Easily one of Dublin’s most impressive pubs and reputedly a onetime go-to for Samuel Beckett, presumably in his earlier years preceding his subsequent exile. Author Colm Toibin, a very wealthy, generous and bitchy man (who also, to paraphrase a patchwork of ass-licking reviews, is the one who writes prose of a heartbreaking beauty and whose sentences have the depth and finish of great sculpture and who it is impossible to read without feeling moved, uplifted and finally [short] changed), once brought the TCD Literary Society here in 2008 and fed us lots of drink. (His best advice to us? 'Forget exercises, write for publication!') He also correctly identified this pub, which boasts a dangerously steep and narrow set of stairs to the downstairs jakes, as being the setting for the first part of Joyce's short story Grace from Dubliners, where the ill-fated Mr. Tom Kernan takes a tumble down those same stairs and bites off the top of his tongue (inspired by a similar incident in the life of John Stanislaus Joyce).

A pleasant city central Victorian 'heritage pub' established in 1803 with a fine carpeted upstairs area and many a picturesque nook and cranny scattered around, but invariably overcrowded and increasingly overpriced. Lots of wood everywhere, including the smaller bars upstairs which sprawl over four floors where one can find an impressive open fire, a hidden smoking area, and at the uppermost level - a unique powder room for ladies to lounge mirrorside. There’s an entrance to the back room around on Duke Lane Upper. Here on the exterior wall is a large sign with the famous Joyce quote: ‘In the particular is contained the universal.’ And if one looks up on high one will see the huge vertically painted ‘Kehoes’ sign on the back of the building. 

Inside the main door to the left is an impressive authentic snug which includes every single necessary criterion making it perhaps Dublin’s finest snug [1]. It also has old-world match strikers on the walls for the smokers of yesteryear. A smaller false snug on the right can also be found, it’s not connected to the bar but it’s slight and very intimate. Numerous standing drinkers on the pavement outside are to be expected in the summertime (or indeed anytime).

FOOTNOTE

[1] See: EXTRAS - SNUGS.

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