The Irish Pub
March 26, 2025 9:59 AM Subscribe
"As such, in every bar that his company creates, the bar is visible from anywhere in the pub. It’s nonnegotiable."
As are, surely, framed pictures of JFK and the Pope.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:05 AM on March 26 [3 favorites]
As are, surely, framed pictures of JFK and the Pope.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:05 AM on March 26 [3 favorites]
I was an exchange student in Germany around the turn of the millennium and when my cohort of a dozen Americans showed up in a medium-sized university town about a third of the group gravitated heavily to the Irish pub--in this case a pub actually run by an Irishman living abroad. It was fun, the people there spoke English. By the end of the year, the student from the Saint Mary's in Indiana was working at the pub and in her second trimester with the publican's kid. I was not part of the pub clique and didn't see much of them after the first month or two. I have no idea how the story ends with the kid, where either my fellow student or the pub owner is today. Google maps suggests that the pub is gone.
posted by sy at 11:18 AM on March 26 [2 favorites]
posted by sy at 11:18 AM on March 26 [2 favorites]
Granted, I have only been to one Irish pub in Ireland, but the "Irish pubs" I've been to in the United States tend to feel rather similar to pubs I've visited in England and Scotland. What I'm not saying is that Irish pubs are really English pubs, so much as what is framed as "this is really what makes a pub Irish" is a commonality of communal interaction that isn't necessarily restricted solely to Ireland.
Now am I less likely to run into someone playing the bodhrán and accompanied by a fiddle in other English speaking pubs? Quite less likely, but that isn't what's being sold as what makes an Irish pub, ya know?
Where I live now, "Irish pubs" are basically bars, similar in appearance and culture to non-Irish pubs in my area, that everyone eventually flocks to on St. Patrick's Day, as is. But, they have Irish names, so we're good, so we're told.
posted by Atreides at 11:23 AM on March 26 [2 favorites]
Now am I less likely to run into someone playing the bodhrán and accompanied by a fiddle in other English speaking pubs? Quite less likely, but that isn't what's being sold as what makes an Irish pub, ya know?
Where I live now, "Irish pubs" are basically bars, similar in appearance and culture to non-Irish pubs in my area, that everyone eventually flocks to on St. Patrick's Day, as is. But, they have Irish names, so we're good, so we're told.
posted by Atreides at 11:23 AM on March 26 [2 favorites]
About 30 years ago, I was on a roaming holiday in Spain and spent the weekend with a pal whom I'd met when he took a sabbatical in the lab where I was working in Dublin. He arranged that I'd give a talk in his Institute on Friday lunchtime. Not very holiday! But it yielded an envelope full of folding money as an honorarium. His presence wasn't required at work so he drove me for many miles through the suburbs of Madrid on a shhh mystery tour until we pulled up outside an apartment complex with a little row of retail outlets at street level.
One of them was an Irish Bar and we spent the rest of the afternoon there. He let me buy the first round of pints from my windfall wealth. In among the usual paraphernalia that you get in such places, there was a python in permanent siesta mode behind the bar in a glass case. That was either super-ironic - St Patrick is supposed to have driven the snakes from Ireland - or just bonkers. I don't think it will catch on in Abbeyleix.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:27 AM on March 26 [7 favorites]
One of them was an Irish Bar and we spent the rest of the afternoon there. He let me buy the first round of pints from my windfall wealth. In among the usual paraphernalia that you get in such places, there was a python in permanent siesta mode behind the bar in a glass case. That was either super-ironic - St Patrick is supposed to have driven the snakes from Ireland - or just bonkers. I don't think it will catch on in Abbeyleix.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:27 AM on March 26 [7 favorites]
…create a popup called Fighty McShamrock's Genuine Fake Irish Pub, with all the terrible trimmings…
In between bouts of Dropkick Murphys songs you could intersperse The Irish Pub by the Showbusiness Giants
posted by house-goblin at 12:20 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
In between bouts of Dropkick Murphys songs you could intersperse The Irish Pub by the Showbusiness Giants
posted by house-goblin at 12:20 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
Well, if central Dublin is any indication, Irish pubs seem to have decided that shitty American bar food is the way to go. Mozzarella sticks, Buffalo wings, sliders, jalapeño poppers—all the dishes we traditionally associate with the Emerald Isle. While I realize this may be driven by proprietors' perceptions that the obscene numbers of Yanks visiting, or working in, the city will not eat anything other than the slop to which they're accustomed back home, it made it a drag to try and find anything like traditional Irish pub fare when I was there a few years ago. Maybe that Irish Pub Company should try opening a few in Dublin.
