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Posts Tagged ‘food’

Social/private club bars in Dublin (2025 map)

Posted in Dublin History, tagged , , , on June 8, 2025| 4 Comments »

This is an attempt to document all bars attached to social and private clubs in Dublin – those run by sports clubs, community groups, trade unions, private members’ clubs, residents’ associations, and cultural organisations. Officially referred to as Registered Clubs, these venues do not appear in any centrally held register issued by Revenue. This is a work in progress. If you have any corrections or additions, please email me at matchgrams(at)gmail.com.

To open the full map in a new tab, click here.

Cian Duffy has done a great service for historians, researchers, and genealogists by compiling a map of all licensed premises in Dublin dating back to 1902. His map currently includes over 1,000 operating public bars, 534 pubs that closed before 2010, and 139 that closed after 2010. He is on a mission to visit every open licensed premises on the map – with about 40 to go – and you can follow his progress on his blog.

In late 2023, while home sick with Covid, I began compiling a list of all social clubs, sports clubs, and private members’ clubs with bars on their premises. These fall outside the scope of Cian’s research. Friends have continued to send me tips and updates, so I’ve decided to publish this evolving list as a work in progress.

As these are private members’ clubs with licensed bars, it’s generally required that all members and guests sign in at the door – though practices vary by venue. This list may be useful for those seeking unique venues for birthdays, retirements, or other gatherings.

I’ve divided the map pins into three categories:

1. Sports
2. Non-Sports
3. Closed

1. Sports
As you can imagine, sports clubs with bars comprise a huge number. The majority are what you expect – soccer, GAA, rugby, tennis, cricket and golf clubs. More uncommon would be bars found at hockey clubs (e.g. Three Rockers Rovers in Rathfarnham and Pembroke Wanderers in Ballsbridge), athletics clubs (Donore Harriers in Chapelizod and Clonliffe Harriers in Santry), a pigeon club (Sarsfield Pigeon Club in Ballyfermot), rowing clubs (Commercial and Neptune near Phoenix Park), a badminton club (Terenure Badminton Centre), and a bridge club (Regent Bridge Club in Ballsbridge).

Clonliffe Harriers Athletics Club, Santry


2. Non-Sports
Many of these are associated with jobs, professions and industry. There are a lot of public service sectors represented, including:

Gardaí – The Dublin Metropolitan Garda Recreation Club at Westmanstown Sports & Conference Centre, Westmanstown, D15. There are also separate bars for Garda officers and other ranks (nicknamed “Wet Canteen”) at Garda Headquarters in Phoenix Park. The Garda Club on Harrington Street closed back in 2014.

Dublin Bus/Bus Éireann workers – The Coldcut Club, Clondalkin, D22.

An Post – The Postal Club, Old Bawn, Tallaght, D24.

Teachers – The Teachers Club, Parnell Square, D1. Ran by The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO)

Prison Officers – Millmount House, Drumcondra, D9. Ran by the Prison Officers Association.

Dublin Airport – Airport Leisure Social Athletic Association (ALSAA), Old Airport Rd, Co Dublin

RTÉ – RTÉ Sports & Social Club in Donnybrook, D4 (closed?)

Defence Forces -Three bars in Cathal Brugha Barracks, Rathmines and one (?) in McKee Barracks, Cabra.

There are also the various bars on different university and college campuses.

Although they don’t retain a connection today, Sportslink in Santry was originally formed by staff from Telecom Éireann in 1993. The Transport Sports & Social Club in Crumlin was established by members of the ITGWU in 1974. In Inchicore, the Inchicore Sports and Social Club (formerly CIE Social Club) and Inchicore United Workman’s Club both had connections to local railway workers. The Glue Pot venue was originally the social club for workers from the now-closed Clondalkin Paper Mills.

Transport Sports & Social Club, Crumlin

Solicitors have a bar in the Law Society of Ireland, Blackhall Place, D7 while Barristers have the “The Sheds” bar at The Bar Council of Ireland, Distillery Building, Church Street, D7.

