Ireland's Eye

(À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu) The Thursday Tipple: ‘Le Surfing’, Portiragnes Plage, France

Posted on September 18, 2025 by stevedineen

The foundations were shallow on those hot and sunny afternoons on the beach in south-east France. The seaside town: Portiragnes, not far from Béziers and the Canal du Midi. The team: ‘us’; the probing, inquisitive five-year old; and the easily-pleased but wandering two-year old who likes a digging and water. For infinite hours we dug and heaped mound of sand upon mound to build castles and walls and other beige installations. Occasionally the lanky ice cream seller would walk by with his metallic livelihood, enunciating his plaintiff pitch. The children’s eyes would wander yet they knew the ground rules of their daily fix.

Occasionally my eyes would glance south to another installation: the seaside bar made from an old shipping container, one side of it opened up for the patrons’ seating and view of the beach and sea, fifteen metres away. My eyes would return to the digging, knowing the rules of engagement. It felt like the tide always came in at teatime, bringing with it a resolve to drag our sandy aspirations away.

Yet hope springs eternal. The kids dreamt that in a moment of weakness I’d relax my ‘one a day’ resolve. And I dreamt that she, in a similar moment, would tell me to quit my daily drooling and grab a cheeky one while she walked them home for their pre-dinner shower and clothes change. When I’d get back from a blissful 25 minutes, she’d tell me they’d been calm, almost harmonious, that perhaps we’d rotate such an adventure every day.

On the second day, I peered and perved up close, using my walk along the beach to the shop for a parasol as cover. Le Surfing, it was called, a neat little bar offering draught beer, cocktails, sandwiches, paninis and a few other light meals. The interior of the old shipping container was suitably nautical, grey-navy and white, the tables and seating a dolly mixture of oak barrels and slouching seats made of wicker. Bird of Paradise plants weaved around the seating. I wondered how they covered up the side facing the sea in times of rain.

Its name seemed curious, then a small blackboard sign beside the menu boards revealed all: sun bathers (Have I got that right? Mon Français, mon dieu!); pedalos; stand-up paddlers; banana boats or buoys for rent. Those sitting at the barrels or on lower chairs looked horizontal with their drinks, the breeze drifting towards them from the choppy waves. Ah.

I returned to the crew. All hell had broken loose over a contested square metre of beach. The beach was only hundreds of miles long. It seemed the daily ice cream fix en route to the beach was wearing off, now crashing against other waves – heat, fatigue and dehydration.

The best I could do was suggest dinner at ‘Le Surfing’ some evening. ‘What kind of food have they?’ she asked. ‘There’s tapas, poke bowls,’ I relayed, not even persuading myself. ‘Nice looking cocktails though, Aperol Spritzes on the menu,’ I added, trying to salvage things. ‘It’s got a great view of the sea, it’d be so nice to have a drink there after the beach.’ We agreed we’d try it on the penultimate night. The day before, I poked my head in and asked what time food was served until on Saturdays. The diminutive chef, doubling up as a barman, struggled to answer en Anglais. I gave it my best French and came away with 7pm.

The sun beat down on us relentlessly that Saturday. We filled our buckets and built. The two ‘engineers’, as the five-year old now labelled him and his brother, collaborated with their spades so I resorted to my hand. I scooped and scooped and scooped, one eye admiring the solid installations of kids that looked Dutch, the other on the flags flapping by my now-favourite former shipping container. This time, despite the tide, our fortress held up.

The bar was near empty when we arrived all dirty and gritty from sea and re-applied cream. I had worried about no space and how that would work with the kids. But the meal times had been lost in translation. ‘Only chips,’ the same chef said now, meaning crisps. Our two-year old was already on the verge of becoming one. ‘How about a quick drink then we find somewhere else for dinner?’ I suggested to try and salvage things. A pint of lager, an Aperol Spritz, juices for the two boys, and a few packets of crisps. What’s another bag? Let them eat crisps.

With a gentle breeze blowing towards us, we sat and sipped and briefly enjoyed the spectacle of the French bathing, reading, sun-bathing and admiring their afternoon’s efforts with the sand. For a few brief minutes it was calm and enjoyable. Two years ago, the possibility of a bar meant grabbing a beer for ten cheeky minutes whilst waiting on take-away pizzas from the campsite café. The engineers are maturing. I see stronger foundations.

Posted in Pubs | Tagged beach, europe, food, France, portiragnes, travel | Leave a comment

The Thursday Tipple: J O’Connell, 29 South Richmond Street, Dublin 8

Posted on December 23, 2024 by stevedineen

The days are getting shorter. The nights are getting darker. The seasons are passing quicker. And it’s that time of year again. ‘That ad’ is playing again, the dead-of-night scene always reminding me of the hibernatory sleep that a Christmas break should, in theory, bring. If only the lights would go off.

‘Do you still write The Thursday Tipple?’ a friend who’s been away for a year texts me after he returns from a troubled place. God. It’s been longer than his stint overseas since I’ve penned a review. ‘Name the time and place,’ he offers. The blank canvas tantalises.

Strangely enough, ‘that ad’ runs through my mind virtually every morning. I cycle over Portobello Bridge - a wonderful intersection point of pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and public transport providers; a structure where the old and new worlds of Rathmines fold into the technicoloured offering of ‘town’. When you cross it two drinking establishments catch the right eye. The Portobello Bar opened recently. Its predecessor had a bar at which I saw the same man sitting in the same seat drinking the same brew every evening as I cycled home for years. Some days I used stop to see if he actually moved, that he wasn’t some marketeer’s idea of a pint-drinking mannequin. He was indeed real, more an ad for retirement or playing the Lotto, or liver awareness. (He didn’t follow the new owners into the building.)