posted by the sobsister at 12:22 PM on March 26 [3 favorites]
posted by the sobsister at 12:22 PM on March 26 [3 favorites]
my good buddy does St. Paddy's Day proper every year, and it's thanks to him that I was introduced to what is possibly the greatest Irish Pub tune ever: I Had a Hat, performed by Shanneygannock
posted by ginger.beef at 12:56 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
posted by ginger.beef at 12:56 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
ahem, surely "playing the fiddle and accompanied by someone playing a bodhran" and not the other way 'round. i kid! but only sorta, as someone who plays irish music at the local bar every Saturday. (i can gently mock bodhran players because i play banjo)
posted by gorbichov at 1:01 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
posted by gorbichov at 1:01 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
My favorite bar in my 20s was a place called O'Malley's. At some point it may have pretended to Oirishness, but by the time I started drinking there it was several generations of ownership removed from that scene, and the only holdover was the Guinness tap. It served good pizza and hosted bluegrass and metal shows. The pool tables were in terrible shape, but free. I loved that place.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 1:06 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 1:06 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
How can you tell if an Irish pub is any good? Go there on Cinco de Mayo.
How can you tell if a Mexican bar is any good? Go there on St. Patrick's Day. (This might not work in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area, which as far as I can tell has recently lost all of its Irish pubs. The Mexican restaurant and bar I visited on March 17 was packed.)
posted by infinitewindow at 1:07 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
How can you tell if a Mexican bar is any good? Go there on St. Patrick's Day. (This might not work in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area, which as far as I can tell has recently lost all of its Irish pubs. The Mexican restaurant and bar I visited on March 17 was packed.)
posted by infinitewindow at 1:07 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
I have heard that St Pat's Day is a really big deal in Mexico City, and I have observed an old school Irish bar smack in the middle of the (Mexican/Central American inflected) Mission District in San Francisco. Maybe that Catholic commonality has made for a happy cross-cultural celebrating.
posted by supermedusa at 2:03 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 2:03 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
Back in 2005, they had a website for this called the "Guinness pub concept." Guinness would help fund it so long as the bar agreed to buy Guinness products. There were five off the shelf concepts (I remember the Victorian, the "country" and the one that involved a lot of Irish knotwork). If you saw the site once, you could immediately identify a Guinness pub concept pub when you walked in. It seems that they are trying real hard to backburner the fact that this is a Guinness project to sell more Guinness. It is not unlike the Thai government sponsoring Thai restaurants around the world. In both cases, it is a way to standardize the culture for international consumption, in all senses of "consumption."
posted by rednikki at 2:13 PM on March 26 [5 favorites]
posted by rednikki at 2:13 PM on March 26 [5 favorites]
My favorite local bar/music venue in Houston is pretty clearly an English-modeled pub but back in the late 90s and early 00s, when Houston had a thriving local Celtic music scene, they had a lot of local and touring Celtic acts. They were not one of the Guinness pub concepts--not only did they start doing business in 1990, they were the spiritual heir to an older, now demolished pub (the late, lamented Red Lion, which is now apartments) but they were at one point during the 1990s the pub selling the most Guinness in the US.
Mr Epigrams was running the merch table for his favorite band the night the US Guinness folks arrived to celebrate and he's a big man, as some of you know, but even he will hit his limit if you feed him 8 (all free) pints of Guinness.
I love McGonigel's Mucky Duck, and if you like music I recommend you check it out, but yeah, I recently visited a fairly cookie-cutter Irish pub here in Dallas with nods to Irish food but mostly American pub snacks of the brown food variety. It's not the same as going to the Duck, which also has decent food in addition to the music and the booze.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 2:34 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
Mr Epigrams was running the merch table for his favorite band the night the US Guinness folks arrived to celebrate and he's a big man, as some of you know, but even he will hit his limit if you feed him 8 (all free) pints of Guinness.
I love McGonigel's Mucky Duck, and if you like music I recommend you check it out, but yeah, I recently visited a fairly cookie-cutter Irish pub here in Dallas with nods to Irish food but mostly American pub snacks of the brown food variety. It's not the same as going to the Duck, which also has decent food in addition to the music and the booze.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 2:34 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
There’s an Irish bar in my town that’s built into the decommissioned garage of a (now closed) funeral home. This seems like the punchline to a bad joke, but the food isn’t awful.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:48 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:48 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
In my hometown there was a restaurant in a converted funeral parlor, one of the old school ones with a carriage entrance and such. My mother always told us it was because they had so many stainless steel counters to re-use and the whole kitchen could be hosed out. This seemed normal to me at the time.
posted by stet at 2:57 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
posted by stet at 2:57 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
There's a pretty good Indian restaurant near my house. It's a failry large lot, and in the back they built a very fake façades of some kind of traditional Indian building, maybe a temple of some kind? It's obviously fake, but it's pretty skillfully made. I wonder if there's a company that builds and ships fake Indian restaurant façades like this one does with Irish pubs.
posted by signal at 3:56 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
posted by signal at 3:56 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
My viewpoint on the whole thing seems to be that the concept of an Irish pub functions as a social space as much as a drinking hall, and in that way is more in line with the bars of the upper Midwest. Both seem to serve as a place that can vary between a raucous place for end of the week celebration, but also a place post college people working steady jobs go to socialize and decompress on a weekday.
