1989's Recommended Pubs - Again

I'm always on the lookout for old guides to Dublin pubs - from any era up until the present, really - as they often contain bits of information that I might not have otherwise landed on; albeit sometimes uncited and extremely untrustworthy (there's a fairly recent guide which has a clanger per page ratio of about 1:1, and that's just the bits I know not to be true.

But when you find a book written by Eamonn Casey, who is still around and operating as a licenced trade historian - despite the National Library having decided that he's dead (those dates are for the disgraced Bishop of the same name!), it should be vastly more trustworthy. Eamonn's stuff all appears to be properly sourced and verifiable.

Eamonn has published two guidebooks to Dublin pubs, one in 1989 and one in 1992. The 1989 version is slightly harder to find in libraries, but was not hard to find second hand; and by virtue of being slightly older I bought this one first - I'll either buy, or go to a library to read, the 1992 one at some point. 

Both books were published by "Pelican Marketing Publications" and feature ads from trade suppliers - Guinness, Ballygowan, United Beverages (Guinness's then soft drinks arm), Bank of Ireland, Tilestyle and "A Trust Catering Repair", who seem to have changed names repeatedly and may still exist under one of them. There are also "profiles" of some individuals and companies including Murtagh Properties and the Fitzgerald Group - and in both cases, many of their pubs are featured in the book.

Regardless of the corporate sponsorship, this is a consumer targetted publication. 

55 pubs are covered, and despite a 36 year gap between publication and now, most are still trading under their original name. Most have a two page writeup, but the first two have three for some reason; with usually an interior and exterior photo. The exterior photos of a number of pubs feature the same Ford Sierra (with a reg that comes up on check site as being a Transit van somehow), presumably either the authors or an unnammed photographers.

Most writeups have some history of pub - past ownership, licencing history or similar - which makes this invaluable for someone working on any pub history project including any of the pubs covered.  

Another reason to read such outdated info as the more review-like bits of the writeups, is that a review from 1989 can show a very different pub to today. 1989 Whelans is described as somewhere to get a good lunch, with much detail of its interior design - and not a single mention of live music! 

I'm not really a book reviewer, and nor am I going to just scan in a book that's still available and with a living author, so I'm going to do my usual summary of what the book contains and what has happened to the pubs since. At 48/55 still trading in some form, this has a similar-ish closure rate to the other 1989 pub listing I've previously analysed

I have visited all 48 of these premises that remain open in some form, albeit some are completely transformed by now - rebuilt, converted to a hotel or in a slightly different location!

The pubs featured are:

"Dublin Pubs Southside"

S0253 The Goat, Goatstown
S0314 The Queens, Dalkey
S0298 The Old Punch Bowl, Booterstown
S0251 Sandyford House, Sandyford (visited but writeup not yet published)
The Carraig, Blackrock - now S0292 Wicked Wolf
Martin Morris, Terenure - now S0248 Vaughns Eagle House
S0302 The Purty Kitchen, Dun Laoghaire
S1580 The Rathcoole Inn, Rathcoole
N1121 Palmerstown House, Palmerstown
S0768 The Blue Haven, Rathfarnham
The Clocktower, Kingswood - since completely rebuilt as S2821 Kingswood Lodge
The Earl of Lucan bar, N1133 Spa Hotel, Lucan - now called the Ballyneety Bar
S1510 The Patriots Inn, Kilmainham
S1268 The Sarah Curran, Rathfarnham - closed, most recently the Rathfarnham House.
S0399 The Wishing Well, Blackrock
The Seventh Lock Tavern, Ballyfermot - demolished, most recently the Killeen House
S1328 Ballinteer House, Ballinteer (visited but writeup not yet published)
S1583 An Poitín Stil, Rathcoole
1009200 The Laurels, Clondalkin

"Central Dublin"

