(The Dublin Publopedia is a work in progress).

We had always been fond of pubs, and during our college years and afterwards had spent an overgenerous amount of time in them. It was only in the autumn of 2016 that we grew aware of the narrowness of our reach, belatedly realising that for the guts of a decade we had largely confined ourselves to the limits of D2, forever slavishly and unimaginatively traipsing back to the same small set of places: O'Neills, MacTurcaills, Grogans, The International, The Pav, etc. All in all, from approximately the years 2010 to 2016, we succeeded in visiting only 39 pubs in total. Pitiful. The sameness could only grow tedious in extremis. 

Aghast at our unadventurousness, and aware of the city's many and varied delightful hostelries still to be tapped, we made a conscious decision to explore further and, as the fellow says, 'spread our business'. Around the same time (in Jack Ryan’s of Beggars Bush), we started making a list of every pub we had ever visited up to then. This list would grow and grow in the following days, as memory caught up and filled in some blanks. That clinched it. From then on, lengthening the list became a priority, and soon an obsession. We would earmark an area on the map and take it out in a day. Once or even twice a week we would sally forth and conquer new terrain. More was merrier, and so were we. There was only one rule we insisted upon. Whenever we discovered a pub to which we hadn’t yet been, it could become a new addition (and added to the list) so long as we were both present when measuring the cut of its jib and the pull of its pint.

During this time, we were helped online by Publin, and in book form by Mac Maloney, whose Dublin Pubspotters Guide offered lots for ideas to the journeyman pintman (in a picture-book form, largely void of comment or opinion, song or story, an omission we would later set out to rectify), dutifully ticking off entries district by district, from D1 to D24, from Cabra to Kimmage, and from Smithfield to Sandymount. We toasted ourselves when we hit 200 pubs, and really slapped our backs when we cracked the 300 mark. Such dedication is rare in a barroom bore.

Thus in this fashion, in 2016, we ratcheted up a grand total of 89 new pubs visited. In 2017, we grew ever more militant, and having battled through much rain and occasional shine we ended the year with a shocking total of 125 new pubs visited. Having to some extent exhausted a lot of possibilities, and brought the city to its knees, 2018 yielded a far more slender crop of 33 new pubs sampled. In 2019, fed up of our comfort zone, we took our fingers out of our arses and cast the net further to sundry suburbs and farflung foothills, thus notching up a slightly more respectable total of 51 new properties visited by year's end. 2020 began promisingly, with 24 new pubs visited before March 15th, before Covid 19 intervened and very much put a stop to our gallop. So much for stats and figures.

Somewhere along the way, we grew dissatisfied with merely compiling a list. What good would a mere roll-call of pub names be in our prematurely advancing old age? Where was the fun, the craic, the larking, the stories, the lurking cast of characters? Some sort of commentary was required - some friends suggested we might make a decent book of it. And so, in late 2018, the project took on a new character - beside a pub's name, some cursory notes would be scribbled, soon worked up into essay-length entries as facts and fables were remembered and a plethora of details set down for posterity. The document steadily fattened as we emailed it back and forth and swelled it up each time. Mock-scholarly footnotes made an entry at a later date, as well as informative appendices and dozens of illustrations by way of eye candy, both photographed and handmade (all sketches are by Sam Coll). Soon enough we had a title, making a play on the work's increasingly encyclopedic character - THE DUBLIN PUBLOPEDIA. Ironically enough, the title has proven to be somewhat of a challenge for individuals under the influence. It’s true that a drunk may slur his words, but when he attempts to say our title aloud - he tends to stutter and fail, turning puce for getting his tongue in a twist. Try this after a barrel of Beamish: The Dublin Publopedia’s Public Publication Party!

While the year 2020 brought everything to a halt thanks to the pandemic (especially devastating for pintmen and publicans alike), the work got its first shy glimpses in the public sphere - certain doctored sections made their debuts on Mercurius (hit the link for more!). A seed was planted - this had the potential to be more than just an email attachment - at nearly 200 pages, we had a weighty volume on our hands - and so thus we have our present website. We would like to thank our fantastic Web Designer Daniela M. Stephens for her assistance with all matters technological - an online world of which we know little about.

Reader dear - what can you expect from our pieces? One could call them 'pub reviews', and yet the term is inadequate as many branch off into character studies and pint-sized potted histories, with a generous amount of filtered memoir or autobiography woven through. Celebrities and friends and enemies alike make cameos throughout. You won't find such juicy details in Mac Maloney! If we have been cruel to others, we are no less unkind to ourselves, frequently emerging as dipsomaniac clowns with a predilection for pratfalls and puking. 

It says in our byline that we are 'biased'. Beamish is one of those biases (one switched to it initially for fiscal purposes, but it rapidly became the preferred beverage to the all too sweet Guinness). We do not care for 'gastro-pubs' and many unkind paraphrases for that phenomenon have been coined and will be found. And we are mean too. If brevity is the soul of wit, in our case it may indicate disapproval - some entries run but a sniffy few lines, indicative of the contempt the establishment inspired in us. Many a lengthier essay is powered by a warmer enthusiasm - though some bad spots can also beget a profusion of derogatory epithets.

Honesty is the Publopedian's policy (which is why we adventure incognito) thus never allowing ourselves to be influenced by plucky publicans who might butter the parsnips and ply us with free Beamish in return for a favourable review. Regardless of whether the pint is delicious or bellywash - the pub a palace or a dump - we convey the results of our experience. As such, all views expressed are our own, and the contents of this blog represent personal opinions and perspectives only. You can express your own opinion back to us in the ‘Comments’ section or by emailing dublinpublopedia@gmail.com with any complaints or compliments, corrections, amendations or further anecdotes. Take it all with a proverbial pinch of salt - or more appropriately, a gallon of porter!

An eight-pack a day keeps the doctor in pay. 

Enjoy!

The Dublin Publopedians

01 April 2021

FOOTNOTES

[1] A Dubliner and former TCD student of English and History of Art and Architecture, a published author, a poet, an actor, a film and literature aficionado, a pintman, a man-about-town.

[2] A Dubliner and former TCD student of Italian and Sociology, former drummer of Screaming Skies, a published poet, a Dante aficionado, a fishmonger, a pintman, a man-about-town.