I've been to a birthday party for a dog, traded firewood for drinks, and helped refinish a floor at my local bar. Sociality is what matters
posted by Ferreous at 5:41 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
I've been to a birthday party for a dog, traded firewood for drinks, and helped refinish a floor at my local bar. Sociality is what matters
posted by Ferreous at 5:41 PM on March 26 [1 favorite]
As an American of dubiously Irish heritage, I have a litmus test for Irish bars in the states. If I walk in and see a disco ball or a DJ booth, I walk right back out. Simple.
posted by Leeway at 5:55 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
posted by Leeway at 5:55 PM on March 26 [2 favorites]
I met the man who became my husband at Murphy’s Pub in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle on July 4, 1992 (it was raining, as usual). Murphy’s isn’t a “concept pub (thank goodness), but it was my “local” ( I only lived a couple blocks away. That August, he proposed to me on the same stools where we met. I screamed out “hell yes!!”, and we didn’t pay for another drink the rest of the night. Love me an Irish pub.
posted by dbmcd at 12:55 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
posted by dbmcd at 12:55 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
I'm English, but live in Dublin. There's not huge differences between the traditional English pub and the traditional Irish pub - with Irish pubs, snugs are more common, and typically Irish pubs are named after people (O'Neills, Kennedys, Meaghers, Durty Nelly's, etc.), whereas English pubs are usually things (The Plume of Feathers, The Saracen's Head, The Slug and Lettuce, etc.), but there's plenty of exceptions to this rule.
A lot of Irish pubs abroad are run by English people, at least partially due to the fact that the Irish don't have the association of empire with them, and people generally know roughly what they're going to get when going into an Irish pub.
I think it also helps that the traditional recipes here in Ireland are neither extensive nor well regarded globally - meaning you can serve pretty much whatever food you like in an Irish pub and get away with it just fine.
posted by BigCalm at 3:24 AM on March 27 [1 favorite]
A lot of Irish pubs abroad are run by English people, at least partially due to the fact that the Irish don't have the association of empire with them, and people generally know roughly what they're going to get when going into an Irish pub.
I think it also helps that the traditional recipes here in Ireland are neither extensive nor well regarded globally - meaning you can serve pretty much whatever food you like in an Irish pub and get away with it just fine.
posted by BigCalm at 3:24 AM on March 27 [1 favorite]
Granted, I have only been to one Irish pub in Ireland, but the "Irish pubs" I've been to in the United States tend to feel rather similar to pubs I've visited in England and Scotland. What I'm not saying is that Irish pubs are really English pubs, so much as what is framed as "this is really what makes a pub Irish" is a commonality of communal interaction that isn't necessarily restricted solely to Ireland.
Sir. The communal interaction is what makes a pub a pub, not what makes it an Irish pub.
An Irish pub will have Guinness, Smithwicks, Bulmers and either Beamish or Murphy's. It will have Taytos or not-Taytos. Irish pubs also have a distinct character that differentiates them from other traditional drinking houses. English pubs began as inns or purpose-built taverns. Obviously purpose built watering holes exist in Ireland, but the character of traditional Irish pubs also comes from the fact that in a village the local pub was also often serving dual purpose and still does: the local shop (Owen Traynor's, Meath) , or the local butcher (I can't remember the name, Kilkenny), or the local widow's living room (Bridey's, Kerry). Additionally it would not be remarkable for a local to have a trad band (Imokilley Tavern, East Cork) and having a trad band is not a rancid Disney attraction, it's just part of the pub's schedule.
There are plenty of indistinct pubs in Ireland these days, just as there are plenty of indistinct pubs in the UK. But a traditional Irish pub does have a palpable character that distinguishes it from... well, anything else.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:29 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
Sir. The communal interaction is what makes a pub a pub, not what makes it an Irish pub.
An Irish pub will have Guinness, Smithwicks, Bulmers and either Beamish or Murphy's. It will have Taytos or not-Taytos. Irish pubs also have a distinct character that differentiates them from other traditional drinking houses. English pubs began as inns or purpose-built taverns. Obviously purpose built watering holes exist in Ireland, but the character of traditional Irish pubs also comes from the fact that in a village the local pub was also often serving dual purpose and still does: the local shop (Owen Traynor's, Meath) , or the local butcher (I can't remember the name, Kilkenny), or the local widow's living room (Bridey's, Kerry). Additionally it would not be remarkable for a local to have a trad band (Imokilley Tavern, East Cork) and having a trad band is not a rancid Disney attraction, it's just part of the pub's schedule.
