If you can’t have fun in Dublin, there’s a solid chance that you’re doing it wrong. Ireland’s handsome capital is filled with some of the most friendly people on the planet, plus it holds a damn near infinite number of drinking opportunities. To find out how to navigate those drinking opportunities like a local, we turned to Pat Thomas, manager of Zozimus Bar, a defunct casino-turned-beautiful cocktail bar in the heart of Dublin. “I don’t want to turn around and say the words ‘avoid Temple Bar,’ but: avoid Temple Bar,” Thomas starts. The Disneyland of the Dublin pub scene, Temple Bar is a tourist-driven neighborhood known for its overpriced pints and Irish cliches. Can you find a good time there? Yes. Do you need to go there? Probably not. You probably have enough cheesy Irish bars at home that can fulfill the same need.
Whether you hit up Temple Bar or not, skip ordering any of the offensively-named drinks Americans tend to down at Irish pubs around the world, mainly the Irish Car Bomb or the Black and Tan. “Many thousands of Irish people—because of the sectarianism of the war and the troubles after that in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties—have been killed or maimed by getting into their car to go to work in the morning, turning on the ignition and the fucking car exploding,” Thomas tells us. “You turn around and ask for an Irish Car Bomb—go fuck yourself.” The same goes for a Black and Tan, a drink that gets its name from another unsavory part of Irish history involving the Royal Irish Constabulary Special Reserve, a group sent into Ireland by Churchill to fight the IRA during the Irish War of Independence. “Their uniforms were khaki with a black jacket so they were called the Black and Tans,” Thomas explains. “They did things like burn Cork City to the ground and so on. Their idea was basically to go out and terrorize the local population.”
Not everyone may find the drink names insensitive—the wounds aren’t necessarily fresh—but avoid being the ugly American and order your beer-and-a-shot another way. Try a “whiskey and a beer”, or a “tall and a small”, or “a ball and a pint of plain”. A rose by any other name smells just as sweet (although Thomas argues dropping a whiskey into a beer is a waste of both beverages). With that out of the way, here’s how to get your perfect night going in Dublin.
Prepare yourself for the night ahead with dinner at Delahunt, a restaurant and bar in a historic Victorian space on Camden Street. “They’re inspired hungry Irish chefs using Irish produce through a twist on food that would be traditionally Irish but with a European influence—Stuff that you would recognize, but maybe two steps away,” Thomas says. Start with the house Guinness bread, then dig into head chef Dermot Staunton’s modern Irish fare like beef cheek braised in stout with horseradish cream, roast celeriac, and kale salsa verde. Finish off the meal with a drink at one of Thomas’ favorite bars in town, conveniently located under the same roof. “They have the lounge upstairs. You go through a secret door on the side, you go upstairs, and it’s your granny’s parlor kind of idea,” Thomas says.
Part of what makes Dublin so special is its friendly-as-hell population. To make friends with the locals, Thomas recommends heading to a place where you’re guaranteed to find a lot of people, like The Long Hall. “It’s a fucking institution. No pretension. It’s a great example of a Victorian pub. Old mahogany paneling, tall bar counter, a couple of muskets on the wall,” Thomas says. “You’re either in there to read the paper and have fun with your own thoughts, or you’re in there to have the crack with a group of people. There is no one getting distracted because the highlights of yesterday’s football is on TV. You get to know people quickly because they are in there to talk.”
Another option is P. Mac’s. “It’s quite new, but at the same time it’s quite dark. A lot of craft beer, a lot of games on the tables,” Thomas says. “The staff in there are friendly. Belly up to the counter and have a chat with the guy behind the counter. It’s easier to start to blend in at a beer pub than a cocktail bar.”
Dublin is a city rich in history, and with that comes historical drinking dens. Kehoe's goes all the way back to 1803 and drew in customers like James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. On a sunny day, you might turn off of Grafton to Anne Street and find 600 people standing outside of Kehoe's drinking Guinness. "The temperature of Dublin can be rated by how many people are outside at Kehoe's,” Thomas says. “They have it down to a fine art, how to get the furniture out of Kehoe's and into an actual floor plan on the street outside. It’s insane.”
Also very old, The Palace Bar is home of one of the best snugs (a tucked away sitting-slash-drinking area) in the city. The snug—hiding behind a door just off to the right of the main bar—was once the preferred nook of priests, cops, and women when that sort of thing wasn’t an acceptable move. It’s also allegedly the spot where the country’s first woman president launched her political career. For more conversation, head to the back room where you’ll find high ceilings, stained glass windows, and comfortable chat-friendly seating. “If you’re sitting there trying to be quiet, it’s not going to happen.”
The Dublin cocktail scene is coming up quick. Spots like Zozimus and The Liquor Rooms are going to feel like home for cocktail enthusiasts. The latter, located literally underground, is decked out like the inside of a circus tent and offers plenty of romantic dark corners to slink into with an Old Fashioned.
At Bow Lane, Thomas is enamored by the bar manager’s drinks that reflect a temporary hiatus from the hospitality industry. “He missed out on tequila growing in this country, mezcal becoming a thing, the gin explosion. He came back in with this late 90s, early 2000s, like, ‘let’s have some fun with mixed drinks. Let’s make them fun and blue and [with] sparklers,’” Thomas says. “You’re here to have fun. A lot of his drinks are much lighter, sort of giddy. He doesn’t take himself or anything too seriously. Just good, fun, nice drinks.”
A good home base for your perfect night is The Fitzwilliam Hotel. The 5-star hotel’s central location puts you in convenient stumbling distance of your perfect night out destinations. The rooms’ super comfortable beds and legit blackout curtains make for a good place to recover the next day. Drag yourself to the lobby bar for Thomas’ hangover cures, like a Bloody Mary or “a bottle of Bulmers and a pint of ice if you’re in ribbons.”