I can’t say for certain, but I think I’m happy enough to say that if there were a competition for the strangest or most unique time anyone has ever come to the realisation that they didn’t like a pub, I would be in with a good shout of taking home the gold.
It was a New Year’s Eve, and it was a good while ago now. I know for certain that considerable time has passed since then because a few of us had been in a house drinking that beautifully cinnamon-tinted, antifreeze-laced American delicacy that goes by the name of Fireball, before heading out. And as everyone over the age of 29 will attest, Fireball is a young person’s game. And much as we’d like to, we can’t categorise ourselves as young people any more.
On this night we had all merrily piled into Murray’s to ring in the new year not because of any prior knowledge or affection for the place, but because some friends of ours, (including Pintmen №’s 3, 4, 9 and 11 for longtime readers of the blog) who played in a pub band, had been booked in to gig there that night.
It was while we were on Jools Holland time (within 30 minutes of NYE midnight) that the lads called from the front of house, beckoning me to join them for my party piece that I had taken to getting up and singing with them from time to time. For reasons unremembered, I had a limp at the time and took longer to join them onstage than usual. It’s possible that this contributed to the moment that led me to realise that I didn’t like the pub, which, much like the new year, wasn’t very far away.
Now, the mention of Fireball should have been enough to highlight the sort of state that the lot of us were in when we got to the pub, but for those unfamiliar, suffice it for me to say that we were sloppier than you’d like to be at the start of the night in a pub. But this isn’t a tale of public embarrassment, I didn’t go and fall off the stage or anything like that. I just want to highlight that the levels of perceptiveness that longtime readers of this blog might expect will not have been up to their usual standard at this time.
It is, however, remembered by both Pintman №2 and myself that our initial impression of the pub was maybe that it felt a little touristy and restaurant-like compared to what we’d prefer. Given the name, we were aware that this was probably the flagship pub belonging to the Murray Pub Group, who also own spots like The Camden, Jimmy Rabbitte’s, and Fibber Magees (among others) – and as we liked some of the pubs in that portfolio, and seeing as we were there for the night, we were willing to give the place the benefit of the doubt. That was until I was somewhere in the first verse of the song I had gotten up to sing with the lads.
According to the internet, the reasons that people close their eyes during sex is for increased relaxation and focus and for decreased distraction and self-consciousness. These are the same-said reasons why I tend to close my own eyes for the majority of time I spend singing in public. So it wasn’t until I was coming arriving into the first chorus that I opened my eyes and saw him.
He was an elderly North-American-looking man who, at no more than sixteen and a half minutes to midnight, was eating a steak dinner. A peculiar time to be doing so on any ordinary day, but even more so on a New Year’s Eve. And it was when I locked eyes with that man – piece of well-done sirloin mid-delivery toward his watering mouth – and how he looked back at me with the most disdainful gaze I’ve ever found myself at the receiving end of: up until that point, and since. It was then that I knew.
The interaction, though it only lasted mere seconds in duration, told me everything I needed to know about the pub and my brain, Fireball-dulled as it was, still managed to make that snap-fire connection that meant that I knew that Murray’s was not the pub for me.
That night would ultimately end in many different strands of infamy that are unrelated to the pub. You can be assured that none of us have touched a drop of Fireball since. And come to think of it – we’ve never been in Murrays since, either.
Since then, it’s had a refurb and was split into two, the new half being a pub named for signatory of the Proclamation: Thomas Clarke. We haven’t been in that side, either and spend more time than sane mortals should wondering whether the dividing of the pub into two warrants a revisit. Maybe it does, given the recent closure of The Living Room – a pub that Murray’s shared its iconic beer garden with alongside Fibbers.
From what can be gauged on social media, the whole dual pub operation up there at the top of O’Connell Street seems to still be a bit food and tourist-heavy. And that’s probably fair enough on the city’s main thoroughfare.
Neither the quality, price or any other characteristic of whatever we were drinking in there that night is remembered at this stage. And forgotten alongside those is our perception of the pub’s décor, in its old guise. So if you were thinking that this article would offer a modicum of useful information on the pub, as it currently exists, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. And I suppose that means we can’t rule out a slightly more sober and respectful revisit, ourselves.
Shameless Plug: we’re in the midst of a very soft launch of an Etsy page, selling some of the prints of the photos of pubs we’ve accumulated over the years. Feel Free To Click Here And Take A Look
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