Tag: northinner

Kimchi Hophouse: Parnell St.

Occurring in the form of premises decorated with ephemera alluding to places and people of no significance to local culture, the overseas ‘Irish Bar’ is an ever-intriguing anomaly.

Of course, we’re more than aware that most are likely a mere means to generate profit, but it’s sometimes still a difficult task to silence that voice in your head (that same one verbalises, after a pint or two, to ask the Garçon in McNulty’s in La-Rochelle whether he’s ever been to Ballyfermot) from bigging-up the fact that the most popular variant of drinking establishment, worldwide, is that which replicates your own native one.

It would, though, make you wonder how others feel about similar circumstances. What would, say a native Korean, think about Dublin’s flagship Korean watering hole: Kimchi-Hophouse? Answers on a postcard, please.

Sitting in the somewhat Asian district of Parnell Street, Kimchi-Hophouse trades premises that have been involved in the purveying of intoxicants since 1848 and which, much to our delight, retains the signage bearing its former name: The Shakespeare. The reason for this, we’re not sure of. Whether it was a decision based on finances or a deliberate nod to the past is uncertain, but we’re sure Will-o himself would approve. Past being prologue, and all that.

As it turns out, a Korean bar in Dublin isn’t that unusual in the grand scheme of things. The similarities between Korea and Ireland are many, with some even referring to Korea as the Ireland of Asia. It’s also well reported that Korea is a country not too dissimilar to ourselves when it comes to the partaking of a few social beverages. A fact that is easily evident when you consider that their national spirit, Soju, was the world’s best-selling type of liquor in 2017.

This is all good and well, but the 72-billion KRW ($64M at the time of writing) question is whether this all translates to persons of Korean lineage running a good boozer. Using Kimchi-Hophouse as an example, the answer is yes. A narrow sort of pub, its appearance is characterised by a light blue and white colour scheme with homely wooden flooring underfoot. TVs are ubiquitous, and my companion, a far more discerning football fan than I, agreed that the pub is a perfect setting in which to take in a match. The drink on offer comprises both craft and mainstream, and the prices – all of which are helpfully displayed upon labels hung from the taps- are good. The Guinness was of a very high standard, costing a mere and moreish €4.50 a pint.

The overall vibe of the place is a buzzy one, and the adjoining restaurant means there is plenty of movement from the kitchen, which is situated somewhere toward the back of the pub. On any visit, we’ve found the crowd to generally be a young one, with trendy inclinations. Many of them seem to opt to occupy the smoking area out the back of the pub. The staff are sound too, and our only complaint about the experience of the pub was the ordering process, which seems to come into effect in the evening, whereby one can only be served if they are standing within the confines of a relatively small section of the bar. We found this to be an unnecessary practice, especially when it was enforced with a strictness that meant you’d miss out on the chance of service if you were merely a foot out of place.

But overall, we’re very fond of this boozer -having all the adventurousness of a departure from the norm with all of the comforts of the familiar – Kimchi-Hophouse is a pub we’ll definitely revisit, even if only to try some of this Soju stuff.

October 11, 2018
The Deer’s Head: Parnell St.

Lately, in thinking about The Deer’s Head, we’ve been considering pub names in a bit more detail than we usually would. Our reason for this is that we’ve decided that The Deer’s Head is part of an exclusive-ish club, speaking in terms of the confines of Dublin City. Along with another four somewhat similarly named boozers – The Stag’s Head, The Boar’s Head, The Brazen Head and The Turk’s Head, this pub is a member of what we’ve decided to call The Headed Pubs Club. And recently we’ve become quite curious about the genesis of these peculiar names. So much so that we don’t actually get around to speaking about the actual pub until about 8 paragraphs in; feel free to skip ahead if you want. We don’t mind.

Previously, having visited The Boar’s and The Stag’s head, we were content enough to think that these types of boozers were named so in accordance with their prized pieces of taxidermy. But reflecting further upon this, and considering the lack of taxidermy in The Deer’s Head, along with a hypothetical angry Turkish lad or two, we’ve decided that we don’t really know that much after all.

