Author: dublinbypub

Harkin’s – The Harbour Bar: Grand Canal Place

I was thinking about canals the other week. Not just in general – I had Dublin’s two canals – The Royal on the Northside and the Grand on the Southside on my mind. Now I’m not here to delve into the wider history of them today, but that’s well worth looking into if you’re so inclined. But the canals are often, relative to this blog, foremost in our thoughts. Like so many, we use them as boundaries – deeming them to denote where the city centre of Dublin starts and ends. But, as I sat down beside Patrick Kavanagh on my lunch break during the week, I was thinking too, how their initial purpose, to be used for trade and commerce, is virtually eradicated now.

I was asking Paddy whether he reckoned that his Canal Bank Walk poem might have been the thing that done it or at least heralded it. This change of the canal zeitgeist, as it were, to its modern form. The transformation of our consideration of this body of water to be a source of ecology, of nature and biodiversity and not solely a for-profit feat of engineering.

Paddy, being a bronze statue, naturally did not respond to me. But I’ll post his poem here, which – as you’ll observe- makes no mention of industry or logistics.

Canal Bank Walk

Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal

Pouring redemption for me, that I do

The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,

Grow with nature again as before I grew.

The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third

Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,

And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word

Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat.

O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web

Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,

Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib

To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech

For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven

From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.
Patrick Kavanagh

Now it’s probably bad enough to be reading this if you’re Brendan Behan, because after me just mentioning one of his most vocal adversaries, I’m now going to move on to speak about the pub he was in when he collapsed and ultimately died in 1964.

Harkin’s, aka the Harbour Bar, is a pub situated on Grand Canal Place. And it could be argued that the pub and the street that it sits on are in direct defiance of the entire point that I made about the canals, above. Because, as one walks up Grand Canal Place, they might begin to notice that, despite its name, there isn’t sight nor sound of the Grand Canal to be found anywhere. And if that leads you, as it did me, to curiosity, you won’t be long finding out that – just like outside The Lower Deck, there once was a Canal Harbour in situ near this pub. And this explains it retaining the name The Harbour Bar. And then you’ll look up at the grand vista of the Guinness Brewery, and you’ll be very much reminded of the canal’s purpose as an artery of business and not a leafy lover-filled habitat.

Harkin’s, being so close to the historic harbour and being the last standing of such harbourside pubs in these environs, now finds itself with the distinction of being the pub closest to The Guinness Storehouse. On the smaller side of the city’s public houses, it’s a one-room pub which exudes an intimate, cosy sort of charm about it. Being so close to one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions, the staff have clearly had plenty of opportunities to work on their customer service, given the warmth of the welcome we seem to always receive in the place. And it’s a good, genuine warmth too, as opposed to the brand of Mid Atlantic faux-niceness you might get in other establishments.

Crowd-wise, it’s no surprise to say that the pub is not shy of tourists, but it also has locals aplenty and retains the feel of a proper Liberties boozer. There’s good craic to be had in the place. When last we darkened its door, we were delighted to bump into Mark, a local historian, who had us more than entertained talking about the history of our locality and sharing some old photos of it that he had on his phone. The barmen, however, on hearing we were from the Northside of the city, wasted no time in giving us a bit of stick, all being ardent Southsiders, themselves. (Check out Mark’s pages here and here)

Regarding the pint, you’d be imagining that the quality would be up to scratch – being so close to the mothership. And you’d be entirely correct in imagining as such. Pintman №2, №3, №9 and I, on the occasion of our last visit there, decided that the quality of the jar and its €4.90 pricetag (Late 2022) warranted us staying for two more pints than we had initially intended to.

There isn’t much to be said about the pub regarding décor; function trumps form here, and we’re not looking at anything too ornate. Our abiding memory of all of the structural elements of the building was the relatively long corridor that runs down to the gents. I had remarked to Pintman №2 that it struck me as the type of thing you see before you emerge out to the crowd in the mid-nineties TV show, Stars in Their Eyes. He preferred to liken it to the tunnel in Anfield.

As we alluded to earlier in the post, it’s a fact that this was the last Public House Brendan Behan ever took a drink in before his body succumbed to years of alcohol abuse. While not exactly a great omen – and morbid and all as it is to go there, I’d have to say that even though I’d have plenty of places further up in the queue for where I’d like to take my last pint, I wouldn’t be disappointed if it had to be Harkin’s in the end.

February 15, 2023
A Brendan Behan Pub Walk

It’s fair to say that we’ve made no secret of the fact that DublinByPub can sometimes be a Brendan Behan fanzine disguised as a Pub Blog. We adore the man – firstly for his literary genius, but also, and perhaps controversially (though unsurprisingly), for his stature as a renowned drinker and pub-dweller extraordinaire.

And though we’ve often thought of compiling a Brendan Behan pub crawl, it had always been evident to us that if you were to make a crawl of Dublin Pubs that Behan had been known to frequent – you would be creating both an unassailable task and a public health risk.

However, to mark the centenary of the great man’s birth this coming ninth of February, we thought we’d throw together something that that’s more of a pub walk than a crawl. Call it a ramble through Brendan’s Dublin with a few pints thrown in for good measure.

The walk does cover a fair bit of ground – notably the distance between the last two pubs – and though I think it’s certainly doable by foot – feel free to substitute foot for whatever means of transport is more preferable to you, where needed.

The Map

We’ve put a google map together, plotting out all the sites mentioned. Visit the link here, or use the window, below.

