RetroReview: S3035 Irish Film Institute

I used to drink here quite a lot; as they didn't check for ID if you were eating. 

The bar/restaurant were very nice, by 2003/4 standards anyway. I presume they've been upgraded since, but I dunno.

Every? Remaining Pub In Glenties

I sometimes stay overnight in the small Donegal town of Glenties - population 927 as of the 2022 census, a significant increase on the 805 from 2016; which I think is roughly what the baseline was for many decades before that.

There's a recently modernised, but old/classic rural town hotel which is about the furthest I'm willing to drive to after work on the way up to Donegal (and its usually cheaper than the hotel in Dungloe). My Dad was also born in the town, back when Glenties had a hospital (closed 1960) and that sort of care was hyper-localised.

My main memory of Glenties of old was that the town was absolutely rammed with pubs; and with such a small population to support it. Even to this day, there's a reasonable number, but far less than what there was.

The town was once more important than its nearby neighbour Dungloe (which I have previously written about), with the workhouse - which became the hospital; a thriving market - the market house still stands and is used as a community centre, and there are occasional street market days and so on; but Dungloes industry has helped it grow to become the retail and commercial centre for all of North West Donegal, leaving Glenties to fall behind. 

Despite the changes in business and administrative focus; Glenties has some literary history to fall back on. Brian Friel, who set most of his plays in a fictionalised version of the town, is to receive a visitor centre here shortly in the former courthouse; and the poet Patrick MacGill is remembered annually with the MacGill summer School. The local museum features items relating to both men (and to some of the former pubs, as we'll get to).

Working North to South down Glenties Main Street, I'm going to list the pubs that I'm aware of having existed - and I'm absolutely sure I'll miss some out here. I have drunk in all of those that are trading as of August 2024; bar potentially one - see the Inishkeel Co-op entry.

That many of these closed premises still have current licence numbers, or were licenced within the ~15 years for which I have old registers, but are not trading shows that you cannot use the Revenue register as an indication of how many pubs are still going.

Kelvon House / Glenmore House 

This Victorian (probably) structure is a former hotel and nightclub, but which has not traded for a very long time - the latest reference I can find to the Kelvon House name is 1998,

The oldest Streetview passes - 2009 - show it in a state of dereliction, albeit still identifiable as a pub, and even the 1998 Tidy Towns judging report, when it was probably still trading, refers to its poor state. A discount store has recently opened in the former bar area of the pub.

DOP156 The Limelight and M25 Superpub

An immense late 80s nightclub, the club section initially closed in 2012; while I believe the pub section struggled on until at least when it entered receivership in 2014. The entire site was described as "derelict" when planning was granted to demolish in 2016, but it briefly reopened that year and only closed finally in 2018.

The Limelight opened in 1988, converting the former St Dominics Hall - a 1940s dance hall and sometimes cinema, which played host to all the famed showbands and even Phil Lynott on a solo tour in 1982 - and the adjacent McHughs pub in to a 1,800 square meter nightclub and bar complex. 

This conversion is claimed to have cost IR£750,000 (now about €2.7m with inflation) with a fifth of that on the lighting alone. Some newspaper report reports refer to it having been "on the site of" St Dominics Hall, but it is clear from old photographs that they are the same buildings, just with that quarter of a million spent on them.

As the largest nightclub in this part of the county, the Limelight was known for people coming in by bus from all around. It was one of a number of clubs across Ireland that would open at midnight on Christmas night; a thing of borderline legality (although endorsed by local judges) but probably providing an escape from stifling family events for hundreds in the process.

I was actually in here in my teenage years, but don't remember much about the night at this stage... or possibly didn't remember much about it the morning after either!

This is still licenced, as of August 2024.

Kennedys

I... think... this was a pub - it now appears to be a house, but still has the Kennedys name sign-written on to the wall, this sign writing being reinstated after building repaints. It is somewhat hard to find out, as another pub in the town is owned by, and was formerly called, Kennedys. 

DOP149 The Tavern Bar

This wonderful single-roomed pub is still open, and is like going back in time - the pricing alone (€4.50 for a Guinness) is enough to bring you back. Cash only, Guinness and Carling only on draught when I visited.

DOP152 Roddys

Another survivor, this is a little bigger and a little more modern than the Tavern. Has a back/outdoor area for live music.

DOP155 Mellys / Glen Inn

Attached to Mellys supermarket, this does not seem to have traded for some time - the licence seems to go away in ~2016

DOP154 Sonnys Bar

This only closed in September 2023, is listed for sale as a pub, and as such is something that may reopen. Was also Keenys Bar prior to being Sonnys.

DOP158 O Faolains

This premises still shows signs of having been a pub, with fading Guinness and Bulmers stickers in the windows; but has not traded in a very long time despite the licence hanging on until at least 2020. 

