S1519 Bird Flanagan

This wasn't the original target of my trip to Rialto, but as S1493 Anchor Bar was closed. I'm not sure if its fully closed or not; but there's no Facebook updates since June, and the last one referred to it being temporarily closed so its hard to tell. But I'd have to go here at some point anyway - so rather than waste the trip I popped in.

This is one of the relatively few Dublin pubs named after a person who is not a current or former owner the pub - and one of the less obvious ones at that (Publin's put together a list of these). The escapades of The Bird Flanagan are gone in to over at Come Here To Me!, and to much disappointment I didn't see anyone acting even vaguely similarly in the pub.

This is an average mid-sized suburban pub, doing all the things normal suburban pubs do - the regular pub scene music acts, the regular lunch menu, the regular conservatory tacked on the back... wait, that's something the average mid-sized suburban house has surely? There's one here, though; and its a nice place to sit if the sun manages to get through the clouds as it briefly did when I was there.

My usual search for anything interesting on Google about a pub and its history shows that the conservatory was a non-smoking area of the pub some half a decade before the pub smoking ban came in. It also turned up this, the less said of the better I suspect - and really quite a long time ago now!

S0207 Lower Deck

An odd combo of a traditional Dub-pub on the ground floor and a live music venue in the basement, this is only the second place I've seen an in-pub bookie in Dublin. The other was S1437 Leonards Corner and it may actually have been the same bookie, set up with a laptop and a lock box for cash on a table beside the bar.

I only visited the upstairs, mainly because it was the daytime and nothing was on downstairs. It's all as you'd expect, albeit maybe a little more like a pub in the Liberties than one specifically located where it is.

The nautical name here reflects that the pub looks out over Portobello Harbour, or what was. The harbour was filled in in the 1940s and is now a neat public square. The area is going to have quite a significant change soon, as the graffittied remains of the former Portobello College (merged and moved to the Dublin Business School sites some years ago) and the Ever Ready battery factory that make up the eastern side of the square are to be replaced with a hotel - the standard outcome for any site left empty for long enough!

S0210 Portobello Hotel

I really liked this place - to the point that I was seriously considering a vaguely Hobbit like 'second lunch' (it works better as a reference when it's breakfast) to lengthen the time spent there, but I'd already had a large lunch in S4500 Brickyard not particularly long beforehand and had promised to be home for a normal dinner time for once.

This is the large bar of a small hotel on the corner of Charlemont Mall and South Richmond Street. South Richmond Street has three good pubs in a row more or less, each with their own qualities and own reasons for why you might want to be there - although there are some similarities to S0209 O'Connells here.

A wood-heavy traditional bar fitout contributes heavily to the atmosphere here; although some of the reason for finding it quite so cosy was the weather outside - occasional blasts of sideways rain and severe gusts really making it feel like another season entirely.

Drink prices here are bordering on cheap for the location, although the range wasn't fantastic. Acquiring a table looking over the canal and under the shelves of books that I presume aren't solely for decoration is probably your target here if its busier; but it is a fairly expansive space with multiple areas.

Reopenings, Replacements and Renovations

When is a pub a new pub, and when is it just a reopening or a renovation? This is something that's come up a bit recently with people asking me if I've visited N0192 Bonobo - formerly N0192 The Richmond which I popped in to in October 2017, back when I wrote slightly shorter posts for each pub.

I'll inevitably go there at some stage - craft bar in an accessible location - but it raises the wider question. Recently The Well opened on Stephens Green West, in the location of S3908 Dandelion, which I visited before starting the blog (as it was already closed when I started the blog it'd have been hard to have done it since!). This hasn't reappeared on the register yet, but even turning up with a new number does not mean it is actually a new licence, because renumberings happen all the time.

The same question has arisen when 1014760 The Richmond Gastropub in Inchicore - I visited this when it was N1113 The Village Inn many, many years ago - 2007 or 2008. Its the same building, with quite a different pub inside it now. Maybe not as different as the change from the (other) Richmond to Bonobo, or converting a nightclub to a cafebar as with Dandelion -> The Well, but I'm not sure where to draw the line. Bonobo is really just a renovation as the pub wasn't closed for long, but The Well and The Richmond Gastropub reopened long-closed premises.

