Weirdo Guide to Dublin Pubs: The Swan Bar

We’re excited to be nominated for an Irish Food Writing Award in the Beer Writing category – cheers to the panel and judges! And thanks to you, regular readers, for sending enough traffic our way for it to be meaningful. It’s lovely company to be in, and we’re looking forward to the ceremony; we expect to go home empty-handed but well-fed.

This week, we visit The Swan Bar on Aungier Street. And while we haven’t found any particular ghost stories associated with this high Victorian pub, readers like you will know it’s still an appropriate choice for Spooky Season simply because of its location (even if its official postal address is on the other side of the intersection on York Street).

Ah, you have no doubt thought, this reminds me of Sheridan LeFanu’s classic short story, ‘An Account of Some Strange
Disturbances in Aungier Street‘ – this is, surely, the first association all normal people have to this part of Dublin. And while our current pub building post-dates those early 18th century buildings mentioned in the story (first published in Dublin University Magazine in 1853, but you already knew that), and there is even a bit of late 17th century architecture around the area, it is still a distinctive building, albeit one in a very different style.

Inside, it has the typical dark wood, highly polished glass and comfortable snug common to pubs of the late 19th century, though much of this was burnished in a 1913 rebuild and then a major renovation in the 2010s. But it still retains touches from a number of eras, from the prevailing Victorian vibe through to the 1980s pay phone (plus a bit of unusual art here and there). Beer-wise, it’s one of a number of Changing Times pubs, which we’ve discussed before and been rather underwhelmed by for a variety of reasons; it would be lovely to see some more interesting independent beers as at spots like Sheehan’s or The Palace Bar, but the stout and red ale are both fine, and there is the mild novelty of the nitro version of the red ale. Might want to skip the hazy, though.

Finally, back to LeFanu; we won’t spoil the story (though if you’ve made it this far, you’ve surely read it at some point, unless you’re more of a Carmilla stan – we get it), but we would recommend paying him a visit at this time of year. He’s buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, and while this year’s Bram Stoker Festival tours are sold out, you can have an unmediated visit at your leisure. Perhaps bring some green tea…

Where: 58 York St, Dublin, D02 RW67
Access from the city centre: In it by some standards, or buses 14, 15, 16D, 68, 80, 122, 158; 10 minute walk
Food: Crisps, Dublin Pizza Company slices
Sport: All the usual sport, but very much rugby-forward
TVs: Screens around the pub
Music: More television on our visit
Family-friendliness: Not much for kids to do, but we imagine there are a few for daytime sports viewing
Pub-crawl-ability: High – Egan’s, Thomas Moore Inn, The Long Hall, The Hairy Lemon, Caribou, Peter’s Pub, Grogan’s…and many more within a 10-minute walk
Local sites of note: Whitefriars Street Church, National Archives of Ireland, St Stephen’s Green, The Little Museum of Dublin, Archaeology Lidl
Haunted: Again, no good stories – why can’t more local pubs create cracking ghost stories instead of phony history?
Other notes: Fine whiskey selection
Socials: Instagram, Facebook