Have we lost our Galway pubman?
Sorry - I mean the amount which the tap is in use,
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There was a pub in Laois once upon a time where the locals would stroll in through the adjoining grocers when the doors opened and set up for the day. All aul stock. Supping all day. Line hardly ever stopped. Beautiful pints. Owner, locals, all gone now mind you to the early house in the sky.
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The Old Royal Oak is a lovely spot but the jacks are not made for tall men
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Pull-a pull-a pull-a
Temperature has a lot to do with it too.
Too many pubs serve their Guinness too flippin’ cold
Galtee Mountain Boy already blasted out in the Damer lads.
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Ryan’s lost it’s late licence.
Tipp are going to execute the biggest ambush since Béal na mBlath.
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What’s the forum’s view on top 5 pre game and top 5 postmortem top 5 celebration All Ireland football final day cathedrals of porter
We tried to tell them
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Did they ever actually have one or were they chancing their arm?
They had one alright.
They lost the licence for the back room as well.
Had some great nights in there but never took to it after the redevelopment.
Pre game
Gresham
Hogan Stand
Hideout
Post game
Briodys
Confession box
Pipers
Chaplins
Mulligans/Palace
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I done dame, peadear kearneys, Chaplins and palace Sunday.
Was in padraig Pearces, peadear KearneyS, Chaplins, palace and bowes id say on Monday.
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Whoa! Whoa! I had an epic evening there on the Saturday that the Ryder Cup was in the K Club. A mixture of Americans who’d gotten detached from the herd, a half-dozen local hardchaws, regular patrons and a few of our own folk 
I was outside having a smoke when a liveried Gerry Hutch rolled up in a motor as big as a small hayshed, hopped out, a genial ‘Howya’, popped inside and rounded up a fine scatter of Yanks.
A grand evening with a mild whiff of excitement, jovial clientele and great porter.
I think I have been in the Dame Tavern once. I’m not 100% sure I’ve been in it but I think I have. Once.
I’ve never been in Peadar Kearneys or the Padraig Pearse pub.
Where you are coming from in relation to Croke Park is everything for a pre-match drink. As the years have gone on, pre-match drinks have become less and less important to me. As you get older your tastes change.
With pubs and Croke Park, a lot also depends on which sport it is, and who’s playing. Chaplin’s for instance is excusively a hurling pub. You’ll not be going near it for a football game. O’Shea’s on the Quays will be thronged tomorrow. But the day of the hurling you could probably have swung a hammer - one of those big hammer yokes Yuri Sedykh used to throw - and not hit anybody.
In the heyday of my 20s, Quinn’s and the Big Tree were ground zero for pre-match drinks. I didn’t really go anywhere else pre-match. The way I’d walk to Croke Park was usually by walking up O’Connell Street, up Parnell Square, up the full length of Frederick Street and then turn right at Maye’s (RIP) into Dorset Street. You’d usually have time in them days. You had lots of time in your 20s. Now Quinn’s is shut and I’ve never been in the new, presumably watered down Big Tree.
As the years have gone on, my walking route changed first of all to turning right at the top of Parnell Square and going up past Barry’s Hotel, then later on again it changed to going up Parnell Street and Summerhill, then later on again when I started coming from Galway it changed to walking up Marlborough Street because that’s more convenient for where the Galway bus used to drop you on Eden Quay (it’s now Bachelor’s Walk).
One day (it was the rain sodeen Tipp v Wexford replay of 2001) I made the mistake of getting off the bus at Capel Street Bridge and walking up Capel Street up Bolton Street into Dorset Street. That felt endless, probably because the rain was spreading up my jeans above my ankles by the time I reached Bolton Street.
My favourite way to approach Croke Park is via the pathway beside the Royal Canal, parallel to the Whitworth Road. It’s all downhill. Croke Park is always in front of you. You can drink the best nice leisurely pint - a can.
Proximity to Croke Park is everything for a pre-match drink. Nearity. You don’t want to be going for a pre-match drink in town. You want the Hideout, or the Clonliffe House, or Gills. Phil Ryan’s is near, but it’s just always been somewhere other people go. Some pubs are like that.
