somehow still going Toby Carvery brand entered Ireland in 1988. This brand is now owned by the aforementioned Mitchells & Butlers, but in 1988 was a subsidiary of Bass.

Toby Restaurants (Ireland) Limited assembled a small collection of large pubs - S0369 Step Inn, S1236 Mount Merrion House and N0313 Coachmans Inn; and extensively renovated them into the format of Toby Cavery pub/restaurants. These were sold off between 1991 and 1993, losing over £2m in the process between purchase and renovation costs. 

These premises kept their original names, but the renovation added "Toby Carving Rooms" to the pubs, the first one at the Step Inn being opened by TV presenter Derek Davis. The Coachmans is still a noted carvery venue. but is to be mostly demolished for a hotel development; with the Mount Merrion already closed and the Step Inn having moved somewhat up-class in its food service.

I should also add the perplexing presence of a pub-licenced former Little Chef out past the airport, but I don't think this was from a trial of having Little Chef Pubs!

The Pubstaurant - how Irish licencing laws cause restaurants to get pub licences

As I get to the difficult to tick end of the list of Dublin's pub licences - having long since finished everything you'd consider to be a "normal pub" - a reasonable amount of what I have been ticking off for the last 12 months have been restaurants.

These restaurants all hold full pub licences - I am not intending to tick off everywhere with a Special Restaurant Licence (hereafter SRL) that allows them to sell the full range of alcoholic drinks. 

Some of them are in former pubs that have since become restaurants, e.g. S0297 Daata in Blackrock is in a building which has had many pub incarnations, and there has been a licence on this site for likely over a century. The other branches of the now expansive Daata chain do not hold pub licences.

But rather a lot of them are not, and instead bought in a pub licence on opening, or at another time afterwards. Pub licences are not cheap - depending on demand they can range from €45000 upwards, and have reached over €100k in the modern era (and one traded for over £1m in the old era where they could not be moved far easily).

Pubs do this because it is significantly easier to have a conventional bar with one. A SRL limits how you serve drinks - table service only, when you serve drinks - limits before and after meals and on the minimum cost of meals, albeit that cost is now extremely low, and to who you serve drinks - only those actually dining.

Possibly more importantly than all of these issues for many restaurants, is that SRLs additionally place onerous requirements on what food and drinks you serve. 

The food requirements are very traditional including a requirement to offer soups and meat main courses; and for drinks bar must have an "adequate wine list" on a physical wine menu presented to diners,  and offer both spirits and beers "of Irish origin". So no Asian restaurants serving vegetarian food with only Asian beers allowed then! I somehow suspect these rules are not enforced to their full extent anymore, but the SI is unamended and in force to this date.

The regulations go so far as to define the types of chairs (must be cushioned) and tables (if no tableclothes, they must be polished hardwood with table mats) a restaurant must have, that the restaurant has a cloakroom, that it has gendered toilets and that "table appointments" - everything on the table like salt cellars, candles, etc - match between tables. Basically you need a prim and proper 1980s Irish restaurant to comply with the rules.

I have also seen claims elsewhere that a SRLs doesn't allow draught beer; but I cannot find any legislation to back this up; and I believe it is a conflation of how you are not allowed have bar service. Draught taps does not equal bar service, but it would certainly conjure up images of such.

You can also apply for "late licences" - special exemption orders - to serve alcohol at later hours should you have booked a function that requires this, which cannot be done on a SRL.

So a full pub licence makes for a much easier time actually serving whatever alcohol (and food) you want to serve in a restaurant. 

A recent visit of mine to 1022717 Ivy Asia shows multiple reasons why - they do not serve any beer of Irish origin, their food menus do not match the late 80s Irish idea of "proper" as specified in the SI, and you can stay drinking cocktails for quite some time after you've finished eating if you so wish. I'm pretty sure the "table appointments" weren't identical on every table either.

Restaurants that have gone down the route of getting pub licences range from relatively high end places like both Ivy branches and the nearby Dunne & Crescenzi, through to fast casual places like Captain Americas, and when still trading, TGI Fridays. 

The in house restaurants of the Brown Thomas and Harvey Nichols department stores, multiple restaurants in the former Press Up empire and odd dual uses like the Malahide Siam Thai's small cocktail bar and the now gone Dundrum Donnybrook Fair doing off-sales as well as its restaurant make up the bulk of the rest of the pubstaurants. Not all of these places welcome non-dining drinkers; but plenty do - as you can see from my many writeups on here. I may go back and tag them all as such in future.

Revisit 19 years on: S3727 Flight Club (visited as Samsara)

I was in Samsara once, for a work event in 2007.

I returned to the new entity in the same premises for a work event in 2026.

In the interim, Samsara became Sam's Bar, then closed during the pandemic for a redevelopment of the hotel it was in; which never happened. The hotel has reopened as a tourist hostel, and the bar has reopened as an "entertainment pub" as many of 2025's new openings were; this one themed around darts. 

