THOUGHTS FROM
LIZA WEISSTUCHIssue 161 | Whisky Magazine 13T
β
sight and, like all such stories,
this one might not have turned
out the same if the timing or the light
had been different. But things are what
they were, so here it goes.
On a sunny June afternoon in Dublin,
I fell in love with a pub. Google Maps
told me it was Dame Court – a more
modest way, I presumed, than the
boisterous Dame Lane it turns off
from. The patio was energetic just
the same, but the narrow road, with
fewer distractions than a denser
strip, encouraged me to notice details
like two small stag heads perched
outside above the door like sentinels,
one missing an antler, a charming
imperfection. I was struck by the
quirky font above the door, every tip
of each letter marked with a small
perpendicular line, like the skull of a
hammerhead shark. I had a sense that
this pub was special.
I sat down and ordered a Guinness
and within moments, I was smitten.
I’m not sure if it was the friendly but
not-too-friendly-because-I-have-
work-to-do-and-business-is-business
tone of the bartender, the squat pillar
above the door carved with detailed
stags from a single piece of wood, the
stained-glass windows along the main
room, the stained-glass dome and worn
wood benches in the back room, the
wallpaper, or the mix of guests, whose
overlapping conversations ran the
gamut from convivial to contemplative.
There was no music, no televisions, just
the sounds of people connecting.
βǡ
β
Dowling, and was so enchanted by the
place that, like anybody with her eye on
an object of affection, I wanted to know
everything about it. So I returned two
Ǥ
to meet with me and as we spoke, it
became exceedingly clear: falling in
love with this pub, which celebrates its
250 th birthday next year, is something
Ǥ
growing up in County Carlow, working
as a butcher because his father put himup for it, and hating it. Around 2005,
he spotted an advert for an apprentice
bartender in a local paper and hopped
the bus to Dublin for an interview.
Bar owner Louis Fitzgerald, whose
restaurant group, according to the
website, has 19 bars, restaurants and
hotels in its repertoire today, asked
Ǥ
had none, but he liked people. And
he’d been a captain of several sporting
teams in high school.
Louis told him to come bartend for
three days at one of his pubs in County
Kildare. He agreed. There was the
Hunt Festival on that week, so, turns
ǡǤǤ
He told me he went home with boots
full of money, told his parents he waschanging careers, and moved to Dublin.
He hasn’t looked back.
ǯ ǡ
bartending then managing, for nine
years, then off for greener pastures for
three, just to see what’s out there. Louis
called him back, he told me. But that’s
a mere technicality. It’s easy to assume
that if his longtime boss, who’ll hit 50
years in the bar business this year,
hadn’t appealed to him to come back,
Ǥ
chatted for the good part of an hour, he
told me that Louis always maintained
that they were merely custodians of
the bar, just there to steer the ship; that
Irish pubs are dying off but this one
βǢ
six Irish whiskeys on the shelf when he
started in 2006 and when he left for his
sabbatical, so to speak, in 2015, there
were 127. I couldn’t imagine him sitting
anywhere else telling a reporter about
his job as adoringly as he was speaking
about the pub.
As he walked me out, he pointed
out a few details, the taxidermied
stag’s head over the bar is actually
an American elk, felled in Alaska;
the stained-glass windows were
commissioned by Louis from a school
where renowned stained-glass artist
Harry Clarke was trained; etc.
Like learning about the virtues and
charms of a new love, every detail
made me fall harder.
Oh, and that font outside? 'Quirky'
doesn’t even begin to describe it.
“The typeface doesn’t exist,” he told me,
DzβǤdz
A true original, like the pub itself.LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
Our correspondent falls head over heels for a pub
Like learning about the
virtues and charms of
a new love, every detail
made me fall harder