S0261 The Old Orchard

The final of the Charlie Chawke group of pubs for me to visit - well, in Dublin. I'm no great fan of big pub chains, but I've never had an issue with a Chawke premises; and when I still worked in radio they were great hosts when doing outside broadcasts - for them or more general ones located at their premises. 

This premises offers you two quite different options - the main Old Orchard pub, which is quite food focused; and the Paddy Scallys bar; an "old man pub" type setup. This, however, is quite new - having been the pubs off-licence and a wine bar in recent years.

This is where I went first. It's quite well done and had I not heard the barman telling other customers that it was quite new, I may not have landed on this info. The pubs website pushes "kegs directly below the bar" as a selling point here - something that those who apply a more analytical approach to their seeking out pints of Guinness on quality basis may want to check.

I did also head in to the main section as I wanted dinner; and food is not brought in to Paddy Scallys. This met my expectations of food from other Chawke venues, never been disappointed by the quality, although the prices might have been a tad high.

There's also two further restaurants out the back, connected by a covered walkway at the other end of a massive car park; but I'm not sure if these have any connection to the pub.

S0768 Blue Haven

A nice 60s suburban pub, this gives the feeling of being a pub in a row of shops despite there actually only being one other premises adjoining - an estate agent now, but originally a grocery shop.

There's a traditional interior and traditional service (pints brought to table after settling); and it seems that golf is the sport of choice going on the many social media posts about golf society trips and when major events are being televised.

All told, a very conventional - but nice - suburban pub. I don't really have much more to say about it!

RetroReview: S0398 Dunnes Stores Blackrock (as TGI Fridays)

Another from the "making sure everything marked off is written up" challenge; this is one of the stranger premises to have to write up.

It's a supermarket, or more realisticially a big convenience store - a store format Dunnes are beginning to roll out, and indeed now have two of that are using pub licences. This one I managed to tick off by visiting it when it was a pub-licenced restaurant.

Once the most expensive pub in Dublin - the pub, not the prices, though it was probably up there - this was best known as The Playwright, run by the Moran Hotel group and particularly popular as a nightlife destination in the early days of late bars. It had a run of wins of the Dublin and eventually National Superpub of the Year in the Black & White Pub Awards, which were taken quite seriously by the press in a way that more recent pub awards have not quite been.

In 2004, it was sold for €8.1m as part of a sell off of various assets by Morans. The bulk of the pub was rapidly converted to a TGI Fridays, which was open by early 2005; but there was also a Dante's Italian (a now defunct sister chain, in Ireland, to TGI Fridays) on site; and some element of remaining bar where you were not expected to eat.

This closed in around 2010 - its quite hard to track down exact dates for crash era closures, there being so many occurring - and the unit lay empty until Dunnes purchased it in about 2018.

While still recognisably an old pub, the thatched roof has been replaced by slates; and an extension built over the "courtyard" smoking area and (leaky, on my visit) glass-roofed entrance lobby that existed in its pub era.

As a TGI Fridays, it put me off the brand forever - I think I may have gone to some abroad when the brand was still owned by Radisson Hotels, to get loyalty points and nothing more; and my reviews of the other TGI Fridays in Dublin (of which only two remain) are not glowing - the chain reaching 7 branches for a time is not a good reflection on Ireland in the mid 00s!

(work-safe!) Adult Entertainment in Dublin Pubs

It's been a relatively quiet year for new pub openings, compared to the last few anyway. A clear backlog of premises to open from 2020/21 finally opened after the February 2022 lifting of restrictions on pub service; and the pipeline has got a bit short now.

Indeed, I was very surprised at the lack of places opening for Paddys Day this year, although April has picked up a bit with a few. I document the openings of places elsewhere on the site so I'm not going to go through details other than what the purpose of this post is.

Something is quite baffling in that a huge proportion of the new venues opening - and with two exceptions they are actually *new* venues and not reopenings - are effectively activity centres for adults.

As of the time I write this, there are six premises open that match this requirement. Only three of them have turned up on the liquor licence register but I'm fairly confident that all of them are licenced as pubs - it just isn't practical to operate the way they are any other way.

First off we have places that are specific to one sport/game that you can play on the premises, but where you can also drink.

We have two bowling alley / arcade setups, from the British chain Lane7. These are like tiny Leisureplexs, but three times the price. And with a bar - which you do not need to pay for a lane to go in to. I have visited one, on Clarendon Row; and will have to tick off the second branch in Dundrum also, which I believe is larger; and had been intended to be a Press Up branded bowling alley originally.

There is then Flight Club, which is darts based, in the former S3727 Sams Bar. This offers "social darts" which is, as far as I can tell, just darts as you'd play it in any normal pub, but with bookings. You can, again, just go in to the bar without booking. I visited as Sams and I'm terrible at darts, so I won't be back.