O'Dwyers, Mount Street - redeveloped as S0149 Leinster Hotel (writeup reflects its intermediate period as Howl At The Moon)
S0003 Toners, Baggot Street
S2793 Sinnotts, South King Street - this was already the current generation of this in the shopping centre, which had opened the previous year
S0056 The Bailey, Duke Street
The Parnell Mooney - now N1098 Parnell Heritage Pub
Bellamys, Ballsbridge - now 1011804 The Bridge 1859 (but writeup is about Bellamys)
S0240 Slatterys, Rathmines
S0180 Slatterys, Ballsbridge
Caspers, Wicklow Street - now S3271 Marys, sort of (building has had multiple redevelopments)
Bunit & Simpson, Ringsend - now S0158 John Clarkes
S0120 Whelans, Wexford Street
Rathmines Inn, Rathmines - now S0235 Blackbird
Alfie Byrnes, Conrad Hotel, Earlsfort Terrace, now S2747 Terrace Kitchen (writeup is about a different era of it being Alfie Byrnes)
1007394 Davy Byrnes, Duke Street
S0111 The Old Stand, Exchequer Street
Maguires, Pearse Street - demolished, most recently Widow Scallans
S0086 The Palace, Fleet Street
The Harp, D'Olier Street - now S0967 River Bar

"North City"

Dollymount House, Clontarf - demolished
1013257 Gibneys, Malahide
N0152 The Drake Inn, Finglas - long-term closed
The Coast Inn, Skerries (visited but writeup not yet published)
N0149 The Fairview Inn, Fairview - closed, most recently The Players Lounge
N0123 Beaumont House, Beaumont
N0022 Hill 16, Middle Gardiner Street - closed but may reopen shortly.
The Big Tree, Dorset Street - now the bar of N0018 Dublin One Hotel (writeup reflects the Big Tree)
N0169 The Eplhin, Sutton
N0141 Viscount House, Whitehall
N0284 The Harbour Bar, Rush
N0134 Thomas Gaffney, Fairview - both premises were still open at the time, only the larger pub remains
N0146 Cat & Cage, Drumcondra
The Millennium , Swords - completely rebuilt as N1597 Peacocks
N0247 The Boot, Cloghran - currently closed
N0758 Clonsilla Inn, Clonsilla
Sheaf O'Wheat, Coolock - now N0120 Cock & Bull

The Dubliners Best 100 Bars - 2007

Some years, I was in a different job and we were in the process of moving buildings - from a run down 1960s shed of a building to a wobbly set of "demountable offices", which you'd normally know as Portakabins or a generic thereof. This involved a deep clearout of the entire building to see what needed to be moved. Of all the random things to find hidden in with 1980s manuals and obsolete software, I unearthed a copy of The Dubliner's Best 100 Bars from 2007.

This slim volume, priced at €6.99 although I suspect generally bundled with the magazine, is sponsored by "Classic Cellar - the clever little wine with the hologram" which seems to have been an attempt to sell upmarket snipes of wine in bars, and which has zero internet presence I can find now.

A microcosm of pub/drinking culture at the very height of the Celtic Tiger, there is rather a lot in this small book. There are many references to the impact that the late pub and club owner / music promoter John Reynolds had on the city, as well as signs of a move to fine dining with drinks as an offering.

The book applies no positional ranking - there is a Top 10, but they are not rated 1-10; and the remaining 11-100 are also not ranked in any way. Everything is listed alphabetically with just a flash to indicate the Top 10. 

There is an interesting mix of premises, from tourist attractions to high end hotel bars, and pubs from the city centre to suburbia. While its unlikely any specific person would match their Best 100 to this; its hard to disagree with the selection as a whole.

Despite The Dubliner having closed in 2012, I think this might be a bit new for the near wholesale lifting of listings I've done with older content, but I can definitely give a quick summary of the changes.

82 of the premises exist today as they did in 2007 - which is probably above average as a sample compared to the totality of Dublin's pubs then. All ten of the top ten are intact.

11 have been renamed
Bleu Note - now N0084 The Black Sheep

Lillies Bordello - now Lost Lane, and licenced with 1008963 Porterhouse Central

Ocean - now S3626 Charlotte Quay

Porterhouse North - now N2405 The Bernard Shaw, but was The Whitworth when visited

Pravda - now N1994 Grand Social

Ron Blacks - now S3947 37 Dawson Street

Solas - now S0122 The Jar

Spy - now S3731 Farrier & Draper

Tonic - now 1009755 Three Tun Tavern

The Tram - now S3953 JK Stoutmans

Village - now 1006303 Opium Rooms

gone
N1097 Conways - sitting derelict on Parnell Street to this day, but will return. Eventually

N1490 Floridita - never a successful location, this has been stripped out for offices

S0149 Howl at the Moon - licence will reappear in the hotel that's replacing it
S1299 Renards - demolished for an office development
N0098 Welcome Inn - also sitting derelict on Parnell Street, but highly unlikely to return

Two were never pubs to begin with, and are gone anyway:
Centre Stage Cafe - a restaurant, now Stoned pizza on Parliament Street

Eno Wines, a restaurant on Custom House Square which now has the indignity of being a Boojum

One is still not a pub, but is still there. I haven't counted it as changed, but it shouldn't have been there!

