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Are Irish Pubs Dead?
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Don’t really want to be posting in GC today… but this is something me Da and myself were chatting about this morning.
I walked past a bar in Dublin the other day. Sign on the window read: “Happy Hour – All bottles €4″… I sort of grmmaced and laughed in the same split second.
I go to the pub maybe 2-3 times a year these days. I couldn’t afford to really go out once a week now on a proper tear like I did in the good ‘ol days.
Are Irish Pubs dead? Have they priced themselves out of the market? Can they recover? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
Interested to hear people’s views on this.
well, I had the same feeling lately.
my comparison is 2 years ago, when I moved here. some places were so packed that you can hardly reach the bar.
last evening I spent in Dublin, not only I was able to order without having to fight, but we found seats! in two different pubs, on a Sat night, in Dublin.
that made me thinking….
plus I remember being kicked out because of my shoes, and nowadays no-one seems to care. I suspect also Wonkafan can easily walk in a pub in his wellies…
I think ‘going to the pub for few drinks’ is something you can loose, in recession times. expecially with the breath test and so on. much easier going to the off licence and buy few cans.
my two cents.(I hope I was entitled to give my point of view on this topic, breakin the GC-selfimposed-ban :)
Very good debate.
Was dandering to work today and met my Aunt who had just returned from a week in the south, she in Youghal staying with her brother. She was telling me the same thing.
That my uncle can not afford to go out to the pub, its just too expensive and that most of the pun landlords she spoke to were considering throwing in the towel.
Its much cheaper for folk to stay at home for a few beers and only go out on the special occasionsDee
Personally, I think this question ranks up there with “Is the catholic church dead?”.
Though I would not lose too much sleep for either of them if it were true..it’s highly unlikely.
Pubs will adjust to changing times, like any other business. Of couse there will be some who disappear, and a lot of them will probably be the Superpubs that now litter the city. A lot of people will not cry tears for those anyway.
Irish people will always find a pub to drink in…seems to be part of our make up.
I remember back in the early 80’s the choice of pubs in town was fairly restricted, now there are probably far too many pubs.
There will be shrinkage, but I think the Irish pub is fairly safe despite the gloom and doom of some punters. Maybe the days of publicans being able to charge whatever they felt like are disappearing..and a bit of reality will be restored.
R
Personally I wouldn’t agree with your optimistic outlook on the pub trade Robbie, I’d be more inclined to agree with Gizzo & Deebo.
Enniscorthy is like a ghost town these days… all the young people have opted to drink at home, evener the older blokes who’d been in pubs during the day seem to be disappearing.
Me Da was down in Wexford town the other day (his sister is down from Dublin), he went to a few of the usual spots where there would usually be a few other the older day time drinkers, he said every single pub he went to was empty. They went out again last night, they were the only people in the pub.
Many pubs in Enniscorthy don’t even bother opening anymore during the day.
I recall recently the 2 Irish Vintners’ associations came together (LVF/VFI?) to come up with a plan to address the issue… and their proposed remedy… don’t increase prices for a year… genius eh?
Whilst I go out for the 2-3 occasions a year I resent going into a pub these days and paying the rip off prices for a glass of coke or a pint. It doesn’t represent value for money in any shape or form… it’s a total rip off… and we all know the margins when you compare prices to supermarket take home. Yeah, rent, staff etc is a factor… but still… you’d think they’d get the message “charge less, get the customers back, make more”.
J
I think that the landlords are getting it tight in the times that we are in at the moment
I play cards on a wednesday night and the only people in the bar are the 6 of us playing
and three of the guys dont drink and sip 1 orange all night.
I also noticed on a saturday evening when I go to watch the evening game on setanta that
the pub is empty with nobody appearing to watch the game,this time last year you would
struggle to get a seat.
We had a BBQ last week and I went up to Derry to get a few beers 15 bud for 10 stg that is hard
to beat so who will give a bar €4 for one bottleI love old Dublin pubs – The Stags Head, The Long Hall, Mulligans, The Palace Bar and so on.
