In a small city like Dublin, it’s relatively easy to rally local beer nerds with a little bit of novelty – news travels quickly amongst our cohort – and whether it’s a new pub or, in this case, a bit of a throwback experience, it will be thoroughly investigated within days.
Work and travel have kept us away until now, but once the Bat Beer Signal went up from Donal, via his excellent Public House History, a visit to Bill Aherne’s was a must.
What and why, you may ask?
Well, it’s simple – Bill Aherne’s is the newish name for what was most recently Fitzgerald’s Bar, but this location has been a pub known by a variety of monikers since it was built in the late 19th century. Now under the ownership of Willie Aherne – grandson of Bill, and yes, the same Ahernes who own The Palace Bar, there’s a similar commitment to whiskey and keeping the historic interior in tip-top shape. But what made the beer nerds descend was not a name-change…rather, it’s the opportunity to try ‘warm Guinness‘ – well, sort of. Let’s explain.
One of the major reasons there’s vanishingly little cask ale in Ireland is that Guinness moved to tap-dispensed kegs in the 1950s and 60s; as the major supplier to essentially every pub in the country, they also upgraded (or, if you prefer, changed) the infrastructure in those pubs to cold rooms and keg dispense – and kept the competition out, while they were at it. And yes, this is wildly oversimplifying, but it was essentially the end for cask in most places here; you need to know where to go (and hope it’s on) if you’re a fan.
And while there is no beer engine option here, there is a 1960s tap box on the bar, set up to dispense Guinness at something closer to room temperature. Naturally, we’ve all had to give it a go. So much of Guinness culture is the theatre around its presentation and serving – the two-part pour (don’t get us started on that, nor on Splitting the G, except as a parody concept), letting it settle, the branded glassware all play a part. And there’s a special glass involved here if you order a pint from the tap box – the extra gold on the lettering is a nice touch.
And does it taste markedly different from ‘cold’ Guinness? Well…perhaps a bit, though it’s also a similar experience if you’re slowly sipping, and the beer has warmed up while you’ve taken your time over it. But as a bit of a change from the standard Guinness pint (also, it should be noted, very much available here, along with Changing Times, though we’ve opined about that elsewhere – the Rye River tap looked to be getting some use as well on our visit), it’s good fun, and the pub has been nicely spruced up; though not hugely changed from its previous incarnation, it does seem a bit brighter and lighter. The back of the pub looks to be larger than it was before, with a small stage (there is regular live music). All told, it’s a very comfortable pub now, with some lovely snugs.
And there are (whiskey) casks as well…it would be delightful if the experiment with the ‘historic’ equipment also led to a cask option for at least one beer here.
We live in hope…
Where: 22 Aston Quay, Dublin 2, D02 FH28
Access from the city centre: In it – the Liffey is opposite the pub, Temple Bar is down the road, Trinity around the corner…
Food: Crisps
Sport: Nada
TVs: No
Music: Live trad and other gigs in evenings – check the socials
Family-friendliness: Spotted a few kids in snugs in the afternoon
Pub-crawl-ability: High – sister pub The Palace Bar, Cassidy’s, JR Mahon’s, O’Neill’s, Bowes, Tapped, Harty’s Bar, The Oval, Mulligans, The Flowing Tide, The Morris Bar & Piper’s Corner are all nearby
Local sites of note: National Wax Museum, Trinity College, Abbey Theatre, Irish Whiskey Museum, O’Connell Street
Haunted: No good ghost stories that we know of
Other notes: Basement toilets
Socials: Instagram
We venture south of the Liffey again for two purposes: bagels and beer. Whilst our main goal on our visit to 
Inside, what could have been a tired 1970s-era renovation in a 19th century pub has been thoughtfully updated, keeping a bit of the old for camp and comfort, with a blend of fantastic local art, memorabilia and the finest Pride gear (not just in June, we are told, but all the year round, and it’s wonderful) well-placed on all the walls. It’s one of the most cleanly-designed pubs we’ve ever been in, but it still feels packed with personality – these aren’t the ‘hotel bar’ vibes you get 
And there is truly something for everyone – sport, including an emphasis on women’s sport (FINALLY), is on various screens, there’s a monthly folk club, drag bingo and pub quizzes galore. But you’ve likely come to read about the bagels, and we wouldn’t leave you disappointed. Ireland is not generally known for its strong bagel game – see also: 
Regular readers know that we tend to keep 
However, our midweek daytime visit was quite a different affair, and all to the good. Both the interior and the large beer garden were calm, though not empty – as we write this, it is 
That said, we are more likely to take ourselves to
Although Dublin has no shortage of pubs 
We’ll start 
There’s a folk club upstairs at 
And if you’re looking for up-and-coming local bands or established touring acts, there are plenty of pubs that also serve as music venues. Whelan’s, 
We’ve not always been fair to 
The first point in its favour – for us, anyway – is its support for local independent beer: there are multiple 
While it’s true that when in this general direction we are more often to be found at 
Until a little over a decade ago, 
And while it can be a bit rough around the edges, likely needing a few coats of paint and some repairs here and there (not to mention having slightly-infamous toilets), that’s part of the charm. Yes, it would be nice if some of the derelict buildings surrounding The Cobblestone were used for, say, housing, but it really does feel like a landmark as-is.