Currently I'm deeming anything that reopens in the same premises as being the "same pub"; but there will soon be cases of hotel bars appearing on former pub/theatre licence sites. Amongst those I visited as pubs or clubs were S0039 The Long Stone, N0018 The Big Tree, S2957 Tivoli Theatre (may times from 2005 until December 2018) and 1009202 Hangar/Andrews Lane Theatre. Do these visits count, whether the licence number changes or not?

I set my own "rules" here, as there's no actual challenge as such, seeing as at least two people are known to have already visited every pub in Dublin (Mac Moloney and Yuya Abe); so I'm going to wait to decide on the hotel front. I suspect the replacement for the Long Stone is going to be completely unrecognisable from the original and require a re-visit; but the hotel on the Big Tree site is retaining the older corner buildings and the plan is for the bar to be in the same area and still called the Big Tree - not providing much justification at all to require a re-visit.

1015110 Clayton Hotel Charlemont

A new 4* hotel built on the site of the Charlemont Clinic and hence the important St Ultan's Hospital which was there prior to it. This is a bit odd for me as I had many customers in the Clinic in a previous job and spent many hours/days working here.

The main building of St Ultans has been restored to a high standard; and there is a glass-covered entranceway from Charlemont Street in to the hotel, bringing you in to the side of the large lobby area.

The bar offering here is a very conventional hotel lobby setup inside the main doors on Charlemont Mall; however non-residents are definitely welcomed. Compared to how busy some nearby pubs can get (see previous post), this should be an oasis of calm in contrast

Everything is executed to a very high standard here from renovation of the old building through the interior fitout to the waiter service to the tables. With the number of small hotels and aparthotels going up it is useful to see that there are some larger conventional hotels going in on infill sites that weren't either originally planned to be apartments or require demolishing an entertainment venue.

S0202 The Barge

People flock here on warm workday evenings, with cases of vast quantities of people covering any available space outside being well known. The pub however request that patrons do not go beyond the footpath seating area outside, with multiple signs up - but when that many people want a pint its probably hard to say no!

So when did I decide to visit? On a damp, windy Saturday when there were many sporting events on in the city to draw crowds away from the area of course. The full pub was open but without any outdoor drinkers; and a wide choice of seats on the many levels inside.

The first thing I noticed here was the range of JW Sweetman offerings on draught - these are not seen that widely outside of S0005 JW Sweetman's itself; but there is or was shared ownership here; as with N0146 Cat & Cage where I've previously enjoyed them. However, the one I wanted was actually out so a pint of Chieftain was obtained instead.

I chose to sit in the upstairs corner seating area, which was mostly marked as reserved - a decent choice of a place for a group, as it is a little secluded yet still close to a bar and has the view of the canal. There is a large screen here though, so don't expect it to remain quiet when there's a more important match on TV.

A previous (Northside) employer always picked Southside venues for work nights out, and one of the few I ever missed was a BBQ night here - however, it was during a heatwave and on a payday Friday evening so I'm not sure how close to the food it would have been possible to get. Its probably sensible to do a visit like this at a quieter time; but maybe a worknight of moderate heat could have got more of the normal atmosphere.

S3576 Citi Hotel / Trinity Bar & Venue

Don't eat anywhere with pictures of the food on a menu outside the door - advice I give to anyone visiting European tourist centres - Amsterdam in particular. Its not something I'd seen too much in Ireland, until here.

However, it was dinner time and I needed to eat, so I ignored my own advice. The food is fine and the service isn't the oppressive pushy type that usually comes with the picture-book menus abroad. The surroundings are really not my type of pub, so its fairly obvious why this was the last place on Dame Street to get visited.

This premises has changed quite substantially over the past few years. It was heavily promoted as an after-work venue and had a basement nightclub (where the 2014-2016 world record for longest continuous DJ set was achieved); however it now a more traditional hotel bar and seems to be going for the tourist market. The basement is restaurant seating now, with trad and pub rock appearing to be the only live music now offered.

The days of the expensive late bar with pop/commercial dance DJ do seem to have died out; but I'd be of the opinion that there are too many identikit trad-and-stew pubs in the city now. However that does seem to be what tourists are willingly coming here to spend huge amounts of money to experience