Trinity Pavilion - a students union club

I can't find much record of this book online, but there were a few different editions. Another mapper is working their way around Dublin and used a 101 pub version of the book as their baseline

"Where to Drink" - 1949 Tourist Guide

I semi-regularly go to the Dublin City Library & Archives to do research on the older era of Dublin pubs I want to eventually cover on the map - internet resources are patchy compared to the entire wall of trade directories they have on show there. While randomly poking at the catalogue one day, it revealed a book called "Where to Drink" from 1949, available only in Dun Laoghaire's new Lexicon library. So I headed out there to take a look. One particular thing of interest was that it had an introduction by Flann O'Brien, who certainly knew where to drink - rather too often at that!

This library has a very significant reference collection all available to look at, locked away behind glass. You need to request every item and it takes quite some time - whereas in the DCLA much of the common material is on open shelving and most other requests are very quick. So I'll still be going to the DCLA unless I need something Dun Laoghaire specific in future. But they were able to get the book for me.

Edited by Tom Merry, then the publisher of the still extant Licensing World magazines, this was a tour guide targetted at those who were now able to travel around Ireland again with ease following the end of World War II - although I believe there was still petrol rationing - particularly tourists coming from the UK where rationing was still more strict. It covers the entire island of Ireland, but has an extra level of detail for Dublin.  I didn't realise Publin had already seen the book in the National Library and has put a few bits up, including tweeting one when I was on the train out to the library; but there's plenty of content to go around...

I've noted down the Dublin pubs listed at the time and will re-visit this posting to explain their current incarnations/link to any writeups over time - there were quite a lot of them!

O'Maras Aston Quay - S0065 Fitzgeralds
O'Maras Bachelors Walk - N1066 Bachelor Inn
O'Looney & Rhatigan, Aungier Street - S0067 JJ Smyth's, temporarily closed
Laurence M Murphy, Baggot Street - S0143 Larry Murphys, closed and unlikely to reopen
John Murrays Waterloo House, Baggot Street - S0172 The Waterloo
Lynn & McGriskin, Bride Street / Golden Lane - "the highest pub ceiling in Dublin"
Nearys, Chatham Street - S0077 Nearys
Thomas Cunniam, Christchurch Place
Patrick Murphy, Cork Street - long closed
Dawson Lounge, 14 Dawson Street - S0010 Dawson Lounge
Davy Byrnes, Duke Street - 1007394 Davy Byrnes
The Pearl, Fleet Street - long closed
Cumann Inn, Kimmage Road Lower  - S1831 KCR House
Hills Roadhouse, Kimmage Road West - S1476 Submarine
John Healys, Lord Edward Street - S0104 Bull & Castle
Nearys, Merrion Road - S0163 Paddy Cullens
Cawleys, Parliament Street - S4530 Turks Head
O'Tooles Patrick Street - demolished 1988
JJ Higgins, Pembroke Street Lower - S0034 Matt the Thresher
Rathgar Lounge, Rathgar Road - S0242 The 108
Monico, Exchequer Street - S0111 The Old Stand

Bergin's Eight Bells, Sir John Rogerson Quay - S0153 The Ferryman

Searsons, Portobello Bridge - S0173 Searsons

Floods, Sundrive Road - S1521 Floods

Rathgar House, Terenure Road - S0243 Comans

Floods of Terenure - S1527 Bradys

Madigans, Thomas Street - long closed

Vincent Smyths 148 Thomas Street - long closed

Lalors, 40 Wexford Street

Irish House, Wood Quay - long closed

Cooneys, 88 Lower Georges Street - 1006999 The Lighthouse

Walters, 68 Upper Georges Street - S0271 Walters, currently closed

Cozy House, 73 Upper Georges Street - S0272 McLoughlins

Punch Bowl, Booterstown - S0298 The Old Punchbowl
Goggins, 99 Monkstown Road - S0301 Goggins
Lamb Doyles, Sandyford - S0252 Lamb Doyles
Dundrum House - S0249 Dundrum House
Golden Ball, Kilternan - 101184 Golden Bowl
Kennedys Old Bawn - S1592 The Old Mill