Now, most of you may already know or will have observed that pub names in Ireland tend to bear the name of the proprietor of the premises, or the former proprietor, as the case may be. This is a result of the requirement to do so, which was legislatively enshrined into rule by the Licensing Act of 1872. This act decreed that ‘Every licensed person shall cause to be painted or fixed, and shall keep painted or fixed on the premises in respect of which his license is granted, in a conspicuous place, his name’. Failure to abide by these directions would incur the hefty penalty of a £10 fine or a £20 fine in the case of repeat offenders.

This is all good and well, and certainly does explain the emblazoning of ‘O’Reilly’s’ upon the left-hand side of the façade of The Deer’s Head – but having completed an unfruitful search in the text of the aforementioned Licensing Act for the words Stag, Boar, Brazen, Turk and head, I can’t say any closure was given to our sense of curiosity. What followed this would be a sluggish wade through torrents of digital articles pertaining to the listing of ‘the top ten maddest’, ‘the world’s most memorable’, ‘Ireland’s weirdest’ and ‘Britain’s funniest’ pub names. Progress was slow! But eventually, we did find some material of substance.

Firstly, the point we need to make about the ‘headed’ pubs before any other is one that separates The Brazen Head from the pack. This is mostly because the genesis of The Brazen Head’s name falls outside the norm, given that it stems from the occurrence of a nosey hooker falling afoul of an errant Williamite cannonball. But that most certainly is one for another day.

As for the rest of our ‘headed’ pubs, it would seem that these are so named with a hearty dollop of influence from the culture of the former oppressor. Yep, it seems that The Brits have had a certain propensity down through the years to name pubs in accordance with popular and/or local heraldry – heraldry being the act of attributing a coat of arms to your family name or bloodline, (very) broadly speaking. That, too, is not to say that people didn’t just name pubs after a boar that might have been moseying around the town, or a stag up in the park or the like. Pictorial symbols were most definitely the way to go back when the majority of your customer base was illiterate!

Overall though, it’s the sole inclusion of the head in each of the names we’re currently writing about that would leave us to believe that some coat of arms, while maybe not directly bringing it about, certainly influenced the naming of the boar’s, stag’s and deer’s head, or even a pub they were named after, or in the same vein as. And again, with The Turk’s head, we can say this with a higher degree of certainty, given that pubs of the same name are ten-a-penny across the water and are well-reputed to be named in accordance with heraldic symbolism that popped up during and after the crusades.

So that’s about the shape of it with regard to these pub names, enough to satisfy our curiosity at the least anyhow. And if you had asked us a few weeks ago, as we emerged from The Deer’s Head in a state of giddiness from what we had just encountered, whether we’d end up writing anything akin to that which precedes this sentence, we would likely have rebutted your query with a response that was overwhelmingly laden with profanities. But still, here we are.

Having wandered in upon a whim following a couple in The Shakespeare, we found ourselves greeted by a pub that we scantly remembered from our previous visit some years ago – not because of any renovations, just because of our substandard memories.

To walk into this pub at 10 o’clock or so on a Friday evening as the summer is beginning to wane is to experience working-class Dublin through multiple senses. The first is smell. Upon stepping beyond the threshold, one encounters an aroma of feet and perspiration that starts with a degree of pungency before subsiding to a more minor consideration. The second sense affected is sight. No dress code applies here; snickers and steel-toe boots are commonplace and certainly go some way to explaining the smell. Scores of hardy men gather around wooden plinths, dancing like teenage girls would do to pop music in their bedrooms, empowered by the knowledge that no one is looking at them. When there, we rejoiced at a man in a full-length Hi-Viz jacket striding, Jagger-esquely, up and down the length of the pub, accosting people with the lyrics of the song playing on the PA, which brings us nicely toward the third sense at play here – sound. What other band on this entire earth could possibly be responsible for such widespread expressive physical movement other than Madness! Twenty-one solid minutes of Madness, in fact. I’m even struggling now to try and remember if the DJ played any other artists than Madness while we were there, or if even he possessed copies of any other recordings aside from those released by Madness. Possibly not. And with the reaction of the patrons in the pub, who could blame him?