Stops Number 1 and 2: Glasnevin Cemetery and The Gravediggers

So just like Brendan himself, we’re going to start on the Northside and end up on the Southside. Our first stop is Glasnevin Cemetery – the last resting place of Behan and the site upon which he fired at members of The Gardaí in 1942, earning himself a 14-year sentence in Mountjoy Prison.

Some might view it as a little contentious to have the first pub on a Brendan Behan pub crawl be one that there’s no record of Behan having actually frequented, but Kavanagh’s (better known to Dubliners as The Gravediggers), we think, has earned its place in the story of Brendan. Being located a two-minute walk from Brendan’s grave, staff from the cemetery speak of how they often return pint glasses to the pub from the plot containing Brendan’s mortal remains, having been left there by thirsty pilgrims who have made the journey out to see the grave.

We could think of no better way to start this walk than by bringing a pint up to Brendan.

Stops Number 3 and 4: The Royal Canal

What Behan walk would be complete without including The Royal Canal. Through his association with the song – The Auld Triangle, and his being domiciled close to its banks on two separate occasions in his life, Brendan has arguably brought the man-made body of water more fame than any other individual ever has.

When you walk its banks, leaving Phibsborough and heading in the direction of Drumcondra, it won’t take long before you reach Stop 3, where you’ll be able to look upon the vista of Mountjoy Prison – where Brendan himself was incarcerated and the location he set one of his most famous works – The Quare Fellow. Continue to walk the canal and you’ll come to John Coll’s statue of Brendan which was unveiled in 2003.

Stops Number 5, 6 and 7: The Russell Street District.

The next street that crosses the canal after Drumcondra Road if you continue towards town is Russell Street, our fifth stop. Though demolished now, Behan was raised in a tenement house on Russell Street until the Behan family were relocated out to Suburbia (or Siberia as Brendan would quip) in the 30s – ending up on Kildare Road in Crumlin. As you come to the top of Russell Street, you’ll see an Italian Restaurant on the right – Asti, which contains a courtyard named Behan Square to its rear.

At the top of the street, on the left, you’ll see stop number 6 – James Gill’s pub. A pub that is synonymous with Brendan and indeed all the Behans – them all having frequented it in their day. The pub can be seen in the film Brendan Behan’s Dublin, which is thankfully on youtube. Unfortunately, Gills tends to only open on big match days when they occur in nearby Croke Park – so you could decamp to Hogan’s or The Hideout for a pint at this point if there’s no drink to be had in Gills. The aforementioned Italian restaurant is an excellent choice, should you want to fuel up with something more substantial for the walking ahead.

A short distance from Russell Street, you can find Shane Sutton’s astonishing mural of Brendan, painted onto the side of a dwelling on Richmond Cottages. (Hint: Be sure to also check out Shane’s nearby Joyce Mural up the road from this one)

Stop Number 8: The Abbey Theatre

The National Theatre, The Abbey has shown numerous productions of Brendan’s plays throughout the years. The theatre, itself, relocated to The Queens Theatre on Pearse Street after a fire for much of the time that Brendan was alive and in the public eye – but has long since been on Abbey Street. A large portrait of Brendan hangs at the top of the stairs as you walk up to the first floor of the Theatre. There’s a café in the theatre now, and depending on the time, you might find the bar open upstairs too. The pint is surprisingly decent.

Stops Number 9 and 10: The Palace Bar and McDaid’s

The Palace and McDaid’s could be considered the two pubs most closely linked to the post-war literary boom in Dublin. Behan was known to frequent both but was possibly more synonymous with McDaid’s which seemed to be the rowdier of the two, at the time.

John Ryan captures this in his memoir –The Way We Stood, when recounting a time RM Smyllie, editor of The Times, chanced his arm at frequenting McDaids:

Rumours of literary goings-on in MacDaid’s must have reached the master’s ear because Smyllie turned up there one night, having made the prodigious journey (of about half a mile) from the Palace. It was about the time that this pub was beginning its long history as a poetic glue-pot. A fight over the use of spondees was going on in one corner between two wild men in duffle coats, Brendan Behan was standing on a table bawling his rendition of ‘I was Lady Chatterly’s Lover’ and Gainor Crist, the Ginger Man, was getting sick, evidently into someone else’s pint. It was too much for the great man, who finished, in one vast swallow, his large Irish, gave a final, baleful owl-like glare at this frightening assembly, and waddled out into the Harry Street night and the ultimate sanctuary of the Palace as fast as his trotters could take him. He was never seen in McDaid’s again.

A brass plaque commemorates Brendan on the ground outside The Palace. In McDaid’s, various portraits of The Borstal Boy, himself, can be seen hung about the place.

Stop Number 11: Site of The Pike Theatre.

Not that you’d think to look at it, but the unassuming premises of Number 43 Herbert Lane, a coach-house/mews for its corresponding canalside residence, once contained The Pike Theatre. A provocative small-scale theatre which staged the world premiere of The Quare Fellow.

Stop Number 12: The Waterloo Bar

Though unrecognisable from how it would have appeared back then, The Waterloo was once a known haunt of Brendan’s. As a nod to this, the pub has named one of their snugs after him. An artwork on a street side cable cabinet outside the pub depicts himself and his best frenemy – Patrick Kavanagh, the two former kings of Baggotonia in a cartoonish form. See if you can spot it in the image below.

Stop Number 13: Brendan & Beatrice’s Home

Described as “my present to you” by Brendan, to his wife Beatrice. It was bought in 1959 when it had an asking price of £3,000. It was up for sale with an asking price of €1,200,000 in 2005.