Templeogue Inn - 1001237 The Morgue

Abbey Bar, Abbey Street - adjacent to the original Abbey Theatre, demolished

Blackhorse Tavern, Blackhorse Avenue - N0240 Hole In The Wall

Dollymount Lounge - demolished

Cat and Cage, Drumcondra Road - N0146 Cat & Cage

Tim Younge, 1 Ellis Quay - latterly The Swallow, long closed

Gaffneys (both) Fairview - N0134 Gaffneys (open) and Gaffneys Snug (closed)

Coles Fairview Bar, Fairview - N0135 Brú House

MJ Lawlor North Frederick Street - N0091 Mayes

Christopher O'Neill, Henry Street - long closed

JJ O'Dwyer, Henry Street - long closed

Egans, Howth Road - N0131 The Beachcomber

Dorans Marlborough Street - long closed
Madigans North Earl Street - N0174 Madigans
Byrnes North Wall Quay - latterly Galligans, demolished
O'Connors North Wall Quay - latter Vallence & McGrath, to reopen as the bar of The Mayson Hotel in 2020
Patrick Conway Parnell Street - N1097 Conways, long closed but extant and licenced
Eamonn Cooney, Phibsboro Road - N0208 McGowans
Davys Boro Bar, Phisboro Road - N0209 Clarkes Phibsborough House
Bushes Cross Guns, Phibsboro Road - N0233 The Bald Eagle
Hardys The Hut, Phisbsboro Road - N0234 The Hut
Doyles Corner - N0235 Doyles Corner
Hedigans Brian Boru Prospect Avenue - N0236 Hedigans Brian Boru
PT McGlynn, Stoneybatter - N0223 Tommy O'Garas
Rainbow Bar, Talbot Street - N2081 Ripley Court Hotel
O'Neills Talbot Street - N0053 Graingers
Boot Inn, "Ballymun"! - N0247 Boot Inn
Taylors Star Bar, Swords - N0302 The Star
JF Donnelly, Blanchardstown - nearby N2354 The 12th Lock Hotel
Bertie Donnelly, Mulhuddart
Manhattan, Raheny - N0171 The Manhattan
Waterside, Howth - N0162 The Waterside
Joe May, Skerries - DG0500 - Joe Mays
McGowans Gladstone, Balbriggan - DG0492 The Gladstone Inn

These three pubs only had a display ad within the book rather than a review:

Palace Bar, Fleet Street - S0086 The Palace
Big Tree Swords - N0305 The Estuary
Central Bar Swords - N0301 The Betsy

"Professional Pubs" - 1972 and now

A few weeks ago, Emma from the excellent Dublin Ghost Signs shared some content on Twitter from a 1972 tourist guide to Dublin, commenting on the particularly cutting description of the pub stock at the time - bad pubs being "the majority" and others being "overpriced and impersonal, with synthetic decor". The last bit can still describe quite a few places!

The mention of a 24 hour pub crawl piqued my interest, and a photo of this page of the book was provided. As expected, it involves cheating by drinking overnight in the residents bar of your hotel. I requested some pictures of the other pages of the book, which were then provided by DM.

The content is relatively predictable if you've read any other pub guides from the time - bar that 24 hour "pub" crawl - and one other section I've never seen anywhere else do. There is a short section on "Professional Pubs", and rather than being a list of allegedly better-run pubs, as you might expect from the cutting tone elsewhere, it is actually a list of where those in certain professions were more likely to drink at the time. Notably they don't cover the majority of trades, which did have regular pubs at the time - dock workers, market traders, Guinness staff and so on.

We start with the fairly well known combo of the Pearl on Fleet Street and the Silver Swan on Burgh Quay as the Journalists haunt. Both of these are closed. They then list the Montrose Hotel (closed) and S0165 Merrion Inn as where TV staff drink; and The Plough on Abbey Street (closed) and 1008645 Molloys on Talbot Street as where actors drink. Presumably not TV actors, as those two TV pubs were the only ones anywhere near the RTE studios really!