My favourite pre-match pint was in the Auld Triangle before the 2015 All-Ireland football final. It was leisurely, the pub wasn’t too packed, outside it was obviously going to piddle rain very soon, and Kerry were winning the minor by 24 points. There was no need to move. Ah yeah, I’ll have another one. I recall those pints as being rich and silky and calming, and my belief that Kerry would win ebbed away into a becalmed confidence that Dublin were the ones playing Yerra today.
I went through my Meagher’s phase of pre-match pints too, in my mid-30s. I liked Berminghams for a quick one. And the Handball Alley (RIP). The nearest pint to Croker of all and one of the best. The pints there immediately after Dublin v Donegal 2011 were so good there was no need to move until at least four had been consumed.
Post mortem pubs are the same as celebration pubs. They’re pubs. There are post mortems either way.
My immediate post mortem pubs are The Maples on Iona Road, Graingers on the Malahide Road, and Cleary’s. The needs of the elders have to be catered to. Occasionally Gill’s. Very occasionally the Clonliffe. If you’re looking for somebody. The Maples plays the match. It’s genteel and its civilised but it’s the sort of genteel and civilised that’s utterly accessible.
The looming railway bridge over Cleary’s which looms large over the entire experience bestows a post-mortem like gravitas. It really does. There’s something timeless about that wrought iron work. It bestows weight to words.
It used to be Quinn’s, where words had no weight. It was always Quinn’s in my 20s. Quinn’s was a kip but it was life and being young. It was never the same once they changed the sign outside it.
The Gravediggers is a post-Dublin pub, post-All-Ireland football final not involving Dublin at a push. I have never been there after a major hurling game.
The Brian Boru is a pub I associate with post mortems after Dublin have lost to Tyrone. The Bohemian was the ultimate post mortem pub, but it depended on who you knew to get the post mortems from.
The greatest performative post mortem I ever saw was on a seat in the Bohemian about two hours after the 1991 All-Ireland football final had ended. It could have been the day of third Dublin-Meath match actually now that I think of it. The pub was full. This earnest looking fella from Leitrim or Cavan (it was somewhere in the sitka spruce north west) who looked about 33 or 34 (this seemed very old to me) was on his own and decided it was his time to hold court. He would deliver a state of the nation address. “Futball, to me, is…” He repeated the line “Futball, to me, is…” at least four times. I don’t remember any of what came in between, except that he was attempting to soliloquy. He had definitely read The Football Immortals by Raymond Smith. This fella, to me, seemed like both a pub bore and somebody “professional”, ie. a professional reflecter. He exuded gravitas. He didn’t want to just drink, he wanted to think. The earnestness and the pauses, and the care with which he chose his words, the way he silently commanded everybody to listen to him…this was an invaluable tool for the future INTERNET poster of the 2010s and 2020s to draw on. After leaving the pub, me oul’ fella said “I don’t know who yer man was, he was becoming a bit tiresome”. I thought that one day I would hold court in a pub like that.
The true football connoiseur from Dublin heads to Kavanagh’s on the Malahide Road. You cannot but inhale the Vincentsness of this place, and thus, it has a gravitas that few other places can even think of matching.
Gaffney’s is a professional Northsider pub. If you want to drink with people from Coolock and Edenmore and Donaghmede after Dublin matches, this is where you go. That Northsideness bestows gravitas.
Each pub you go to after Croke Park should take you slightly further away from the stadium. But any pub south of the Liffey must be within 150 yards of the river.
The Palace is hurling. It’s also football, but it’s hurling. The Palace is a 10:30pm to closing time pub. The Palace has gravitas because it just does. The Palace is always the end of the line for me now. The line goes no further. The line used to extend to the Harcourt Street and particularly Wexford Street/Camden Street area. But those tracks have long since been pulled up.
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Fair play to you.
Because when I was there there was no going outside for a smoke - they just smoked inside.
That’s a very good point about the food actually. Only one I can think of to buck the trend is the Beach Bar in sligo which has lovely food and possibly the best pint of Guinness I’ve ever had.
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