94) Neary’s of Chatham Street, D2
Just off Grafton Street, the ‘commercial business district's shoppers central’ – so if you can get a seat, count yourself lucky. We once fought (successfully) for stool-space with the giddy likes of Phelim Drew, actor son of the late great Ronnie, himself a former frequenter.
Very warm and comfortable and indeed slumber-inducing with absolutely no radio or television in sight. It’s a fine example of the classic Edwardian style, established in 1887, and not much has changed from that good year to this. Crimson curtains are drawn for privacy, lampshades are aplenty (including 4 working gas lamps), and a thick soft carpet lies underfoot. The bar on the right has a long imposing marble counter and is often occupied by a stately patron dressed in a three-piece suit, with cuffs, hat, scarf and all the jewels. Indeed, even barkeeps must always don a white shirt and black bow-tie.
Guinness flows here and is well poured - it’s the least they could do when charging a fat €5.50 a pint! The room on the left is considerably smaller with a small false snug with a hatch to the bar. It has a large painting of Irish actress and comedian Maureen Potter of ‘Dante’ fame in Strick’s film of Joyce’s A portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Bizarrely, she is here depicted to look like a young W.B. Yeats. Upstairs is the larger lounge bar which offers more seating. It has a reputation as 'an actor's pub' – makes sense, given the Gaiety's proximity. A large locked door at the back of the pub (seen on the way to the male toilets) leads directly to the stage door of the Gaiety theatre.
Famous visitors have included Michael MacLiammoir, Alan Devlin (who went in mid-performance with his radio mic still on, thus allowing the entire Gaiety audience to overhear his choice of drink and subsequent gossip with the barman), aforementioned Maureen Potter, Jimmy O'Dea and Phil Lynott (not to mention the British hangman Albert Pierrepoint, whose nerves certainly needed settling). It is very much to be counted as 'a bit of a treat' – its exorbitant costliness prohibits frequent visiting for the humbler supper on 'a bit of a budget'. Especially noteworthy: the weird sculptured hands and arms bearing lights on the outside – calling to mind nothing so much as the eerily mobile 'candelabra-hands' of Jean Cocteau's La Belle et Le Bete (subsequently echoed by Disney's cartoon and the deeply pointless – albeit outrageously profitable – live-action remake in 2018 starring Emma ‘Waste-of-Wattage’ Watson).
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