A Day As An Idiot In Dublin
This article was originally published on plannedvsrogue.com.
I love Dublin. I say love instead of ‘loved’ because I still feel the same way about it now that I did when I was there.
Everyone who deals with tourists is super friendly about it, you can chat to your bartenders like you do on the telly and if you’re from Sydney, it’s likely you and the locals can bond over both knowing someone who lived in Coogee.
If you haven’t watched our Dublin episode, watch in now so I can talk about spoilers!
So yep, I didn’t win but life isn’t all about winning or losing! Sometimes it’s about disappointing your ancestors by losing to someone with English heritage in your homeland. Doesn’t mean there isn’t fun to be had!
EPIC - The Irish Emigration Museum
The ads for EPIC are everywhere in Dublin which is precisely what prompted me to visit. Although Katie didn’t agree, I found the experience very emotional as we looked through the underground tunnels and heard all the stories of people who had to leave Ireland due to about 50 different types of persecution. The exibits were very interactive and while I don’t think you necessarily ‘need’ to visit EPIC, if you have some Irish heritage and a minimum fleeting interest in it then you should probably do what I did and set aside a long morning for EPIC.
Trinity College Library
Yeah, I know. I’m meant to be the rogue one and I started off my day with a museum and a library. Not only that but a library you had to pay to enter and had no books, both at the time of shooting and writing. Years ago I got a Lonely Planet guide filled with destinations all creative people should visit and the one that captured my imagination featured the towering stacks of leatherbound books in this very library. I imagined myself strolling the stacks for inspiration, holding a Guinness for some reason.
Still, I don’t know what I was doing here. Was I pandering to Katie?
Trinity College Free Art Exhibition
Yep, it was a free art exhibition by uni students, nice to look at for a bit, does the job, good early work for the students to look back on one day and smile at their artistic improvements. It caught my eye as we were going past to start the inevitable pub crawl but also served the bonus purpose of a place for great pub tips. You want tips of the rowdiest most session-built pubs in town? Go ask an arts student for tips. That’s what I did which led me on my next little adventure.
The Snug
Dublin’s cheapest pint of Guinness. What else do I really need to say? For that reason alone The Snug feels like a bucket list item for your Dublin pub crawl. (Pint was still €5.10 by the way).
There are a lot of pubs in Dublin that make their primary trade off the back of tourists enjoying a semi-simulated Irish pub experience. For The Snug this is not the case. The front bar is packed with locals who seem to know the woman working the bar all too well, a feeling that feels kind of mutual. Way off the tourist track because it doesn’t offer much to tourists apart from the story of how they had Dublin’s cheapest pint.
Grogan’s
As you can see in the episode, J. Grogan (known affectionately as Grogans) was so busy there literally wasn’t a single place to sit so we had to move on immediately. I can only critique the décor which was no frills but added to the atmosphere which was delightfully cosy.
Brogan’s
Possibly because their names rhyme, the student that gave me the pub tips mentioned Brogans in the same breath as Grogans and with them not being far from each other it was an easy choice of where to go next.
There are more framed Guinness ads on the wall of Brogans than maybe any other in Dublin which is really saying something. The ceilings have a gold trimmed ceiling which some locals hate (which is maybe why more chose to drink at Grogans) but the ones who drink there are happy to chat to tourists or leave you alone.
Loose Canon
While walking to our last stop, we passed through the posh part of Dublin. I don’t quite recall what drew me to Loose Canon but I imagine it had something to do with the Irish cheese toasties. Who knows if I’ve had Irish cheese before, it’s not like you show up to someone’s house with a platter of cheese and proudly announce it’s the real stuff from Donegal.
The toasties here are on steroids and they sell a lot of them so they have really perfected the harmony of flavours in your hot and crispy melty cheesy pocket.
Peader Brown’s
I love Irish rebel tunes but because they are so closely tied to a very dark, and very recent, chapter in Ireland’s history, the vast majority of Dublin pubs prefer music that’s a bit more radio friendly.
Except for Peader Brown’s.
Part dark humour, part pride, and part what they actually must believe, Peader Brown’s flies just about every rebellious flag there is. It was recommended to me years ago by a co-worker who knew I liked the rebel tunes and it just so happened my shooting day was rebel music night. I went back three nights later (rebel night is two nights a week obviously) and the weekend atmosphere was so buzzing, it was like being a character in an Irish pub film. If you can handle/enjoy jokes about the English and locals filling you in on obscure chapters of Irish history, it’s time for you to enlist in Peader Brown’s.