Stop Number 14: Harkin’s – Harbour Bar.

I suppose we’ve finished this walk in as macabre a fashion as we begun. Harkin’s Harbour Bar, the pub now closest to The Guinness Brewery, is the last pub to ever host Brendan. Sadly, he collapsed here in March of 1964 before dying, aged a mere 41years, in The Meath Hospital several days later.

Last Thoughts / Summary

If you wanted to extend the walk from here, you could opt to next head out to Crumlin and check out The Crumlin Kremlin, as it was termed. 70 Kildare Road is the abode in which the Behans were resettled after they had to leave Russel Street. Obviously, in the case of this one, and 5 Anglesea Road in Stop #13, we’d urge you to be respectful – given that these are both homes belonging to people.

So, whether you do some of the walk, or all of the walk, or just enjoyed reading it – we’d urge you to raise a glass to Brendan on or about the 9th of February to mark the hundredth year since he was born. Ni bheidh a leithead aris ann!

February 2, 2023
An Afternoon in The Palace Bar

As of this moment, I’ve a list of about twelve pubs that I need to get written up for the blog and I really shouldn’t be writing this thing. But for some reason, probably because I’m afraid of forgetting it, I’ve decided that I’m going to forego normal programming and commit this one to paper.

It was midweek. Springtime. I had leave to take, so a day off work was required. And while a day off work is a fine thing, it wasn’t that which made it one of these days – that was down to a combination of factors. First of all, everyone was accounted for. All my nearest and dearest were away, in work, or otherwise engaged. I had no favours to do or errands to run. The calendar was entirely empty.

The other piece of the puzzle was in my pocket – for you’re never truly free when there are pennies to be counted and set against bills, rent and whatever else. For reasons unremembered to me now, I was as flush as I’d be all year on that particular afternoon. It might have been one of those months that had an extra payday or something, but for the first time that year, I possessed actual tangible and disposable income and was able to saunter into the city centre at my leisure and peruse and purchase from shops that I had been begrudgingly storming past on numerous occasions prior.

Of course, sauntering about town, taking in a museum, or a gallery and a few shops is thirsty aul work. So, it wasn’t too long before a pint was on the cards. With tiring legs passed beyond the bustle of College Green, plans for pints moved out of their conceptual stage toward something more realistic. Passing under the portico of Grattan’s parliament – I came to stand at Pat Ingoldsby’s patch on Westmoreland Steet and realised, as I’m sure many have before me, that I was headed directly for The Palace Bar.

Before much longer, I was sitting with a pint and a toastie in the back room of the pub, thumbing through a paper, or a book or inspecting a record I’d bought. Whatever it was I was doing, I cannot be certain because I’d quickly become distracted by all that was going on around me. At first, I’d been taken aback by two considerably sized oil portraits which had been newly hung since my last visit to the pub. Painted in what this art novice would call reminiscent of a Jack B. Yeats style, they depict two of the pub’s most notable former patrons – Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O’Brien. A man was sitting under the paintings, and I was enjoying the repartee between himself and Willie, an owner of the pub, as they chatted away.

Shortly after, a few more customers had trickled into the pub and Willie returned behind the bar to serve them. At this point, I noted a gathering of middle-aged to elderly men chatting amongst themselves in the corner. I attempted, futilely, to return to my book or my paper but couldn’t help but earwig in on the conversation between the table when I hear one respond to another:

Jesus, ye went to a Beckett play. You’re a brave man.

You see, I could sympathise with this – I’d recently been to that same Beckett play, and having understood none of the first twenty minutes, found myself denied readmittance for the interval-less remainder on my way back from the toilet. Nonetheless, the lads continued. The talk turned to GAA – hurling mostly. Refrains of ‘it’s a different game these days’ could be heard after chat about a red card – with one of the men declaring that a ‘bang of a hurley was a mark of endearment in our time’.

There’s more entertainment to come when one of the group of men gets up to retrieve a fresh round for the table. While waiting for these to settle he strikes up a conversation with the man who had been speaking to Willie earlier. As they speak, in tones gentler to those at the other table, I come to suspect, through the snippets I hear and the body language between the two, that they are discussing the two portraits. This, I have confirmed when the man responsible for the round returns to his table and informs all at it that ‘that man there… he painted the two of those’.

They all began to converse, then. ‘Well, this fella is Woody Allen and there’s Harrison Ford beside him’, said the supposed artist, jovially, in a thick southern accent. ‘West Kerry,’ he answers proudly when asked of where he comes from by one of the men. Though he does qualify this by stating that he lived in Dublin for years at one time.

‘Ah sure you’re a dub then’ proclaims another of the men. The artist gives his name as Liam O Neill, which I can’t help but Google to find out that this man is the real deal. A phenomenally accomplished painter. And him sat there, unassuming, and modest, right in front of me like some sort of 21st-century Kernoff.

Liam receives due praise from all and they come to discuss his subjects – on Flann O’Brien, one of them muses that ‘he was the only man sacked from the Civil Service… He was found working’. They go on in a similar vein and as one of them finishes reciting a John B. Keane poem, I finish my pint and make my exit.

I’m not sure exactly what compounded me to write this, as I alluded to at the outset – I’ve loads more pubs that I should be writing. I suppose the experience has just sat with me over the last few months. It was like something out of time. A moment where I fancied myself a voyeur to a sort of intelligentsia you don’t encounter too often in contemporary Dublin. Everything they said seemed to be gold. I imagined myself, in that short time, an abstract part of this irregular set of regulars – someone who was no stranger to bringing disrespect to a respectable hour by bathing it in intoxicating liquor. Unfortunately, though I was back at my desk, sober as a judge at that same hour, the next day. What’s rare truly is wonderful.