Private Members Clubs
Then there are the long-established clubs including the Kildare Street and University Club, the Royal Irish Automobile Club, the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) members club, the Stephen’s Green Hibernian Club and the United Arts Club. All are in St Stephen’s Green area besides the RDS in Ballsbridge.

Irish culture
You also have a number of venues associated with the Irish language and music including Club Chonradh na Gaeilge (closed for renovation) on Harcourt Street, Áras Chrónáin in Clondalkin and Cultúrlann na hÉireann in Monkstown. Note that Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann’s Clasaċ venue on the Alfie Byrne Road near Clontarf has a theatre licence.

Interestingly, a number of residents’ associations and community organisations run bars. On the Northside, there’s:
The Ayrfield Club, Donaghmede, Dublin 13
Grange Woodbine Club bar, Raheny, Dublin 5
River Valley Community Centre bar, Swords, North Co Dublin
Artane Beaumont Family Recreation Centre bar, Dublin 5
And in South/West Dublin, there is:
Greenhills Community Centre bar, Walkinstown, Dublin 12
Firhouse Community Centre bar, Firehouse, Dublin 24.
Kilnamanagh Family Recreation Centre bar, Tallaght, Dublin 24.

Some of the most atypical premises would include
The Hells Angels MC clubhouse in Mulhuddart.
The Italian community’s Club Italiano in the Dublin Mountains
The Dún Laoghaire Club (Elbana)
Freemason’s Hall bar, Molesworth Street

Billiards room in the Dún Laoghaire Club (Elbana).

3. Closed
The final list contains a list of closed venues, including interesting spots such as the British Legion, the Revenue Social Club, the Irish Times Staff Club, the RAF Association Club, and bars associated with different political parties and groups.

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DiFontaines in three words- nom, nom and nom

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on July 20, 2011| 3 Comments »

I don’t have much to say about the accompanying pictures except anyone I’ve taken into DiFontaines on Parliament Street (and there have been quite a few, I’m pretty much in love with the place) has left there feeling like they’ve just eaten the best pizza in the city. And they’d be right in feeling so.

The connection with Fun Lovin' Criminals still remains obviously!

Once found attached to the legendary (I’m not sure whether legendary good way or legendary bad way,) Eamonn Doran’s, it was subject to many drunken visits post now sadly defunct “CHTM’s Crew Friday Nights.” Anyways, €4 for any slice of Pizza in the awesome new spot, go for the sausage/ pepperoni/ ham, it will leave you salivating at the thought of more!

Where I go for my post Casa Rebelde / Brogan's eats!

And yes, it is better than Ray’s Pizza.

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Remember the Alamo

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on March 13, 2011| 3 Comments »

The Alamo on Fleet Street has been a subject of humour on CHTM before, with their ludicrous advertising of bargain €4.50 pints (rumoured to be poured from a can by the way,) but its not a place I’d set foot in until last night. We always talk about reviewing more eateries on here but the bloody price of eating out in Dublin prohibits it most of the time. But, with a cool sixty quid in my pocket, having backed O’Driscoll to score the first try in the rugby, and the lure of post pint Mexican food great, a troupe of us made our way from the stools in Brogan’s the oldest Mexican restaurant in Dublin.

The Alamo

Its a lovely little place inside, the bang on waiter offering us a table in the window – nice to be able to look at the world go by. To be honest, none of us was sober at this point, having imbibed several pints of the black stuff throughout the afternoon, but whilst my memory generally goes after said pints, its hard to forget the food here- truly amazing. I got the chicken wings to start, having been told on the way down that they were the best in Dublin. And they didn’t disappoint. Not too spicy, more a smoky, sweet taste but undoubtedly the best wings I’ve tasted in Dublin, and thats saying something. €8.50 for a starter, a little pricy but this is Temple Bar. To be honest, they could have done as a main course, the bowl overflowing with a good twenty wings. Thats a lot of chickens… I knicked a couple of Chris’s Lambada Sizzlers- deep fried jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese, the business.

