1023254 The Burton

This pub was sitting ready to open in Autumn 2024. Bar stocked, menus on the table, the works. But it didn't open.

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It "opened", giving out free drinks, on Bloomsday (June 16th) 2025, saying it would open soon. It didn't open.

Paperwork and compliance issues were preventing something in the legal process required to open a pub from finishing, so the pub sat empty.

But a few months ago, new recruitment signs went up in the windows, indicating that things may have finally been resolved. And they were, as the pub opened on June 25th - with the July licence file drop two weeks later actually providing the licence number too. Long term readers may know that sometimes I get to visit somewhere new many months before the Revenue file provides a number for whatever reason!

And I missed that opening, because for whatever reason the social media accounts they had used for the 2025 promotional "opening" were not in use any more and I had not found the new ones. But I was doing a check of my pipeline list which lead me to discover it had already opened; and as I happened to be very nearby anyway, I was there within 15 minutes.

This is a small hotel, however the bar does not feel like a hotel bar and there is no obvious reception area. The drinks options are quite generic, but but reasonably priced for the city centre; the food looked fine but I didn't partake.

Revisit writeup because I feel like it: Bar Anam

Well, I had to go back and see what had been done to Underdog, didn't I.

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(I promise the sky is real, Dublin had some really nice late Spring weather)

The kitchen's open, there's some macros on the taps and it's been painted, with new furniture. But some of the regular customers are still around, there's still a range of craft offerings (some slightly less common) on the taps.

Operated by the same people who run Dudleys, another recent re-writeup oddly enough; there are some similarities in the two pubs, but plenty of difference too. Dudleys offers fairly conventional pub grub, but Bar Anam has Dak offering Korean food to the rear of the pub. Dudleys is quite a lot larger, with a bar and lounge split, and the lounge itself having a mezzanine; and this space allows them to have live music.

Dudleys has TVs, and Bar Anam doens't - yet. I happened to be there while one of the owners was present and had a chat about the pub and their plans; and TVs or a protector for occasional use are under consideration. Underdog would also occasionally use one of its menu screen TVs to show free-to-air sports coverage, so this wouldn't be a change from what went before.

It's not the same as it was, but it is already it's own thing. I'll be back - indeed I have already been back between this first visit and the writeup.

Revisit writeup because I feel like it: 1021467 Fidelity

So many of the places I do re-writes for have changed utterly in between the time of my initial visit and the revisit. Atmosphere, crowd, and drinks offerings may have been completely upended

In this case, the changes to some of those are less major - but the changes to the physical pub itself are immense.

My initial writeup here was for Dice Bar, a bar known for its music choices, connected (at one point) to a brewery and generally seen as quite cool. It was, however, an absolute dump in terms of physical structure and fittings; deliberately going for a dive bar aesthetic.

Fidelity is known for its music, connected to the Whiplash brewery and generally seen as quite cool. But it has had a high end refit, and now does not sell macro brewery products at all.

Since the demise of Underdog, I've been here more often than I had been prior - but I did come here occasionally anyway. Those who bother looking at my monthly revisit lists will have seen that, and indeed it is having to link to the Dice Bar writeups that has lead me to do this new entry.

The licence number has also changed, from an original system one to a new one. This is almost certainly because the licence has been extended to the unit next door, now operating as Fidelity Studio; an extension of the space with a food offering.

The old Dice Bar interior fittings were claimed to be in storage, awaiting the former operator finding a new space. I haven't heard anything on this since that claim was made in 2020, but things may yet occur.

Revisit writeup because I feel like it: S1465 Dudleys

This is one of the latest - in terms of how long ago the changeover happened and how long it's been since I visited the new incarnation - of this series so far; but there will likely be some others where I've just not got around to it.

This pub was formerly Bakers, a locals pub that also got a lot of Guinness tourists, and offered food. Bakers announced in 2020 that they would not be reopening after the pandemic, with Dudleys opening in 2021, one of the first "lost pubs" to come back. 

Dudleys is quite similar, except they now offer a substantial number of craft beers as part of the offering. Unlike many pubs with a stronger craft beer offering, the pub has TVs and sports subscriptions, something I need to remember next time I'm looking for somewhere to watch a match.

