Liam Collins in the Sunday Independent - The plain truth is, the pub is dead

In fairness we've been having too much fun wallowing in our favourite quiet pubs to write in the previous months. The Stag's Head, Kehoe's and especially Grogan's have been favourite haunts of late. The latter two always have the feel that you are at a cool house party and you've been invited.

We had a brief spell in Canada which has either VERY quiet pubs (see The Manx ) or pubs with 42 flat screens all showing the regional qualifications in senior female curling. So nothing to write home about.

For those of you with a diminished sense of direction, we now have a groovy google map of where the pub is.

See you Friday.

 

The wonderful blogorrah has noticed our little selves. Doff of the bowler hat to them and may all their pints be accompanied by the comforting murmur of conversation.

I have a new all time least favourite pub and it's called Fitzsimons. My first inkling as to its nature should have been clear on approaching the door as I could see multiple screens flickering. When I got in there were not 2, not 3, not even 4 but 5 screens. Ranging from a decent sized, would-do-for-the-bedroom TV to a gigantic 492 square meter screen. I swear a whole football pitch could be displayed to scale on it...

4 screens were showing one football match, while the smaller one was showing another match. The volume on all screeens was so high that shouting was in order. Anyway, after 90 minutes of fun and frolicks it was all over and I thought (hoped?) the screens would be rolled up and the TVs turned off, but no. The big screens were changed to women's Golf (one of my faves) and the little 'un changed to 10 pin bowling from the states! Scintillating.

Much drink was needed to endure all this so I was at the bar quiet a bit. Pints were expensive - 4.80 for a Guinness, which was poured more or less in one go...  Shoot me now. The toilets stank, you could feel the bacteria crawling up your trouser leg while you tried to pee into the urinals, which were full of discarded packets of john player blue and bog roll. Sometime earlish in the evening a pile of puke appeared on the stairs to the toilet. Aah, I love this town.

Around 11pm they turned on the house sound system (127 dB) and didn't even turn the TVs off. Instead they were just muted. There goes the environment. When I thought it couldn't get any worse a live musician turns up and installs some speakers which would not have sounded out of place in Croke park. He started playing and much to my amazement they didn't turn the music off, I could still hear a distinct tune or two coming through the other speaks. So here we were with 5 TVs on mute, the house sound system on in the background and a live musician belting out U2 at a pneumatic drill level. Conversation was futile. So we ran, left, skidaddled, parted (only about 4 hours too late).

Right, after many ham-fisted attempts at setting up a database, learning PHP and getting this place spick and span for the onslaught of visitors it looks like we are now live!

Thanks so far to Nessa, Iceman, MWalker, EoinO & Clemmer for suggestions.

Oooh, looks like we've hit a nerve. On the Rick O'Shea radio show tonight talking about the show. Keep the suggestions for pubs coming in.

Over at DublinBlogs some other people who feel the same way!

I hear your pain.