The second establishment is a few doors down at number 29 South Richmond Street: J O’Connell. It reminds me of ‘that ad’ because I had been sure that it was the sister-pub of J O’Connell immortalised by Guinness. If a book is to be judged by its cover, then this D8 pub was to be full of old men with more pints than teeth. It was to be a boozer that always had a locked gate covering its entrance by day because nobody would ever consider darkening the door of an already darkened pub any earlier than tea-time.

As November nudged thoughts of Christmas in my direction, I opted for number 29.

If a book isn’t to be judged by its cover, then I hereby decree all covers banned forevermore. Rather than pokey, the pub is spacious, its leather seating clean and bright (red and bright green, think a fusion of the House of Commons and the House of Lords). It is not full of old men lamenting the days when they needed dentists, but a nice mix of old and new, locals and professionals, or friends meeting for a few inconsequentials. Of a Thursday night there’ll be no shortage of space or low-decibels, to enable talk or thought. The helpful barmen will gladly ‘bring you over’ your pint, which, if black and white, won’t disappoint. The range of beers is similar to any other in town.

As for ‘that ad’, there is no connection between Dublin 8’s O’Connell’s and that in Skyrne Co. Meath . Both have history, both have pride in maintaining no-frills. The experience at the bridge also reminded me that at this time of year, at these time-pressured phases of in life, it’s important to find the time to seek out those old friends and re-fan the flame of friendship. Clouds race across the night skies. Time is marching on. Phone a friend. Get your coat and scarf on and get going. Don’t forget to keep the lights on. Happy Christmas.

Pint of Guinness: €6.20 (no charge for a dash of cordial in water; others may have done so!)

Posted in Pubs | Tagged alcohol, beer, food, ireland, J O'Connell, travel | Leave a comment

The Thursday Tipple: any pub, any time (might happen to be La Grillérade, Le Bois-Plage-en-Ré, Île de Ré, France)

Posted on November 9, 2023 by stevedineen

We’re on our first family holiday with ‘two of ‘em’. It’s sweltering by day and night and the heat has coincided with another leap by the baby. A leap of development, perhaps, but all it feels like is a ‘leap’ out of bed at 2am, 4am, 5am and whatever he’s having himself. By day, the nightyard shift feels like childs-play compared to tag-teaming to simultaneously juggling a baby and toddler in the air. Someone once said to me that with kids, usually one of four things is needed when behaviour has gone awry: food, water, sleep or a poo. The waking hours feel like a perpetual walk through a maze filled with these demons.

Peace comes in the form of a take-away pizza after the kids have gone to bed, purchased from the café-shop adjoining our holiday resort. It’s almost half-eight the second time I go to collect one, and the spectacled manageress, a trace of sweat along the rim of her hair, is still working away. She’s been here since we first visited the shop twelve hours earlier, yet still a smile for everyone as ‘Bon appetite’ or ‘Bon soir’ glides from her mouth for each customer.

‘Combien du temps?’ I ask defiantly in pigeon French (a strange laboratory pigeon at that).

‘Vent minutes,’ she confirms and before me lays the mirage of time standing still with none of the four imperatives looming down on me. I had brought my book to the café – started, half-read, half-re-started, forgotten, half-unforgotten over the past year – to reconnect with during the waiting time. I sit in the café’s outdoor dining area and start reading when the bustle of the adjoining restaurant meets my ears. There is no chance for a beer by the pool or a meal in the restaurant on this holiday. This is my choice, my true self declares.

I walk over to the restaurant and see two small, lonely, empty circular tables at the end of the stretch of tables. Couples and families from Germany, France, Britain, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are eating with great civility and joy, parents forming everlasting memories of their children’s first holidays and holiday meals in restaurants.

‘Excuse moi,’ I say, confronting a roaming waiter. ‘C’est possible utiliser la table for un biere pour dix minutes?’ the pigeon flaps again, the functional lexicon revealing my agenda. My words contain pleading.

He nods, understands.

I ask what beers he has. All of the them are standard European, the brands that sponsor football and colonise television screens — all except Monaco, which I’d seen the tap for but know nothing about.

For what feels like thirty seconds I sip on my beer and try and re-connect with Turgenev’s ‘Fathers and Sons’. Too many thoughts of my own sons, my wife, my life, my holiday; too many sounds and sights around me; occupy my mind. I read a paragraph or two before stopping to just sit and be.

The beer is sweet and fizzy, the alcoholic equivalent of a liquid cartoon. Turns out afterwards it’s a fruity beer-based cocktail with a dash of Grenadine in it. The bar is noisy. But it doesn’t matter. I grabbed the one chance for an eight-minute beer. It could have been any bar and anywhere.

‘You know last night when I was waiting for the pizzas,’ I said to my wife the next day, ‘I grabbed a beer at the bar.’

An expletive is fired back at me. ‘Good the **** on ya,’ she says. ‘You gotta take these chances. Them’s the moments on a holiday.’

This isn’t a review of a place or a drink. It’s a plea to young parents with little time in life, particularly in times ostensibly about taking time off. Whether it’s the west of Ireland, south of France, Guinness or something with Grenadine, seize them moments.

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The Thursday Tipple: Emily’s Black Lion, Ireby, Cumbria

Posted on September 14, 2023 by stevedineen

That time of year again: our annual pilgrimage to The Lake District for a seven-day gathering with friends. Nestled in a holiday home among England’s most majestic mountains, we catch up over walks and home-cooked meals to the drumbeat of evermore pitter-patter.

This year we’ve gone to the most northern part of the district. From a bygone royal charter, Ireby is officially a market town but its population barely makes triple digits. Our AirBnB’s windows daydream onto the Caldbeck Fells, an area known locally as ‘Back O’ Skiddaw’.