In 2024, the former bar counter was donated to the local museum, where it now forms the reception desk

DOP150 Leo's Bar

Not to be confused with the famous Leo's Tavern further North in the county, this trading premises is a small pub but which manages to wedge in live music acts.

DOP151 Inniskeel Co-op

This co-op supermarket and hardware store states it has a pub in it on the outside. And it has a pub licence. But the shop is never open in the evenings, and doesn't have a website, so I haven't been able to figure out what precisely is going on.

It's next door to Leo's, and until checking for licence numbers I didn't realise that Leo's was not the pub in question!

DOP153 Highland Hotel

The aforementioned renovated older hotel - apparently built as a hotel in the 1830s, used as a private guest house by the Marquess of Conyngham thereafter and returned to hotel use in 1882. Bought by a Canadian financier in 2016, he funded the full modernisation, but died in 2019. The hotel has since been sold and is operating normally.

DOP159 The Thatch

Recently reopened after having closed only in January 2024, this is a modern bar and restaurant that wouldn't look particularly out of place in any much bigger urban centre. This has also been called Paddys Bar, An Cluid and Kennedys Bar in recent years.

RetroReview: S2949 The Old Storehouse (Eamonn Dorans)

I was in Eamonn Dorans once.

I may have been 17. Probably 18, but maybe not.

A band consisting of lads I was in school with were playing, and we left after they finished; as it was expensive by 2004/5 Kildare standards 

But a tick is a tick. And the new version does not appeal to me at all.

S2096 Finches

There's another set of pub tickers that always seem to come to bother in pubs that most people wouldn't even consider vaguely rough. So its not that much of a surprise that they don't appear to have gone here at all.

I'm not scared of "rough pubs", most of the ones that people - one set of other pub tickers particularly, it seems - consider "rough" are nothing of the sort; but this is the first pub where someone sort-of warned me about it when I was going in; claiming to recognise me and asking why I'd go to a "pub like the Finches". 

I didn't know who they were, they may recognise me from the very public place I work (a non promiment or public facing job) in; or they may have just realised I wasn't local and thought I needed warning.

The only thing I needed warning about were that the jacks are particularly smelly, and actually make some seating areas a bit unpleasant as the smell comes out. 

Don't bother coming here on a "rough pub" safari - actually, please don't do that anywhere, its ridiculous and someone has already done the video - and maybe it will be different if you're not a physically huge male, going in daylight.

RetroReview: S2747 Conrad Hotel (Alfie Byrnes)

I drank here which the bar was Alfie Byrnes - named after "The Shaking Hand of Dublin", the multi term Lord Mayor and sometimes IPP MP / Independent TD Alfie Byrne. He also has a road named after him that's usually best known for the wars over coach parking on its cycle paths.

This was a Galway Bay Brewery pub when under that name, potentially their largest; and usually also quiet enough to hide away in on busy days in the city centre - just being a tad outside helps.

The bar is no longer GBB, and now seems to be called Lemuels, Lemuel being the first name of Gulliver in Gullivers Travels. 

I already feel like I'm in Lilliput a lot of the time, due to my (increasingly less - late Gen Z are tall) abnormal height; so I don't think I'll bother going back.

S1476 Rory O'Connors

Another pub that was replaced after redevelopment? 

Well, yes, but the redevelopment was a very long time ago. The large 1940s Submarine Bar, formerly Hills Road House, on this site was subsumed in to the Ashleaf Shopping Centre when it was built; and continued to operate as a similarly, if not even more vast venue until the financial crisis, at which time it reduced down to just the bar area - trading as Rory O'Connors

This closed, I believe, at the start of the pandemic; but reopened this years - ruining a nicely ticked off area of the map for me. So I had to head back.

What is still open is a medium sized single area bar; with exceptionally cheap Beamish (fiver).

Some of the rest of the Submarine still sits empty, which other bits have become a gym - an odd conversion that has afflicted a number of other huge pubs like Liz Delaneys (The Blacker) and the upper portion of the former Night Owls in Ranelagh; the ground floor being a Supervalu.

(The latter still features some of the artwork from its brief latter incarnation as Il Mondo; making me wonder if there's any Submarine related stuff left in this one)

RetroReview: S1510 The Patriots Inn

The summer of Outdoor Dining decided for me whether somewhere counted if I only drank outside it - it does; its my blog and my rules. But on recollection, I probably needed to make that decision when doing up the initial "already visited" list; as I never actually drank a pint *inside* the Patriots.

Instead, I drank on the footpath; like thousands of people a year do after attending gigs in Royal Hospital Kilmainham. 

The interior looked nice enough, I think....