6) O'Neill's of Suffolk Street and Church Lane, D2
Something of an overpriced tourist trap, a veritable Disneyland of a Dublin pub, roomy and cavernous and often overcrowded, yet cosy on a cold evening. A classic Edwardian pub decorated with hundreds of knick-knacks. It’s so large it can hold a capacity of up to 772 drunken dickheads - impossible to manage efficiently. As a result, the upstairs toilets are fitted with blacklights to deter drug-addicts from squatting and shooting up.
Sport isn’t sparse, television screens can be seen at every turn on every level. A delicious and wholesome carvery dinner (nearly as good as one's mother’s) can be happily scoffed and be sure to fill your boots with all the veg (see update below for important information)! At the front of the bar sits a false snug which has a door that opens onto Church Lane.
Tipplers Tip: the finest seats in the whole house are in a small secluded area by the beautiful bay window on the top floor overlooking the magnificent deconsecrated St. Andrew’s church. This church now has as its sentinel: Molly’s mammary glands, i.e. the iconic Molly Malone Statue of breast baring fame whose shiny titties tourists have taken to rub for good luck.
The Molly Malone statue of Suffolk Street - in the midst of imparting ‘the Luck of the Irish’ to an American tourist via the meat of the breast
It was formerly a preferred local of poets Brendan Kennelly and Michael Longley – in more recent years, it was much frequented by poet and lyricist Ronan Murphy, who benefited from a special deal on the Fosters. It was also the favourite haunt of a certain 'Brendan', a mean spirited minor bureaucrat reputed to own a Chinese wife. He was not unintelligent and something of a film and music buff – well versed in the collected works of Ella Fitzgerald and Ralph Richardson, a particular fan of 1939's The Four Feathers.
But overall he was a malevolent presence whose every 'joke' contained a cutting dig and gibe and personal insult such as would depress the receiver and sour the atmosphere forever thereafter. Was wont to turn into a fawning sycophantic fangirl on the rare occasions he was joined by his boss, from whom he was hoping for promotion. In a notorious act of false generosity, Brendan once bought tiny glasses of Fosters for Messrs Stephens and Murphy while treating his own smug self to a large pint of smelly Erdinger. Possibly closeted – showed an inordinate interest in the sexual leanings of the aforementioned poet Murphy earning him the pseudonym ‘Gregory Gobblecock’.
A parsimonious Brendan gifts a gluttonous Ronan (and a peripheral Andy) with a really small one
The smoking area [1] was a favourite location for certain Trinity drinkers who sheltered from the rain under large but leaky umbrellas in winter. Some of the seating for smokers was salvaged from the old Lansdowne Road Stadium before it was redeveloped as the Aviva. The pub was also much visited by the late and destitute poet Paddy Finnegan, often seen dolefully eating bacon and cabbage in the corner, alternating such a diet with handouts from the Buttery in Trinity College and selling The Big Issue on College Green. He once asked us: 'What are the final five words of Ulysses?' 'yes I will Yes', we promptly blurted out, only to call ourselves up short when we thought again, and found them to be 'said yes I will Yes'. So R.I.P. Mr. Finnegan [2], you caught us out proper.
UPDATE AS OF 2022: This pub is shivering in the shadow of Covid-19. It’s half the pub it used to be. Perhaps undergoing some renovations - the carvery section is still boarded up. One can order food from a menu tableside - but DON’T BOTHER! The food is now terrible. Andrew Stephens got an ‘Irish Lamb Stew’ which looked more like fresh lamb poo. It tasted worse than it looked, too. And he paid €13.95 for the displeasure. The one saving grace, and it really is good news, is that BEAMISH is now sold here and at only €4.85 a pint - excellent value in this part of town. Let’s hope for two things at O’Neill’s; that it sorts out ‘the food problem’, and that the Beamish keeps a flowing.
FOOTNOTES
[1] It was here that a meeting was held regarding the 2012 production of G.B. Shaw’s Heartbreak House for the 10 Days in Dublin festival produced by Spoonlight theatre and subsequently performed over five nights in The Back Loft, St. Augustine Street, Dublin 8. Actors and affiliates included: Sara Agha, Liza Cox, Michelle O’Connor, Fergus Rattigan, Ann-Maria McCarthy, Husni Hafid (who is responsible for the reprehensible negligence of losing the only existing footage of the play - there’s a hole for you in hell, Husni), Isadora Epstein, and Sam Coll as Captain Shotover.
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