The pub in Dublin is not a bar with Irish decoration. It is the default social space — where people meet, argue, watch matches, hold wakes and conduct a surprising amount of business — and it operates on a set of conventions that are entirely unwritten and quite firmly held.
None of them are difficult. All of them are noticed.
The round
The single most important convention. In a group, one person buys drinks for everybody, and the next round is bought by somebody else, and so on until everyone has bought one.
You do not buy your own drink and let others buy theirs. You do not skip your turn. You do not leave before your round comes up — and if you must, you buy one on the way out or say plainly that you are going before it starts.
The consequences of getting this wrong are not dramatic. You will simply be quietly marked as somebody who does not buy their round, and in Dublin that is a more durable reputation than most.
If you cannot drink at the pace a round requires, say so early and buy your round anyway. Nobody minds what is in the glass.
The settle
A pint of stout is poured in two parts. The glass is filled about three-quarters, left to settle for a minute or two while the surge resolves, and then topped up. The whole thing takes around two minutes.
Do not hurry it, and do not take it early. A barman who is letting a pint settle is not ignoring you. If you order a round with stout in it, order it first and the other drinks second, so the settle happens while the rest are poured.
A good pint has a domed head that sits proud of the rim, and it should leave rings down the glass as it goes.
Tipping
You do not tip for drinks at the bar. Not a coin on the counter, not rounding up. It is simply not done, and offering it reads as either American or condescending.
Table service in a gastropub is different — there, ten per cent is normal.
Closing time
Later than most of Europe expects and earlier than most visitors assume. Roughly 11:30pm Sunday to Thursday and 12:30am Friday and Saturday, with drinking-up time after.
“Last orders” is called and then the bell goes. Late bars and clubs run on separate licences.
The snug
A small partitioned room by the door in older pubs, with a hatch to the bar. They exist because respectable women could not be seen drinking in the public bar in the nineteenth century, and also served priests, police and anyone conducting business they would rather not conduct in public.
Several survive — Kehoe’s, The Long Hall, Mulligan’s, Doheny & Nesbitt. If one is free, take it.
Which pubs
The rough division is between pubs that sell an idea of Ireland to visitors and pubs that are just pubs. Both are fine; they cost very different amounts.
The old ones, in the centre: The Long Hall on South Great George’s Street, Victorian and mirrored and largely unaltered. Kehoe’s on South Anne Street. The Stag’s Head off Dame Lane. Grogan’s on South William Street, for the toasted sandwich and the paintings on the walls, which are for sale. Mulligan’s on Poolbeg Street, which has a serious claim on the best pint in the city. The Palace Bar on Fleet Street, the journalists’ pub.
For music: The Cobblestone in Smithfield, Hughes’s on Chancery Street, O’Donoghue’s on Merrion Row.
Out of the centre: John Kavanagh’s, the Gravediggers, at the wall of Glasnevin Cemetery — no television, no music, and a toasted sandwich. Walsh’s in Stoneybatter.
Temple Bar, for completeness: handsome pubs, amplified covers, and roughly double the price. Worth twenty minutes and an expensive pint once, if you want to see it.
Other things worth knowing
Smoking has been banned indoors since 2004 — Ireland was the first country in the world to do it — so the smokers are outside and that is where a good deal of the conversation happens.
Table service is rare in traditional pubs. Go to the bar.
Ordering “a Guinness” is fine. Ordering “a pint of the black stuff” will mark you out faster than an accent.
Music sessions are not background music. See the Cobblestone for the etiquette, which comes down to not talking over the tunes.
Nobody will mind if you are not drinking. Pubs serve tea, and asking for one is unremarkable.
A short vocabulary
A pint means a pint of stout unless you say otherwise. A glass means a half pint. A ball of malt is a measure of whiskey. The jacks is the toilet. Sound means fine, good, or thank you, depending entirely on tone.
“What’s the story?” is a greeting, not a question about a story.
Last thing
The pub is where you will have the conversations you remember from Dublin, and the mechanism for that is simple: sit at the bar rather than a table, and answer when spoken to. Dubliners talk to strangers in pubs as a matter of course, and a visitor sitting alone at the counter is an invitation rather than an intrusion.