January 22, 2023
Top 5 Christmas Pubs 2022
Christmas – it comes earlier and earlier each year. And arriving earlier alongside it is that time-honoured tradition that me and mine call CCP season. CCPs, not to be confused with The Chinese Communist Party are Cosy Christmas Pints. Though sharing many similarities to normal pints, Cosy Christmas Pints have several unique defining characteristics which set them apart. These are as follows:
- CCPs should always occur within eyeshot of twinkling Christmas lights. Along with just generally looking well, twinkling Christmas lights take on a dream-like quality as the intake of pints increases.
- CCPs may often be disguised as shopping: “I went in to do a bit of present shopping, but the shops were mad.”
- Warm drinks often accompany CCPs. Hot whiskies, hot ports, Irish coffees – whatever you’re having yourself; It’s freezing out there.
- CCPs are not confined to the weekend. Catching up for a pint is inestimably more acceptable on a school night in the run-up to the big day. Sure, it’s Christmas time. We’re on the wind down in work anyways.
So, with the above in mind, we wanted to just throw out our top five Christmassy Dublin pubs for 2022. Pubs that really suit the CCP season and are always worth a look around this time of year.

J O’Connell:

Starting with what is maybe a less obvious one – J O’Connell’s makes it into our list for somewhat personal reasons. We tend to find we always get up to Portobello in the run-up to Christmas for a look at the pub and we’re not exactly sure why. It might be that the pub’s name is identical to the one featured in the Guinness Christmas ad, or maybe it’s the glossy green and red interior design. Most likely it’s just the fact that O’Connell’s is just an out-and-out great pub.

The Gingerman.

Named after author J.P Donleavy’s magnum opus – The Gingerman – I often wondered why the pub doesn’t seasonally rename itself for another of Donleavy’s books – the one that inspired Shane McGowan when he came to title what would come to be his most famous song – A Fairytale of New York. It would be an apt name, given that the place gets what can easily be described as the most intensive Christmas makeover in the city centre each year.

The Oval.

The Oval don’t go anywhere near as heavy on the decoration as The Gingerman but they make the cut due to their proximity to ground zero of Christmas Shopping mecca. When you’re wading through the street sellers on Henry Street as they bellow their wares into your ear or as you sit in a queue of dozens for some trendy outlet in Arnotts, you know that you could be sat in The Oval with a pint and a Hot Whiskey quicker than you could say ‘Can I get a gift receipt with that’.

The Hole in The Wall.

We’re often at pains to remind people that this is a blog primarily focused on pubs in Dublin City Centre, but it would be remiss of us to not include The Hole in the Wall, the Phoenix Park-adjacent pub, which is the longest in Ireland, festoons its entire length in Christmas bric-a-brac every year. It really is a sight to behold.

The Bankers

The Bankers makes our list for something similar of a reason as The Oval does – call it the Southside Oval: it being on the fringes of the Grafton St shopping area (note: we didn’t say Grafton Quarter). Honestly, though, there is little else in the city around this time of year that’s cosier than being sat, at ease, in the window of The Bankers peering through the lights in the window at all the stressed-out shoppers, weighed down by bags as they hurry to and fro up and down Trinity Street and Dame Lane. All while you’re safe in the knowledge that you won’t have to worry about any of this until the 24^th. Besides, what sort of a druncle would you be if you arrived up with the actual gift. They’ll have more craic going in to buy it with the voucher in January themselves anyway.

That’s our Christmas pub list for 2022, anyway. Do leave a comment and let us know if you plan to visit any on the list, or if we missed any.

We do hope you get into the pubs and experience them for yourselves. Honourable mentions for The Palace and The Strawberry Hall (which is incredibly Christmassy, but just a disaster for us non-drivers on the east side of the city to get out to).

Wishing you all a wonderful and safe CCP season ahead folks. Remember to keep enough money for the presents and do try and add your bartender into the odd round too, they do a fine job keeping us all well-oiled throughout it all.
December 20, 2022
Noctor’s: Sheriff Street Lower

Coming toward the latter end of 2021, we’d had it fully planned and spec’ed out for a good while. It had been a slack year for the cause with all concerned in the DublinByPub ranks – assorted big life changes and a worldwide pandemic had given time its relished advantage to get between us. So when the opportunity to get the band back together and collectively hit a few city-centre pubs presented itself to us, we knew we had to make it count. It had to be one of our most wanted. It had to be Noctor’s.

There was to be a half-day, a preferred route, and a plan b, we may have even discussed wardrobe at one stage. But in the end, pints, just like they always do, would make light work of all these well-honed plans, leaving a half-drunk troupe of us bundling up Sheriff Street under the cloak of darkness, a few weeks out from Christmas.

Now let us, at the very outset, state that we have no interest in perpetuating the rough and ready classification that we’ve often heard attributed to Sheriff St. But with that said, we’re not looking to paint this part of Dublin 1 as some sleepy, oak-lined friendly avenue, either. We are but mere impressionable suburbanites. Suburbanites who exist and communicate, more than many, in that pub-talk realm of lore and hyperbole – and it’s in these spheres, exclusively, where we hear mention of, and talk of Noctor’s. And when this particular public house is up for discussion, the sentiment is never positive. It’s always tales and warnings of how “you’d take your life in your hands going up there” and that “you’d do well to keep away from that mad kip”, and so on, and so forth.