One of the reasons I’ve relished this year’s location is the prospect of a pub in no man’s land, an alternative to the nice but tourist-focused establishments of Keswick and Grasmere. At the town’s centre’s cross-roads, Emily’s Black Lion purrs at the corner. I request a lads’ night out in support of the local economy. Monday night is given a royal charter.

The only problem with Monday night is the pub is closed, discovered an hour before kick-off by inspecting the opening hours sheet on the pub’s window. Other days’ times aren’t much more promising: closed at 10 other nights, with 8pm closing on Sunday. My kids could join us and still be in bed on time on the Sabbath.

The two or three people propping up the bar when I walk by on Tuesday night is the same vista we encounter upon entering at 8.30pm on Wednesday night. There’s nobody else bar the two staff. We grab a table in the corner and our chat competes with 80s and 90s music videos playing on a TV screen above the wood stove. By 9.30pm, the two counter colonisers have called it a night. By 9.55pm, the barman is approaching with a solemn look. A third pint of Rivet Catcher doesn’t appeal.

Much has been written of late about the demise of rural pubs. When you see emptiness like this, you wonder if anything can sustain a small village establishment with in times of cheap off-licence drink, zero-tolerance for drink-driving and less emphasis on community gathering.

A sideways glance at the pub’s noticeboard gives me hope for Ireby’s sociable denizens. Tuesday nights are pie night at the pub. Every second Wednesday night is quiz night. The owner seems to have put much store into providing good pub food six nights a week. Its Meta account reveals that the pub makes a real effort into providing a sense of occasion for big events like the Eurovision, the World Cup and the coronation. And so it is: the pub’s hours reflect the demand that’s there, and all the owner can do is offer food and drink and a place for people to gather and mark the big moments and the small ones.

A local newspaper interview with the pub’s owner casts light on the name. Emily is the younger of his two daughters. His tea rooms in nearby Uldale are named after the older. Naming his businesses after them is a constant reminder of his motivation. If pubs like this succeed then places like Ireby will have a greater appeal when Emily and her generation decide whether to stay or go.

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The Thursday Tipple: The Enclosure Bar, Horse and Jockey, Tipperary

Posted on July 20, 2023 by stevedineen

Ballylooby. Birdhill. Cloughjordan. Dualla. Galbooly. Grangemockler. Killenaule. Ninemilehouse. Every county has their placename gems but I think Tipperary is premier. Moycarkay: who? what? when? where? why? But my favourite is Horse and Jockey, sounding concurrently utilitarian and comical. Etymology, who? What? When?….

I assume everyone knows of Horse and Jockey as a place to stop because it’s the metaphorical half-way point on the drive from Dublin to Cork. But that’s probably because for many years my parents used stop there for a rest and a bite on their regular trips up and down the M7 and M8.

‘A village of six houses’ was how it was described in Basset’s County Directory of 1889. It hasn’t changed much. Back then, it was on the Southern Railway line. Now it’s just off Ireland’s most travelled motorway. It’s a cluster of garage, petrol station/shop and bar. You won’t spot houses easily. Yet get out of the car and the first thing that hits you is the pure air. Gone is the smell of city traffic and construction. It’s pure and agricultural.

The Enclosure Bar at The Horse and Jockey Hotel doesn’t feel like it’s changed since I first stopped there many years ago: wooden furnishings, many nooks, a high bar and a welcoming feel. The pub’s decor is the folklore of GAA (county and club) and horse racing. You won’t need to ask the bar staff to ‘turn on the match’ of whatever description in this pub.

Sometimes pub grub in these motorway-defined locations leaves a lot to be desired. There’s good choice at The Enclosure Bar. It feels like genuine (country) pub grub. You’re not feeling bereft when you pay the bill.

Whenever I think of an off-motorway restaurant or diner I think of Hopper’s painting Nighthawks, which evokes loneliness and somewhere people would rather not be. I’m wrong about Nighthawks: it’s neither a diner on a travel route nor inspired by loneliness. The Enclosure Bar surprises too. It doesn’t quite feel like a stop-off but more a melting pot of locals and those en route somewherewho, like me, would happily stay and sack off the remainder of the journey. It’s nice knowing there’s always a place with a welcome and good offering on the road from here to there.

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The Thursday Tipple: The Lobster Pot, Bridlington (England)

Posted on June 24, 2023 by stevedineen

You’ve probably never heard of Bridlington in England. You’re unsure how to pronounce it. And you probably think you’ll never go there. I’d never heard of it until I found myself preparing to go on holidays there for a week. It’s between Newcastle and Hull, on the east coast. Brid rhymes with Madrid. Lington takes care of itself.

Don’t think of Madrid weather, mind you. They had a good late May this year but I arrive on Sunday in early June to a stiff breeze, cloud that exudes dullness, and 14 degrees that stay until the transformation to sunshine that always arrives the day before leaving, sunshine transforming to radiance on departure day.

But beyond the uninspiring weather and the half-farce of sitting on a beach for days in attire you would only dream of wearing inside, Bridlington’s rolling beaches of thick sand and continual sound of low waves rolling in off the North Sea are good for the soul. The walk to the beach is perhaps the most invigorating aspect, the rising hum of the sea filling your ears as you approach.

As buckets and spades permeate more of my holidays it’s getting harder for me to get that holiday pint (note: not bottle or can of beer at residence) in for two compelling reasons. One is almost three, the other three months. Such is life and we wouldn’t have it other way. Yet I do love a pint on holidays, those irreverent late afternoons you can never have at home, when no duty on the other side of it seems compromised by one, or two, or…well, that would be it nowadays.

Yet the opportunity for one presents itself towards week’s end. An extended family meal at The Lobster Pot, a hotel-pub on an approach road to the town, a place so big it must cater for many on weeks when the town heaves with holiday makers occupying the many mobile homes, caravan sites and hotels.

