Tag: oconnell

Piper’s Corner: Marlborough St.

There was a moment there in 2017 where we were getting a bit worried about the state of the Dublin pub scene. Born from the increasing number of pubs closing their doors, our concerns were compounded when we realised that many of these were boozers that had been operating as far back as we could remember.

Now, granted, we’re still sore from the loss of The Sackville Lounge, but our 2017 grief subsided somewhat when some new pubs sprang up here and there. The first of these caught our attention when we noticed works ongoing at the site of Sean O Casey’s on Marlborough St., the most notable feature of which was the new façade, which had been decorated with what this author safely assumes to be the largest image of Seamus Ennis ever printed.

Seamus Ennis, for those not in the know, was an Irish musician who was most famed for his prowess when it came to playing the indigenous Irish musical instrument – The Uilleann Pipes. The Uillean pipes are an interesting instrument, less discerning ears will tend not to describe them as a pleasant aural experience, but if you’re anything like ourselves you’ll find that the drone of the air passing through the chambers of these pipes will unearth your inner seanchaí and inflame your desire to wander barefoot across the breadth of the country, imbibing solely on whiskey and communicating only in song.

The pub opened last July, promising live trad seven nights a week – a statement that had us terrified with the thoughts of pricey scoops and Galway Girl on repeat. Thankfully, these were to remain mere nightmares, and the pub has already become a hub of activity for all those seeking authentic traditional music.

The interior of the pub is no ornate affair; dark blues are contrasted with plain whites, which give the pub a brighter look than most others. The materials are rough and ready – my companion, a carpenter by trade, couldn’t forgive the fact that the back bar was made from a material he reliably informed me was OSB board. But I liked the overall look of the pub and argue the point that it’ll wear into itself naturally, as all traditional pubs should.

The drink is a mixture of craft and usual fare and should placate the adventurous and the purists alike. Our usual pint of Guinness came in at an even fiver and was consistently well-poured.

The Piper’s Corner is certainly our favourite new Dublin Pub. Its authenticity is a breath of fresh air in a Dublin smothered with establishments offering homogenised and expensive ‘experiences’ in the guise of anything from New York glamour to Budapest chic – Long may it run!

April 23, 2018
Brannigan’s: Cathedral St.

Sitting in the shadows of the Pro-Cathedral and just off the main thoroughfare of O’Connell St. lies a boozer by the name of Brannigan’s. The pub, which is named after an infamous Dublin Gard who would offer his detainees the option of duking it out in lieu of traditional state-sanctioned justice, is one which evaded us for many years. I should, in this instance, start by commending Brannigan’s on their website, which gives a great history of the pub and its surrounding locality and is well worth a read. Over the years, we’d been in a mere handful of times, and we recently ventured in to remind ourselves of what the pub was like.

A more effulgent shop compared to most of its contemporaries, the pub is no standard fare when it comes to drinking establishments across the city. Large gothic arches overhang the open space, which provides a good mixture of high and low seating. The seating itself is upholstered in vibrant stripes, which complement the light-coloured walls nicely. Flourishes of darker tones of wood add reminders of more prevailing décor throughout, and overall, we couldn’t argue with the pub’s aesthetic. The most notable feature of the pub, to us anyway, was the accumulation of portraits across the walls. Well-executed and striking painted and drawn images of famous faces provide fodder on subjects aplenty, from history to literature to sport and to music; all bases are covered.

We last wandered in on a Saturday afternoon when the bar was busy, a steady stream of young sportswear buyers presumably replaced the steady stream of old dears from the nearby branch of Boyers, which had been repurposed as a sports megastore. We ordered our usual jars of stout from the bar, which was well decorated with surrendered foreign denominations. We were returned a few well-poured pints which were sank with zero complaints. We stayed for a few pints and conversed on subjects stemming from the aforementioned portraits, along with discussing the stairs down to the gents, which seemed to have been left out of the latest refurbishment.

We’d certainly return to Brannigan’s at a moment’s notice. It’s a nice boozer with an easygoing pace about itself. Well recommended.