Other than the over-exuberant patrons, the appearance of the pub was fairly standard. Most seating comprised of couches and low stools, with the option of higher seating around the aforementioned wooden, plinth-like structures and at the bar too. Colour-wise, the bar is light enough, with white walls and green carpet taking dominance of most views. Pictures did hang about the wall and could have been displaying images of Tanzanian Ski Championships for all we knew, given we didn’t pay them too much heed to the other distractions about. It was noted, however, that there was no taxidermied Deer’s Head to couple with the name, though.

The pint was a perfect pour and rounded in at an even more perfect €4.50 a pop. We had just the one as we were on a schedule at the time, and maybe subconsciously we were afraid as to what would happen if the DJ ran out of Madness tunes.

So, for those of you who have stuck with us here and have read this whole thing all the way through, we’d like to thank you. And suggest that you take a visit to The Deer’s Head on one of these steamy autumnal evenings. The locals will ask you about baggy trousers ten times over before anyone even suggests a query on the provenance of the pub’s name. But it couldn’t hurt to know, now, could it?

October 2, 2018
Cumiskey’s: Dominick St.

It seems that the further we wade into our task of boozing around all the watering holes in Dublin city, the more and more apparent it becomes to us that the inner-city is an incredibly fascinating place. As far back as the splendour of Georgian townhouses, right through the era of slums and tenements, and onwards to council estates, regeneration and whatever else may come, the history of Dublin city’s last few hundred years could almost solely be charted from examining the ebb and flow of the culture and society on inner city streets down throughout the years. Dominick St is one such inner-city street.

Standing through all those periods aforementioned, and for a good 260 years or so, is No. 41 Dominick Street – a building which now houses Cumiskey’s pub. No stranger to historical events, itself – it’s a structure with plenty of interesting stories to tell if the national archives are anything to go by. Having done a quick search with the address, we were almost instantly onto a webpage listing copies of forms related to applications made by its former occupants to The Property Losses (Ireland) Committee, 1916, in order to ‘Claim for Damages caused during the Disturbances on the 24th April 1916, and following days’. One particular occupant, a Ms Lizzie Burchill, made a claim for ‘£6 10s for destruction of clothing due to gunfire’ which yielded a determination by the committee that she should receive £3. Another claim was made by Messrs J&J Doyle, but was declined by the committee as the gentlemen exceeded the deadline within which their claim should have been made. Thankfully, though, it wasn’t all bad news for the lads – at least not for John, who made up one of the two J Doyles. He made a claim for ‘£3 for destruction of silver watch by fire at Hopkins and Hopkins, jewellers, 1 Sackville Street Lower’ and got 2 quid back for his troubles.

Anyway, 100 years on from when Lizzie Burchill and John Doyle were dodging trams on Sackville Street, trams have again returned to the capital’s main thoroughfare and are bringing people right by the front of 41 Dominick St. We, ourselves, recently rolled by and couldn’t resist dropping in to have a look at what sat behind this pub’s alluring exterior.

A smaller-than-expected sort of space, it comprises two main atria that are connected by a corridor, which also happens to house the bar. The northern atrium is the quainter affair of the two and is the one where we chose to park ourselves when last we visited. With soft-yellow embossed wallpaper and royal red velvet couches, we enjoyed two superiorly-poured pints while remarking that the room’s exclusive inclusion of low seating made it a real and proper lounge, in every sense of the word. Familiar ephemera adorns the walls in this section, and yours truly was happy enough to be sat under a copy of the proclamation until becoming envious of some other patrons sitting in the corner, given what was displayed beside them. Cast in white plaster, the unmistakable likenesses of Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew gaze out at drinkers who sit in close proximity.

