385) Eccles Townhouse of Eccles Street/Dorset Street Upper, D1/D7
Reader dear, indulge us please. While not strictly a pub - this is a licensed premises - a premises which is a historical curio for those with an erection (or secretion) for the literary slant. Eccles Townhouse is a bar/café/deli/hotel/and a self proclaimed ‘provisions merchant.’ Today, one can grab a Guinness and gaze at the steeple of St. George’s Church just as one would have done over 100 years ago when it was Larry O’Rourke’s pub. Of course, Larry O’Rourke is forever preserved in Ulysses as the owner of the pub bearing his name at the end of Eccles Street. T’was a ‘good house’ then according to Bloom, a townhouse now.
“He approached Larry O’Rourke’s. From the cellar grating floated up the flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush.”
An early still of Larry O’Rourke’s and Eccles Street as it was before the Mater hospital progressed
The building is an elegant Victorian townhouse where the current owners have retained the Victorian feel, original windows and steel columns. It sits proudly on a corner and over the years the address has been variously listed as either number 72/73 Upper Dorset Street (Dublin 1), or on Eccles Street itself (Dublin 7). It has gone through several name changes including: The Cosy Bar, O’Neill’s, The James Joyce and later changed to Aurora in 2006 when it was owned by a certain gentleman by the name of Fionn MacCumhaill (Wakean very!) who transmogrified it to a café bar/eatery.
We visited in July 2022 not on a hot day, but on the hottest day in a century and a half. 33 Degrees Celsius was recorded in the Phoenix Park. (‘Lovely weather, sir’ says Bloom, ’Tis all that!’ says Larry). We dipped inside for the desperate want to refresh in shade and found ourselves the only customers present. Andrew asked for 2 Guinness from the little bit of a bar. The nervous proprietor (most certainly not ‘a cute old codger’) thought he had ordered 2 coffees. Coffee is probably the only thing this ‘barman’ is used to pouring, for Guinness he knew not how to pour.
Sloppy, bubbly, a flabby gush of porter plopped into the glass, and the pints were brought table-side overflowing with big stupid heads on them the size o’ prized pumpkins. To be fair, we hadn’t come here thinking it would be the best Guinness in Dublin, far from it, however you’d pour a better pint yourself! Oddly, Andrew was happy enough with the taste-test. Sam winced and grimaced at first sip and guessed his pint was probably the first of the day. €5.50 a pint put it in stark contrast to the €4.00 Beamish in the Auld Triangle just down the road.
See the needle of the steeple of the church of St. George!
It was to our deep delight we warmed a seat in old Larry O’Rourke’s which gave to us fantastic views of both Eccles Street and St. George’s steeple - a Joycean’s wet dream. And indeed Joyce is so honoured by dint of large paintings on the wall of the bard himself and of Leopold Bloom’s hall door - number 7 Eccles Street. We certainly savoured the novelty of the situation but can’t recommend the pintman should visit. However the premises was clean and tidy and foodstuffs looked tempting. There’s no trace of O’Rourke’s now, but in many ways Larry lives on. We left off, for we thought we heard the sound of St. George’s bell chimes - what was it? - only the jingle jangle of the Auld Triangle calling us back to basics.
A later shot of the pub
Interior shot of Larry O’Rourke’s
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