December 22, 2017
Briody’s: Marlborough St.

It’s funny how places can become romanticised in your head sometimes. Take Marlborough Street, for example – the street which is freshly paved with new tram tracks and ready to welcome the Luas, and all the rejuvenation that it brings, is one which relatively few Dubliners will have many romantic ideas about. The stretch of the street upon which Briody’s lies (as it’s recalled in my head) wasn’t much to look at, and if it weren’t for Dublin Bus carrying hordes of commuters into the area, it surely would have been a no-go area.

Nonetheless, Marlborough St. is one of the city’s avenues I recall with fondness; this is due in no small part to my upbringing in a carless family in the northeast of the city. As the street served as a terminus for many northside bus routes, it became the starting point for all of my journeys into the city centre – good, bad and indifferent. Essentially, this street was my proverbial wardrobe into Narnia… sorry, I did say romanticised.

Amidst all the buses, the commuters, the addicts and the roadworks alike sits Briody’s – a small and unassuming pub with a green façade. Setting foot in the pub, you immediately feel like you are in familiar territory. Just like wandering into your granny’s, you know you’re in good hands. The interior is typical of a good local boozer; tiled flooring greets feet upon entrance before a pristine carpet overtakes the rest of the floor space. Lighter wooden tones are well complemented by beige embossed wallpaper. The seating proved to be tremendously cosy in its simplicity, while classic drink brands and sport are the themes exhibited in frames upon the wall. We took a particular shine to a bittersweet portrait of Paul McGrath seen in his heyday, sitting at an unidentified bar holding a creamy pint aloft. Speaking of creamy pints, we found no fault whatsoever in the pints pouring at Briody’s; they tick all the right boxes insofar as they were delicious, served in a tulip glass and well under a fiver.

Overall, we enjoyed the casualness of this pub; we noted that there seemed to be plenty of characters in amongst the bar, and we vowed to return and try our hand at integrating into the fold. It was also nice to take in some of the history of the building, which was proudly displayed on the wall. This informed patrons that the building was dishing out pints under the name of the Olympic Tavern during the Rising in 1916 – a full hundred and one years ago. Here’s to the next hundred and one.

December 21, 2017
The Confession Box: Marlborough St

To this day, I still remember the trepidation- the knot growing more intense in the pit of my stomach as the queue of would-be confessors grew worryingly shorter. The mostly empty church was quiet – a gentle murmur emanating from the confines of the confession box was the only audible noise to reach above the din. The relative silence would then abruptly break with the creak of the door signalling the absolution of another soul whose host moved swiftly to complete their penance. You’d slide up a space in the pew, and your worry would intensify further.

1st Confession was a daunting experience as a child and not one which left me with much of an appreciation for confession boxes. Thankfully, this lifelong fear (along with many others) would be cancelled out in later life by a Pub.

The Confession Box is another of the city’s more petite drinking spaces; you’d be forgiven for thinking that the pub is named so due to its size and proximity to the Pro-Cathedral. But there’s more to it than that. It’s said that Michael Collins would visit this particular pub from time to time during The War of Independence, where he and his subordinates would be furnished with the sacraments of the Catholic Church from sympathetic members of the clergy, hence turning the pub into an ad-hoc confessional.

The ties with Collins are evident in the ephemera dispersed across this small pub. The seating is minimal and crowded, giving the pub a vibe which would be known in live music terms as intimate. The bar is the epicentre of the entire pub; a pint could conceivably be ordered from anywhere above ground level in the building.

When we last visited, the pint easily lived up to the hype promised by the Best Pint in Dublin award in the window. Propping up the bar, we noticed a large cohort of men in butcher’s uniforms scattered throughout the pub. As he had arrived before me, I asked Pintman №2 as to what the craic with all the butchers was. “Some butcher’s convention, I think”, says he. Ordering our 2nd scoop, the more informed barman identified the butchers for us: A Stag Party. Pintman №2 was suitably admonished for his answer.

The Confession Box is exemplary evidence that good things do come in small packages. Be sure to test out that theory for yourself!

