Inspired by thriving bohemian cultural centers such as Paris’ Left Bank and New York City’s Greenwich, in 1991 Dublin scuttled a plan to demolish this neighborhood (filled with drugs, prostitutes and decay) to build a bus station. Instead, the city imported quaint cobbles, gave tax breaks to entertainment businesses, and created a raucous party zone. The resulting tourist crowds and inflated beer prices drove away the locals long ago.
On the first corner slouches a pub called The Temple Bar. While it looks venerable, it’s only 25 years old, built to cash in on the district’s rising popularity as a night spot. It encapsulates the commercialism of the tourists’ Temple Bar.
You wouldn’t know it by looking at Temple Bar, but since 2001 consumption of alcohol is down almost 20% in Ireland. In 2018, Guinness launched its first nonalcoholic beer – perhaps thinkin young people don’t have as much time for hangovers. Starbucks-like coffee shops are everywhere. A North Dublin pub called The Virgin Mary serves no booze. While Irish pubs are in vogue around the world, here on the Emerald Isle a thousand pubs have closed in the last decade.
Wall of Fame and Irish Pop Music – The windows of the three-story, red “Wall of Fame” are filled with photos of contemporary Irish musicians (Bob Geldof, Phil Lynott, Sinead O’Connor, U2, The Cranberries, and others). It marks the location of the Irish Rock n’ Roll Museum.
Temple Bar Square – This square is the geographic heart of the Temple Bar district and a favorite haunt of street musicians. The quaint-looking pubs that front it are recreations built in the early 2000s, when the area became so popular that pubs could sell the most expensive pints in town. If we were here on a Saturday night – we’d see how this party zone got its reputation for rowdy noise and drunken antics. Let’s see how it compares to Wisconsin. 🙂
Bars/Pubs – The Temple Bar area thrives with music – traditional, jazz, and rock. Pricier than the rest of Dublin and extremely touristy, it’s a wild scene and -for party animals – a good place to mix beer and music. The noise, pushy crowds, and inflated prices have driven most local Dubliners away. It’s craziest on summer weekend nights, holidays and nights after big sporting events let out. Women in funky hats, part of loud “hen” (bachelorette) parties, promenade down the main drag as drunken dudes shout from pub doorways to get their attention.
In the most touristy zone around Temple Bar Square, the bars are cartoons of an Irish pub, looking like they board leprechauns upstairs. The only real Irish people you’ll see are the ones playing the music, serving the beer, and keeping the rowdies at bay at the doorway. But severl good pubs for traditional music are nearby – a 10-minute hike up the river west of Temple Bar takes you to a more local and less touristy scene. The pubs there have longer histories, tangled floor plans, a fun-loving energy, and a passion for trad.
Here are the pubs we visited (wish I had more time!!):
Darkey Kelly’s Bar – is a big, fun-loving place with live music nightly. The traditional folk-music vibe here is more sing-along then hard drinking, and the pub grub is good.