Flight Club is a franchise, with the Irish Loyola pub/restaurant group licencing the format from a company that seems to also franchise shuffleboard bars - something nobody has yet taken as the core format here, albeit Lane7 premises do offer that.

The format on offer includes lots of games that are based on the concept of darts, but are not conventional 501 games; a bit like an advanced version of Bullseye without the risk of ending up needing to share a speedboat; and is fairly fun even if you're incredibly bad at darts.

The bar has a reasonable drinks range including one solitary Irish independent tap (Hope Hop On), and the food provided to the group I was with was top notch as goes pub finger food, quite possibly the best I've actually ever had.

Unlike the other "entertainment pub" setups, I'm not entirely sure if you can just come in here for a drink - the entire place is set up with darts boards and clustered seating areas around them; but I didn't ask.

Revisited pubs April 2026

While April did actually feature some new, in scope, Dublin visits for the first time in a while; it mostly consisted of revisits. Longer evenings, sunny weekends and a variety of reasons to be in Dublin meant this was an extremely productive month for those.

N0027 Annesley House
1000937 Bridge Tavern
N0024 Hogan Stand
N0018 Big Tree (Dublin One Hotel), fundamentally changed from my previous visit
N0020 Juno - I really need to do a writeup of Juno rather than the Red Parrot
S0088 Foggy Dew
S0106 Porterhouse
S3840 Lynotts (last visited as Graingers The Fountain)
1013579 Luckys
S1470 Swift - also needs a new writeup as this is drastically different from Agnes Brownes
S3953 DV8 (last visited as JK Stoutmans)
1022495 Old Royal Oak
S1510 The Patriots
S0031 O'Neills (Pearse Street)
S0009 Doyles (College Street)
S0080 Bar Rua (no longer a Galway Bay pub, Galway Bay having merged with Brú who merged with Carrig who ran the pub when the original writeup happened)
S0122 O'Neills (Suffolk Street)
N0082 McGraths
S0239 Murphys
S2288 Mother Reillys / Uppercross House Hotel
S0238 Rody Bolands
S0241 Graces
S0240 Martin B Slattery
S0237 Kodiak (last visited as Copan)
S0236 The Dunmore
S0235 Blackbird
S0234 Corrigans
S3727 Flight Club - last visited as Samsara

S0135 Gaiety Theatre

I'd been to the Gaiety before, a number of times at that - but every single one of them was when I was in school. We went to see some random plays here in primary, including a panto; and then also went to see King Lear here when doing it in secondary.

I never got to attend the famed Velure nightclub here by virtue of being far too young; and even though the theatre-licence-for-late-opening loophole lasted in to my adulthood, the Gaiety was stopped from using this in 2004 for various reasons.

I'm a much more regular attendee of the cities other fine old Victorian theatre, the Olympia, as it has fundamentally become a music venue rather than a dramatic theatre; whereas the Gaiety rarely has anything other than traditional plays and musicals, with occasional stage magic and even more occasional comedy gigs filling out the year.

The Olympia is known for its bars, or at least for Maureens bar - and the Gaiety does have a named bar as well, the almost unsearchable John B's Bar - search engines will redirect you to the bar in Listowel once owned by John B Keane rather than this one named after him. This appears to be restricted to those in the fancy seats downstairs, however.

The bar I was able to visit was, unfortunately, the quite crowded and very modern bar for the upper circles. Selling a limited range of Diageo only beers, you'd do well to get in here early before a show and also to use the interval pre-ordering if available, if you want to actually get a drink during the interval. I was at a fully sold out performance, though, so this may have had an impact.

I often state that I'm not a restaurant reviewer, and I'm going to even more strongly state that I'm not a theatre reviewer so there will be no coverage of what I saw on stage!

1022717 Ivy Asia

A new Dublin "pub", and yet again, its a sodding pubstaurant.

Only a few doors down from its sister restaurant, this is another pubstaurant where you aren't going to get in for just drinks at any stage - the licence is here to make it simpler to manage the sale of cocktails and beer to diners rather than for operating as a normal pub.

The setup here is extensively done for Instagram, which is why I've not taken photos of any of it - the sliced agate (I think) floor and the statute at the urinals are already over-photoed. This level of setup doesn't usually bode well for the food...

...however, the food was actually well above my expectations. I'm not a restaurant reviewer, so I'm not going to get in to detail about it. It's pricey, but I wasn't disappointed.

Every Pub In... Dunboyne

The first of these trips to go beyond the county I live in, Dunboyne lies just over the border from both Kildare and Dublin in to Meath. It is accessible by Dublin Bus or Irish Rail, and is within the commuter fare zones, unlike some of the extremities of County Dublin!

With a 7,155 population in 2022, Dunboyne is notionally smaller than Kilcock; but supports four pubs (and a hotel) unlike Kilcock's two.

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 I started in Brady's, specifically in the bar, which I suspect would have people raving about if it it was in Dublin. A plain, traditional bar with no TVs, this provides precisely what you'd want from a traditional pub. Further in, they do have TVs, but it is still very traditional. This is apparently CMAT's local too.

