161) Vaughan’s Eagle House of Terenure Road, D6W

This pub creates a ‘Through the Looking Glass’ kind of experience for the middling drinker. Externally from the front it looks like a small, narrow, two-storied building. On walking through however, one can see at least three levels stretching further and further back, two of which appear to be served by the one same counter. Astonishingly, when on level three one can look up to yet another level, a fourth dimension which is a real facemelter. A beaker of Beamish may be purchased for €4.20, but if one imbibes in the lowest level (down in the bowels of the bar) one will be rewarded with a further fat ten cent off. Put that in your pig and break it! Extremely high ceilings provide space for a period photograph of a Terenure of yesteryear that hangs as large as a cinema screen.

The middle bar is pleasing by day but tends to be ignored by a forgetful barman more interested in the clientele downstairs. Once, an older gent was waiting so long for the barkeep, he stepped behind the bar and started hopping up and down, his pint glass having gone awful dry. The parched patron was eventually served after Stephens resorted to clinking a couple of glasses in an effort to call up the keeper. Another time saw a nervous old man quickly finishing a pint. “The wife thinks I’ve gone out to buy the paper!” He threw a caraway seed into his gob and left with a wink.

On a historical note, May Murray, mother of James Joyce was born here in 1859 and an exterior plaque celebrates this fact. If one looks out to the left from the main entrance, one will see Saint Joseph’s, the church in which the little baby Joyce was baptised. 

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