I don’t criticise easily but the food is disappointing. The kids’ hummus starters arrive without one of its two veg. These things happen but there’s no mention of the absent cucumber by the waiter. Despite plenty of fish options on the menu, there is literally no fish available on the day though. You can smell the sea-salt in the air. My Hunter’s Chicken is tarnished by excessive BBQ sauce. For full disclosure, the others are happy with their meals and the kids’ sausages and mash is tasty.

The pint is of more concern to me than Hunter’s Chicken or indeed anyone else’s. I’m pleased to report that the choice is extensive and the quality high. I try the Wainwright Gold ale (4.1%) and approve. It’s served only a bit below room temperature, like many cask beers in Britain are. Draught beers here and there are served at a much colder temperature. The warmer temperature usually brings out the flavours. Wainwright has pedigree. I enjoy the first third of a pint of Neck Oil Session IPA (4.3%) too before crowd control of children calls time.Its spacious interiors provide open spaces and quieter corners for meals or quiet drinks. Outside there’s a little playground, an excellent idea for any venue serving meals for kids. Without it the third of Neck Oil or my pilfering of my son’s sausages and mash wouldn’t have been possible.

We dream of faraway days, maybe even in Bridlington, when one of The Lobster Pot’s outdoor wooden tables and benches might be ours and the Two Principal Reasons why a pint is hard to enjoy might occupy two of the four spaces without stabilisation or negotiation. When they might colour in objects on a drawing page, or even eat their meals, or converse with us, for the duration of one uninterrupted holiday pint. Faraway Bridlingtons are greener.

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The Thursday Tipple: The Lobster Pot, Bridlington (England)

Posted on June 23, 2023 by stevedineen

Its spacious interiors provide open spaces and quieter corners for meals or quiet drinks. Outside there’s a little playground, an excellent idea for any venue serving meals for kids. Without it the third of Neck Oil or my pilfering of my son’s sausages and mash wouldn’t have been possible. We dream of faraway days, maybe even in Bridlington, when one of The Lobster Pot’s outdoor wooden tables and benches might be ours and the Two Principal Reasons why a pint is hard to enjoy might occupy two of the four spaces without stabilisation or negotiation. When they might colour in objects on a drawing page, or even eat their meals, or converse with us, for the duration of one uninterrupted holiday pint. Faraway Bridlingtons are greener.

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The Storyteller, Grand Canal Street Lower, Dublin 2

Posted on March 30, 2023 by stevedineen

For months I cycle past the scaffolded building every week, green mesh covering the bars and planks that denote a major job on a once-large public house. I used to live around the corner from Becky Morgan’s but my excitement at moving into an area with a ‘local’ within walking distance was short-lived. It always felt empty and brought little life to a gloomy interface between town and the Silicon Docks.

Then one day, I notice the scaffolding is gone and a new pub is emerging from the chrysalis. The Storyteller, it’s called. I’ve never heard of any other pub named so. Every man, woman and child in Ireland is a storyteller; every pub’s stool, chair and couch an auditorium. Perfect.

Early evening, one weekday in late February, I notice lights on as I cycle home from work. There’s no red carpet outside or loud music, just the sight of people inside and outside (on its long, well-covered veranda out front). On Friday of the same week I lock my bike outside it on the way home, excited at witnessing history in the making, or more objectively, a pub in action on its inaugural Friday night.

I watch a young chivalrous continental man open the main door for several women he’s arrived with, heralding the weekend, perhaps a romance kindled by a Friday night telling stories of near and afar. I think of when Becky Morgan’s opened in 1880 and how the men who worked in the nearby docks perhaps adjourned to male-dominated pubs on payday. In the siliconised, part-virtual docklands of Dublin 2 and 4, it’s important that blended workers have somewhere to interact beyond the cyber, their desks or the office beanbags.

To my amazement the pub is heaving. Young bar staff are busy keeping patrons in snug semi-circular enclaves. The crowd is young and old, with the first-floor bar filled with a younger crowd. Tasty-looking food comes down a traditional dumbwaiter before being carted away to an excited table. The pub’s interior is black – all walls are black – and has a modern look to a traditional Irish pub feel.

One of the barmen has a pub proprietor’s look: always surveying, wanting to know, a smile and a word for all. I ask him if they opened during the week. Yes but with no fanfare, he tells me. He was happy for the pub to open quietly and nothing go wrong than a big bash with something inevitably going wrong. Family and friends congregated for the opening. Jack’s his name, one of the owners. I introduce myself. ‘Steve, do you want another?’ he asks me when my drink is finished, and remembers my name again as I say farewell. I can’t rate the beers, my drink was only soft. I’m on standby for the arrival any day now of our second child. I’m surprised they don’t serve coffee.

A week later, I drive past The Storyteller. It’s much later on a Friday this time, yet the lights are still on and the signs are that it’s had another busy Friday. I wonder again about the chivalrous young man, and all the others, who’ve graced and will grace The Storyteller to begin a Friday night. Where do their stories begin and end? I’m on my way home, my head swirling with images of our newborn’s arrival, several hours earlier, in the maternity hospital three blocks away. May he always have places in which to tell his stories. May his and The Storyteller’s life be long.

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Brickyard Gastropub, Dundrum

Posted on March 9, 2023 by stevedineen

London has loads of them but Dublin doesn’t: pubs right beside railway stations. I remember being in the bar at Heuston Station years ago and feeling completely underwhelmed. Balally Luas station, near Dundrum, has one, and on a recent Friday night I spent half an hour at one waiting for deliverance – not by a train but a friend. He was putting his kids to bed, a perfection-less art where time has little meaning.