Dublin excels at 
There’s a warm welcome, and not one, but two local independent beers offerings: Hope and O’Hara’s are always well-kept here. The bar serves two separate sections, each with their own respective snugs and other seating, and there are lots of little corners to duck into if you’re looking for that quiet solo pint. And it’s interesting to note that while everything you see now is very much hearkening back to the late 19th century, this is, in fact, an older pub – the original building(s) is/are Georgian, and its first license 
Our one knock on many Old Man Pubs is that they rarely offer any beers beyond the usual Guinness and Heineken (though to be fair, it’s usually an excellent Guinness from scrupulously clean tap lines), but as mentioned above, at Gaffney’s, there is good support for other choices, plus Beamish as another stout option. This beer selection, combined with the attractive interior, might just make it the perfect Dublin Old Man Pub.
This week, it’s another relatively rare visit into the more touristy part of town as we visit 
Kennedy’s is another pub I’ve walked past many times without entering, but I finally had a bit of free time in the area this week, so stopped in for a sneaky daytime glass after visiting the National Gallery. While not nearly as extensive a list of craft beer taps as nearby 
There’s a lovely tiled bar in the basement for live music and events, and this space as well as the terra cotta decoration on the pub’s exterior add unique touches, while the rest of the interior feels a bit more ‘standard Irish pub.’ All told, it’s probably more of a destination for those on literary walking tours than anything else, but it’s nice to find a spot in tourist-land with a few craft beers; it’s not necessarily a given in Dublin.
Last week, we asked whether 
The pub has been here since the 1850s, and in the Hedigan family since 1904, and you can’t miss their name in neon, either. Of course, like so many pubs along this route, it’s name-checked in Ulysses, and has a useful write-up 
Well, there have been proposals to 
We are back this week with a ‘request pub’ – one that’s much further north than our more common north-of-the-Liffey-but-still-pretty-central stomping grounds. We’re heading out of Dublin City proper to Howth; it’s an easy trip on the DART, but a bit of a pain if, for example, you needed Dublin Bus to deposit you to a nearby spot at a predetermined time. Dublin Bus is not always especially good at the concept of ‘on time’ (but it’s pretty great on ghost buses), so the journey in this general direction involved more taxis than I typically take in a 6-month period, but we got there in the end. Our (eventual) destination was 
I’d recently had an exchange on the socials lamenting the lack of railway station bars in Ireland, and while we have nothing here quite like the small-but-mighty 
We enjoyed excellent food and service when we stopped in, which isn’t necessarily a given in some pubs mid-week in the middle of the afternoon (hardly a fruitful time for most), so it was much appreciated. There is outdoor seating as well around both ends of the pub, but we kept to the more dimly-lit interior on a lovely sunny afternoon. Having offspring who actively avoid the sun may be odd to others, but hey, at least their vampiric ways are preventing long-term sun damage, and the pub interior really is lovely, all stone and dark wood.