167) Kavanagh's The Temple, of Upper Dorset Street, D1
AS: This is a charming pub at the junction of Eccles Street, and one can see in the background the steeple of the Church of Saint George, now deconsecrated. The exterior of the pub has a protruding clock that sits atop a great big Beamish sign. And true enough, Beamish can be bought! There’s also a small beer garden to take in some sun.
SC: I do not remember this pub nearly as rosily – though its merry mediocrity, cluttered full of families and friends of all ages, made for a sentimental life-affirming exaltation after the abundant horrors of Clarke's City Arms (see above), serving to restore a vestige of one's faith in humanity and a revival in the will to live. It is also of tangential literary interest, being mentioned in passing early on in Ulysses, where Bloom sees a bent hag crossing from it clutching a naggin bottle by the neck – at the time it was known as Cassidy's.
AS: Maybe worth a revisit to be conclusive?
SC: Conclusive indeed! A revisit in 2019 prompted a dramatic revision in opinions. Beamish was served in a Guinness pint glass – a minor detail, but off-putting. [1] Still more off-putting was the taste of the Beamish itself, flat and fetid and foul overall, which Andrew Stephens judges to be among the very poorest of the many specimens we have sampled, joining the ignoble ranks of Brady's in Terenure and the deathly Clarke's City Arms. Squawking children attempt to out-roar the seven blaring television screens – and they have a nasty little money-grabbing practice going wherein group payments by card will incur an extra one euro per card per transaction. All in all, why go here a tail at all when the Auld Triangle is only minutes up the road?
Graceless gobshite picks his nose while sallow green goblin looks on
FOOTNOTE
[1] Cast into still worse relief by the Pimlico Tavern where the barman did likewise, yet also had the good grace and simple decency to apologise unreservedly for this blemish on the drinking experience.
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