N0199 Delaneys

The "other" long standing pub on Smithfield Square (N0198 The Cobblestone gets all the attention), this is a good traditional Dublin pub in a fine looking building.

There is an inexplicable (to the first time customer anyway) "Members Bar" at the front overlooking Smithfield to which you need to be allowed access - it was empty, as you might predict; so either nobody was allowed or wanted to sample whatever delights there are within.

Its a bit less, well, rustic inside than the Cobblestone and if you're not in to trad, this is probably the better choice in the area.

N0192 The Richmond

A traditional inner suburban pub near the corner of North King Street and Church Street.

This is an area which has lost a huge volume of pubs over the past 50 years - and even more recently enough with The Tap (likely to reopen) and Saints and Sinners (up for sale as a 'former public house' so unlikely to reopen) closing down; however there is likely to be an increase in housing in the area as stalled developments finally restart so we're probably at the lowest volume of pubs now.

N0214 McGettigans

This is the original McGettigans that started what is now an international bar and hotel chain; although strangely it isn't listed on their website's properties list currently - neither are their branches in the North Star Hotel or the Regency Hotel however.

I believe this was closed for quite some time; and until fairly recently possessed a wonderful example of a 1960s/1970s pub exterior that you just don't see anymore.

It's now a fairly generic modern city centre pub, inoffensive and a decent enough place for a pint. Seeing as the other bars nearby are all rather different to the norm in their own ways (Token, Dice Bar, Frank Ryans) this would be a good choice for a more traditional pub.

1013114 Token

This is a rare thing - an actual new pub, rather than a rebrand of an existing one.

Based in what was built to be retail units on Queen Street, this retro gaming arcade opened as a restaurant early this summer and then upgraded to a pub licence shortly after. It is still heavily food based, with little in the way of seating for drink-only purposes - however, nearly every games cabinet has a drinks holder.

Upstairs, there's a big range of original, non-emulated cabinets from the 70s to the 90s; downstairs there a range of pinball machines. Nearly everything is one token a go, with tokens 50c each in low volumes and reducing to as little 30c should you wish to buy rather too many for one evening! I'd recommend getting 10 at least.

Larger groups wanting food would be advised to book a table in advance as it was quite busy on a weekday evening.

N0215 Dice Bar

Formerly partially owned by the Fun Lovin' Criminals, this was one of the few 'alternative' bars in Dublin when it opened in its current guise back in 2001.

There has been a pub on the site for significantly longer than that, though - 1770 apparently. The building is a decent example of a older pub building, even if the front corner is a rebuild after a 2007 incident involving a Luas and a bin lorry.

The current operators were formerly involved in the Dublin Brewing Company, one of the first generation of craft breweries in Ireland which unfortunately closed down in 2003. They are still involved in brewing, which means that there are some beers only available in the Dice Bar - had I known this in advance I would have ensured to try these. A return trip must be in order at some point.

Dublin's Former Pub Chains - JG Mooney and Beltons

With the traditional lack of tied houses for the non-Cork based brewers in Ireland, Dublin has never really had that many cases of multiple premises owners until recently. Now, groups like Louis Fitzgerald, Mercantile, Press Up and Charlie Chawke (no single website) have sizeable holdings and even a brewery - Galway Bay - has multiple pubs. This generally started in the 1990s, with some of the current groups and also Sean Quinn's large group existing back then

Prior to this, most pub owners had one or two premises at most. However, there were two notable chains during this time which are no longer with us. A third, Madigans, exists to this day and may eventually get their own article.

J G Mooney

J G Mooney & Company was a Dublin-based spirit merchants who built up a sizeable estate of pubs, mostly larger scale. They had assets outside of Dublin and even outside of Ireland, but the Dublin premises are all we're interested in here!

Mooney pubs had formulaic names, rather like many UK chains have to this day - generally named in the format of "[Street] Mooney". A few reminders of this hang around to this day - N1098 Parnell Heritage Pub is still generally called the Parnell Mooney by locals, and some parts of the signage of the Abbey Mooney remain on the PermanentTSB on Lower Abbey Street

J G Mooney was a listed company and had diversified in to property and consumer electronics retail as well as its original core business; in particular after much of its share capital was purchased by Pat Quinn who had founded Quinnsworth.

Shares were suspended in 1973 and after continued difficult trading, began divesting of its pubs in 1975. In 1976, the remaining premises were sold to the Madigan Group who don't operate any of these premises anymore. J G Mooney was eventually liquidated in 1982.