There are plenty of indistinct pubs in Ireland these days, just as there are plenty of indistinct pubs in the UK. But a traditional Irish pub does have a palpable character that distinguishes it from... well, anything else.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:29 AM on March 27 [3 favorites]
GenjiandProust: "There’s an Irish bar in my town that’s built into the decommissioned garage of a (now closed) funeral home. This seems like the punchline to a bad joke, but the food isn’t awful."
Are the portions enormous?
posted by chavenet at 5:50 AM on March 27 [1 favorite]
Are the portions enormous?
posted by chavenet at 5:50 AM on March 27 [1 favorite]
I'm of so many minds about this. I'm a proudly quarter Irish guy in Boston. I love these bars and these people. So many good memories about the warmth and music and food I've shared with neighbors. I've also experienced them as a major vector for some of the worst bigotry I've seen expressed outside of actual hate group meetings. As Governor Wu recently opined on the Daily Show, Boston is a wicked diverse city and we're doing our best to keep our city and state safe for immigrants and LGBTQ+ folks as the federal government becomes terrifyingly hostile. It pains me to say that I've stopped seeing Irish Pubs as simply cozy spaces in my community.
posted by es_de_bah at 7:23 AM on March 27
posted by es_de_bah at 7:23 AM on March 27
Are the portions enormous?
No. Ironically, they are miserly with the fried potatoes, though.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:07 AM on March 27 [1 favorite]
No. Ironically, they are miserly with the fried potatoes, though.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:07 AM on March 27 [1 favorite]
Although I'm in Ireland pretty often, I don't go to pubs that much (although as youngest nibling turns 18, that might be getting more likely).
But anyway, I was coming back from Kerry last summer and my best option was to fly, an airport with a capacity of approximately 600 people (and indeed at that time, with 3 sold out 737s leaving to Dublin, Manchester and Luton, having 600 passengers inside it), and I was very pleased to see that in the corner of what very much is a hangar stuffed with as many seats as possible, there at the back where the corrugated roof slopes down there was a tiny pub-in-a-box prefab pub put in, with about 20 stools and tables and a nice bar and the lovely dark brown and brass and earthy red and green tones you expect, contrasting with the sterile Ryanair-swelled airport.
posted by ambrosen at 8:30 AM on March 27
But anyway, I was coming back from Kerry last summer and my best option was to fly, an airport with a capacity of approximately 600 people (and indeed at that time, with 3 sold out 737s leaving to Dublin, Manchester and Luton, having 600 passengers inside it), and I was very pleased to see that in the corner of what very much is a hangar stuffed with as many seats as possible, there at the back where the corrugated roof slopes down there was a tiny pub-in-a-box prefab pub put in, with about 20 stools and tables and a nice bar and the lovely dark brown and brass and earthy red and green tones you expect, contrasting with the sterile Ryanair-swelled airport.
posted by ambrosen at 8:30 AM on March 27
I can never understand, that when abroad, the Irish want to visit the Irish Bar. The indigenous bars are almost always better.
posted by Homemade Interossiter at 4:21 AM on March 28
posted by Homemade Interossiter at 4:21 AM on March 28
There are plenty of indistinct pubs in Ireland these days, just as there are plenty of indistinct pubs in the UK. But a traditional Irish pub does have a palpable character that distinguishes it from... well, anything else.
And none of those were listed in the article as what made an Irish pub an Irish pub. I happily accept those offered criteria!
posted by Atreides at 6:07 AM on March 28
And none of those were listed in the article as what made an Irish pub an Irish pub. I happily accept those offered criteria!
posted by Atreides at 6:07 AM on March 28
One of the best nights in a bar in my memory was a night at The Liffey, an upscale Irish pub in St Paul. If was an extremely frigid Valentine's evening. The hockey strike was on and every place on 7th was either empty or closed. It was my wife, two of our best friends, and myself. We walked into the Liffey and managed to grab the last open table. A local band, The Belfast Cowboys, were stripped down to their rhythm section, keys and guitar; playing some bare-knuckled Van Morrison covers, bluesy rock, etc. Two brides in full gowns were on the dance floor, a pair of St Paul's finest were drinking coffee at the bar, and no one wanted to go home. Plus, Summit Brewing Company had a new oatmeal stout and everyone was sticking with that instead of Guinness.
The Liffey closed, like so many other places, in 2020. I think a sports bar is in that location. Bleah. I can still close my eyes and see the steam coming off the dance floor while outside it was twenty below.
posted by Ber at 11:22 AM on March 28
The Liffey closed, like so many other places, in 2020. I think a sports bar is in that location. Bleah. I can still close my eyes and see the steam coming off the dance floor while outside it was twenty below.
posted by Ber at 11:22 AM on March 28
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We never did it, of course, but every time I see an "Irish pub" in the wild, I can't help but wonder.
posted by Shepherd at 10:59 AM on March 26 [9 favorites]