Slevins was up next, and sort of unfortunately I don't have a lot to write about it - because its absolutely fine. There was just nothing that particularly jumped out to me.

O'Dwyers, basically next door, ticked a lot more boxes for me. It has a more coherent layout, despite still being split up in to many areas, and its outdoor areas step out from a sort-of conservatory to some coherent outdoor seating bays that somehow make you forget that they're actually in a car park. There was also a bouncy castle for kids today, but I suspect that's not a permanent feature. 

Across the square from both of these was Mulvanys Fingal House, which I just didn't quite warm to. Repeated signs inside the bar about photos and videos being banned raised massive questions, and the pub just didn't feel great for me. However, it was busy enough, and there was also signage about needing to book tables (despite them not doing food); so presumably it has a large regular crowd.

I didn't drop in to the bar of the Dunboyne Castle Hotel, not because it was particularly awkward to do so (it isn't), but because I'd already been there. This mid 2000s hotel was built around a former mother and baby home, itself a Georgian manor house; and as a good place to have a wedding relatively close to where I live, I have already attended a wedding here. Plenty of pints were purchased there, so I don't need to return to tick it off!

Every Pub In... Kilcock

I still have a total of one sort-of normal pub to do a first visit to in Dublin, so I will continue my trips to nearby suburban towns to visit their pubs. This trip writeup covers a very brief trip to Kilcock on a sunny, yet also rainy, April afternoon. 

Kilcock had a population of 8,674 as of the 2022 census - easily over 10k now, particularly when you include the large Millerstown housing estate that is actually in County Meath. And it has two pubs.

It had five pubs, in recent-ish memory. Three are currently gone. I'll give a quick roundup on these first before getting on to the two open pubs; but that the town has declined in provision so much is unfortunately not a surprise.

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Kilcock has been blighted with dereliction for my entire life, and while some improvements have happened - the Leaf / Chewits factory has been replaced by housing, and the derelict school buildings on and behind the Square have been renovated and replaced by a large Supervalu; there are still multiple derelict or underused buildings in the town centre, ranging from the extensive Kellys Bakery complex (once a major Guinness bottler) through to two of the closed premises I'm about to mention.

O'Keeffes had a significant fire in February 2023 and has yet to reopen, although occasional social media posts by family members promise that it will. 

The Lion House is to be converted to apartments with a licenced restaurant on site. Work was stopped in Summer 2025 for safety reasons. The building lies extremely derelict.

Corscaddens Hotel closed down a long time ago - it was for sale in 2002 but already looked slightly derelict in the sales photo, and it is unclear if it was trading at the time; but I can find references to events there in 1998. It was definitely shut by 2004 as I have photos I took of various derelict buildings in Kilcock back then, somewhere I can't current lay hands to. Aldi are planning to build a store behind here, and restore the building; but not as a pub or hotel.

But there are still two open pubs here, and the town has a lot of vibrancy to it - it is not all doom and derelict gloom

The Gregory Tavern is a large, rambling, comfortable pub; with a substantial choice of areas to sit and drink inside. It feels like somewhere that might do food, but doesn't - from what I've read, it just doesn't seem to take off when they have tried it in the past. This is a perfectly acceptable outer suburban - or provincial town, take your pick - conventional pub. I'd be more than happy to have this as my local, basically

Murphys is a picture postcard traditional rural pub, with a bar to match - but also has a fairly plush lounge and large well equipped beer garden as other options.

Both pubs could do with offering some independent Irish beers, and should probably first look to the brewery founded in - but which has since moved away from - the town, Rye River, which is widely available in all the neighbouring Kildare towns. 

Drinkers in Kilcock do have, as is often the case, the option of drinking in the local GAA club. In this case, it sits amidst housing estates fairly close to the town centre, and has extensive food offerings in its bar. This may depress demand for pubs in the town, but definitely gives another outlet.

April 2026 Revenue register update

A lot of changes this month in the file, with a rare enough new entry for a "normal" pub, and a bunch of other changes

New

1022732 Daphni, Grand Canal Dock

Reappeared:

N0273 Smyths, Donabate - relicenced to Cairn Homes who intend to redevelop and rent this as a restaurant with pub elements.

Renumbered

1022495 Old Royal Oak - formerly S1509

1022756 Smock Alley Theatre - formerly 1001687

1022924 McSorleys, Ranelagh - formerly S0188

Other change of note:

N2123 The Living Room, Cathal Brugha Street - licence has been reassigned to the Holiday Inn Express hotel which caused its closure for redevelopment. This already has its own public bar. Something is afoot here, but it could just be asset protection, or preparing to sell the licence rather than a reopeing.

EPITR: LEP209 The Lobster Pot

The first addition in quite some time to my Rosses side project, I took this cold and potentially damp April afternoon as a good reason to head out to Burtonport rather than limewash my house; after checking that the Lobster Pot would be open before committing to the walk, and the ferry fare.

