227) The Lamplighter of The Coombe, D8

A foreboding exterior, starkly painted in blue and red, seems to lack windows, light and liveliness – a sign declaring 'No tracksuits after 7pm' also augurs ill. But ignore the danger signs – cheap Beamish and peace and quiet prevail within, to say nothing of the owner's peaceable dog, a mild mongrel padding about the carpet softly snuffling. An ideal afternoon might entail buying a paperback from the luridly yellow Marrowbone bookshop next door beside the bar, and thereafter dawdling innocuous hours skimming pages and sipping pints. But to be avoided of a Sunday when the karaoke crowd 'goes at it' with noisy force. 

Update as of September 2019: This pub has undergone an extensive refurbishment and renovation – the sign outside now calls itself The Lamplighter Lounge (as opposed to a degenerate 'BAR' or 'PUB') and the exterior is now painted mauve and green. Within is all but unrecognisable – the mothball-laden carpet has gone, replaced by a slickly varnished floor, one wall has had two new windows put in, a new door offers another means of entry and egress, and everywhere has been polished and cleansed and repainted and overall slicked up and smoothed down and sexed-up. It could well be taking its cue from the Lark Inn up the road, which had also undergone an earlier revamping, perhaps in an attempt to repudiate its image as 'a smelly old man pub', and cater to a trendier, more youthful crowd. While one may lament the passing of the seedy old style (and the corresponding rise in Beamish prices – from €3.70 to €4.20), at least it's keeping the place alive and not shut. On this return visit, we were witness to the poignant efforts of a pretty young barmaid to deflect the overly friendly (and excessively tactile) attentions of a drunken old lecher, whose wandering hands were willful and persistent in their flailing.

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