We didn’t spend much time in our analysis of the southern atrium if we’re to be truthful. As alluded to above, we found it to be the less formal of the two main sections, if that makes sense. The section you’d be less self-conscious about raising your voice in, y’know? Or so we thought as we made our way through it into the Jaxx. Oh, and speaking of the Jaxx, Pintman Nº2 reckoned it must be one of the only, or at most one of the few in Dublin with a clear window that looks out into the street… Thankfully, away from the more purposeful parts of the room.

Cumiskey’s is a fine, unpretentious little boozer, and I wish we hadn’t left it so long to finally make a visit there. Next time we go, I’ll be dragging the lads down early to get the seat beside Ronnie and Luke.

September 25, 2018
Lowry’s: Summerhill Parade.

Sitting in close proximity to one of our boundary lines – The Royal Canal, Lowry’s is a pub firmly in the centre of the inner city of Dublin. Given the pub’s proximity to Croke Park, it may be one that thirsty GAA fans will recognise easily – older regulars will remember it by its former name, Belton’s, it having been part of a chain of pubs attributed to former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Paddy Belton.

We haven’t really a whole lot to say about Lowry’s really. Pintman Nº2 and I visited last year on the occasion of a matchday and found little incentive to hang around for too long. A sparsely decorated pub, we found the overall look to be a clinical one, aided in no part by the light colour scheme and the textured, shiny wallpaper, which all served to alienate the overall aesthetic from that expected of your run-of-the-mill Dublin boozer. TVs were ubiquitous around the space, allowing ticketless fans to catch any of the action going on down the road that they would otherwise be missing.

Our misgivings about the fit-out aside, there wasn’t too bad of a buzz around the place in the preceding hours to the impending fixture in Croke Park. The staff were all more than capable when it came to dispensing pints to the thirsty hordes and consistently did so at a rate in keeping with the demand.

A pint of Guinness is returned to me on this particular occasion in a Budweiser glass, sparking that age-old debate on whether such importance should be put on the vessel within which a pint is served, and whether it’s allowable to diminish said importance in the setting of a busy bar.

The pint, which is following a few of its friends before it, is drank without too much difficulty in the end.

Overall, we couldn’t lie and say that we left here with any sort of urgency to return, especially not when such a gem like The Bridge Tavern is only up the road, but if you’re looking for a few on the way up to Croker, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t drop in.

July 26, 2018
The Sunset House: Summerhill Parade.

I’m a bit annoyed at The Sunset House! You see, the pub was rebranded as The Brendan Behan after a fatal gangland shooting back in 2016, and this was the name that the pub was trading under when we made our only visit there back in September of last year. Being aware of the name and needing no persuading, yours truly here wrote a piece on the pub, which was more of an ode to Brendan Behan than anything else. You can imagine my disappointment when I rocked up to Summerhill Parade to snap the pub last January, only to discover that it had reverted to its former name – The Sunset House. So queue in a re-write and a not-so-swift realisation that the pub’s signage had been obscured by a traffic light in the photo I’d taken, and I’d returned to Summerhill once more for another snap, only to find the pub closed. In the intervening times that I’ve passed the boozer, I’ve always found it closed * – so this image will have to do for now.

*[I’m not sure if it’s gone the way of Gill’s down the road and decided upon a more skeleton set of opening dates, or if it’s just plain closed down. D1/D3 folks might advise us of what the craic is in the comments.]

Anyhow, I suppose I’m glad that I managed to snap an open and operating Sunset House during an actual sunset, albeit with obscured signage – we made just the one visit here over the years and happened to do so on what we can only assume to be one of the pub’s busier trading days – All Ireland Final Day. With Dublin facing off against Mayo in the 2017 decider, Pintman №2 and I, GAA novices at best, found the bluest attire we possessed and took to the boozers of Summerhill, hoping to suck up some of the atmosphere. Arriving during the earlier half of 1PM, we found The Sunset House to be as busy as one would expect any purveyor of alcohol in close proximity to a stadium on the day of a final to be.