So with these warnings and tales of woe, alongside other nuggets like the supposed fact that Jim Sheridan brought rapper, 50 Cent here one time, making our existing curiosity curiouser, it’s not long before we’re stepping through the adjoining financial district and making haste toward Sherriff Street. We may be, outwardly, acting like we’ve not heeded any of those cautions, but a spike of adrenaline, internally, is telling an altogether different tale.

When we shortly find ourselves turned onto the fabled street, the initial reaction is one of disappointment. An absence of a glowing façade, or assortment of smokers, all compounded by a closed set of shutters, leads us to initially believe that the pub is closed and that our journey has been a pointless one. Pintman №2, not being one to waste valuable drinking time, immediately sets course to return the way we came – only to look back and realise, just like in some terrible slasher-flick, that he’s completely alone on the dark street. Heading back towards the pub, he realises, just as we had, that, despite the unopened shutters, the pub is actually open. Immediately, he enters to find us standing at the bar on the receiving end of what can only be described as an interrogation at the hands of the barman and a few of the locals sitting around him. Questioning is carried out in the form of:

Where are yous from?

What are yis doing here?

Who told yous about here?

Insisting that we’re only here for a few pints, as the rest of us mumble incoherently in not-so-stoic agreement, Pintman №3’s retort is met with steely silence before the barman declares, in response, that he hasn’t decided if he’s going to serve us yet. At this point, things go sad-funeral quiet as the staff and the locals continue in their inspection of us. And just as we consider letting go of our last collective nerve and bailing, the bar erupts in laughter.

Yizzer alright lads!

What do yis want?

Sit down there and I’ll bring them over.

By the time we’re about to sit down, we’ve acquired the attention of a fair few of the locals, most of whom engage us in conversation. Pintman №3, in a manner befitting an affable 1950s Fianna Failer, makes no qualms about joining a sizeable table of habitués and chats away with them about one of the locals playing over the speakers – a Mr Luke Kelly. The rest of us, in turn, find a spot and chat across the divide with a woman who happens to be drinking a can of Tenants – an unusual sight in a Dublin Pub, we agree later.

As promised, pints are dispatched down to us in short enough time and we’re more than impressed with them. We note them as being of an incredibly high standard and the price to have been set at €4.50 a pour (Late 2021). A bargain, we agree, especially in the context of the comparatively inferior pints we had been drinking for 5.70 on Capel Street an hour prior.

Décor-wise, this is a pub where function certainly trumps form. That’s not to say that we haven’t drank in worse looking pubs (we have) but, suffice it to say that other licensed premises within the city might be more likely to end up in that Dublin 2023 calendar your Ma is going to get you for Christmas. The pub is, however, laid out well for its intended purpose – a dark wood, small to medium size bar stands on your right as you enter the pub. Banks of low seating take up the space on your left. And there’s a sizeable bank of floor space between the two. Curved arches at the far end of the seating space denote the leisure section of the pub wherein stands a pool table and a dartboard. The colour scheme, overall, is bright – walls are painted in a beige/cream sort of tone and the flooring is a varnished, yet somewhat weathered light wood. Some dark wood in the seats and the tables and shelves add a little contrast.

Earlier in this post, we said that we wouldn’t paint Sheriff Street as a sleepy, oak-lined friendly avenue, as if such a thing was what a street should aspire to. But, in all reality, why would anyone want to aspire to such boredom. Not that you need us to tell you this, but Sheriff Street is an infinitely more interesting place than some leafy, embassy-saturated thoroughfare in Ballsbridge. And, let alone the scores of well-known and beloved Irish people in music and the arts of both today and yesterday that have come from here, this is also thanks, in no small part, to somewhere like Noctor’s. Its clientele is friendly like very few other city pubs’ are and it’s yet another pub that has taught us to take little heed of supposed notoriety.

December 14, 2022
The Last Night in The Flowing Tide
The news came through in the same way that news like this often does – via rumour and hearsay. A friend of a friend’s workmate was “in there the other night and the barman said it’s closing in a week, getting turned into a hotel.”

I know now that I’ve let might have let stewardship of this blog go to my head – because I was far too quick to disregard this rumour when it had come through to me from Pintman №6. Too small for a hotel, I thought. I’d have heard it before now, I reasoned. But will and reason were forces not strong enough to detract from the truth of the issue – it eventually came through too many channels to be denied. The pub actually was closing. And it was closing soon. That Thursday to be precise. There was no way we were missing that.

There was just one problem, though – that curse of the drinking class, as Oscar would put it. Work. Not only was I due in the office on this particular day, but I was also already predisposed to a leaving doo that evening as well. Plans of being in the pub early were all but gone.

On the day itself, we had a number of different ears and eyes on the ground. Some would be dropping in on their lunch, or on their way through town elsewhere. Some were to be on the high stool shortly after it was permissible to clock out of their job. All reportage alluded to a bittersweet atmosphere and a brisk trade. Bits of information periodically trickled through as the day elapsed:
- None of the current staff would be retained.
- It was not bought for conversion to a hotel.
- It would remain a pub.
- It had been bought by the owners of The Kings Inn.
In time, this would all prove to be correct information but was all conjecture at this moment in time.

When at last I did get to turn the harp (turn the harp?) and make haste toward the pub, I had to battle my way to the further end of it, such was the swell of drinkers who had amassed to bid the place farewell. Wasting no time, I joined the three-deep bar and called for a pint which was dispatched with the usual skill and professionalism as would be expected in The Flowing Tide.

