Abbey Tavern
Howth. All major cards.
The best ballad pub for tourists is in a steep street leading up from the harbor in the northern suburb of Howth, where the city railway ends at the seashore. The program is performed in a big dining room behind the pub. Busloads of tourists sit there at a candlelight dinner before the memorable performance starts.
The musicians and singers cover a broad spectrum of Irish folk ballads, from several epochs, ancient and new. They play mainly fiddles and guitars. The music is historically correct and gets directly to the heart. This is first class and no make-believe.
Admission is £3, with dinner it is £28.
Baggot Inn
Lower Baggot Street. (B2).
The pub of rock n’ roll is a clean place in the street of music pubs.
It is rather delicate and bright by Irish standards, shaped in a U. There are mirrors on columns and low partitions at the walls, hung with paintings and photos of rock singers.
People come here to listen to the newest rock bands who have concerts on the 1st floor.
Bailey
4 Duke Street. (B2).
One of three historical pubs in a small street leading off Grafton Street. This one boasts of the door to 7 Eccles Street, where Leopold Bloom lived, the main character in Ulysses by James Joyce.
It is a refined pub with carpets on the floor and good furniture, including comfortable sofas and easy-chairs. Mirrors abound. The pub is bright and almost modern. There are large windows to the street, sitting areas in front and in back and a restaurant on the 1st floor.
Tourists and affluent shoppers make up the bulk of the clientele. Formerly it was a meeting place for writers and artists, journalists and students. The food is popular.
Brazen Head
20 Lower Bridge Street. (A1).
The oldest pub is inconspicuous down by the river Liffey where Lower Bridge Street runs down to it, about 500 meters from Christ Church. The license is from 1666. A pub has probably been in this place since the 13th C. It is best known for Robert Emmet organizing there the abortive uprising against the British in 1803.
The pub is in two sections with various corridors leading off a paved courtyard. The ceiling is low and the lighting is dim.
The clients are less noisy than in many other pubs, but still as convivial as other Irishmen. Poetry recitals and Irish music are held in honor here.
Davy Byrne’s
21 Duke Street. (B2).
The fashionable pub of the up and going young set in Dublin and one of three historical pubs in a small street leading off Grafton Street, well known for the Gorgonzola cheese and Burgundy wine that Leopold Bloom got here in the novel of Ulysses by James Joyce.
The furnishings are partly in a pre-war style, with paintings of known writers that lived at the start of the 20th C. A more modern section is at the back, resembling a cocktail area.
The clientele consists of well-dressed young people on their way up in business, along with similar types from the travelers’ brigade.
Doheny & Nesbitt
5 Lower Baggot Street. (B2).
A traditional and rather worn drinking pub of professionals in politics, in the middle of the music pubs of this street, leading off St Stephen’s Green, one of the famous pubs of Dublin.
It is small and dingy, with an ugly linoleum floor, and with torn advertising posters, advertising mirrors and large pottery on the walls. Mirrored partitions at the bar counter make the pub look even more crowded.
The clientele comes from the parliament and government buildings round the corner, politicians, journalists and officials.
Duke
9 Duke Street. (B2).
A fine Victorian pub in a small street of old pubs leading off Grafton Street, spacious and bright, with murals and less wood than usual.
A nice floor carpet at the entrance gives a tone of affluence. The bar chairs are upholstered, standing on a parquet floor. There is stained glass behind the bar. Sofas are on platforms at the walls and high bar-stools on the floor beneath the platforms.
Here are many suburbanites on a shopping trip, having a beer and a bite between walks. The price is relatively good, considering the quality and the cleanliness of the place.
Foley’s
Merrion Row. (B2).
A singing pub cum restaurant on the main street of music pubs.
It is spacious and bright, with a carpet on the floor and an exhibition of paintings on the walls, also busts of venerable gentlemen.
This is a nice place, with Irish ballads in the night and at Sunday noon. There is jazz on Sunday nights.
Horseshoe Bar
The Shelbourne Hotel, St Stephen’s Green. (B2).
The most famous hotel bar in Dublin, at the eastern end of the ground floor of the Shelbourne, very small and tightly packed.
Leather sofas line the walls. In front of them are circular tables with edge fillets. The horseshoe-shaped bar is in the center, surrounded with good stools. The ceiling is high and decorations are scant, but there is a lot of mirrors.
Affluent travelers come here, mainly Americans, as the bartenders know how to make cocktails. Also jeweled people who arrive in Jaguars and Mercedeses.
Keogh’s
McDaid’s
Harry Street. (B2).
The literary pub in the center, in a short street leading off Grafton Street, almost under the eaves of Westbury Hotel. Brendan Behan and other well-known writers sat here.