In the past, we’ve spoken about how some boozers sometimes defy expectations set by their exterior. The Sunset House is not such a pub. There was little or nothing to write home about when it came to the appearance of this pub, bright and plain – the colours bring an unwanted sense of sterility to the place. The seating is basic enough, and Pintman №2 and I agreed that the only noteworthy feature of the pub was the bar, which had been constructed from brick.

The pint was good and in a fine flow with the increased level of custom, mine came to the table in a Smithwick’s Glass which prompted a discussion on whether such an offence was excusable given the day that was in it. The price isn’t remembered as one that caused any offence to either of us.

The vibe in the place was surreal enough; we agreed that we’d need to return to get a feel for the place on an ordinary day, but for now, we embraced the mix of patrons brought in by the impending game. A DJ sat ensconced into a corner of the pub, blasting unfazed patrons with that type of paddywhacking continuity-republican music you might hear at the end of the night at some ropey cousin’s wedding. Face painters did the rounds and coloured in the cheeks of children with their team colours of choice – I was disappointed that Pintman №2 wasn’t further along with the gargle such that he’d be more agreeable to having his mush painted too. As we finished out our gargles, we’d clocked a local in a weathered Bowie t-shirt. Having remarked on him being the oldest lounge boy we’d ever seen, we pondered as to whether he’d been coerced into the job with the promise of free gargle the night prior.

Even though we wouldn’t see this place threatening to breach the top one hundred cosy boozers in the capital, we’d still hate to think that the sun had set on The Sunset House. Hopefully, it’s still on the go or at least will be again soon.

June 22, 2018
Lloyd’s: Amiens St.

It was a few years ago and during the course of a casual conversation with a colleague, that I came to realise that Lloyd’s of Amiens St. was a pub I needed to visit as soon as possible.

Being on the occasion of having recently started a new job, I found myself talking to a well-established member of staff for such a substantial duration that platitudes and my grossly limited knowledge of football would no longer suffice in their efforts to sustain the conversation, so I changed the subject to pubs, which is when he said it.

With the topic in hand, this colleague came to mention Lloyd’s on Amiens St. – he remarked on how the pub was one he was familiar with as it was his grandfather’s local, before suffixing the statement by calmly adding that his grandfather “wrote his will in there”. This is a boozer I need to see, thought I.

A bit of a North Inner City institute, Lloyd’s sits on the corner of Amiens St. and Foley St. A medium-sized sort of pub – its interior follows an almost hook-like shape with regard to its floor space. Wooden flooring sits underfoot at the front of the pub, while carpet takes over at the back section. Seating is comprised almost exclusively of low tables, which are complemented by stools and couches – all of which are neatly upholstered. We spotted just the one high table, which was located close to the bar.

The bar itself is flanked by the expected couple of stools along its length and is a fairly solid-looking structure. Built of carefully varnished dark wood, it contains a well-branded header which wouldn’t struggle too badly to inform the blindest of patrons that they are in “Lloyd’s of Amien St. Est. 1823” – this statement is made twice in appealing gold embossed letters, each instance of which is separated by a clock which is recessed into the wood.

Pictures hung on the wall mainly relate to sports, and one in particular caught our eye so much that I’ve just spent an hour on Google looking for it. The image (below) is one of a seven-a-side football match in an historical inner-city area toward the rear of Gardiner St known as The Gloucester Diamond.

It’s been a good year and a half or more since I last darkened the door of this boozer, but Pintman №2 and №3 happened to drop in a few weeks ago and found themselves surprised to discover that the pub was showing television coverage of a certain wedding that a group of high-profile tax-dodgers were hosting in a neighbouring state – y’know the one.