Joining Pintman №2, I find him cornered by a towering man. Pink in the face and as bald as a boiled egg, the man had the facial features of a baby and the slurred speech to go along with it. Pintman №2, the bigger admirer of general chaos out of the two of us, was delighted with this man’s company – joyous as he joked and equally so as he’d abruptly threaten us in a manner befitting Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Personally, I couldn’t wait to escape the giant baby and it wasn’t difficult to do so in the end. The last I saw of him was an hour or two later as all six foot seven of him was being admonished by a comparatively diminutive barman for eating too much of another customer’s cake, which was being distributed around the adjoining table.

Thereafter, we had a changing of the guards – Pintman №2 departed and I was joined by Pintman №6. He and I managed to nab an actual seat and proceeded to reminisce about the pub over a few pints. We recalled the big days and nights we’d had there: Paddy’s Days, Christmas Eves, and En-route to a wedding-days amongst them. Toasted, too, were the not-so-big visits – nondescript afterwork drinks and umpteen instances of seeking space offering better shelter to wait out the bus than that constructed by CIE.

We took time to gaze upon the fittings and furnishings for the last time, also. The Abbey posters, the Smirnoff mirror, the painting of Sackville Street with the misproportioned Nelson’s Pillar, and the chalkboard advertising the WiFi password, (Neptune, a callback to the name given to the pub’s former downstairs venue). While we half-jokingly conspired to maybe bring home a keepsake of our own, we delighted in old staff and old regulars being invited in behind the bar to have their photo taken with the barmen fulfilling their final shift.

And as we took this all in, we decided that it would be too much to hang around until such a time that the lights were flashed, and the last shout was given. There was too much of a finality to that.

And walking out onto Abbey Street, we find a city that carries on. Taxi, bus and tram whirr by on schedule. Workmen go about their nightshift tasks. Passengers hurry for last buses. Late awesome light of a clear evening in July dies, unnoticed, in the sky above. And an institute below it, already clad in scaffolding, does likewise.

Postscript

So, the pub did close. And the crowd that owns the Kings Inn did buy it. And, while we’re most certainly sad that the old guard have gone, we’re more than happy that the new owners didn’t overhaul the pub too drastically. A sensible renovation occurred over the rest of the summer and the pub reopened in October. Here’s to plenty more craic in The Flowing Tide
November 29, 2022
Some new (very old) whiskies in three Dublin Pubs.

For an hour and a half, I drank liquor so rare

You’d swear it was made by the gods in the air

Out of nectars and honey, and lotuses fair.

And it freshly came over the border.

When I came to write this little blog post, it was entirely appropriate that I had the above-quoted lines of The Mary Wallopers’ “The Night the Guards Raided Owney’s” jangling around in my head. For it was only a short while before, that I was in the very privileged place to get the chance to taste some liquor so rare, courtesy of Michael and all our pals over at Last Drop Distillers.

They had dropped us a line to let us know about three different expressions of a 50-year-old Glenrothes Single Malt Scotch that they’d persuaded three Dublin publicans to part with their cash for – and install behind each of their respective bars. And it just so happens that these three pubs are all great.

If you haven’t heard of The Last Drop Distillers, they are an arm of the Sazerac company and are a relatively new outfit concerned with finding rare and unique spirits and bringing them to market, regardless of how limited a supply of the spirit remains – hence the name. They also happen to be headed up by some Drinks industry legends – you can read more about them here.

The Whiskies/Pubs:

So, these three very special whiskies are available in the these three excellent Dublin pubs that are listed below.

The Bankers:

First up is The Bankers – situated in the historic financial district of Dublin City and a mere Stone’s throw from the inventor of the Coffey Still’s alma mater – The Bankers have added the 1968 expression of The Glenrothes Single Malt to their impressive already-impressive collection.

The Ferryman:

I’ve always maintained that The Ferryman could be considered the last true Docker’s pub. Nowadays, as it quenches the thirst of dockers of the silicon variety on John Rogerson’s Quay it’s ideally placed to enjoy a whisky as old as the 1969 Glenrothes Single Malt and imagine the hustle of the bustle of incoming and outgoing trade on the quayside in years gone by.

The Palace

What can one say about The Palace Bar that hasn’t already been said? Home to the cream of the country’s literary crop, The Palace was already legendary when the 1970 Glenrothes Single Malt which now sits behind its bar was casked. As one of the city’s best-known whiskey bars, it’s an ideal place to enjoy a dram, especially one as special as this.

Conclusion

On the whiskies: though these are all the same liquid, time and cask and that mysterious magic that happens, therein, have rendered them entirely unique to one another – the 1969 was juicier on the palate than the 68, which had more peat behind it – while the 1970 had maltiness in spades. I’m certainly not someone with as advanced a palate as most in the whiskey community in this country, but when you taste a whisky as extraordinary as this, you can quantifiably taste an intensity that sets them apart from most other whiskies you might have tasted prior.

It goes without saying that these will be expensive drops – I’m not even sure what price the pubs will set for them. Suffice it to say that they’ll be very easy to spot in your online banking on a Monday morning.

But this is a pub blog and whisky is certainly an important aspect of Dublin pub and drinks culture – even the pricy stuff.

And, who knows, that scratch card from your granny or a longshot Cheltenham tip could come in some day and you’ll want to treat yourself to something really special, and it is nice to know that the option is most definitely there.

(The Transparency Bit: I received free samples of all of the whiskies mentioned above. I wasn’t asked to write this in return)

November 14, 2022
Kavanagh’s: New St.