For the first part of the half hour I sent all the texts I never get around to sending, checked a few things online, considered moving inside to watch the rugby but all the bar’s large recentangular tables seemed fully occupied. It was a mild, windy evening and the comfortable terraced area offered the chance of fresh air after another ‘blended week’. Phone put away, I simply inhaled, exhaled, observed.

Most captivating was a group of four friends sitting near me at two barrels. The three lads and a ‘gal looked early twenties. They talked in calm tones, never rising to a laugh only stretched mouths when sarcasm briefly entered the conversation.

What do I know about people half my age, I asked myself. The only snippets I get of their world are people talking on the LUAS. When they talk to me at work it’s usually on the terms of those, like me, approaching middle-age.

In a fit of early middle-aged panic I rose and approached them. ‘Sorry, would you mind if I joined you for a drink? I’m stuck here waiting for the next train and it’s not till midnight,’ I said in attempt at joke.

‘Of course,’ said the cap wearing girl, deadpan. ‘We’re inter-railing and are waiting for the next train to Prague. We’ve been sitting here for three years.’

I warmed the four of them up as vigorously as I could, asked them what they did. They’re studying in UCD. We shared stories about studying Arts. We ended up talking about music and what recent gigs they’d been to. I hadn’t heard of any of the bands but they looked at me as those I understood their culture. We returned to the topic of inter-railing and though I travelled the continent when Eastern European countries still checked passport numbers against those in telephone-directory sized books of black-listed numbers, we shared solidarity in discussing what cities are worth visiting.

I’m young! I thought with relief. I know what young people do and feel and think, and I’m not that different! Until I mentioned the immense range of beers. ‘We don’t really drink,’ said one of them though their glasses looked frothily full. Two others nodded. I’ve heard this endlessly but still was somehow surprised that in a pub on a Friday night with about forty beers to choose from, four hot-blooded Irish people in their twenties wouldn’t let themselves go on one or two of them.

‘Well, nice meeting you guys,’ I said, ‘I’m gonna go and check if the midnight train has arrived early.’ They laughed. ‘Just messing, I’m gonna see what score it is in the rugby.’ I left with sideways handshakes (they still do them, phew!) and texted my impunctual friend to say be careful not to get side-tracked on his way in by youth !

Well… that actually didn’t happen… I just day-dreamt it as I waited. But I did notice that that they were drinking beer amidst the sea of crafty beer choice. And I felt some inter-generational solidarity despite all the talk of how that generation barely drink at all. The logic extension of the change in habits is that Irish pubs will change.

I hope Brickyard Gastropub stays the same though. During my long wait I lost myself in the drinks menu, looking at all the names, strengths and prices. When my friend, followed by another, arrived we tried a few of the commendable options. The pub’s website (and offshoot for ordering beers online) suggests the owners’ immersion in the world of craft beer. A number of micro breweries are supported. In partnership with 57 The Headline (on Clonbrassil Street), it’s got an online beer store through which you can collect craft beers at the pub or have your beers delivered anywhere across the country.

Their commitment to craft beers got me thinking about the scale of this highly visible yet somewhat subterranean world of brewing. Despite the fact that it feels like the range of Irish-sounding, craft beers has exponentially expanded in our pubs and off-licence/supermarket shelves over the past decade, the craft brewing sector accounts for only 3-3.5% of the Irish market, according to a recent newspaper article. About 125 micro-brewing companies were operating in Ireland in mid-2018, according to a contemporaneous study, with about 60% of them independent production microbreweries. Whilst the number of production microbreweries grew massively in the ‘teens’ – from 15 in 2012 to 75 in 2018 – there has been an increase in the number of failed companies. Seven microbreweries failed between mid-2016 and mid-2018. Before the pandemic, the rate of output growth had slowed dramatically and Irish microbreweries still hadn’t made inroads into export markets. In 2018, the sector supported 425 full-time equivalent jobs, with each of those jobs supporting at least one in the wider economy.

As a Friday night pub, Brickyard Gastropub is vibrant. It has just been refurbished, replacing a somewhat bare, hollow-feeling interior for a far cosier, intimate one, suitable for dining or drinking. Its exterior, with its sloping canopies, is an inviting set-up for mild days or nights. For choice of beers, the pub is to be praised. And there is something nice about the thought that its owners are supporting an important sub-sector of the brewing industry, giving us a range of beers with distinctive flavours, and mass production not a key ingredient. You could do worse than miss the next train at Balally. It’s good to be young.

Stairway to helles (a 5% ABV larger stein) €6.00

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The Traveller’s Rest Inn, Grasmere, Lake District

Posted on October 13, 2022 by stevedineen

An open fire just just inside the front door greeted us. The barman – fifties, tall and dressed semi-formally and all in black – let his Northern accent (I’m guessing Cumbrian) come through as we discussed the crisp options and payment by card. Four or five draft beer options presented themselves but Loweswater Gold won it. It’s in the name. Then into one of the snugs in the one of the two rooms for patrons, where nothing distracted us from the view of the mountains we’d just conquered, the slow peace from the beer and our own easy chat amidst a backdrop of low burble from the other tables.

I can’t offer much other information about the pub except that the menu looks good (e.g. Hunters Skillet of pan fried chicken livers with Rich Jus for starters, £9.95; Scallops and Pancetta Linguine for mains, £17.95). There are separate dining areas for evening meals and for the ten letting rooms’ lodgers (presumably for breakfasts). Either side of the building has an expanse of beer garden with appealing views. After one pint, we left with hope of return.

Something about the pub I couldn’t put my finger on gnawed at me for a few days. There was something strange about the atmosphere. On the evening we got home from the pub I couldn’t find the water bottle from the walk. That gave me a reason to go back to the pub.