Conventionally, this pub - and noted seafood restaurant - only opens five days a week, Wednesday to Sunday; but they added Monday and Tuesday this week due to the Bank Holiday and school holidays. They had a reasonable number of customers, primarily there to eat, during my visit; so I suspect the additional days were worth it.

Burtonport once (in my lifetime - there may have been more before) had four pubs in the core village area, five in the wider area, and a sixth a bit further out; but it now only has the Lobster Pot and LEP208 Jimmy Johnnys, in the imposing former railway hotel building just slightly closer to the sea that the Lobster Pot.

The two pubs are quite the contrast inside - the Lobster Pot being heavily greebled and featuring framed GAA jerseys on the walls and ceilings, with Jimmy Johnnys being comparatively quite modern and austere in decoration terms. The Lobster Pot has Errigal IPA on tap, compared to Errigal Oir lager further down towards the pier.

I didn't eat anything on this visit, mainly because I wasn't hungry; but also because I don't really eat seafood; despite being descended from a fishing, and fishing boat building, family. This is what the premises is really known for, and while I still think I'd prefer to do serious drinking down the road; I doubt you're going to find a better seafood restaurant nearby. And they certainly won't have a proper bar like this place does.

Revisit ~20 Years On: 1014760 The Grattan

I forgot to write this up after having revisted it a few weeks ago; and I definitely think it deserves a revisit writeup for having changed so much in the interim.

An exceptionally long time ago, I went in to the pub in this building - at least three incarnations of pub name let alone operator ago - because the signage outside said they did food; and I wanted food before going to seen Finn Harps play St Pats down the road.

After buying my pint, I found out they did not sell food and had not done so for a very long time. The barman was quite snarky about the painted signs saying they did... 

The pub was dead quiet and astoundingly run down, neither a sign of somewhere that has a bright future ahead of it. I never returned; and soon enough that era of the pub closed down. 

It clearly reopened, and has gone through multiple incarnations since. I think the current one may be Brazilian led - that it has a sushi offering in the building now only further supports this as there is some inexplicable Brazilian sushi connection that we can see elsewhere in Dublin

The new operation bears no resemblance to my last visit. It's clean, its busy and it does actually serve food. I'd still prefer other pubs in Inchicore; but it is at least somewhere you might actually want to drink now.

Revisited pubs March 2026

A month with quite a lot of revisits, and absolutely no new visits  - because there's nothing easy to visit left.

N0006 Brew Dock, many times
N1111 Black Lion
1014760 The Grattan, last visited as the Village Inn
N1123 Slatts 
1017068 Rascals - These last four on a trip to Inchicore for my now annual commemeration of the last proper night out before COVID
S1468 Thomas House
S1447 Drop Dead Twice, freshly reopened after a devasting fire some years ago
S1456 Lark Inn
S1465 Dudleys - written up as Bakers but visited many more times as Dudleys
1008963 Tapped
S0077 Nearys
S0015 Ginger Man
Daphni  - Still unable to get a seat!
1008645 Molloys
N1061 Mooneys
N1074 Madigans North Earl Street
N0191 Pantibar
N1070 Nealons
S3383 Alexander Hotel

Revisit 19 Years On: N1074 Madigans North Earl Street

I last visited this pub the same day as I last visited the previous place - just before going to see Tiësto play in The Point in 2007.

We ended up here as the Abbey Street Madigans didn't serve food - then or possibly ever, I think; but the North Earl Street one did; and the bar staff suggested we go their then sister pub for our dinner.

It still does serve food. It also still looks quite a lot like the Abbey Street no-longer-a-Madigans, with a lot of coloured glass in the internal decoration; and also promo posters in the toilets for Fransican Well beers that neither pub can possibly still sell due to their recent shutdown. 

It's a very central pub, close to where I work and where I have worked most of the time since 2013; but it never comes up in my mind as somewhere to visit. And it likely still won't. 

Revisit 19 Years On: N1061 Mooneys

It's ten seconds before sunrise... or more accurately, its about 6pm on a mid summer Saturday evening; and you've just met up with an acquaintance (a good friends Best Man, eventually) on your way to see the then biggest DJ in the world play his last ever good show in Ireland; only about 7 months since his previous show in the same venue. The linked track is his set opener, starting as you're finally getting through the extremely slow security check.

You end up being appearing on the tour DVD for about three frames of video (I can't find this to link to anywhere, but trust me, it happened).

But beforehand, you go to two city centre pubs - one for pints, and another for dinner, before getting a taxi out to the Point Depot. This is the first of them. 

This isn't a particularly memorable pub - if anything, that it vaguely looks and feels like you're drinking in someone's conservatory is about all there is to remember; and my RetroReview writeup was exceptionally terse due to this.

It's now more notable, to me anyway, for pretending to be a former JG Mooneys premises - the actual Abbey Mooney was two doors down, but a little inaccuracy never hurt a Dublin pub in marketing terms.

The Sally O'Brien Lookalike Contest - Harp promo from 1983

I recently took possession of a collection of beermats, dating from at least the mid 1960s (based on there being Time mats) to the mid 00s - mats I remember being current in my drinking era as well as specific 2003 Rugby World Cup ones.

