64) Tommy O'Gara of Manor Street, D7

Formerly The Stoneybatter Inn. Strong on the local colour, this is an amiable and highly affordable Stoneybatter establishment. It’s the earliest opening establishment along this stretch. By day it gets a wondrous light and the red stained glass windows are a wonder. It sits directly adjacent to its nasty gassy neighbour L. Mulligan Grocer which suffers from S.G.D. [1] and is nothing more than an overrated foodhole. Competition between the two pubs is split - O’Gara’s crowd is mixed, Mulligan gets the muppets. While foodies and hipsters are busy taking their gastagrams [2] next door, O’Gara offers a simple toastie for those who have hunger. But best of all, a pint of Beamish will be proudly poured for only €4.45 (now a clean fiver post Covid), whereas one can’t even get a Guinness in that wank-den next door.

This is a pub crazy about sports and will be packed on match days. (One may espy on the wall, if one is given to squinting, a little snapshot of none other than the eponymous Tommy O'Gara himself, decades younger but still recognisable in the prime of his pitching, a rugger-bugger to beat the bandits.) An excellent black and white period photograph can also be seen of a woman elegantly dressed in pristine high-heels skinning a rabbit off the back of a cart with her bare hands. To the back of the pub is a modest smoking area which has a large TV screen encased in a transparent box for protection against rain, spit, semen, vomit and other bodily fluids.

A kindly barman from a well known Portobello pub is wont to be taking a prescription of multiple ‘tall and shorts’ ordering a pint of lager and a whiskey chaser. He sits alone to follow his thoughts, and he prefers earlier daylight hours for clarity’s sweet sake. When asked about his choice of lager he was heard to say of all lagers ‘it’s peasant juice.’ The main news again now: give Tommy O’Gara your Euro - give Laurence Mulligan your finger. And don’t linger either! Yet this Portobello barman (mercifully unnamed) is far from the only luminary pint-pourer to grace the stools and taps of Tommy’s - others spotted here include the barman from nearby Delaneys (raptly watching a match when sighted) and the freebie-friendly bespectacled chap from The Flowing Tide, who eyed the Publopedians with especial pertinence and interest. All in all, Tommy O’Gara’s has earned the highest praise - it is truly the kind of bar that other barmen like to drink in. Like an actor’s actor, you can’t do much better than that. So either drink there or be square, sugar.

A ratty little mean-faced gobshite

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Severe Gastritis Disease

[2] Gastagram: (noun), an Instagram photograph taken of one’s gastronomic experience. Copyright © 2020 The Dublin Publopedia.

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