The last day of the holiday brought biblical rain levels – volumes often seen in those parts. Dripping wet, I ran in at Friday lunchtime. The open fire was even more inviting and this time I thought of more than one. I realised what was strange. It was the atmosphere of a pub with no locals – none of the easy banter that emanates from patrons who know each other, staff and a place well. The pub’s architecture doesn’t help. But located on the main road, an unpleasant walk at night from the village, it’s only surrounded by farms. The pub can’t do anything about that. But it can keep providing rest, for an hour, for a night, for a week, from the rain.

(Two pints of Loweswater Gold and two packets of crisps: €13.28, current converted)

Posted in Pubs | Tagged Lake District | Leave a comment

In praise of the ordinary…

Posted on April 8, 2022 by stevedineen

We’re dating again, after two barren years. First it was parenthood, then the pandemic. Nights out for dinner and drinks, or cinema weekends in the winter, were replaced with a baby monitor, a lack of babysitter and a cityscape of pubs and restaurants oscillating from closed to open until the bedtime of a baby.

On our escape from the house we bump into neighbours living two doors down.

‘The cinema’s closed, we were going to go see Belfast,’ they tells us. We’d spent the week deliberating between cinema or a meal. We knew the flicks would completely absorb us, bring us out of a Venn diagram of parenthood and pandemic, a world devoid of time or distinction since a time we can barely remember. We’d eaten together every night for two years, had talked to each other till talked had talked itself to death. In the end the choice was made for us. Now we understood why we couldn’t book tickets online.

‘We went for Tapas in the end,’ they explain. But the service was bad: a ten-minute wait for someone to take their order; a disappointing something or other; an overpriced something else. Ah, the old music of Irish complaint. I’ve missed this. Yet I haven’t missed that shared experience of being eluded by the twins customer service and value for money.

Despite the enforced enclosure every night for two years, the meal out together feels like a first: a bottle of wine in a dimly lit room; low music filling our ears; a candle; someone coming every five minutes to check we’re okay and fill our jug; meal options that are simply not available for delivery, or when they are, inevitably cold on arrival. There are new things to talk about as our plates get emptier and our bottle fills with light.

The clock is always ticking in our new, parental world. After dinner, we’ve forty minutes to be home to relieve the babysitter. My better half is happy to go home but sees that perpetual pint glint in my eye. We head to the nearest, local though we wouldn’t consider it our local.

The term local has all changed since we were last here. During the shutdowns we heard impassioned calls for people to shop locally, to remember that spending money locally keeps people we recognise in a job, keeps places we know open. Since we last drank here many bar staff have endured torment. Their work places couldn’t stay open. Many rural pubs have now folded. I look up at the barmen and wonder how much greyer they are.

‘A pint of Beamish please,’ I say giddily to the lounge girl. The young staff have lost out big-time too. How delighted she must be at earning enough for a night out, at being able to have a night out again.

All changed drinks-wise too. There are signs everywhere for Guinness Zero. Do lounge girls even drink on a night out, I ask myself. I asked a barman recently about the new, blackless stuff. ‘It’s like the real stuff, alright,’ he admitted with a nod, ‘but it doesn’t have the soul of Guinness.’

I could write an essay on the difference between Guinness and Beamish. My friends know my views. I’m glad the latter has emerged on the other side of the dry spell, is holding its head up in the battle with the zeros and all-conquering gins. I gulp deeply and soulfully. No lifetime of cans could compare with this.

The Friday burble feels normal. There’s nothing glorious about this pub. This pub could be everywhere and anywhere. Tonight, this Friday night mundanity, in a place people call a local, is extraordinarily ordinary.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Pub review | Leave a comment

The Thursday Tipple: Bar Rua, Clarendon Street, Dublin 2

Posted on December 20, 2020 by stevedineen

The walk towards the pub feels a lot different to the walk in February to the last pub I reviewed. That was a cold, optimistic night (aren’t they all optimistic in hindsight?), an homage to a pub on the verge of closure. Little did we know then they all were.

Chatham Street on this dark, mid-December Wednesday is busy with volunteers and homeless gathered on either side of a table distributing soup and provisions to sustain rough sleepers. Pedestrians, including me, observe them from behind our face masks. The masks, the crowds, the darkness: it all feels medieval.

In this very different year it’s fitting that the moment of meet-up feels unreal. We have to queue five minutes though we’ve reserved a table. I have to give name and mobile number. Then the second of the two friends I’m meeting for an outdoor pint and meal arrives without a mask. You need one to walk to your seating, and in and out of the pub to go to the toilets, the staff member at the entrance tells him. He’s apologetic but firm. They’re the rules.

‘How can you go into a shop to buy a mask if you’re not allowed in to a shop without one on?’ I ask my other friend existentially. Yet the other friend returns successfully.

Even the ordering is jerky. We tell the staff member serving us that we’ll order drinks but wait to order food when our friend returns. He doesn’t understand and walks away. Another waiter does the same. My phone can’t read the QR code to read the menu. To avoid touching phones my friend has to WhatsApp me the menu.

A review of an outdoor pub experience in winter doesn’t seem valid. Perhaps I should be reviewing the culture of al fresco pints in any weathers. As a perpetually cold creature I didn’t think I’d survive. But I do (like the outdoor coffee culture). I’ve dressed up warmly, braced myself. After several pints, as the temperatures of my body and the December night drop, I put on a hat. Towards the end, I resort to a hot port (non-descript). We’ve all become resourceful.

All pubs have had to adapt and Bar Rua has done so reasonably well. Patrons are relatively well spaced out. The outdoor area is comfortable. The menu is good. The food is promptly served and tasty, a vegetarian burger in my case. The pints taste good, though I declare a conflict of interest: that could be the novelty after all this time. The beer choice, however, could be wider.