The Quesedilla for main course, and I couldn’t finish it- Huge chunks of chicken with quacamole, cheese and spring onion wrapped in soft fresh tortilla. A really tasty dish, but not without a downside- the price. €17.95 for a main course is something you couldn’t afford to do every week… or every month for that matter. I certainly wouldn’t have been doing it only for the ever so kind Paddy Power was paying for it and not me. Helping the food go down was a jug of frozen margarita. How very cosmopolitan of us. Definitely a place I’d go back to, I reckon I might give Tommy Bowe a shot next week…

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A Random Drop Inn: The Flowing Tide & Sin É

Posted in Miscellaneous, Pub Crawls, Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on February 18, 2010| 6 Comments »

“Come on; stall down here, we’ll get cans in, head to a pub, and then hit Dancehall Styles,” I say. “Grand, but meet me up in The Flowing Tide for one first” he says. Do we make it to Dancehall Styles? Not a chance. The Flowing Tide on Abbey Street has the ability to put the goo on you for a night on a bar stool. It’s a great spot, just off O’Connell Street but it somehow manages to avoid the majority of the ‘five-around-one-pint-of-stout” tourists that places like The Oval and Murrays seem to attract in abundance. Pints at a nice price too, at €4.15, unusual considering. The barman is a gent too, though I remind myself not to get on his bad side.

The Flowing Tide, by Sarahjoh, from Flickr

I was here one afternoon with my brother, ingesting a couple of quiet ones before we legged it down to Connolly to catch the train home. There was just the two of us and the barman, swapping small talk and watching the wrestling on telly, laughing and cracking jokes about it, when all of a sudden, two thirty-something blokes, straight from the office, and pretty hoi-polloi, strode hurriedly in. Without looking at the barman, one nasally whined “Hoi, stick on two Heino and the last race at Cheltenham, good man.” Christ. The barman, without taking his eyes off the telly said “Nah, lad, we’re watching the wrestling.” The two “Heinos” didn’t know where to look, eventually said “you can cancel the Heinos,” turned heal and left. I didn’t know where to look either, I nearly spilled my drink with laughter. So, moral of the story, don’t cross the barman with the moustache…

Anyways, great little spot; with the theatre across the road, you often get well known faces dropping in- Mick Lally (Miley from Glenroe) is a regular, though he’s a little worse for wear these days to be honest. But he wasn’t there tonight, just myself, jaycarax and a few locals. A couple of pints later and it was obvious that neither of us would have the energy to make it to see our friends in Worries Outernational. What we could do is get the grub in and head for another couple of quiet ones elsewhere.

Sin É, from properpint.com

So, after a quick stop off in the Peoples Kitchen on Capel Street (worth an article in itself- good asian food at half the price,) we headed as far as Sin É on Ormond Quay, pleasantly surprised to find that on Sundays, they do €3 pints of Guinness. I was hoping there wasn’t a reason for the pints being €3, but other than them being served in non-branded glasses (a bit of a pet hate,) you couldn’t complain.

Sin É: I really don’t know what to make of it. It tries to attract an “in” crowd, but bars like that are generally, well, a bit crap to be honest, but this place does well in that the staff are proper spot-on, the music is always good, and the punters are sound too. It’s frequented by Irish and non-Irish alike, a lot of backpacker types, alongside a couple of locals propping up the bar. Nice place it has to be said I guess. We stayed for a couple of their nice €3 pints before I realized the night was getting on and I had work bright and breezy in the morning. A right pain in the arse as we had just settled ourselves into some nice seats just inside the door. Ah well; not a bad evening, nice and cheap, not to be scoffed at in these times, the pints and the food came to less than €30. Well worth a try again sometime!

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