Four of the five founding dates on this road turned out to be wrong, and the true stories underneath are better every time. Dublin has an unusual advantage for checking: the Revenue Commissioners publish every renewed liquor licence in the country as one file, so every pub below is proved open by statute rather than by a review site. Walk it in this order and stay out of the Temple Bar squares themselves.
- 1 · The Cold Open
Mulligan's
John Mulligan took this house in 1853 and the state survey dates the room you drink in to about 1880, so the 1782 over the door belongs to a family trade that started somewhere else in the city. What is beyond argument is Joyce. In Counterparts he sends his men round to Mulligan's of Poolbeg Street, into the parlour at the back, and has them order small hot specials all round, so take a hot whiskey in the back room, which is the drink the book puts in your hand, and a pint of Guinness after it. No food, no music, no television, and no website either: the pub's old domain was sold off in 2021 and belongs to a careers blog now. The licence quietly covers the ground floor of the house next door as well, which is where the lounge went when it outgrew itself.
on Poolbeg Street since 1853; the 1782 is a family trade from elsewhere · daily from late morning till about 11.30pm, later at weekends; the pub publishes no hours, so ring +353 1 677 5582 if it matters · verified Aug 2026
- 2 · The Detour
The Stag's Head
Not 1770, whatever the internet says; the only source is the pub's own page, which says 1770 in its heading and the 1780s four paragraphs later. The Irish Builder of 15 October 1895 records the work here for G.W. Tyson by the architect Alfred McGloughlin, and the state survey calls it a purpose built High Victorian public house of that year. McGloughlin had married Mary Emily Pearse, so the man who built this room was brother in law to the man who read the Proclamation. Carved mahogany, granite table tops, stained glass, and a stag taking a view of your conduct. Order the beef and Guinness stew, which is a fixed line on the card, and drink a pint at the marble topped bar. The door is on Dame Court, and the mosaic stag set into the Dame Street pavement is a Victorian advertisement laid there to point you down to it.
built 1895 by Alfred McGloughlin for G.W. Tyson · daily from late morning; the kitchen runs lunch into early evening, so eat early · verified Aug 2026
- 3 · The Anchor
The Brazen Head
The crest says 1198, and the earliest document the state register can actually produce is a 1703 grant of all that large timber house called the Brazen Head, to one James King. The building is about 1755 with a front block added around 1820, the pub's own nineteenth century notices claimed nothing grander than the oldest established hotel in the city, and the 1198 does not enter its advertising until the 1960s, which is where it belongs. Go anyway, because what is really here is a genuine 1750s coaching inn built round a stone courtyard, and it is the house Joyce named in Ulysses for a decent enough do. Order the Traditional Brazen Beef Stew, then take the courtyard at nine when the music starts, because it runs seven nights a week and the Sunday afternoon session is the traditional one.
the building is about 1755; the 1198 is advertising, not record · daily noon till late, food 12 till 9, music nightly from 9pm, trad session Sunday 3.30 till 6.30 · verified Aug 2026
trad from nine, seven nights a week, out in the courtyard
- 4 · The Wildcard
Grogan's
Shaw's Directory of 1850 puts a victualler at this address, and restoration work on the sign in 2022 uncovered the older name underneath: Bowes. So in the years Kavanagh and Flann O'Brien drank in this city the house was not even called Grogan's, and the Grogan's in At Swim-Two-Birds is a different pub on Lower Leeson Street. What is true is better: Tommy Smith and Paddy Kennedy bought it in the early seventies and took on Paddy O'Brien, head barman out of McDaid's, whose bohemian trade followed him the two hundred yards. Their sons hold it now, the paintings have hung commission free since the eighties with every cent going to the painter, and there is a gallery upstairs running the same arrangement with a ten thousand euro annual award attached. Ask for a Special, the toasted ham and cheese with onion and tomato in it, and a pint of Guinness alongside. No music, no television, and the owner says there never will be.
a 1760s house, a victualler by 1850, trading as Bowes in the 1950s, Smith and Kennedy from the early 1970s · from 10.30am, seven days; no operator source publishes a closing time we can stand behind, so ring (01) 677 9320 if it matters · verified Aug 2026
- 5 · The Last Call
The Palace Bar
The register says 1823 under the Hall family, the room is an 1880s rebuild, and the Ahernes have held it since Bill and Bridie bought it from the Widow Ryan in 1946 for twenty seven thousand pounds. The newspapermen did not file upstairs, whatever you have read: the upstairs whiskey room only opened in 2013, and Bertie Smyllie of the Irish Times, who held court here, died in 1954. His circle drank in the snug and the back room on the ground floor, under the skylight, where Alan Reeve's 1940 cartoon of the whole cast of them still hangs. Order a Palace Bar single malt, their own bottling, and chase it with a pint of Guinness, which is exactly what Anthony Bourdain did at this bar on film for The Layover, broadcast on 7 January 2013.
the register says 1823 under the Hall family, this room an 1880s rebuild, the Ahernes since 1946 · Mon to Thu 10.30am till 11.30pm, Fri and Sat till 12.30am, Sun 12.30pm till 11pm; the upstairs whiskey room is listed Wed to Sun but nothing current confirms it, so ask at the bar · verified Aug 2026