These will provide some much needed content on here and on Instagram for the next while, considering the lack of pubs left for me to visit; and the exceptionally limited number of new openings there have been so far in 2026 (and with little expected to come soon).

One thing that struck me was the number of cases of the mat being a competition advertisement (and often, but not in this case, an actual entry form), mostly in the first half of the 1980s. And while a lot of these were for prize draws - tickets to events, holidays, and electronics being the common prizes - one particularly stood out.

Harp Lager, which has started to reappear in Dublin's pubs in recent years (particularly after Diageo lost the Budweiser brewing contract to C&C), was a dominant player in the lager market in Ireland for decades, but by the 1980s was beginning to lose market share to other lagers, particularly those being brewed by Beamish in Cork (who produced Carling, Miller and at one point, Carlsberg under licence). I am assuming this is what lead to a significant marketing campaign, which most people remember for one line in the TV advert:

"and Sally O'Brien, and the way she might look at you"

Guinness Ltd then decided to see if they could find a case where Sally looked like you, launching a Sally O'Brien lookalike contest, with a regional heat format.

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The contest was launched by Vicki Michelle - the original Sally you needed to look like - in March 1983, with five regional winners to be decided. There was a very strange system where the person who sent in the winning entry won as much as the actual winner for each region, a then substantial £500 (around €1900 currency converted and inflated). Vicki was one of the judges, along with Harp's marketing director, and the award winning creator of the Harp ad, along with other noted Guinness advertising. The overall prize was a trip for two to Hollywood, plus £1000 (€3800).

The contest was heavily advertised in the press, and the regional winners were all pushed in adverts in their regional papers once selected. These winners were:

Dublin: Catherine Keane 

Limerick: Aileen O'Sullivan

Cork: Eileen Galvin

Galway: Geraldine Holmes

Waterford: Deirdre O'Brien

Catherine Keane won the overall award, a quite convincing lookalike based on the photos. Catherine was a teacher in Navan at the time and I presume remained at that profession, rather than becoming a waitress in a French bistro as Vicki Michelle had since become vastly more famous for than for appearing in a beer ad.

 

Evening Herald, May 12th, 1983

Occasional unofficial lookalike contests get organised for various celebrities to this day; but I seriously doubt we'd ever see a brewery doing such a thing again. Indeed, modern regulations (statutory and voluntary alike) on alcohol advertising mean the chances of their being a known named character in an ad to begin with. I also don't think the submitter prize would really wash these days - the women were the stars here, and giving an equal amount to someone else for posting in a photo is at best pointless.

March 2026 Revenue register update

This has been out for weeks at this stage, but there wasn't a huge amount to report, but I may as well post it for consistency reasons.

There were a relatively large amount of administrative/procedural changes and nothing particularly interesting:

Reappeared

N0229 Dolly Heffernans, Mulhuddart - long-term closed and drops off the register only to reappear.

S0228 The Ton Tin, Rathfarnham - also closed. Licence still held by former operator it seems.

S4356 Metro Cafe Bar, Tallaght - licence claimed to be held by a struck off company - may be preparation for sale of premises or licence

Renumbered

1013563 -> 1022852 National Gallery café, Kildare Street

S3099 -> 1022653 Hoxton Hotel, Exchequer Street (this confirms 1022738 The Globe remains on its own licence)

1015221 -> 1022635 Aloft Dublin City Hotel, Blackpitts

(Almost) Every Pub In Maynooth

There's an (Almost) on this - because I'm not particularly in the mood to wait until I've justified spending the money required to go to the Michelin starred restaurant in KDP0052 Carton House to tick off its licence. But otherwise, I completed the set of Maynooths pubs over 20 years ago, and then picked up the only addition since. 

KDP0215 O'Neills

My local, so I need to be nice about it!

A mid 2000s new build, replacing in part the owners former butchers store - the shopfront of same has been preserved and is used as the access to the keg/plant room from the smoking area. Heavily food based trade, but consistently busy enough. Not particularly student friendly or popular, which is a good thing when you're getting old and decrepit and don't want the noise, or the constant reminders that you're ancient.

KDP0088 The Roost

A Louis Fitzgerald pub I no longer darken the door of. I've made my opinions on Fitzgerald pubs clear on other writeups.

KDP0145 McMahons

The sister pub to the McMahons in Celbridge I mentioned, I sometimes call this my "backup local" - my local does not open on Mondays and can sometimes be either exceptionally busy, or exceptionally noisy - there are occasions where there are different live musicians inside and out. McMahons does not (often) do this.

Massively refurbed in my teens from a fairly run down pub in to something high end, it has held up well and is still a good condition and well run premises.

KDP0151 Bradys

Literally next door to McMahons, everyone who watched Virgin Media News during the pandemic will know Bradys, as the owner was one of the four or five pub owners continually interviewed as representatives of the industry - helped heavily by one of the Virgin reporters living in the town!