Finding themselves on the end of the type of look someone might receive from a group of locals in a pub that they aren’t known to frequent, Pintman №3 quickly piped up to disarm the gang of regulars by enquiring as to whether they had bought the wedding in “on the pay-per-view”. After a bit of a chuckle, the lads hastened to insist that the viewing choice was solely for the benefit of a woman who happened to be in cleaning the pub – a statement that Pintman №2 classified as a dubious one given the comparative level of interest shown between the gang of lads and the cleaner.

As the rest of Pintman №2 and №3’s time elapsed in the pub, they were also to meet another character whom Pintman №2 describes as bearing a striking resemblance to Bricktop from the movie Snatch. While there, Bricktop spent his time brandishing a cheap sharpening stone he had acquired that day. When asked what he was doing with such an item, he responded that it was to sharpen his knives, “in case I need to stab one of you bastards”. The lads legged it shortly afterwards.

I’m also assured that the pint in Lloyd’s is still up to the high standard I remember it as previously being at, and still very competitively priced to boot. So if you’re looking for a good pint or a few characters, or if you’re just a closet West Brit seeking like-minded drinking buddies, Lloyd’s could be the place for you.

June 12, 2018
Ryan’s: Store St.

I suppose it was always only a matter of time until this page became a soapbox for personal grievances, and I’m afraid on this occasion there’s a particular one that needs to be aired. This grievance relates to a phenomenon whereby aspects of a particular city, which had heretofore been practically invisible, become prominently noticeable to a person, only after this person has set about photographing the exterior of the pubs of said city.

Road signs! The poxy things are everywhere, as someone who has yet to master the art of driving, it near on perplexes me as to how drivers navigate the plethora of cryptic warnings atop poles littered across the streets of the city. But that’s not the problem here: my particular grievance relates to when Dublin City Council erected these signs in an apparently deliberate attempt to destroy an otherwise acceptable vista of a shop front, by obscuring the name of the premises

Now I suppose a skilled photographer could manage a far better image of Ryan’s, and we might have considered obtaining a better angle by spending a night in Store St. Garda station, which faces the pub, or even photo-shopping the sign-out. But DublinByPub is a social history project, after all, so we may as well leave it in for posterity’s sake. Oh, and while I’m on the topic of Dublin City Council, can I please make my annual appeal to have the bird shite washed off the top of Daniel O Connell’s head before the start of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, thanks.

Now, on to Ryan’s! Ryan’s, which was relatively recently trading as Robert Reade’s, is nicely tucked away in a bit of a nodal point as far as public transport goes. Sitting beneath rail tracks and a mere seconds from Busáras, the pub is far more expansive than its exterior would suggest. With much of its look given by wooden tones, Ryan’s wouldn’t be amiss as a bar off shooting from Trinity College’s long library.

Wooden floors, ceilings, veneer and bar all give the pub a cosy feel. A fireplace sits toward the front of the room on the right, whereas the left opens up to accommodate the considerable staircase, which is also made from wood and given structure with black wrought iron. The bar runs for a good ten-plus feet and would leave no hassle for someone looking to nudge in to get served. Lower seating sits along the windows on the left of the pub, and dividers break the span at a few increments. Another door three-quarters of the way down the pub allows a more discreet entrance or egress, and the space thereafter opens up somewhat and affords the patrons a higher seating alternative.

The pint here has always been drank without any hesitation and hasn’t warranted any commentary from us whenever we were in. We’ve always found the staff to be a sound lot too, and they only need to ask and we’ll see what we can do to that road sign with an angle grinder.

Ryan’s is a fine boozer – It’s hard to imagine why anyone would rather sit in the drab surroundings of Busáras waiting on a bus when this little gem is around the corner. Be sure to give it a go whenever you’re nearby next.

March 16, 2018
J.& M. Cleary’s – Amiens St.

Much had been said to me over the years about Cleary’s, it being an old haunt of Michael Collins. More recently to this visit, someone told me of their sojourn to the surrounding area here and how it contained a level of violence that the big fella himself would be familiar with.

