Weirdo Guide to Dublin Pubs: Quinn’s

In one of the longest-awaited (or, for the more cynical among you, most-doubted-to-ever-happen) Dublin pub re-openings, Quinn’s Pub has finally thrown wide the doors, some six years after its closure, and after several intervening years of decay, delays and general development hell.

It’s something of an infamous pub, known just as much in the past for its brushes with poor drainage, health and safety issues and even a murder as for its reputation as a gameday location for those descending upon Croke Park from the countryside for the GAA. It was also a popular (if, apparently, ‘smelly’) student bar in the 1990s and 2000s, from back when DCU students could afford to live in nearby rental properties; not really an option now that those houses are nearly all airbnbs, but that’s another story.

We even get a bit of folklore in the demise of the previous incarnation of Quinn’s – the story goes that then-owner, Seán Quinn – devastatingly referred to on the pub’s current website as a ‘former billionaire’ – caused his own misfortune when he moved the Aughrim Wedge Tomb, a megalithic tomb of c. 2000 BCE, in order to make way for some quarrying (and to create an ersatz tourist attraction at a hotel he formerly owned, where it remains). This, as one might expect, upset the Good People, and it was all downhill from there. (Your fair scribe has not-dissimilar thoughts about this, as a former archaeologist). In any event, Quinn himself has not been associated with the pub for some years, but it’s taken the new ownership group a long time and a somewhat-controversial investment scheme to get back up and running.

Originally slated to open ‘for Paddy’s Day’ about 2 years ago, it’s finally been close enough to done to start getting customers in – just in time for the All-Ireland Final which saw Mayo break a 75-year curse to win, so we should probably never assume there may not be more occult forces at work, somewhere. This is important context for the outsider, as it’s difficult to convey just what a sellout day at Croke Park is like for the neighbourhood, whether that be a concert or a GAA final: you suddenly have an extra 82,000 people to contend with, mostly in good humour, but they will be spilling out of every local pub, café and shop, not just across pavements, but into the roads – good luck getting your bus through. One can imagine that the custom on a single big day must be a massive part of the annual revenue for our local businesses, so getting something open before the last big GAA event was, well, kind of a big deal.

So what we do see now is by no means the finished product, but as a local resident, it was Important to go check out what was on offer, once it was possible to do so. Quinn’s is a very large building by local standards, and the new owners have divided up what was the ground-floor bar into a café – opening during the day for coffees, etc, and as a wine bar in the evenings – with the other side maintaining a more traditionally ‘pubby’ feel. This is probably a very sensible approach, especially for out-of-season operations, but it does make that ‘pub’ side seem a bit small (if comfortably furnished). The theme is, of course, GAA, and there will also be hotel rooms upstairs, all decorated in different county colours, so that continues throughout.

Perhaps most surprisingly – and this is a pleasant surprise – there’s even a local independent beer on offer. This is not a given at most of the more ‘sporty’ pubs in Dublin, so it was great to see a Whiplash tap, even if it wasn’t up and running yet on our visit. The Carlsberg, however, tasted just as fresh as it does in Copenhagen, so clearly, considerable work has gone into completely reworking the tap lines (and plumbing in general – no smells!). There is Beamish as well as Guinness, so if Cork are playing, their fans will be well-catered to.

It looks as if it will be a while longer before more food offerings and upstairs bars come online, but a planned outdoor food market has already been advertising for vendors, so it will be interesting to watch the progress continue to unfold. And while the (men’s) GAA is done for the season, there’s still a series of late-summer concerts to get through (not that we’re complaining – Croke Park does a good job of keeping locals informed about expected attendance numbers and timing, and we’ve had free tickets on a number of occasions, including for last year’s Oasis gig, so it’s by no means a bad system) – will fans of The Weeknd [sic] enjoy Quinn’s?

Time will tell…

Where: 42 Drumcondra Rd Lower, Botanic, Dublin 9
Access from the city centre: TBD
Food: TBD, but some light snacks on the cafe side now
Sport: GAA, presumably more will be featured, albeit in a more casual way
TVs: Still getting set up, but a few already in situ
Music: A mix on our visit, but one imagines All Sport on big match days
Family-friendliness: Daytime, perhaps…but not so much at night
Pub-crawl-ability: Medium; there are other pubs within a 10-15 minute walk, with Juno, McGrath’s, Phil Ryan’s The Hogan Stand, Fagan’s and Gill’s Corner House nearby, though it’s also worth it to head to The Bald Eagle, The Brian Boru or The Cat & Cage 
Haunted: It’s had a murder, dead rats…surely, there is a story or two to be shared
Local sites of note: Croke Park, Royal Canal, Mater Hospital
Other notes: The drainage has been remedied
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