Despite the unreal experience (like that any pub visit I’ve had since the big change) the timeless experience of a drink with friends in a pub returns. The taste of beer meeting the sound of a friend’s laughter or familiar sentence comes quick enough.

Chatham Street is quiet as Bar Rua disappears behind us. The helpers and the homeless are gone. For all the wrinkles of an outdoor Christmas pandemic pint, perspective is needed. May everyone be safe and comfortable this Christmas.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bar Rua | Leave a comment

The Thursday Tipple: The Kings Arms, Roupell Street, London

Posted on December 21, 2025 by stevedineen

I almost ended up living there, for a time at least. And when I go back to visit with my wife, who I met there and with whom I ‘did long-distance’ for 18 months, I sip beer and wonder what my weekend world might be like. What suburb? What park and café on Saturdays? Who would we socialise with? What pub would be local?

I think of all this a lot as two friends, who live in London, and I, plan to go out for a few in central London in on a November Saturday night. To my surprise, despite both of them first moving there almost twenty years ago, neither have any clear views on where we’d go. At the eleventh hour, one of them suggests a pub near Waterloo. We converge at 8. There isn’t even standing room. We abandon it. Funny, in all my decades living in Dublin, in all the pubs, be it a weeknight, Thursday (the new Friday), a weekend night or a long weekend, it’s rare that I’ve entered and waved the white flag of surrender.

We walk around the corner and find ourselves on a quiet street of terraced, two-storey brick houses. We can hear the pulse and pull of central London in either direction: on one side, the pubs and nocturnal fever around Waterloo; on the other, the masses near the sprawling towerscape by London Bridge. Yet here, all is quiet, all houses firmly curtained/blinded for the night, garlanded by cars, some of which remind me of the vehicles you’d find in a 1970s British spy drama.

For a moment, the night is hanging on a knife-edge. The lads have no ideas. We’re not bothered wandering around the metropolis searching for a watering hole for an hour. We walk for a minute, all unsure where we’re headed. A pub presents itself on the corner of Roupell Street: the Kings Arms. A quick walk around it is ominous. All the low, tiny, circular tables are occupied. The bar is fully populated. The restaurant at the back of the pub, with plenty of tables, isn’t full, but we’re told there are more reservations, people to come. This is it then: here or nothing. We resign ourselves to standing, and resting our drinks on the tiled mantlepiece of a gas fireplace.

All the beers on offer are exotic sounding and for the first time I’ve realised that no matter where I’ve drank in Britain (and I’ve been out a good bit in London, Manchester, the Lake District, and holidayed in many other places), this is the case. People complain about the fact that British pubs are ‘tied’ – that the conglomerates who own the majority of pubs limit the offering of drinks – but in truth, there’s a stronger element of choice than in Ireland. It feels like 90% of the draught brews in Britain are warm. My advice: identify the type of beer you like (e.g. ale, lager), choose one and hope for the best. I choose an amber ale and hit the jackpot.

An hour into the conversation a small group abandon their table near the door. We grab it and tell our forty-something year-old bodies that it’s downhill from here. I sip my pint, listen to my two friends argue the toss over something, and observe. A few tall men wearing England rugby scarves are leaning into their tables to quietly discuss something, possibly still the repercussions of the England game they attended at Twickenham that afternoon. There’s a couple in their sixties sitting by the bar talking casually about this and that, pausing between topics, occasionally looking at and sharing information from their phones. They look like native Londoners. It is uncosy here but not cold. It is loud but not vociferous. It is civil. It is benign. I’ll be honest, I don’t quite have the word for it, but it’s different to home. This would have been my Saturday night out, as it is for my two friends: rare; away from the suburb they live in; a trek to get to; nice but not the same.

The last big difference from home is the brutal ending. The bell rings for last orders. My friend is in the gents. When he returns, I suggest a final one though we neither need it or will be glad of it tomorrow. Are you, he asks. It’s only 10.55. The barwoman (no lounge staff in most pubs in Britain) warns me I’ll only have ten minutes to drink it. I’d forgotten about their closing time period. At ten past, she comes over and hands us two plastic glasses to decant our drinks into, for the road, literally. Two minutes later, she is back with our marching orders. Our night is over and suddenly we’re on Roupell Street in the November cold with plastic glasses of spirits. I make a note to self: before going out in London again, search online for pubs with a late licence. Surely there is somewhere in the centre of the old British Empire that serves a pint two hours after one’s kids have gone to sleep. But if there isn’t, it’s worth another shot in the Kings Arms.

Happy Christmas.

Posted in Pubs | Tagged beer, europe, food, London, Roupell Street, travel | Leave a comment

A slow news way – the art of sending postcards

Posted on August 4, 2025 by stevedineen

Despite their much-heralded demise, wherever you go, you’ll always enter at least one shop during your holiday that sells postcards. People must be still buying them. Who bothers these days, you ask, when images or information about anywhere is readily available online. People are usually in touch with an intended recipient before a postcard arrives. Who unnecessarily spends money on postcards and postage (which has become much more expensive in recent years) to connect with family and friends when they can simply send a phone photo?

All true, but the flipside is the perennial benefits of the paper and pent. It’s a very personal communication between sender and recipient – even more personal in an era when sending a postcard is ‘an effort’. People appreciate effort. It’s a way of connecting with people, particularly people you haven’t been in touch with in ages. It can ignite an awareness of, or curiosity in, a place – in a way an amateur phone photo often doesn’t – particularly in children.

Next time you’re on holidays, try sending five postcards and watch the ripples of positivity. I’ve been sending and collecting postcards for decades. Here are five tips for your trial:

1. Buy, write and post early

You might enter a shop selling postcards early on a holiday and think you’ve plenty of time. Then before you know it, it’s the last day and you haven’t bought the cards or written any or you’re scrambling to find somewhere that sells stamps. To avoid heartache, buy the cards on the first day or two.