November 3, 2017
The Wiley Fox: Eden Quay

Foxes bear a terrible brunt when you think about it. The poor creatures cannot be spoken about without a mention of the word sly or sneaky or indeed the word wiley. One can only imagine the consternation that typecasting an entire section of the human population, like we do with foxes, would bring about.

That said, there is no smoke without fire, and surely foxes are sly creatures. I like to think that The Wiley Fox was so named due to its proximity to the myriad of bus termini on its doorstep, because what could be sneakier than ducking in for a quick scoop and catching a later bus than intended? Who would dare disbelieve that the bus didn’t come?

We recently dropped into The Wiley Fox of a Thursday afternoon when it was ticking over with an after-work crowd. We’d waited out many’s the bus in the pub in its former guise as The Pint, and we were looking forward to seeing how it had settled in following its renovation.

The décor of the pub is largely modern and is a product of the design specs predefined in many of the craft beer/cocktail joints which have popped up across the city. Plush armchairs provide seating in the first atrium of the pub upon entrance, more traditional seating takes up the reins once in the main heart of the pub alongside the bar. A few fox-themed bits are displayed throughout, and the older features of the pub are nicely taken into the new design.

A Hawaiian-themed night was in its early stages when we arrived, it being denoted by the tiki decoration and the staff’s colourful t-shirts and concern for the whereabouts of pineapples. We propped up the bar and called for two scoops. The staff were commendable in their service. The Barman returned the two pints as swiftly as one should to customers who may be shortly making a dash for a bus. His attention to detail was noted when he placed the pint onto a beermat, having noticed the absence of one. The pint itself was good and not too offensively priced either.

All in all, we couldn’t fault the Wiley Fox too harshly. It’s a fine boozer which has taken newer pub design features and not gone overboard with them. We look forward to missing the bus the next time around.

September 12, 2017
The Flowing Tide: Abbey St.

Sitting on the intersection of Marlborough and Abbey Street, a stone’s throw away from the famed Abbey Theatre, sits a pub named The Flowing Tide. The pub occupies a space upon a bustling streetscape between the wider city centre and umpteen bus termini, leaving it to act as a conduit to the tide of commuters, shoppers and addicts going about their daily routines.

In all of the years and years I spent passing by this pub on my way to and from town, I had never set foot in it until relatively recently. The reason for this is one I never quite figured out. It may have been some sort of subconscious allegiance to the nearby Sean O Casey’s, which was my father’s town local. Whatever the reason, a precedent had been set, and I was to spend years ignoring The Flowing Tide, and what a silly ignorance that was.

When we first set out to check out The Flowing Tide, we all had our reservations. The local ne’er-do-wells that tend to frequent Abbey St. led us to believe that this pub would be one that continued the theme from outside within the pub. How utterly wrong we were. First of all, the lighting. Other pubs take note – the lighting here is the optimum amount of light one should strive to illuminate their bar with. Bright enough to read the paper and dim enough to mask the quarter pint of porter you’ve spilt down your front in excitement.

The overall appearance of the pub is kind to the eyes. The exposed brickwork toward the end of the bar tallies well with the wooden floors and the cream walls elsewhere. Celtic knotwork adorns spots across the walls and serves to break the mundanity of the cream hue nicely. The stained glass windows afford the pub a more spiritual edge, while pictures across the walls are varied and encompass plenty of nods to the abbey scattered throughout.

The pint we’ve always found to be of a high standard and have yet to have a bad one. There are toasties made with batch bread on the go, too, if you’re so inclined.

Overall, The Flowing Tide is a diamond in the rough. A characterful boozer pouring good pints and only a stone’s throw from the bus stop. Why would you wait for a bus anywhere else?

Postscript: Writing here in 2025, as I prepare to move the website and am doing some formatting across all the posts, and it’s funny how this pub changed hands to a new owner, did up the jaxx, added a few snugs and became one of our favourite pubs in the city. We even awarded it the best pub in Dublin, 2024, in a spur-of-the-moment countdown we did over on Twitter.