Mooney premises I am aware of are:

Abbey Mooney (closed, now a PermanentTSB branch)

Baggott Mooney (closed, now a PermanentTSB branch)
Bohemian Mooney (now N0232 Bohemian House)

College Mooney (now S0009 Doyles)
Dun Laoghaire Mooney (now S0270 O'Neills)

Earl Mooney (now a branch of Anns Bakery)

Grafton Mooney (now S0094 Bruxelles)

Liffeyside Mooney (reopened in 2022 as Meaghers)

Parnell Mooney (now N1098 Parnell Heritage Pub)

Update 2022: When reading a publication by the Institute of Public Administration that was basically a set of 20 year-end roundups for 1967-1986, I found a reference to Mooneys buying the Brazen Head in 1973. I wasn't aware of this; and it turns out that it's because, well, they didn't. They never completed the sale, blaming problems with the leases of the flats included in the premises; and this was eventually settled in court in late 1974. I wonder whether this was the real reason for failure to complete the sale considering their other issues in 1973.

Update 2024: The Guinness archives show Mooneys as owning what is now S0106 The Porterhouse for a period of only a few months in 1905/6.

Update 2025: Media reports in 1973 claim it was "widely known" that Mooneys had purchased Grooms Hotel (now N1118 Cassidys Hotel). This rarely gets mentioned again; until it is in a 1975 list of assets to be auctioned in the initial divestment - it had never been rebranded or integrated to the pub chain.

Belton Group

Patrick Belton, TD (easily confused with his son Paddy Belton, TD who later ran the chain) opened his first pub in 1937 on Collins Avenue - a road which, apparently, he himself named - their political persuasion should be determinable from that street name alone, if not some of the pub ones!

The corporate structure of the Belton Group was not as clear as the PLC structure of Mooneys, so its slightly harder to extract information from archives on them. Companies within the group included Europa Inns Ltd and United Bars Ltd but many pubs were held in individual companies.

The Belton Group peaked at around 20 premises in Dublin in the mid 1970s and ran down from then on as investments and diversifications faltered. They were primarily in suburban areas, unlike Mooney who focused on the city centre.

In 1972, they were involved in a failed bid for J G Mooney (above) and in 1974 they were involved in, but later withdrew from a bid for the Murphys brewery which apparently owned 140 premises at the time (almost if not entirely in Cork). By 1977, they had made a proposal for major developments of premises adjacent to the Ilac Centre which also did not proceed, and this was cited as a major reason for later financial issues.

The Group went in to receivership in 1986 and liquidation in 1987, with final payments to creditors as late as 1993. The ownership of the pubs was extensively scattered. Most are still trading.

Paddy Belton moved to London in 1987 to attempt to re-commence in the pub trade (reported as gossip in the Sunday Press, a FF paper likely slightly happy that an FG publican had failed, but died on May 22nd, 1987.

Belton premises I am aware of:

1001214 The Traders, Walkinstown

1002299 The Graduate, Killiney
N0041 Keatings (now Ryans), Store Street
N0051 Beltons (now Lowrys), Summerhill Parade
N0123 Rendezous (now The Beaumont House), Beaumont Road

N0142 The 19th (now Kitty Kiernans), Collins Avenue

N0173 Swiss Cottage - sold in 1948. Demolished.
N0175 Autobahn, Glasnevin Avenue
N0589 Oasis (now Cabra House), Cabra. Closed.

N0824 Towers / Seven Towers, Ballymun S/C. Closed.

N0909 Black Sheep (now Liz Delaneys), Northside Shopping Centre. Closed.
S0797 Thirsty 1 (later the Farmhouse), Monkstown Farm. Demolished.

S1476 Submarine (now Rory O'Connors), Crumlin 

S1527 Blades / The Blades (now Bradys), Terenure 

S2096 Finches, Rowlagh

S3099 Central Hotel, Exchequer Street

Hunters, Frederick Street - I think this became Reynards. Gone anyway.
The Leinsters (later the Deerhunter, Glenageary). Closed.

Seven Stars, Parnell Street - demolished for the Ilac Centre.
Beltons, North King Street - demolished

N0600 Ashling Hotel

This hotel stands alone on a site further down Parkgate Street from the other pubs. Extensively rebuilt in the late 2000s, it has a very swanky bar/lounge with table service for drinks. It's the dearest of the lot on the street and it was also the quietest from a noise perspective - it was actually fairly busy, mostly with people working on laptops with coffees and pastries rather than drinking.

Its not somewhere I'd see much reason to go to unless staying in the hotel or a business meeting in the area.

And so concludes the visits to the pubs of Parkgate Street. The area of the city in general still has many more pubs - even with closures in the last ten years of a fair few others - so I will return.