The curse of going somewhere frequently meaning I can't give much of a writeup strikes again here. Like mentioned on the previous writeup for Swift; I have spent a lot more time in D8 since the closing of Underdog - and with Third Barrel about to take over The Christchurch Inn (former S3103 Beer Market, and a guaranteed recipient of an entry in this series as it really doesn't have a proper page here anyway) down the road; I will very likely continue to, meaning more visits here. 

Revisit writeup because I feel like it: S1470 Swift

This is another pub I've been to a few times recently where the original writeup makes little sense to link to; and deserves a re-write.

Agnes Brownes was a very, very strange pub. Swift isn't. Swift is quite a normal pub for what this bit of D8 has become, with a normal pub interior, a normal pub crowd and normal enough drinks selection - there are a few Irish independent taps amongst the regular macros. They also do toasties.

I've been spending a lot more time amongst the pubs of D8 in recent months; for one main reason - Underdog is gone - and a few other ones. There's a reasonable variety, they're close to the bus route home, and are cheaper by taxi should I decide I don't want to deal with public transport for any reason. So I've been to Swift a few times and will almost certainly be back again.

Interestingly, this isn't the iteration of this pub that actually replaced Agnes Brownes. The extensive renovation happened before the pub opened as The Magnet, which I believe was connected to Luckys and The Circular; but changed to Swift after a relatively short period (and a change of operators).

Revisit writeup because I feel like it: N0020 Juno / Hera

The third in a not-really-a-series of doing a new writuep for somewhere that has both changed drastically since its original writeup, and which I am likely to end up in often enough that it needs to be explained.

Unfortunately, both the previous ones have shut down since I did them; but both were in "cursed premises" of sorts... and this one isn't. So I don't think I'm going to strangle it somehow.

I end up having pre-train drinks in this end of Drumcondra quite a bit, and they nearly always end up being N0082 McGraths. However, this replacement for the Red Parrot has started becoming a bit more common, particularly if I have a longer time to wait, or I'm approaching Drumcondra from the South to begin with. 

Juno offers the now fairly common mix of having quite a few craft taps, but not being a "craft beer bar" - there are macro products aplenty here, albeit those may be slightly selected for the cooler end of the market too. By that I mainly mean Beamish, which is having an odd revival both as a cheap pint in "normal" bars and as something people half my age drink in "cool" bars.

The Juno part of the setup here is the bar of the former Red Parrot; with the larger volume of the premises - the former lounge areas - being the Hera restaurant. I quite enjoyed a meal here, which has full availability of Juno drinks during it.

My Classics knowledge is fairly limited so I had to confirm that yes, Juno and Hera are the equivalent goddesses in Roman and Greek mythology; the Queen of the Gods. 

On the worry about cursing places with these writeups - Juno did in fact "close" briefly already in late 2024, leading to some actually quite nasty gleeful posts on Facebook from people who wanted a more traditional pub there; and some more respectful but still wrong claims about there "not being enough hipsters". 

This closure was for less than two weeks and I believe was solely related to getting Hera ready to open; nothing else. If it turns out doing this revisionary writeups is a curse I'll stop, I promise!

N1617 Gate Theatre

I warned last Summer that there would be quite a lot of theatres coming. This may be the last, for a little bit anyway - I currently have no more tickets booked!

The Gate opened on this site in 1930, but it is located in the 18th century New Assembly Rooms of the Rotunda Hospital (the Assembly Rooms, without the New, is N2205 Ambassador Theatre next door), and as an older theatre, has a more traditional bar, sited to the rear of the building and overlooking the carpark of the Rotunda Hospital. This makes it both older and yet younger than the remaining grand Victorian theatres in Dublin, comparing building fabric and operational history.

In addition to the "proper" bar, there is a smaller bar selling tea (in china cups), wine and soft drinks close to the main entrance of the auditorium. They also allow drinks in to the auditorium, the first Dublin theatre I have actually experienced that in, with an usher providing plastic glassware to decant at the entries to the auditorium. 