The decorations are beautiful, outside and inside. Very high street windows are partly stained. Decorative porcelain tiles are beneath pictures of Samuel Becket and other writers.
There is still some literary atmosphere here, as university teachers and students congregate here to follow the tradition.
Mulligan’s
8 Poolbeg Street. (B1).
The worn-out pub of journalists near the river docks, the offices of the daily papers and the Trinity University is one of the oldest in town, from 1782 and looks every year its age. It is mentioned in Dubliners by James Joyce.
The pub forms an U around a double bar and has a small room by the window at the opening of the U. The ceiling is low, the air is heavy and the visibility is scant. The furnishings are as worn as they can possibly be. There are two rooms behind the bar area, both of them quite inhospitable. The furniture is accidental, destitute and devoid of taste.
Many guests are deep in their drinks, having the excuse that they are getting the best beer in town. It flows in torrents here from morning into the night. Journalists come here, dock workers and students. The clientele combines with the furnishings to make quite an unforgettable atmosphere.
Neary’s
1 Chatham Street. (B2).
The theater pub is of course just behind the Gaiety theater. The main entrance of the theater and the back door of the pub are opposite each other, but he main entrance of the pub is on a side street of Grafton Street.
The pub is in two parts, rather small, with large mirrors. Quaint gas-lamps of wrought iron are on a pink bar counter of marble. A fine carpet is on the floor and thick cushions are on the chairs, as this is not a place for the riff-raff.
Some actors and musicians are in the otherwise mainly tourist clientele. Peter O’Toole is said to hold court here when he is in Dublin.
O’Donoghue’s
15 Merrion Row. (B2).
One of the most famous music pubs of Ireland, rather shady, specializing in ballads. It has been in the forefront of the revival of Irish ballads. The Dubliners started here.
It is small and dingy, with red and green neon lights on the bar wall above money notes from several continents. The walls are hung with old advertising mirrors.
Guests bring their guitars, as the music is not organized, but rather emanates from the grass-roots.
O’Neill’s
2 Suffolk Street. (B1).
Opposite St Andrews, convenient for Trinity College students, just 100 meters from its main entrance at College Green.
The emblem of the pub is a large clock over one of its Suffolk Street entrance. This is a large pub, clean, well furnished, with few decorations, but lots of seats.
The pub is popular, both with students and burghers. The attraction is not only the beer, but also the grub.
Old Stand
Exchequer Street. (A1).
The main sportsmen’s pub in the center, in a side street 100 meters from the Powerscourt shopping center.
It is rather bright and unusually spacious, clean and simple, with furnishings that have not yet become worn, except for the floor.
Sport enthusiasts congregate here, talking about racing or Irish football. Many of them have something to eat here.
Palace
21 Fleet Street. (B1).
A typical smoke-filled pub in a continuation of Temple Bar in the direction of Westmoreland Street, a neighbor of hotel Temple Bar.
Wood partitions with mirrors form compartments at the heavy counter, opposite the dignified bar furniture behind the counter. Behind the bar there is a sitting room with sofas and round coffee-tables.
There is a lot of drinking and still more of smoking. The place is frequented by workers and media people.
Stag’s Head
1 Dame Court. (A1).
The best pub grub in town is to be had at a beautiful old pub, which is difficult to find in an alley running parallel with Dame Street. Probably the most beautiful pub in the city center, it was restored to its present state at the end of the 19th C. Its life was recently saved by protection activists.
The style is Victorian, with large mirrors and an arcade over the bar, an old ceiling of wood, an impressive venison head above the central bar, mahogany tables with marble tops, stained windows and deeply green sofas. The cooking is simple and the food is tasty, boiled bacon and cauliflower, Irish stew, sandwiches and hamburgers with chips.
There is generally a crowd of well-dressed people, including lawyers.
Toner’s
139 Lower Baggot Street. (B2).
The main artists’ pub, 200 years old, more or less with the original furnishings and looking its age.
At the mahogany bar counter there are narrow, mirrored partitions. The bar wall has countless drawers from the time that the pub doubled as a grocery. Old books are above the drawers. A dominating tile decoration is at the end of the pub. Opposite the counter there is a glass cupboard with memorabilia.
Among the clientele are some convivial writers and people who like convivial writers.
Gaelic football
The most popular team sport in Ireland, a rough sport somewhere between rugby and soccer. When the final game is played in Croke Park in Dublin the home districts of the competitors are almost deserted.
Hurling is another popular sport, where the ball is hit by a club, played on the same fields as football.
Horse races are at Phoenix Park and there are good golf courses all over Ireland.
Market Arcade
(A1).
Tower
1996
© Jónas Kristjánsson