With this disincentive foremost in my head, I reminded Pintman Nº2 upon our approach that we should harden up. Agreeing, he inspected our attire and whether it was appropriate for a hard inner-city boozer. Immediately, we agreed that he, being garbed in dirty building-site clobber, fitted the bill perfectly. Me, on the other hand, not so much. It would happen to be on this day that I’d decided to premier a Simpsons t-shirt I’d been gifted, which was as red as the pub’s signage. We entered with my jacket well zipped and our shoulders thrown back.

Arriving at the bright, narrow bar, we encountered none of the hostility we’d expected. The length of the pub is segmented with wooden partitions, and the long bar is complemented with seating running opposite. Sitting at the bar, we ordered two great pints.

After the first sup, all of our discussion on the way in was forgotten, and my jacket was off, revealing the ridiculous t-shirt. The barman, returning to our end of the bar, soon clocked the shirt and issued a much unexpected compliment. He then glanced down to notice Pintman #2’s battered Star Wars keyring on the bar and the two struck up a conversation on the franchise’s recent release. Uninterested, I took a wander around to admire the portraits of Michael Collins, which hung proudly on the walls.

Returning, I found the two still immersed in chat, which was to be broken when the barman’s phone rang. His ringtone? – A Star Wars Theme, of course. In the interim of the call, we’d finished our jar and the barman returned to service. We bade him a farewell as we exited, and his retort to us is one I won’t forget.

– Seeya, lads. Oh, and may the force be with you.

I kept the head down and expedited my exit.

Don’t base opinions on word of mouth! Far from being the hardened inner city ale-house – Cleary’s is a welcoming pub where discussion on intergalactic wars is as welcome as speaking on wars of independence.

Postscript: Writing here in 2025, as I ready the blog for a new website and tidy up some of the formatting. Cleary’s is one of the best pubs in the city. The pint is never below gold standard, it’s the best pint in the city by far, and is reasonably priced too. I hear that it’s to change hands in the near future. If there is a god, the new owners wont change a thing.

May 23, 2017
Molloy’s: Talbot St.

Recently, we heard that Molloy’s, which we thought had closed down, had reopened following a renovation. We were passing by not so long ago and figured we’d drop in to check out the handiwork. Truth be told, we hadn’t been in for quite a while – having remembered the bar as a well-weathered rough house that contained a gents toilet, which waged a fully-fledged assault on even the most insensitive of olfactory setups.

Having entered Molloy’s on a midweek evening, we could gladly report that the only aroma to caress the nostrils was a sweet perfume of timber and varnish. The refurbishment is of the best possible kind; there’s no trendy modern architectural wank going on, the pub has simply been returned to its former glory. The dust is gone, the wood polished, and the fixtures glossy once again.

A medium-sized snug sits at the end of the bar, which itself is beautifully put together in Victorian-style woodwork that frames a clock and mirrors along the back. Large, older whiskey mirrors throughout the pub aid in lighting the space effectively. We found it to be a cracking-looking pub, and the WC was in a far superior state than I’d remembered it.

Pint-wise, everything was spot on – creamy, well-poured and a tulip glass as the vessel. Being thorough, I sank a few to verify the first wasn’t a fluke. The staff are a good bunch. Their rapport with the locals heightens the homely atmosphere of the pub and doesn’t at all detract from them competently carrying out their duties. Speaking of bartenders’ duties, one of the less glamorous was to be called upon when a local boozehound, not content with the skinful he’d clearly already consumed, attempted an entrance that wasn’t half as discreet as he thought. Taking notice of this, the barwoman was straight out to dispatch the man. After he’d endured a deserved four minutes of the stern sort of rollicking a mother might lay upon a misbehaving five-year-old, the seventy-plus man was out the door. The Barwoman bid him a farewell in a tone wildly contrasting with that she had just thrown him out with and insisted that he mind himself and that she’d see him tomorrow.

Molloy’s is back on the map! We’ll definitely be back in soon. Make sure you are, too.

May 5, 2017