I don't review any of the plays I go to see on these ticks, but this one was quite good. And is still running for a bit by the time this writeup gets published, but based on the show seeming to be a total sellout the night I saw it, it may be sold out! 

S3667 Project Arts Centre

Coincidental to finally getting this licence ticked off the list, I have been doing a dig through the archives of the Sunday Business Post, which covered the redevelopment of Temple Bar in great detail. I think there may be an article to be had out of that; but without ruining that - this is a ~2000 build, purpose-built arts space, on the site of a more ramshackle former home for Project. 

As such, it doesn't have the classic bars of some of the older Dublin theatres I have visited; but instead it has an actually fairly large (compared to the size of the auditorium), more modern mixed area of low and high tables, plus a bar that primarily serves beers from O'Haras - a good choice for a venue that promotes Irish creativity.  

The bar is open after shows, something theatres are allowed to; but rarely actually do. We decided to make use of this, and got to see almost (or perhaps all) the entire cast of the show pop in for drinks themselves. I suspect this isn't something actors would want to do in more traditional theatres, and with some of the cast of the performance I was seeing being quite well known, I suspect it's probably an enjoyable benefit of this venue.

Project is 60 next year - with over 50 years on this site -  which I presume will lead to much celebration.

1022775 Díon

The pubstaurant to beat all Dublin pubstaurants, this vast premises takes the top two floors of the former Central Bank building on Dame Street; and is - currently if not going to eternally be - a bookings required, eating required setup; but one which holds a pub licence for the usual pubstaurant reasons.

I had been in this space before, but not this premises - I was on the last ever public tour of the old Central Bank - the late afternoon, last day of Open House tours in the year they were moving to the new building on North Wall. They did actually feed us - something that has happened on a few Open House tours where the building owner has a canteen (AIB Bankcentre was another); but this was in the canteen in the other building of the complex, not in the boardrooms and similar that once occupied the upper floors.

The opening of Díon was heavily delayed by the financial troubles of the fitout company that was originally working on it, and the fitout is of a very high quality. The food was fine, but the beer menu not so - a common problem with pubstaurants, even those of such a huge scale.

It's definitely worth going here at least once, to see the views. The food may bring you back, but I'd prefer places with pub licences to seem more like pubs! 

N0132 Clontarf Castle Hotel

I thought the bar in this fairly exclusive 4* hotel was residents only, or at least somewhat discouraged random outsiders.

I was wrong. I noticed that there was a line in some marketing blurb about the bar being "loved by residents and locals alike", so headed out there for the tick.

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The hotel is a converted castle, but the physical building is not as old as the history of there being a castle on the site, and I won't bother recapping the building or site history, when the licencing history is more interesting.

The low licence number here indicates that there has been a liquor licence here for a lot longer than the 1997 hotel construction would have got sequentially - new premises in the late 90s were nearly up to N2000-series licence numbers. 

This is because the Castle had become a licenced cabaret venue decades prior, potentially back to the late 50s based on some newspaper archive references. Anyone notable in the Irish cabaret scene performed there, as did various musicians; and by the time of the hotels construction works requiring closure of the cabaret venue; it was basically the last-man-standing of Dublin's cabarets

The Evening Herald devoted a page and a half to "The Death Of Cabaret", talking to Louis Walsh, Sonny Knowles, Maureen Potter, Jim Aiken and others about the impact the closure would have on the dwindling Irish scene.

I'm fairly certain occasional performances of the type that had gone before *did* return when the hotel reopened, but it isn't a feature of the current offerings there.

There is a fairly standard hotel bar/informal dining setup, called Knights. This does welcome non-residents, accommodates non-diners, and there will be other people just drinking there. I had a shockingly reasonable quality (and price) for a hotel pint here, far far better than I was expecting from having visited 130 other hotel bars in the city at the time.

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.

1022732 Daphni

Animal Collective's latest, erm, not animal named bar was announced months, if not actually about a year, in advance - as the flagship tenant of the ground floor of the Bolands Mills development. And indeed, the bar is actually in the retained former mill structure.