1010273 Donatellos / Oak Alley Cocktail Bar

Maynooth has a Pubstaurant. Or more specifically, a restaurant with an occasionally separately open cocktail bar, with a full pub licence. Ironically, the restaurant down the road with a bar that is much more commonly open is not legally a pub...

KDP0073 Glenroyal Hotel (and formerly Happy Out / The Fizz / The Fitzgerald / Club G nightclubs)

A sprawling hotel complex, which started as quite a small hotel but has had more extensions than I can count, this is where everyones 21st was. Also the hotel bar was briefly very popular in the mid 00s, and the nightclub was inexplicably popular up until three pubs grew music bars (The Roost, Bradys,  briefly O'Neills), and then it fell off a cliff. 

The nightclub is now a cafe, and the bar very sedate in the evenings. But it is still public.

Newtown Inn

Maynooth also has an estate pub, which doesn't seem to have renewed its licence yet this year; and I don't retain all the old files for the rest of the country. But it is open.

Last time I was in here was a good few years ago, and the pub was exactly the same as it had been when I was drinking there underage in 2003/4. A very high end fitout for the early 00s - honeyed wood, white leather, chromed metal - all basically pristine, because the pub was never particularly busy.

I believe it has been extensively modernised since, but as it's in an estate on the other side of the town, I basically forget it exists. I do sometimes drop in to its surprisingly good off-licence though.

Closed:

The Red Door / The Duke & Coachmen / Cathedral / Mantra / The Leinster Arms

Possibly the oldest pub in the town, this late 18th Century coaching inn continued to operate as a small hotel in to the mid 1990s; but during my youth the Leinster Arms was mainly known as quite a rough pub with quite a rough nightclub. Didn't stop me going there, occasionally.

Mantra was a Celtic Tiger horror show, and Cathedral and the Duke & Coachmen both attempts to round off the edges after the inevitable financial failures. The Red Door was a temporary COVID era opening to allow The Roost to overspill. 

The bulk of the premises has been converted to student accommodation now, but the bar is still physically there, and retains planning permission to open as a "licenced restaurant". 

Dowdstown Hotel

This had a few minorly different names over its surprisingly short life. Built by the family of some classmates in school, I never actually went here; and now it's a nursing home.

Moyglare Manor Hotel

I *think* this had a public licence. Closed in the 00s, bought to become a branch of The Priory rehab clinics (or so the local mythos went), and now a high end self-catering venue. It's also Maynooth, Co. Meath rather than Maynooth, Co. Kildare; but it's closer to Maynooth than anywhere else.

Every Pub In Celbridge

It should be clear that I've mostly run out of topics here, having finished off "normal" pubs in August 2025 and only having new openings, reopenings and edge-case mop-ups left to actually visit.

So I need to find something else to do. I actually live in Kildare, and have done so for this entire time; but Every Pub In Kildare would need a driver and some exceptionally long trips to the South of the county. It's never going to happen.

But I may as well sweep up the towns around me. I had already drunk in *some* of the pubs in Kildare, and I revisit one on this trip just to confirm what I thought about it, but one other previously visited place did not need another so quickly. 

edit: On further digging through the licence file, I have found that the Lyons Demense in sort-of Celbridge also has a full publicans licence, 1010946. I have not been here.

So here are the pubs in Celbridge, closest to Dublin to furthest:

KDP0077 McNamees Abbey Lodge

Really worryingly quiet, in the bar at least, with a small crowd in intently watching the Liverpool game. I assume it gets busier at other times. This pub has a large car park, which used to be leased to the council; and has used this to develop a (food) cafe and coffee shop business since the pandemic. But the bar itself might need a bit of work - in particular, the door to the street is shut up and you need to enter through the car park. Or maybe it's going just as well as they want

KDP0175 Village Inn

I have eaten in, or picked up takeout from the restaurant upstairs here (an absolutely fantastic Indian, formerly located above the old Quinnsworth - I've been going there that long) so many times I couldn't even try to count. But I've never actually gone in downstairs before today.

The lounge was rammed. The bar was little better, but I found a table which had limited view of either the racing or football screens - hence why nobody was sitting there. 

KDP0093 O'Connors / Kildrought Lounge

I had been to O'Connors before, in 2005 before going to see a school friends band play in The Mill across the road. 

I had also been to the Kildrought Lounge before, many times in fact, as a common location for fundraisers and other events. The function room upstairs here also performs as a small theatre, used by the local Insight amateur theatre group.

What I wanted to do was confirm that the small O'Connors, on the main street and in a traditional building, actually linked through to the modern Kildrought on the side street behind it. 

They do.

O'Connors is a nice, small, and fairly cheap old fashioned pub; and at least last time I visited, the Kildrought is a fairly standard big suburban pub.

The name comes from a different anglicisation / corruption of the original Irish name of Celbridge - Cill Droichead - than is accepted on.

KDP0161 Castletown Inn / Speaker Bar

Another twin setup with the bar having its own distinct name, but in this case, the Speaker Bar is beside the Castletown Inn rather than in front of it.

