Great pubs are born that way – they can’t be made

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Every so often you read a survey of the best pubs in Ireland. And invariably, they’re based on quality of food, seating, ambience, friendliness, lighting and so on….few of which have anything at all to do with what actually makes a good pub great.

The best pubs almost discourage you from going in; they’re dark and dingy, and the closest you’ll get to a food menu will be a choice between peanuts and crisps.

There won’t be shelves stuffed with rare and expensive whiskeys any more than you’d get fridges full of a cross-section of world beers; they won’t be taps from micro-breweries either, just a selection of the old favourites all looking the worse for wear.

The tables will be chipped and, if they’re of the relevant vintage, covered in cigarette burns. The seats will be wobbly and rarely matching; the toilets will live in the memory because of the lingering smell on your clothes.

But the best pubs don’t require their own architect – their popularity won’t be down to aesthetics or a choice of 200 beers….it’s a stool at a counter, a well-poured pint and, more often than not, a barman who can mind his own business.

That well-known Dublin publican Charlie Chawke stirred up a hornet’s nest last week when he insisted that his frontline bar staff had to be Irish.

He tried to justify this on the basis that only Irish people knew Irish culture and that the foundation of this famous ‘Cead Mile Failte’ you get in Irish pubs.

Quite honestly, if a barman ever wished me ‘Cead Mile Failte’ as I sat on a bar stool, I’d be out of there before he had a chance to implore the powers that be that the road would rise with me on the rest of my journey.

Mr Chawke – a man who paid €22 million for a pub in Dublin at the height of the boom – obviously knows his business, but given that almost one-fifth of those who call Ireland home now were born in another country, he might be cutting off the potential to expand his customer base.

And even if you are Irish, you’re unlikely to insist that your friendly host for the evening is also from this Island of Saints and Scholars.

It’s great for those who want to discuss the All-Ireland or the rugby with the barman but most people go to pubs to get away from that. Most people also come in with their own friends, rather than borrowing one from the other side of the bar counter.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.