Verbose and all, as we’d like to be about every Dublin pub that we visit – sometimes there’s just no escaping the plain and the ordinary from our experiences. And not that we’d like to label Kavanagh’s of New Street as such, it just happens to be such a pub relative to all of our experiences there.

Each time we’ve darkened the door of this particular hostelry, we must admit that it was on the occasion of having left the big and the green, and admittedly enjoyable, bombast of its nearest competitor across the way, and we’d be naïve to think that this didn’t feed into our view of the place. So do take that as a disclaimer, if needed.

A medium-sized and well-maintained pub, it’s a rather bright space during the day and, as Pintman №2 would put it, a grand place to watch a match, though it must be disclosed that this is an attribute he affords to any space that has a visible television and a Sky TV subscription.

A large bar sits to the left of the space as you walk in, and a stonework arch catches the eye at the back of the room. Leading out to the beer garden and the toilets – it was in the passageway beyond this arch that we found what we considered to be one of the more conversation-worthy features of the pub – a note that read “no drink to be brought out back after 7 pm, as neighbours are complaining”. Something we all agreed definitely threw a sort of passive-aggressive shade toward dwellers domiciled in the pub’s proximity.

We had reason to recall the tone of this particular note during the pandemic when the pub hit the headlines for their defiance of Taoiseach – Micheál Martin’s pleas for pubs to refrain from selling takeaway pints, childishly referring to him as ‘Mehole’ their printed quote. (Not that this should be construed as support for FF on our part)

Thankfully, there wasn’t such juvenility evident in the pint pouring and pricing to be found when we visited. Pints were of acceptable standard and caused no considerable hurt for either wallet or the palate. There was no food about the place on the occasion of our well-dated visits, but even the quickest look at the pub’s social channels will tell you that this is something they’re really pushing lately. Suffice it to say that we don’t need to tell you how we feel about that.

But keeping pandemic-era politics and anti-carvery bias aside, we’d categorise this as a grand little pub—an unremarkable and inoffensive local shop. And God knows that they’re becoming a rarer and rarer gem these days.

September 1, 2022
The Best 5 Pints of Guinness in Dublin City
Let me start this post by assuring you that DublinByPub has not decided to pivot toward a clickbait, listicle-heavy style of content. Nor are we looking to join the small country sized amount of Guinness review pages out there. But being a website, Instagram account, Twitter account, with something of a following, we’re often queried on where we believe the best pints in Dublin can be found. So, hence: this post.

Before we go any further, please let us say that we believe the finest pint for sale within the known and ever-expanding ninety-three billion lightyear-wide cosmos which we inhabit is that which pours in Kavanagh’s pub in Glasnevin (original post here). Our position on this remains unchanged.

But for this post, we want to concern ourselves exclusively with pubs in Dublin city centre – i.e. between the canals.

I also want to say that taste is subjective. Some people eat liver with mushrooms and listen to Garth Brooks, and it’s not my or your place to pass judgment on such freaks of nature. If you don’t agree with our list, that’s ok – you can go and make your own list and post it up on the internet yourself, too.

Anyhow, here we go – in no particular order (after the first one), here are our five best Dublin City Centre Pints.

J.M Cleary’s: Amiens Street

A favoured haunt of Michael Collins, Cleary’s is said to have had its electricity bill taken care of by Irish Rail to balance the inconvenience of having had a railway bridge pass over its roof. Evidently, the time that would have been spent on the administrative task of paying the electric has been better spent perfecting their pint purveying abilities- they’re unrivalled between the canals, as far as we’re concerned.

(Price: €5.20 as of Summer 2022)

Click Here for our original post on Cleary’s

The Lord Edward: Christchurch Place

We adore and have always adored The Lord Ed. And while this has been the favourite pub in the world as far as yours truly is concerned, I had always only considered the pint to be adequate – not poor, but not even threatening for the top ten. But then something changed. Upon returning after lockdown, the quality of the pint was found to have improved exponentially. And a year or so later, that level of quality remains the same.

(Price: €5.50 as of Summer 2022)

Click Here for our original post on The Lord Edward

Toner’s: Baggot Street

Famed as the only pub that WB Yeats ever set foot in, Toner’s is sat on the well-trodden drinking trail referred to by some as The Baggot Mile. William Butler was good at the poems, but not great at the pints – so consider the likes of Ronnie Drew, Peter O’Toole and Patrick Kavanagh’s former patronage of the place as a more qualified endorsement of it. That said, it would have to lose a point or two on grounds of price, but it always feels worth the money when you’re sat in that famous snug.

(Price: €6 as of Spring 2022)

Click Here for our original post on Toner’s

Fallon’s: The Coombe

Sitting at the very start of the district which houses the Guinness brewery – The Liberties, Fallon’s is as fine an ambassador as you could hope for, for both the area and the brewery. One of the great historic Dublin pubs, it’s always dishing out consistently decent stout.

(Price €5.50 as of Summer 2022)

Click Here for our original post on Fallon’s

The Piper’s Corner: Marlborough Street

We wanted to include something of a wildcard here – a pub you never hear referred to as a great Guinness pub – but anytime any of us darkens the doors of the Piper’s, we’re always served some top-class pints. And the fact that you’ll likely get a decent bit of trad to listen to while you sip only sweetens the deal.

(Price: €5.80 as of Summer 2022)

Click Here for our original post on The Piper’s Corner

Honourable Mentions

Some other places we’ve enjoyed some very good pints in within the canals over the last few years.
- The Thomas House
- Grogans
- The Palace
- Kehoes
- J McNeills
- The King’s Inn
- Ryan’s (Parkgate)
- The Old Royal Oak
- Mulligan’s (Poolbeg)
- Briody’s
- Walsh’s (Stoneybatter)
- O’Connell’s (Portobello)
Don’t Agree?