I have had food in the Castletown Inn before, but not drunk there. I headed in to the Speaker, rather than the main section and had a decent quiet pint here.

The bar name here references the same person as S2493 The Speaker Connolly in Tallaght, a rare enough case in my remit of two completely distinct pubs being named after the same person.

KDP0128 McMahons 

A branch, kinda, of one of my local pubs in Maynooth - or are they all branches of the NYC chain that provided the money to set up the Kildare pubs? Difficult to say.

This is the former Celbridge House and latterly Henry Grattan - Celbridge loves pubs named after 18th Century MPs - pub, an exceptionally UK style premises; being an octagonal-ish premises in a housing estate.

I was here recently enough - winning a fundraiser table quiz for the Catherine Connolly election campaign - that I didn't bother revisiting today. I'm not a fan, I prefer the "original" Maynooth pub. 

Closed premises:

KDP0132 Feehans / The Riverside / The Whistling Pig / The Duck / The Mucky Duck 

The pub with a million names... I've eaten here, a lot actually - they did a damn good breakfast during the Riverside and Feehans era - but I can't recall drinking here. Currently for let.

Celbridge Manor Hotel / Setanta Hotel

I've drunk here. It isn't open.

Every Pub In Lexlip

Some of Leixlip is in Dublin, so I have already been to its pub, airport bar and hotels, current and former.

edit: it turns out that 1019230 Leixlip Manor Hotel has a public licence. I will drop back to this at some point.

Most of it is not, and I had mostly not drunk there. Lets fix that:

KDP0170 Riverforest Hotel

A 2* hotel in a shopping centre - sounds enticing I'm sure - but the bar here is the main attraction for me and likely creates most of its trade. Indeed the door to reception was closed and told people to go to the bar.

It's a large single room bar and lounge in one, with a small - but not separated - secondary bar area that is vaguely nautical themed. We are on Captains Hill, after all, assuming I've understood the reason why they have portholes and ship steering wheels here. 

A hotel in a shopping centre is a *very* odd choice, but it appears to work for them - this is its 35th year open. The bar was very busy too.

KDP0018 TOWN Leixlip

A part of the RHK group, who run relatively fancy pubs in suburban areas; this is a relatively fancy pub in a suburban area.

As I walked up, the doorman on a pub - I don't like pubs having bouncers during the day, but let this one run out - moved to open the door in front of me. 

This reminded me that I'm fairly certain I was once refused entry here in a previous incarnation (and previous ownership) for not meeting the dresscode, and the pub was much less fancy then. 

I wear basically the same clothes I've worn since I was 18. Fashion has changed, not me!

They were seating people at specific tables here when I was in, but they offered me options for just drinks - high tables or the bar. I went to the bar, which does seem to specialise in cocktails, but also has a solid range of Irish independently brewed beers too. I'm not entirely sure its my kind of bar, decor wise; but I'd have no problems popping back in for beers anyway.

This premises was formerly Murphys, the Three Sisters; and prior to a major rebuild, The Captain's Inn.

KDP0120 The Middle Shop

I went in to the fairly tiny bar section here, but there is a larger lounge. Very much a racing bar, at least when I dropped in.

Previously visited:

Courtyard Hotel

A boomtime hotel development which includes the site of the original Guinness brewery (or does it? This stuff is so difficult to nail down properly, argue amongst yourselves in the comments).

The licence does not appear on the renewals list yet this year, and I don't hold archived Kildare records at hand, but it is open.

The bar here was weirdly popular with people from around the county in the time after it opened, so I ended up drinking here quite a lot. But I have only eaten breakfast here a few times in the past ~20 years.

Closed venues: 

Leixlip has more long term closed or completely gone pubs than the other surrounding towns. The Hitching Post, a famed music venue, was replaced by a Lidl in 2004/5; and Aldi later did for the Ryevale Tavern / Ozone nightclub buildings - which I suspect may actually have held separate licences at some stages.

The Leixlip House Hotel may have had a public bar, but was not commonly used as a bar by the locals, as far as I know.

It should be noted that Leixlip has two GAA clubs and I believe both bars are very popular, with one effectively serving as the pub-substitute (pubstitute?) for a huge area of 50s-80s housing developments to one side of the town. It even looks like a provincial town pub from the outside.

Revisited pubs, February 2026

A month of no new visits, as is now normal; and quite a bit of revisiting.

N1194 West County Hotel, Chapelizod - I was so unsure as to whether I'd actually had a drink here, and that it was approaching if not over 20 years ago anyway that I decided to make sure

N1114 Sean Bar, Chapelizod - last visited as the Bridge Inn, when run by Carrig Brewing

N0215 Fidelty, Queen Street

N0213 Frank Ryans, Queen Street - back within weeks, but mainly because nowhere nearby or that I was planning to go to does food otherwise.

