57) The Bleeding Horse of Upper Camden Street, D2

A pricey late opener once fictitiously frequented by Leopold Bloom and Boylan the billsticker – a connection with Sheridan Le Fanu is also the subject of an interior plaque and an exterior stone which has the following quote engraved ‘Two horsemen rode up to the Bleeding Horse’/Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu/The Cock and Anchor/1845 p44-57.’ If one arrives with a group, be they hens or stags, prepare to get hopelessly lost and inevitably separated – roomy to a fault. Good chips though – but only if you're hungry.

Lying directly opposite are a row of 5 or 6 houses in a state of dereliction which Wetherspoons are currently turning into a ‘super-pub’ and hotel (to be called Keavan’s Port). The project will cost around €19 million - the single largest investment made by Wetherspoons. Competition is ever increasing. Wetherspoon’s chairman Tim Martin has confirmed: ‘Our pubs in the Republic of Ireland are thriving.’ One must wonder what will become of the long-standing Bleeding Horse. Let it not be a Hemorrhaging Horse in need of a bloody transfusion.

Image of the Bleeding Horse in the rare old times

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