Enquire as soon as you arrive where you can buy stamps. Some countries are very restrictive in where they can be purchased. You might find out on day 2 where to buy them, but it might be day 6 or 7 before you get to said location! In other countries, shops aren’t bothered selling them or post offices trade during strange hours. Then write them early so that you’re not scrambling to find that half an hour to write them all then post them as you’re packing and racing to the airport.

2. Don’t write any cards too early

Point number 1 comes with this rider. You’ll have a sense of place or an anecdote after a day or two. If you write the postcards too early you could find yourself ‘stuck’ about what to write and end up feeling you’ve short-changed someone with your descriptions.

3. Think carefully about your choice of recipients

Some people will get no joy in receiving a postcard. Target your penmanship on those who’ll enjoy them. Do you know anyone who will feel a connection to the place or your experience(s)? Is there a relative or friend you’ve neglected to keep in touch with but with whom you’d like to reach out? Is there someone who could do with cheering up, or someone to whom you’re trying to make amends? Do you know someone who’s just bought a new home or moved home and would enjoy a little home-maker? Is there someone you know who’s lonely or just might enjoy a bit of news? Uncles and aunts always come to mind as people who appreciate a postcard.

Try and match the recipient with the image. The picture can transport the recipient to the place, possibly igniting an interest in going there themselves. An engineer will enjoy the photo of an iconic suspension bridge. The sun-lover should enjoy the beach. The nature lover will enjoy a breath-taking image of the mountains. The amateur historian will enjoy the photo of the Colosseum etc.

4. Write the postcards in one session and start with the least intimidating recipient

There there are those who just want a quick overview of the place and holiday/trip, and a personal message. These are the impressionists. Start with this group. After writing one or two you’ll discover what you want to say about a place and you’ll begin to find your descriptive groove.

Then there are a few people who’ll want to know details, stories, history etc. These are the realists – usually a harder crowd. By the time you turn to the realists you’ll have found the necessary confidence.

5. Be patient!

Don’t ruin the surprise of receiving a postcard by asking the recipient if they’ve received it yet. Some countries have poor postal services. Some countries’ postal services may not prioritise mail to the country of destination. The staff member at the airport or hotel whom you handed the postcard to and asked him to send it because you couldn’t find a post box will eventually send it. But he will lose it twice before he does, or his wife will find it in his pocket and dutifully send it knowing he will never remember. It might get lost in a postal sorting office, but turn up eventually.

Fifteen years ago, I told a girl I’d kind of begun seeing that I collected postcards. I asked her to send me one from her girls’ holiday to Ibiza. She said she would and returned from holidays saying she had. I didn’t believe her. A year later, the postcard arrived.

Fifteen years later, I’m sure she’s glad she doesn’t get asked by me anymore for a postcard. Instead, she is asked by me on every holiday she takes how many postcards she wants me to buy for her to send, and who does she think she’ll send them to. What happened in Ibiza should have stayed in Ibiza, but I’m pretty sure I know what happened, because history repeats itself on every holiday: she always leaves the writing and sending of postcards to the day of departure!

Posted in Tourist reviews | Tagged Postcards, travel, writing | Leave a comment

The Storeyteller, 9 Lower Grand Canal Street, Dublin 2 (re-visited)

Posted on March 13, 2025 by stevedineen

I didn’t think I’d spend Valentine’s Night, aged 44, in a city-centre pub having a quiz night. It’s ‘the music round’ as I order. Snippets of songs blare out more audaciously than a concert sound system. I’m getting older. Music is getting older, louder.

I can explain why I’m here, 12 years into our relationship, seven years into our marriage. Our monthly date night brought us to the Bord Gáis Theatre. After the show (Doctor Strangelove: excellent), the question was where next. Despite all the apartments and companies at Charlotte Quay and the encircling Silicon Docks, there are few pubs. Where have all the locals gone?

Some might go to The Storeyteller, about five minutes’ walk from the theatre. I’m pleased to go back there and see how it’s doing, two years to the week it opened. I visited it on its first Friday, the two-storey pub full of people and promise and interior shine. How is it doing? Has it found an enduring mix of offering and patrons?

Clearly, the Valentine’s Night quiz offering hasn’t evacuated the crowd. Some participants are middle-aged. Some are young lovers. There are groups of friends of varying ages. It all feels undefinable.

There’s little space downstairs so we adjourn to the upstairs bar: unmanned, only one other table used. It seems strange having it open without anyone staff behind the small bar. The art on the picture-filled walls suggests a place pitched at the young. After our first drink, when the quiz is ended, we’re asked if we could move downstairs. The post-quiz music is too loud. The four of us can’t converse together; we retreat into bi-laterals.

Throughout the pub, small white pieces of paper, the size of bar mats, are plastered to the wall. Each one tells a story. Clever. They’re all concise, some romantic, some interesting, some juvenile. It doesn’t matter. Everyone has a story. The romantic in me is tempted to approach the bar and ask for one of the little sheets stacked in a pile. ‘Steve and Alice forever’, I’d write. The moment passes.

We leave with the music still booming for the Friday night revellers. I still can’t put my finger on who constitutes this pub’s loyal patrons. They’re different to the young professionals who work nearby, who crowd the place after work, usually on Wednesdays through Fridays. It’s not the crowd who populate the place before a game at the Aviva. Locals? A mix of residentia and technia? It’s a city-centre pub in the part of town where the two worlds meet. Maybe that’s why it’s not so easily defined. Or maybe this pub is still writing its own story.

Two pints of lager, two gins and two Fevertree tonics: €35.40

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