Gareth Leonard stepped off a redeye and into Dublin with 15 hours of travel on his body, a pen-and-paper to-do list, and a simple choice: sleep it off or drink it in. He chose the pubs. What followed was a single Monday in Ireland that started with a 200-year-old bar at 11 in the morning and ended, somehow, in a back room dancing with strangers.
Where a pub is still a pub
The first stop was the Palace Bar on Fleet Street, a place that has been pouring pints since the early 1800s. Willie, the third generation of his family to run it after his grandfather bought it in 1946 and vowed not to change a thing, walked Leonard through the snug, a small partitioned booth where women were once required to sit while men occupied the bar. There was no women’s bathroom in the Palace until the late 1970s. Before that, women had to be let upstairs to the family home.
Willie also pointed out that the back room shaped more than just conversation. Politicians and journalists from the Irish Times and the Irish Press gathered there across generations. It was in the snug, Willie noted, that a group decided to put Mary Robinson forward as a candidate, and she became the first female president of Ireland.
About a year and a half before Leonard’s visit, Willie and a group of 12 family-owned Dublin pubs began brewing their own beer under the name Changing Times Brewery, a move to build a future without depending entirely on the large beer companies. The stout Leonard tried from that brewery held up.
From the Palace Bar, Leonard walked to the Jameson Distillery on Bow Street, arriving with no ticket and no plan. A guide pointed him toward the information counter, he paid 33 euros, and the tour moved through three rooms: the history of John Jameson starting the distillery in 1780, the production process, and a tasting of three different whiskey variations. The guide, Tristan, explained that the word ‘whiskey’ came from the Irish word for water, which English speakers mispronounced until it became something else entirely.
Stew, whiskey, a nap on the grass, and a spice bag
For lunch, Leonard followed Willie’s recommendation to a pub called Sheans, where a staff member named Nick steered him away from the lamb stew and toward the Dublin coddle, a traditional dish of sausages, ham, and potatoes. Leonard poured his own Guinness. Upstairs, there were reserved whiskey lockers with names on them.
As Leonard put it plainly after the bowl arrived: ‘A good stew, a good fish and chips in the pub. I mean, that’s tough to beat.’
The Long Hall came next, where Leonard switched to whiskey. The bar carries its own single-cask Irish whiskey, with only 317 bottles produced. A staff member walked him through the proper way to drink it: one drop of water, no ice, though she added that if he enjoyed it with ice, it was his drink to enjoy however he liked.
At Trinity College, Leonard took an unplanned detour onto the lawn to rest for a moment. He passed out for a good half hour. When he woke up, he kept moving.
A walk past a pizza shop called Bambino pulled him in despite no recommendation and no real reason. He called the slice a major flop but ate it anyway. The real food mission was a spice bag from a street food spot in the area, something he had heard about from strangers all day. Seasoned chicken strips and French fries with a dry rub seasoning. He forgot to order a sauce and had to ask for help. He ended up with curry sauce and satay sauce, both, and revised his opinion upward considerably.
The part nobody planned
The final stop on the list was the Cobblestone pub in the Smithfield neighborhood, which felt more residential and local compared to the Temple Bar area. Leonard could hear the live music before he reached the door. He walked in, mission complete. Then Tom, who runs the place, mentioned there was a traditional Irish dance class happening in the back room.
A few pints and a couple of Irish whiskeys made the decision easy.
By the end of the night, two locals named Paul and Evan were giving him breakfast recommendations. Evan introduced himself, and Leonard misheard the name as his own. The coincidence landed like a punchline. Leonard looked at him and said: ‘We could be family.’
The man who arrived alone
Gareth Leonard, 15 hours into travel and several drinks deep, spinning in a back room at the Cobblestone while live music carried through the wall from the main bar.