The next category is VR based "experiences". One of these is still sports based - 1021725 Pitch - a virtual golf setup where you swing at a screen rather than on actual grass. You can again just go to the bar here.

We then have Sandbox VR, a VR headset setup that looks somewhat terrifying; and has a robot cocktail 'bartender' which you can, again, just head in to get a drink from without paying a minimum of €30 for a VR trip.

The final category of those that are open is "a mix of all of the above". The former Icon Centre at Leopardstown Racecourse has finally reopened as 1021852 Super Social, which has darts, indoor golf (which looks to use real balls), shuffleboard and other activities. The website says you can come in without a booking for activities but I suspect you may be rather encouraged to get a meal rather than just drinks. Super Social is open in the afternoon for under-18s, not common with this type of venue it seems.

Yet to come is a branch of Bounce, a boozy ping pong setup that already exists in the UK. I have no idea whether they'll let you in to their branch in the old Central Bank, when it opens, without a booking as it hasn't opened yet - and their UK website is incredibly opaque about whether they allow it there.

S1595 Delaneys / Knocklyon Inn

A pub that many people will know bits of by sight, passing it at 100km/h - this is the pink pub you can see from the M50, south of junction 11.

The pub has been there for a lot longer than the motorway has (the current ownership dates to the 1840s), and was once on the Dublin to Brittas road, which now crosses the M50 and hence passes the pub at height. These new roads mean the pub looks rather out of place, sited at an angle to everything else around it, and somewhat shoved in a corner. The "front" of the pub now addresses a park rather than a road; and the entrance from the car park to the lounge seems to suffice as a main entrance instead.

This review has sat scheduled for today, but still at draft status for ages, as I'm not sure my visit really gave me enough time to get a good handle on the place. It's a bit of a walk from the nearest bus stop on the now bypassing road, and this cut my time between buses down to pretty close to the time required to knock a pint rather than have a look around.

The building presents as an incredibly 60s/70s pub - mansard roof, weird tower - but I suspect the core building is very old. The walls inside are decorated with old photographs and signage and there's quite a lot to look at, which I didn't get to fully take in.

S2493 Speaker Connolly

This name feels odd to me, as there's a pub vastly nearer my house with basically the same name - Speakers Bar, named after William Connolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. That pub in is Celbridge, where Connolly's country estate - Castletown - is located. I'm not sure if there's a specific reason for the name here.

Built as Tallaghts environs expanded in the 80s, this was reported as being precisely over one mile (1.6km - this will be important later...) by road from the next nearest objecting pub - Delaneys Knocklyon Inn; one mile being the distance at which a new pub could be opened despite objections by other publicans under the licencing laws at the time. 

Two things are interesting about this - firstly, the now closed Firhouse Inn was closer, but they were not objecting - the Speaker Connolly being a joint venture between publicans including the owners of the Firhouse Inn. Secondly, despite the road changes since having made the distance between the pubs slightly longer than I believe it was originally, I am only meausring it at as being 1.2km!

A few writueps ago I mentioned my concern that a previous large suburban pub with a large carpark could be eyed up by a developer. Well, this is a large suburban pub with a large carpark; and it already has been - planning has been applied for twice here. 

The plans propose to keep the pub, which is often applied for but less often done; although in the south west of the city/county, this has actually happened more often than not; with the Traders in Greenhills being a recent example

The pub itself could do with a refurb if those development plans fail to come through, being a little run down; but it's clean and functional and there's plenty of space inside.

S3735 Scholars

The busiest pub I've been in in quite some time; easily since before Christmas. I couldn't find a table or perch here after ordering, so instead had to sit at the bar - something I dislike doing in busy pubs; as it reduces the area for ordering pints even further, and increases the risk of having a pint dropped on you by someone else ordering. 

I'd be in favour of whipping away the bar stools, when vacated, at busier times in pubs and indeed I have seen that done sometimes - but there's going to be as many if not more people who *want* to sit at the bar as want to have easier access. 

I have to presume the pub is named after Scholarstown, the townland that it isn't in. Indeed, the maps on townlands.ie show that it's in Ballycragh, two townlands over. But at the time this area was being built up in the 1990s, Scholarstown was already well known and its close enough.

The pub is that common suburban, 70s-00s Dublin setup of a small shopping centre with a pub at one end - a different form from the 30s-70s row of shops with a pub in or on the end, or the co-existing 60s-90s form of the pub with a big carpark on its own. 

There's probably a minor academic piece on the different eras and forms of pubs using Tallaght examples alone, considering we've have previous shopping centre pubs (Croughs), standalone big pubs (Ahernes, Old Mill - albeit both on the sites of older pubs), a row shop pub (Killinarden House) as well as a traditional roadside pub (Jobstown House), two traditional village pubs, one much extended (Molloys, The Dragon) and a series of hotel bars.