Dublin by Night – Ireland

DAY 8 – No visit to Dublin is complete without a pub crawl.. and there are indeed many pubs where one can crawl.  In the past, there were some 3,000 pubs in Dublin where locals could have a cheap drink and escape from their dire poverty.  The pubs provided a cosy atmosphere where the men could have a drink and forget the hardship of life outside the pubs. Today Dublin has about 850 pubs with particular styles and clientele.

However, for a pub crawl with a difference we participated in the Jameson Dublin Literary Pub Crawl.  As the people at Jameson say, “Dublin pubs are known the world over as shrines to the art of conversation.  The drink is almost something incidental….”

The censorship act of 1927, prevented may writers from publishing their work.  Submitting to the church was not for them and therefore they had to escape to Europe.  Those who stayed went to pubs like the Mulligan’s, Palace, McDaid and Bailey to meet the journalists and literary editors of the Irish Times and Irish Press.  The scene was gossipy and poisonous and writers fell out and had to move to another pub.  Pub crawling became a way of life for them.

We started with a drink at the Duke Hotel, 9 Duke Street.  Two actors then took us to four famous pubs to follow in the footsteps of Joyce, Shaw, O’Casey Beckett and other literary giants.  The actors performed humorous extracts from Dublin’s best known writers at each stop.  You got to have a drink at each pub, but you also had to listen carefully as there was a Literary Quiz at the end.  Prizes were then awarded to the quickest and most literary-inclined.  Tony took out the first prize during his Crawl and he’s still got the t-shirt to prove it.

Helen