Named, it seems, after one of the stage names of the musician also known as Caribou - Caribou being the name of their (lamented) original bar in Galway and its replacement in Dublin - this premises is quite like their others in Dublin, albeit everything in it is very new.

It is also exceptionally busy already - I was unable to get a seat *or* a perch and drank my pint standing. At 5:20. They have the staffing to cope with the crowds, and I presume there will be outdoor seating in summer - indeed there might have been some already, but it was way too cold to check.

It's close to my office so I'll almost certainly be back. The drinks lineup is good, and if I could actually have sat down I'd definitely have had a few more. 

The pub's logo is a drawing of a dog, so possibly Daphni is actually a specific dog rather than a reference to Dan Snaith.

1022699 MJ Wrights

The trend of the day (well, year - years already even) for new pubs in Dublin is Old. As in the pub has to look as if it's been there for around 100 years.

Some places do a fairly good job of this, but are let down by how new everything looks - 1021705 Porters falls in to this category. Some, like the one at the other end of the same building (South City Markets) - 1020516 O'Regans do better, but miss in some way or another - the seating layout and the toilets aren't 'right' for me in O'Regans for whatever reason.

MJ Wrights doesn't suffer from these, though. Whether that is down to the experience of running some olde-worlde-style pubs within the Wright chain, possibly some re-use of fittings from their other premises, or just re-use of fittings from the Rustic Stone restaurant and winebar which formerly sat on this site; I don't know - but the pub feels suitably lived in for something only a week old when I visited it.

My complaints about the place are the prices - but it is the city centre - and the stools being too high at the large table-thingy towards the back. Not inauthenticity or trying too hard, like they so could have been.

1022516 Moxy Dublin Docklands

East Wall hasn't got a lot of pubs - and never has. There's the Seabank House off to one side; and there used to be a good number of spirit grocers and beerhouses that may have let you drink on premises, but these are all gone.

I suspect this may be due to the history of East Wall's construction - heavily led by various religious "utility societies", a sort of equivalent to modern housing associations. These would have been less willing to provide sites for pubs than private developers; and as such, none ever really opened up.

But it now has a bar in a more central part of the community for the first time, and its quite a fancy one at that (albeit if you read the writeup of it, you'll the Seabank is also fitted out to an incredibly high standard - so that's clearly just the norm here!)

The other Moxy in Dublin has a very strange bar that is effectively also the reception desk, but this one is more like a conventional hotel lobby bar; albeit with an exceptionally limited tap selection. There are more bottled beers available, the prices weren't too huge, and the toilets were not locked - which is my bugbear in hotel lobby bars that are open to the public, but clearly don't actually want the public.

This might be a more useful addition to the area than first expected actually. 

1020862 NYX Hotel Portobello

This new hotel overlooking the former Portobello Harbour has large signage on the windows of its bar inviting outsiders to come in to use it; but when you do, you need to get the staff to let you in to the jacks because they're card-locked.

So you probably shouldn't bother; even if you're not concerned about anything else relating to the hotel chain.

N1205 Abbey Theatre

The "Serious Theatre" stage of ticking off had already begun a few months ago in Smock Alley, and has now continued to our National Theatre. 

My specific visit was to see a play on the smaller, subterranean Peacock stage. This features a small bar area which sells wine and bottled beers/ciders, primarily from independent Irish producers. The ticket check is after the bar area, so you could probably get away with ticking this one off without actually buying a ticket... but don't say I suggested that! You will not get in to the actual play without a ticket, however.

In terms of the grand old Dublin theatres and their history, the Abbey is a relative newcomer; having been opened in 1904; however it opened in the space of the former Mechanics Theatre - itself about a hundred years older. Only the Gate, founded 1928, is newer amongst the long-standing operations.

That old building was significantly damaged by fire in 1951, causing the Abbey to move to Pearse Street for a decade and a half, before returning to a then striking Michael Scott designed building on the original site in 1966.

Unfortunately, this building is now increasingly unsuitable for modern expectations. For instance, the Luas, which opened over 20 years ago, can be heard passing while inside the Peacock - as the room was not built with sufficient sound or vibration isolation to cope with trams that wouldn't arrive for almost 40 years; and which have got longer and more frequent even since.

