“The First Dublin Pub I Ever Drank In I Was Warned To Get Out Immediately”

Dublin absolutely scared the shite out of me when I was younger, a thought that I laugh at now. When I ask my friends, ‘would you ever move to Dublin?’, some reply that it’s too intimidating. I tell them it’s not really but I understand how they feel about the capital because I once felt that way too.

And, that feeling meant that going to Dublin on my first night out was both an exciting and slightly scary experience. Before this, the furthest I’d ever stirred for a night out was Athlone. But, myself and one of the lads were heading to the Kings Of Leon in Marlay Park and we were now, just about, of age to have a few treats for ourselves.

We got the train from home to Heuston and managed to somehow navigate our way to the quays.

You know when the bus or Luas is full and you just go for the first spare seat you see? I have an awful habit of doing that with pubs and restaurants in places I’m not familiar with.

I lied to my friend, told him I had heard good things about this spot, he believed me. I was just delighted to be in a fixed place where we weren’t lost.

Fitzgerald’s situated on Aston Quay, is where we ended up and we hopped on two stools beside the bar.

My sister – who had lived in Dublin for about five years at this stage – told me about all these lovely places that we should go to and had even mapped out routes for us from the train station.

We, of course, categorically ignored each and every suggestion. If we were going to take on Dublin, we’d do it our own way.

We were starved so we ordered pints and food. It’s a long time ago now but I still know what I ordered. It was Guinness Stew. I know because I remember thinking at the time, ‘I’m drinking Guinness and I’m eating it too, this Dublin place is just a different world’.

And no, my life has not gotten anymore exciting since then either before you ask.

My sister quizzed us on our whereabouts. “We’re on the Quays somewhere, Fitzsimons or Fitzgibbons, it’s Fitz something,” I said. I pressed send, took a sip out of my Guinness and thought, this Dublin thing isn’t that bad at all.

A phone call came through straight away: “Darragh, you need to get the fuck out of there. The Quays is so rough,” she explained before going on to characterise every sort of person one might see down there.

I thought, this one is tapped, so I turned off my phone and told her later on that I was “saving my battery”.

And, to her credit, she had a point. The next time I was in Dublin – I was going to a football game – myself and a gang were headed for this pub which I had raved on about and as we headed in the door, two men were battering the living shite out of each other just outside the building to the right. I’m not going to lie, I turned to them and said ‘fuck this’, shat the pants and headed towards Grafton Street .

But back to my first of two times ever in this pub. The food was lovely, the drinks were on point and the people inside the pub were friendly and struck up conversations with us and were dying to find out where we were from because as they rightly stated, our voices weren’t north or southside.