S1472 Liffey Saint, Ushers Quay - last in this when it was Pifko 

S1470 Swift, Thomas Street - last visited as the entirely different, insane, Agnes Brownes. No Clubland 2 CD this time

S1465 Dudleys, Thomas Street - last written up as Bakers, but I have been here since

S1468 Thomas House, Thomas Street

N0006 Brew Dock, Amiens Street

N0082 McGraths, Drumcondra

Revisit? 20 years on: N1194 West County Hotel

I've been here quite a lot before, as I mentioned in the tiny RetroReview writeup. But on mature recollection, I'm not sure I'd ever actually drunk here.

With a now deceased elderly relative having been a long term resident of the sheltered accommodation, and then care home, a bit down the road; I was certainly here for plenty of carvery dinners, and even a funeral afters. But I don't think I drank at any of those - they moved there when I was a teenager, so the earlier ones were underage (and with my parents!) and the latter ones were driving. 

What better time to make absolutely sure than go back for a pint now?

The hotel bar is basically the local pub for this end of Chapelizod, and possibly even some of Ballyfermot but those willing to deal with the hill on the way back; but is very much set up as a carvery serving venue rather than a more pub-like setup like some other suburban hotels. It hasn't changed much since my last visit either. The drink selection is quite poor, even for a hotel bar really.

It serves its purposes, basically.

Revisit 20 years on: N0144 Kennedys

My writeup of my ~20 years ago trip here was terse, and this one won't be much longer.

A single (large) room pub of a type common enough in inner suburbs, but not really similar to any others near it, and with an exterior that wouldn't look out of place in London (green tiles); Kennedys is also a guesthouse. And there isn't a huge amount to say about it.

It was somewhat busier than Fagans on the day I visited both of them, and with more drinkers than diners - the reverse of Fagans crowds - but it was a dreary afternoon early in the year.

Revisit 20 years on: N0145 Fagans

When I last visited here, in ~2006ish, there were some oddities with staff attitudes - rather than telling us they simply didn't want to show a lower league football game that was on Sky, they claimed their satellite setup was broken. We returned after watching it in the adjacent pub (which I also revisited on the same day for its 20 years on go), and everything was miraculously working for the Premier League game that was on instead. 

There were some oddities again, with staff seeming disinterested in servicing the bar; and also being oddly protective of tables as if some hordes were about to arrive for food service.

I wasn't asking to see a Brighton game, and indeed they are no longer lower league anyway, so there's far less chance of being lied to about faulty kit (or just told no, or having the channel changed half way through), but I do wonder if something would have come up as a problem if I had!

I don't think much else has changed here in the intervening 20 years, either, except possibly a slight increase in the range of drinks on offer.

February 2026 Revenue register update

One new entry and one renumber this month, and a change of licence details that's worth mentioning

New:

1022775 Díon, Dame Street - pubstaurant that currently requires bookings, or else I'd have ticked it off by now. 

Renumber:

1022738 The Globe - formerly S0138 and also once S4542 as a theatre licence on top of this. The adjoining Hoxton Hotel has not yet been re-licenced from its old number but I expect this to happen.

Change of Details

N0197 Soup2 / Taproom47 - licence holder changed to a company connected to the Bambino pizza operation. They had previously been slated to take over the (also connected ownership) original location of Token, but this is now known not to be happening. 

Revisited pubs, January 2026

A month of being mostly sick, or mildly injured; or sick *and* mildly injured resulted in less visits than most Januaries. 

 

Zero new and a handful of old made up this months trips; which were also very heavily laden to the end of the month.

S0018 Bowes - twice in three months after a 20 year gap!

N0213 Frank Ryans - only 15 years or so

N0192 Bonobo - overdue a written post for here, as my initial visit was when this was a very different pub, The Richmond

N0084 Black Sheep

N0191 Pantibar

N1129 Ball Alley House 

N0020 Juno - another pub where the writeup is a previous, very different, incarnation

N0145 Fagans

N0144 Kennedys - these two were visited as it is 20 or more years since I was last in them. There may or may not be a revisit writeup for them, as neither had really changed or has much to write about! 

N0082 McGraths 

January 2026 Revenue register update

There is some corruption in this months Revenue files, so it is difficult to work out any changes to existing licences; but I can still figure out the new ones:

Added:

1022700 Omniplex Cinema, Nutgrove Shopping Centre

1022717 Ivy Asia, Dawson Street - sister restaurant to 1014544 The Ivy a few doors down

When Revenue have an updated file - I have reported the issue and they usually replace damaged files quickly - I will update with any other changes.

edit: file updated, nothing particularly interesting in the other changes. Thanks to Revenue Statistics for their prompt attention to this.

Revisited pubs, December 2025

Due to familial ill health, work travel and finally vanquishing most of the DIY monster that my house refurb has been in December, my revisits for the month consisted of two Christmas party venues; and one enjoyable wander around town - partially documented in another post.

1017068 Rascals - for Beoir

1001973 Gibson Hotel - for work

S0153 The Ferryman

1017216 Dockers

S0005 JR Mahons

S0023 Chaplins

1008947 Wiley Fox

N0006 Brew Dock