A replacement building has been discussed since the 1990s; with a larger plot around the existing building being slowly assembled - this explaining the empty and derelict state of many of the buildings reaching from the theatre to the quays. Recent public progress on the new plans have been effectively non-existent, but the theatres 2025-2030 strategy does still plan for a new building. If this goes ahead, expect the Abbey to drop off any lists of licences for a number of years.

I still have double digit figures of theatres left to visit - attending plays had never been my thing, only certain venues amongst the serious/grand theatres also do music or comedy performances; and a lot of the suburban theatres (each County Council having at least one) are rather inaccessible without driving. So theatres make up the single largest grouping in my outstanding visits, and will obviously make up much of my future reports.

1017882 IMC Cinema Santry

Another cinema, part of the same chain as my other recent visit, but without anywhere near the history of the Savoy. 

And it was another surprisingly cheap pint, of Heineken - the only beer they offer. 

There is a tiny bit of history here, though. The cinema itself is an early 90s multiplex, minimally modified but that has been kept in serviceable condition; however that alone isn't particularly interesting. 

The previous use of the site, as McCairns Motors Vauxhall and Chevrolet assembly plant is more interesting, at least to me. I have been in to the admin areas of the centre in a previous job, and there is a photo of the media launch of the shopping centre development in the early 90s, with a helicopter dropping someone off in the ruins of the car plant.

There's also a quirk with it's name. As the cinema element of the Omni Park shopping centre, this was the cinema that gave the Omniplex chain it's name - but it isn't part of that chain. IMC and Omniplex were two seperate chains that mostly operated as one - Ward Anderson - but split over ten years ago, and despite this being the source of the Omniplex name; that name went to the other side of the split. 

S0259 The Willows

Just when I'd announced I'd finished all the "normal" pubs in the county, it gets revealed that one recent enough closure that I'd just missed - it shut before I did a sweep-up of that bit of suburbia - was to reopen on the August Bank Holiday weekend.

I didn't make it out that weekend - I was elsewhere in the country; but I did the weekend after. 

This is another Irish "estate pub", an entirely different idea to that in the UK - a pub in a small row of shops in a housing estate; often these days not containing any conventional shops at all. Streetview history shows that the normal shop here closed some time between 2014 and 2018. 

Most of these pubs were built in the 1940s to 60s, this coming from the latter end of that period by the looks of things, but it has been extensively updated - I wouldn't say "modernised", as that would imply a loss of character - before its recent reopening.

The food offering, at least initially, extends to toasties; and the drinks offering has some Four Provinces to break up the monotony of Diageo and Heineken products. I expect more food may be offered here going forward.

The pub isn't too far from Dundrum village and the Luas stops there; but there isn't another pub for quite some distance in all other directions, so there should be catchment here to keep it going.

1001687 Smock Alley Theatre

One of the newest, and also oldest, theatres in the city centre; Smock Alley opened in 2012 in what had been, for my generation at least, the Statoil Dublin Viking Experience. (That attraction is not to be confused with the still operating Dublinia)

However, that was just a temporary cultural use of the building, which had formerly been a Catholic church - apparently the first obvious one within the city for centuries, as it opened pre-emancipation. And this church had been built on the site of, and retaining various features from, the 1735 Theatre Royal.

That theatre itself had replaced a 1662 building on the same site, and a little of the fabric of that building appears to still survive. I don't believe there's another operating theatre in Dublin that can claim, even tenuously, to have that length of history - but this really isn't my specialist subject.

What there is now is a complex with a number of relatively small rooms, including a banquet hall above the main stage. It's here that I had my drinks; as there was an option to purchase charcuterie prior to a show, in what have to be some of the most impressive surroundings of anywhere you can actually get a drink in Dublin. 

But you do have to go see something being performed here to get a drink, either in the banquet hall or the small bar in the lobby. I saw a modern, Dublin-set interpretation of Moliere's Misanthrope; an interesting experience for someone who last attended a theatrical performance in the early 2000s!