I’m sure some of you out there think we’ve gotten things totally wrong here, given that this is the internet. Do feel free to give out to us in the comments and offer your recommendations for great Guinness in Dublin City Centre.
August 24, 2022
Brewdog – Grand Canal

In the waning weeks of 2020, before everything turns to shite again, I find myself upon a bench amid inexplicable red plastic protrusions shooting from the ground in a manner as confusing as the tax affairs of some nearby headquartered multinationals. I am hungover and am sat like some sort of 21st-century Kavanagh – begrudging people on e-scooters and segways, as they whir by in twos and threes.

I make a phone call to distract myself from the cold and am eventually joined by my better half, who, in true depressing, 2020 style, has just come from a funeral. We’re here, amongst the jauntily-angled architecture, for to tick off one of Dublin’s most recently built public houses.

Hastily, in the end-of-year cold, we make toward the furthermost end of the southern quays, remarking, as we go, on the newness of the buildings and the emptiness of the streets. In short time, we come to an uber-industrial, faded-red steel-beam framed building; in Caledonian blue, the sign above the entranceway reads: Brewdog.

To those unfamiliar, Brewdog is a Scottish brewery and pub chain which has been one of the defining entities in Craft Beer’s international boom toward the mainstream in this part of the world over the last decade and a half, or so. Having exponentially grown from humble beginnings, the company quickly became one of the UK’s largest independent breweries. In its lifetime, they’ve become known for their provocative marketing techniques and have ended up doing things as uncool as suing somebody for using the word ‘punk’. Recently, they were implicated in a whistleblower’s report which accused them of fostering a toxic and fearful culture within the company.

When we arrive inside the building, we land at an empty reception desk and, once there, wait about five minutes for someone to approach. We rumble through the formalities of the dreaded ‘new normal’ – the Covid protocols of the day – and are sat at a table on the ground floor, not far from some sort of indoor fire pit. Our server then hands us some menus for our perusal and reminds us of time limits that apply (under said Covid guidelines) before promptly disappearing for fifteen precious minutes of our meagre allowance of drinking time.

In these fifteen minutes, we peer about the vast space like a couple of curious meerkats, only to be somewhat frustrated by the otherwise unoccupied staff who seem in no rush to take our order. As we observe one of them doing a literal dance for another, we decide that our efforts are in vain and decide to try and suss out the locals – a more difficult task than first imagined. We discern no obvious customer base at this time – the décor seems to request a young and trendy clientele, but instead, on this occasion, has pulled in a lot of middle-aged professional men and their laptops, a former Fine Gael TD amongst them, single-handedly robbing the place of any pretensions toward cool or hip it may have held, heretofore.

Eventually, we do get to order, and we order plenty. The beer, of course, is phenomenal. Having been to a Brewdog bar or two across the way – I’m happy to admit that the beer is always outstanding – in its quality, its variety, and its presentation. Dublin, thankfully, is no exception- there is even a pilot brew kit contained within the premises and, indeed, some beer brewed in that very same set of equipment is to be found for sale in the pub. And while the quality of the fare is not up for comment, the price certainly is. This is a very, very expensive place to drink. A pint of their flagship beer – Punk IPA, comes in at a walletclenching €7.20 (Circa Late 2020). We theorise whether the pricing is just set to be in line with the salary of the nearby residents or an end to a means concerning the maintenance of such large premises. We settle on both, probably.

Concerning the building, the first thing to note is the size of it – it’s huge. Set out on two vast floors, it encompasses all sorts of different types of seating. Downstairs is afforded an abundance of light from its large open windows, while upstairs has porthole windows aplenty to look out as you play whatever game it is that is played on a glossy-polished table so long that it would put Vladimir Putin to shame. If you find that you’re not in a sporting sort of humour, and the weather is ok, you can head out to the considerable balcony/roof garden space, which enjoys views of the very last, or the very first of the waters of The Grand Canal.

The design spec of the building is what you might call late-stage hipster industrial-chic. Unaffected concrete abounds with the requisite complement of exposed beam, cable tray and air duct. Curated street-art style murals are plentiful, and instagramable neon signs are, of course, to be found. And I suppose plenty would call it an impressive looking sort of space, but when I walk around it, I can’t help but thinking to myself that such a large and faux-industrial space trying to convey its indie and punk vibe is oxymoronic in every sense. It’s the antithesis of indie and punk – it’s what Carroll’s Gift shop is to the 1798 Rebellion. It’s not punk, it’s aggressive capitalism wearing one of those cheap Ramones t-shirts that was almost certainly sewn together by an impoverished wage slave in deplorable working conditions, far, far away.

As someone who has drank in and enjoyed drinking in Brewdog bars abroad in the past, I really wanted to like this place. But I guess the reality of it on your doorstep just proved too much to handle. If it were more central to the city, I’d probably concede that I’d have ended up returning at some stage. But it’s so out of the way down there in Silicon, low tax land that it’s unlikely I’ll be heading back to spend so much money anytime soon.

So, if you want good and expensive beer served in expansive, ironically threadbare surroundings amidst tech bros, property developers and Fine Gaelers, by all means – head on down to Grand Canal Dock and fill your diamond-encrusted boots. But in the case that you’re looking for the real deal, The Thomas House is located at 86 Thomas Street.

May 11, 2022