July 6, 2017
Lannigan’s: Eden Quay

Sometimes, when we get to talking about the defining parameters that make a pub a pub, we can get very particular about details. The one thing that we do agree upon is that we disagree on a great many points – slightly on some and heavily upon others. Having said that, we should say that we sometimes do get to exhaust the fumes of white smoke now and again, one such consensus we have managed to arrive at relates to a rule on hotel bars – namely that a hotel bar is not a pub!

It’s our argument that the vibe exuded in your bog standard hotel bar is a good light-year or two away from that, which one should expect in any self-respecting pub. This is due in no small part to the lighting, the seating and often the prices too. Hotel bar etiquette is often a far more formal experience than that of the pub, wherein you might find yourself wondering whether to order at the bar or at your table while subconsciously watching your Ps and Qs, too. Put simply, we’d rather be in the pub.

But as sure as all hotels have housekeepers who couldn’t give a toss about your hangover, all rules have their exceptions – which brings us nicely along to Lannigan’s.

Situated within the boundaries of the Clifton Court Hotel on Eden Quay, Lannigan’s has grown on us over the years. To say it has a few quirky bits and pieces on the walls would be the grossest of understatements. Every conceivable piece of wall space in the bar has been plastered with knick-knacks and trinketry, so much so that visitors could easily spend their entire stay in the pub conversing solely about the paraphernalia littered around the walls.

Lit well, the pub is somewhat narrow and opens up toward the back. The pint has never steered us wrong, and the staff are suitably proficient and pleasant in their pouring of said pint. The crowd is a good mix – you’ll find locals, tourists, afterworkers and actors alike. It’s also the place to bring that person in your life who is partial to an episode or two of Fair City now and again – we tend to see one or another of their cast any time that we call in.

A great pub, this – an exception to our own rules around bars in hotels and a convenient location for thirsty northbound commuters.

May 14, 2017
The Oval: Middle Abbey St.

As I sit here and try to think of something to write about The Oval on Middle Abbey St., I can’t help but think that writing about this pub is akin to writing about a first love. With that in mind, I can only request that you bear with me as I try to avoid the type of over-sentimental tack that adolescent first-love poetry is laden with. Allow me to start by saying that The Oval is one that served as a welcome venue to the young trainee pintman who was inexperienced in the processes that he needed to master in order to become a fully-fledged barfly, unintimidated by any pub he should venture into.

Sitting just off O Connell Street on Middle Abbey Street, The Oval is your classic city centre pub (narrow and opening up to the rear). It’s decorated in comforting hues of burgundy, complemented by characterful mahogany. A smiling portrait of Ronnie Drew is hung from the underside of the staircase, welcoming all punters in for a few scoops. The fixings and fittings are well-polished and thoughtfully installed throughout. All in all, it’s a great-looking bar.

A building steeped in much history, it has been in use continuously as a pub since 1822, barring a closure for a few unexpected renovations after the 1916 rising. The pub has withstood famine, war and independence. It’s even said that John Lennon and Ringo Starr nipped in for a pint after their famed performance in The Adelphi Cinema across the road.

The Oval’s central location makes it an idyllic meeting point. It’s a perfect precursor to a bigger night out, but also a great spot for a session in its own right. The pint is creamy and nicely priced, the staff are competent and just generally sound out. The pub also offers a food menu if you’re after that sort of thing. They do a cracking hot whiskey with none of the hesitation or indifference that other pubs might greet a request for such a drink with. I particularly love to dodge in here and catch the 1 o’clock news over a sneaky pint if circumstances allow.

We were in for a few pints last December and sat at the bar beside two older gents with whom we engaged in a bit of chat. After a few pints, one of the lads (who was drinking lemonade) divulged to us that his choice of drink was due to the fact that he was a card-carrying pioneer and hadn’t touched a drop of the demon drink in forty-something years. Wondering how he got his kicks, we duly enquired- “Dancing”, he responded.

I don’t really want to go 40 years without a jar, but I certainly hope I can move like that aulfella when I’m 70. The Oval is a necessary visit for any pub pilgrim and is most definitely in the author’s top five pubs in Dublin City.

May 2, 2017