These pubs will never be dead – unless some developer ponce buys them to turn them into superpubs.
Superpubs do die. Please see Ron Blacks for example.
Or the Lincoln Inn, once a great pub, recently acquired and ‘refurb’d’ by the ‘Thomas Read Group’, which is now in liquidation. So not only is The Lincoln Inn fully refurbished to the highest modern standard, it is also shut down. If it was the same old Lincoln Inn, it would still be there.
I think the whole ‘superpub’, ‘new trendy place’ pub, is dead – for reasons of economics and demographics.
on a side note, I will be kinda happy if some pubs disappear.
I mean, if something has to go down the sink, better those superpubs (that they’re probably much more expensive to run) than the old rusty bar.
(both personal opinions)
Robbie I would perhaps say that Irish people (and italians somehow used to Irish behaviour as well) will find a place where to have few drinks and chat. But that does not necessarily involve a pub.customers and landlords are both facing tight times, and everyone makes his own choice. customers that can’t afford bar-priced drinks will go for the off-licence, and landlords that can afford it, will reduce the price of a pint, maybe saving on the newest lcd screen, the newest furniture etc…
Maybe there is a Dublin/ Country divide here then. Because there are certain pubs..the older more traditional pubs that are still doing well enough in Dublin.
I have this notion that the decline of the big pub has been happening long before the current crisis and even before the smoking ban. I think the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak, for a lot of people, was the Millenium situation, where so many pubs where actually charging admission fees just to get in to pay over the top prices, that so many people decided to stay at home that night. Ever since I’ve noticed that more people do tend to stay at home for big occasions than ever did before.
I still think that the older traditional pubs will survive as they always have.
But. I’m not a big pub frequenter myself, so I’m only guessing really from what I’ve noticed whenever I do hit the town.
Gizzo wrote:
maybe saving on the newest lcd screen
If that happens I wll be the first to cheer. I HATE to see TV’s in pubs. They are usually loud enough to distract you, but not loud enough to actually know what’s going on.
If I want to watch TV I can sit on my couch and pour my own JD’s and Coke ;-)
I wouldn’t say they’re quite dead yet, but some are definitely going that way. When times were good everyone had cash to go and blow it on beer and more pubs were around. Nowadays people are reigning in their spending and pubs are suffering. Granted many pubs are charging horrendous prices.
From a personal point of view I do enjoy going out for a scoop with a friend and a chat. I get time to do it sparingly enough that I will pay the price of a pint in the given place I go to. I’m very lucky to be in a job (and industry) which has remained unaffected by the recession.
I think now people look for value for money more than ever, and pubs in their current state don’t represent that as nfl mentioned. Home entertainment itself has become more complex and comfortable, with massive televisions and fantastic sound systems. Combined with a few tins from the offy and it’s a cheaper and probably more relaxing night in.
On a side note:
Herself & myself brought the young lad to the cinema on Saturday afternoon to see “Monsters vs. Aliens”.
€30 admission… €11×2 for the adults, €8 for the young lad.
I was in total and utter shock at the price. I doubt I’d go back. The only consolation was that the movie was in 3D, I never seen a 3D movie before and it was very good.
There’s a lot to be said for Xtravision.
€11 seems bloody steep even by celtic tiger standards……
….my local chartbusters has shut down unfortunately. At the moment I have my Michael Palin travel collection and bunch of free DVDs from the Sunday Times…
For kids movies, especially matinees, adults should only have to pay a fraction of the normal price as far as I am concerned. The young lad got his €8 worth out of it… but for adults it’s a total rip off.
I was planning to go see the new Wolverine movie this week, bit of a comic book fan, but €11… not a chance. I wouldn’t go back there again, unless the young lad really wants to see something.
Then they wonder why people download pirate movies for free off bit torrent sites and the like…
movie rental, off licence and take away.
three categories that are increasing their business I think….and I can’t remember when I went to the cinema last time……
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