Perhaps a mere week after we covered it here, Biddy Mulligan’s Olde Ale House abruptly closed. But now, as Aragorn retorted to the King of the Dead, it has been remade. Indeed, it has both returned to something closer to its previous Sackville Lounge existence and metamorphosed into its current cocktail bar form with its new/old name, The Sackville.
Its latest transformation is courtesy of the team behind the wildly-popular Bar 1661, and while it feels like an even smaller space than it did before, it’s beautifully appointed. Although it’s None More Black, it actually seems brighter than it was; the elegant lighting fixtures help a great deal in that regard. And as with Bar 1661, you are here for the next-level cocktails. There are classics and house specials, and all like their parent bar, they place a special focus on Irish spirits and ingredients. We’re talking spicy margaritas and Bloody Marys made with Bán poitín – another brainchild from Bar 1661’s Dave Mulligan, as well as a whiskey highball with Subzero pot still whiskey and soda and a well-curated selection of Irish whiskeys served solo. There’s also Bar 1661’s signature Belfast Coffee here, but as someone with a deep aversion to coffee, you’ll have to try that yourselves. (I did recently have a delightful ESB made with Earl Grey tea – Maybe I Like The Misery – but, of course, that was at Underdog. I digress). While I personally only know enough to be dangerous about cocktails – I can go down a very large rabbit hole on the history of Tiki drinks, for example – these are all clearly top-notch. Did it make me want to go book the Tasting Experience at Bar 1661, which I’ve coincidentally been given independent rave reviews about by something like 5 different people of late? Yes, very much so.
And while you’re not really here for the beer – labelled moderately-pretentiously-but-it-works as ‘pale ale,’ ‘lager’ and ‘stout’ in lower-case cursive on gold tap towers – they are, for the record, the Changing Times pale ale, Birra Moretti and, of course, Guinness. But if it’s good beer you’re after, you can do what we did and stop off at Piper’s Corner first while you’re waiting for The Sackville to open; just be sure you get there soon after, as it fills up immediately. The Flowing Tide would also do the trick if you’re in the area.
If you’re wondering what happened to the portraits of the 1916 leaders, they are still here, protected under the new panelwork. From a historic preservation point of view, it’s an ideal opportunity for one of those cases where they are forgotten about for a few hundred years and then rediscovered in excellent condition. This is a good thing.
Finally, being so close to the Abbey Theatre, The Sackville is perfect for pre- or post-show drinks, but you may want to book in ahead of time to guarantee a spot. For all the internet scaremongering about this part of town being dangerous or run-down, there are signs of good things happening: new spots like this and the nearby Morris Bar, as well as the regeneration of longtime favourites like The Flowing Tide – combined with a bit of effort from Dublin City Council to keep things a little tidier – makes for an area on the rise.
Let’s hope that continues.
Where: 16 Sackville Pl, North City, Dublin, D01 V0C7
Access from the city centre: Luas Green Line, Buses 9, 13, 14, 83, 122, 123, 10-ish minute walk
Food: Almonds, olives
Sport: No
TVs: No need
Music: Perfect cocktail-bar sophistication
Family-friendliness: Not really space for the younglings
Pub-crawl-ability: High – Mooney’s of Abbey Street, The Morris Bar, Kimchi Hophouse, MeMa’s, The Big Romance, The Flowing Tide, The Palace Bar, Piper’s Corner, Bowes, JR Mahon's, The Oval Bar, Mulligan’s and The Confession Box; also not too far from The Silver Penny if you must visit a ‘Spoons
Local sites of note: O’Connell Street, The Spire, The Portal, GPO, Custom House, Busáras, Connolly Station, Abbey Theatre, Gate Theatre, NATIONAL WAX MUSEUM, Ha’Penny Bridge
Haunted: Only by the queues outside
Other notes: Beautifully-crafted cocktails come at speed – it looks like such a stressful job!
Socials: Instagram
We didn’t have time to get to a ‘new’ pub this week for a conventional entry, but given the (strange) glorious sunny weather, we’ll do a quick round-up of the nicest 
And so, with definitions out of the way, here are some of our favourite proper Dublin 
Then, to the other side of the Liffey: 
Next, on to 
Last week, we asked whether 
The pub has been here since the 1850s, and in the Hedigan family since 1904, and you can’t miss their name in neon, either. Of course, like so many pubs along this route, it’s name-checked in Ulysses, and has a useful write-up 
Well, there have been proposals to 
We are back this week with a ‘request pub’ – one that’s much further north than our more common north-of-the-Liffey-but-still-pretty-central stomping grounds. We’re heading out of Dublin City proper to Howth; it’s an easy trip on the DART, but a bit of a pain if, for example, you needed Dublin Bus to deposit you to a nearby spot at a predetermined time. Dublin Bus is not always especially good at the concept of ‘on time’ (but it’s pretty great on ghost buses), so the journey in this general direction involved more taxis than I typically take in a 6-month period, but we got there in the end. Our (eventual) destination was 
I’d recently had an exchange on the socials lamenting the lack of railway station bars in Ireland, and while we have nothing here quite like the small-but-mighty 
We enjoyed excellent food and service when we stopped in, which isn’t necessarily a given in some pubs mid-week in the middle of the afternoon (hardly a fruitful time for most), so it was much appreciated. There is outdoor seating as well around both ends of the pub, but we kept to the more dimly-lit interior on a lovely sunny afternoon. Having offspring who actively avoid the sun may be odd to others, but hey, at least their vampiric ways are preventing long-term sun damage, and the pub interior really is lovely, all stone and dark wood.
