Revisited pubs, April 2023

For the small number of people who always read this (based on Blogger stats) - I didn't actually re-visit any pubs in Dublin in March, hence no post for it - the month was taken up with trips to each end of the country (Donegal and then Cork) rather than much activity in Dublin.

But I did plenty in April, so here they are:

S3908 The Well - regular meeting venue

1018821 Meaghers - I said it needed more than the 15 minute visit I gave it last time, so I revisited. It still stands up.

N0053 Graingers - regular train gap filler

N0084 The Black Sheep - it was convenient when waiting for the next pub to open!

N0060 The Legal Eagle (as Underdog 2.0) - getting a visit to the pop-up in residence on its last day before it moves to a permanent premises

S1467 Tom Kennedys - craft pubs don't usually show football

S0117 The Lord Edward - craft pubs don't usually show football, second half

S1527 Brady's

A busier pub than all the others so far, quite possibly just because it had got late enough to hit dinner time for many. I managed to get quite a nice, albeit small, table and spent the entire time there waiting to either be asked or volunteer to move - this wasn't required, though.

This review is from many, many weeks ago and roughly coincided with the implementation of Diageo's price increase; leading to the oddity of seeing all the Heineken group taps taped over with a warning that they were premium priced, referencing their extremely unpopular price increase of a few months prior; but which the other macro breweries have mostly or entirely matched since. 

The taping over actually made it look like the taps were turned off; but a quick chat with the senior staff member (owner? manager? I didn't actually ask) who was pulling my pint confirmed that they had made the decision that they would sell them to those willing to pay rather than whipping the lines entirely as some other publicans did. Unfortunately, many of said publicans replaced them with C&C lines, just trading one macro for another...

As as relatively standard large suburban pub with a focus on food, you may prefer somewhere else for just drinking - S0248 Vaughns across the road-ish for instance; but this still seems like a decent pub.

S0248 Vaughn's Eagle House

The last of the three Eagle House pubs that Dublin had until recently - with Glasthules one now being the Greedy Eagle and Dundrums becoming Pye since my visits to both. Whether this means that this Eagle will be renamed, or gain a prefix, due to my brief presence I don't know! 

Of course, Eagle is an oddly common bit of a pub name in Dublin - there being a Bald and a Legal also - so it isn't that odd that two pubs with it have have re-openings in the past while. But back to the this remaining Eagle House

A pub of many levels - not quite as baffling as the insides of N2307 O'Connells for instance; and its clearly due to being built on a mild hill, but it may be a tad hard to navigate this pub after a skinful.

There was a turned off, formerly backlit Beamish sign advertising its comparative cheapness - well, it is fairly cheap; but they have actually backed away from this marketing tack recently. Regardless, this was the cheapest of the pubs I visited in this area, from memory.

James Joyce's mother was born on this site, which gives this pub a stronger Joycean connection than many that actually push that as a thing; albeit I don't think you will find it particularly easy to drag tourists out here on a Joycean Pub Tour.

S1760 Terenure Inn

Erm. I left this rather too long to write it up; and it wasn't terribly memorable. Which, as mentioned before, is usually a good thing.

Pub's interior is quite swanky, I seem to remember it was all macro but with Lagunitas, which I'll buy off a Heineken heavy macro list. Food seems to be the most important offering here; as is often the case in suburbia.

Pub ticked off the list, but made no strong memories.

1004353 Lysters

Until relatively recently, this pub was called McGarrys - and once inside, it may as well still be! Plenty of stuff around the place still shows this name, from internal advertising to tableware of various kinds. 

A former Sean Quinn pub, I think this one was the only one he rebranded in his own name - Quinns in Drumcondra being already called that; but it was disposed of before his downfall. After that sale, it became Crossbar - a bit of a pun too for for a sports bar in Harolds Cross - and then McGarrys.

Lysters has been the name since its post-COVID reopening - the interior being in decent nick is probably at least part of why every last mention of the former name hasn't yet been excised.

Offering food within the realms of being made by a barman (soup and sandwiches) in lieu of a full kitchen service on this, previously mentioned, somewhat odd Bank Holiday Monday; the reduced service reflected a fairly low customer count at the time I arrived - maybe sticking to normal Monday hours when there's no sports on actually would be the better idea.

S1524 McGowans (Harolds Cross)

This pub-ticking trip was done on a Bank Holiday Monday - more specifically, one of those rare Bank Holidays that is not also a BH in England and hence had no massive increase in the amount of TV sport on offer. This lead to many pubs operating their normal Monday opening hours - and not, as is often the case, opening at the same time as they normally would on a weekend day. 

This lead to my first target pub being closed; and going straight to my second - which was open, and serving food (something else that many places were not in a position to offer at the time). However, it appeared that only one small section of the pub was open due to limited staff, and indeed customer, numbers - I don't know if this was the case, but nobody was going anywhere else!

Most of the crowd that were in seemed to be locals and indeed almost seemed to have their "own" seats, which did give a little bit of a feeling of being in the wrong place - the table I got was an odd high table in the middle of the floor too. Just a perception thing and probably not valid for a more normal day of trading!

N0230 Hanlons Corner

First impressions and all that - they were crap here.

Walked in the door, having to navigate through various smokers, and directly inside the pub there were two gambling machines. Questionably legal at the best of times, and more reminiscent of a UK pub, these are not what I want to see in a pub.

The large lounge was closed for a private party - but not signed as such, so I was politely directly back to the entirely full bar. The tap lineup did have a single craft offering - rare on the day trip I was on, but as it was Wicklow Wolf Arcadia lager, not a beer type I normally drink.

So, I knocked my pint at the bar, and left. I later returned, after having gone to the more convivial atmosphere of N0211 Clarkes City Arms, to try go in to the off-licence at Hanlons Corner.

Nobody answered my ring on the doorbell - before 9pm, let alone close to 10pm - but looking through the window, you were out of luck if you wanted anything other than the main few brands of cans. There's a Lidl behind here with a better offering.

The staff seemed fine, but my overall impression here was poor - and this is not an area without a lot of other pubs available, all of which I prefer. Maybe a revisit would be totally different - but if I already prefer the City Arms, why would I bother?