Apparently, those actors and their "camp followers" - double entendre on the word "camp" all the way here I suspect - all later end up in Groomes, now N1888 Cassidys Hotel on Cavendish Row; where they drink the night away with Fianna Failers!

The author now batters through some quicker entries:
Horseracing industry - S0111 Old Stand
"young sports-carred executives" - Wicklow Hotel, closed, roughly where S3271 Marys is now
Poets and Writers - S0093 McDaids and Sinnotts, the original one not the current one
Irish speakers (not a profession...) - Sinnotts again
Barristers & legal staff - N0355 Four Courts own bar (closed) and the Four Courts Hotel (closed)
Ad execs - The Pembroke, now N0034 Matt the Thresher
Gravediggers - oh come on, you can guess this one

As you can see, quite a lot of these have closed down, or are massively changed. None of them really have the same status anymore - but there are a few pubs which do still get some level of professional clustering that I can see. Like some of the 70s ones, these are usually down to location more than anything else.

N2390 Lagoona and N1833 Harbourmaster get significant numbers of finance industry staff in them, particularly in the evening; and N2168 Blockburger HQ gets primarily tech workers - as it is inside a gated business campus, there are very very few external customers to dilute the trade. There's bound to be some others I'm not aware of also.

Pat Liddy's Pub Crawls

While raiding my mother's bookshelves for potential research material, I found well-worn copies of Pat Liddy's Walking Dublin and Secret Dublin, from 1998 and 2001 respectively. I completed the majority of the walks in these books back in the day, but as I was vastly underage in 2001, the two pub crawls include were off-limits.

Pat does a number of scheduled walking tours, but a pub crawl isn't one of them; and the book doesn't seem to be in print so I doubt a quick listing of the pubs and some commentary on what's happened since 2001 is going to be a problem.

The city centre was split in to a Northside and Southside route, each staying roughly parallel to the river. The Northside tour is particularly interesting for the scale of change which has occured in only 16 years. Both consisted of more pubs than it is sensibly safe to drink in in one session, however there were recommendations to this effect!

The Northside tour starts at the Jameson distillery, which had just reopened with the new visitor centre. The old Whiskey Corner visitor centre was still operational as a bar at this stage and is the second stop; but this is now closed.

The problems in completing the crawl continue, as the third pub, The Quill, has been closed for some time and planning has been applied for to change use from a pub to a coffee shop. However, it would have been worse even a few weeks ago, as the fourth stop, the Legal Eagle, has just reopened after a long closure and refurbishment.

Fifth up is the Chancery Inn which has been reported as closed on boards.ie (although I haven't verified this). Its status as an early house was not mentioned, but it wouldn't have been much use if you had to skip the first four due to them not being open

The semi-drought continues, as the next premises is the Ormond Hotel, which must be closed for a decade at this stage. Planning has been received for redevelopment and this will likely reopen.

The next up is the Morrison Hotel, which is fully operational; then Zanzibar which is closed with plans for a replacement hotel; then Pravda which is fully operational - under its new name of the Grand Social.

We get a good run for a bit now. The Arlington Hotel's Knightsbridge bar, Madigans on Lower Abbey Street, Wynns and the Flowing Tide - all of which are very much open. Life in the Irish Life Centre (demolished) and The Plough (shut for years but still extant) bookend the Abbey Theatre (open) however.

The last pub is the Harbourmaster, which is operational.



The Southside crawl has no such problems - all pubs are extant with only two name changes. It starts just across the river - the book suggesting that the foolhardy could consider doing both in one day.

This starts with Mulligans, continues to The Bridge (O'Sullivans now), The Palace, Buskers, Blooms Hotel, The Oliver St John Gogarty/Left Bank, Eamonn Dorans (Old Storehouse), The Auld Dubliner, The Temple Bar, The Norseman, Fitzsimons, The Clarence Hotel, The Porterhouse, The Stags Head and Davy Byrnes.

There's some very significant gaps between pubs towards the end of this tour, with a few potential venues open in 2001 that I would have suggested instead of the cluster in Temple Bar; but there's still a good variety of pubs on each - more so with Dorans and Buskers as they were in 2001.