A proper ‘Pubs of Croke Park’ roundup is long overdue, and with so many events on this summer, we may as well finally start working on that. While we’ve already covered a few handy ones like 
It’s very much a ‘locals’ pub most of the time, but a welcoming one; I’ve had out-of-town guests wind up there and have great chats with the barstaff. No frills, but no pretention, either. If you are looking to pre-game before an event at Croke Park, it’s hard to be better-placed for an easy walk in to the stadium. And, of course, the pub’s name 
Locals know this, but the visitor to Dublin may not know that horse racing is Kind of a Big Deal. There are endless ads from the various wagering platforms leading up to some of the larger race meetings, and as we’re in the middle of Cheltenham Week*, it seemed appropriate to venture to one of the many Old Man Pubs that draw in the 
But back to The Wind Jammer: the exterior looks more than a little tired, but once in the door, it’s perhaps surprisingly tidy and well-wallpapered – not to the standard of the much-newer 
While it’s only a short walk from more ‘hipster’ bars like 
Back in the day – you know, perhaps 3 years ago – this week’s pub was The Porterhouse Central. It was a very handy spot in that you could enjoy a mix of interesting beers from Porterhouse and various guest options, but you avoided 
However, I happened to be in the area and had a bit of time after a meeting, so I gave Tapped another try. I’m pleased to say that the interior, while still feeling just slightly too ‘taproom’ has been softened and improved. There is now much more comfortable seating and the lighting is more dialled-in; it feels warmer on the whole. There are screens showing the beer lineup, 
While it may seem that we rarely venture south of the Liffey (true, really), we recently had occasion to be down in our old Ballsbridge stomping grounds, and so returned to 
There has been much local discussion surrounding the launch of 
And that may be all well and good for many customers, but these new brews haven’t (mostly) muscled out the usual macro suspects; it’s the ‘good’ beers that have been jettisoned to make space, including – really a loss here – the Pilsner Urquell. Removed from The Bridge’s menu now are Rye River Upstream Pale Ale, Warsteiner lager and, er, Madri. The Madri may be no great loss, but the others are keenly felt (especially if, say, A Friend were really looking forward to a Pilsner Urquell, sighed to make do with a Warsteiner and then realised that the only drinkable lager was Carlsberg). To add insult to injury, the hand-painted panel all about Pilsner Urquell has been partially, but not entirely, covered by a television. Ouch.
This week’s pub is one that we’ve both been asked to profile repeatedly, and, in nearly equal measure, begged not to reveal it as a secret hidden gem. Is it possible to satisfy both of these audiences? Let’s find out – and so, we venture back to Marlborough Street, home to 
Also unlike many other Old Man Pubs, there was an independent beer option: Kinnegar’s Scraggy Bay. In some pubs that don’t have that kind of turnover for non-Guinness options, they aren’t always as fresh, but there were no such issues here. Guinness was, of course, plentiful, but there were many pints of lager being consumed, too – it is slightly unusual to see Tuborg on one of the taps in a Dublin pub, but I have a soft spot for many Carlsberg products, so it was quite welcome. The décor is, again, by no means fancy, but it’s very well-kept: red and cream paint, lighter wood tones and simple brass lamps on the bar. The crowd was clearly mostly regulars, and although most were deeply invested in the multiple channels of horse racing, there were other long-running conversations, too.
And while it may be true that this is not the cleanest nor most well-kept part of Dublin, that is presumably part of what keeps the tourists away, Georgian architecture notwithstanding. And although some parts of Reddit may be thoroughly convinced that we’re all just waiting to get murdered north of the Liffey, there are signs of positive development; newer pubs like The Morris Bar, just a short walk away, suggest that things are slowly improving. But for a pub like Briody’s that’s been here for over a century in various guises, it seems to be content to keep its current mix of regulars and semi-regulars who drop in whenever they are in town.
Although I’ve lived an extremely brief walk from James Gill’s Corner House for over 4 years, I have never managed to be going past when it was open – until now. Its ‘regular’ opening hours are nothing of the sort, but that’s part of this pub’s mythology. Gill’s Pub opens when Gill’s Pub decides to do so. So, what’s it like?
As mentioned, the opening hours are…erratic at best. But if the door is open, you’ll find the walls lined with match-day programs and event posters from previous games and concerts (for those of us who live nearby, we can simply hear everything in the garden – a blessing or a curse, depending on the fixture or artist). But inside there is also the mural of 
But during Behan’s youth, this area wasn’t merely residential –