O'Donoghues Bar — Restaurant in Dublin

This pub is more my style. It’s close to what we refer to as a hole in the wall bar, or just a good old neighborhood bar back in the U.S. And that’s no insult, it’s a compliment!

They have a full bar, just like every other pub I visited in Ireland, so that should come as no surprise.

They have live traditional Irish music being played along with some American songs. I visited more than once, and on one visit, the singer/guitarist was belting out the Townes van Zandt classic “Snowin’ on Raton.”

The downstairs bar area can get kinda packed, because that’s where the music is happening. There’s also an upstairs area that we ventured into, but it was a bit strange. There were 6 or 7 strange looking people dancing to club music. We quickly turned around and went downstairs.

THE. BEST. PART. about this pub is the people watching. Halfway up the flight of stairs, there is a plate glass window overlooking the street in front of the pub. The street is closed off to vehicle traffic, so there are plenty of people drinking, carrying on, and hanging out with their friends. It was so much fun to watch, that we parked our bar stools in front of this window and just watched everyone having a good time outside. We saw a dude dressed as an eggplant for crying out loud - YES, an eggplant!

The bottom line is, this place has something for everyone, and I mean EVERYONE! This was my favorite pub in all of Dublin.

The bar can get packed as seen in the photos, but we still managed to get...

Avoid this place. The bar smells bad & is filthy. The toilets are disgusting. The worst toilets I have ever been in, the smell was so bad it made me vomit & I heard the Gents are even worse. So a bad start to the night when I vomit before I even start drinking. The bar staff are so rude, the way they spoke to tourists was disgusting, I was embarrassed to be Irish, I found myself apologising to tourists for the way they were treated. Bar staff using horrific language, loudly slagging customers, how they look, what they are wearing, shouting at customers, telling customers to shut up & move out of the way of the bar or the door, the pub is tiny, so nowhere for these people to move too. I was there to support a friend playing in the band & although the music was great, I will never return, not even to support a friend. I felt filthy and sick leaving the bar. I definitely would not be eating from this place. I didn’t see anyone order food so I couldn’t believe it when I heard they actually serve food, not sure how they get away with that in such a filthy smelly space. The drink is quite expensive too, more like Temple...

I really wanted to spend the night listening to Traditional Irish Music while drinking Guinness and eating fish and chips. The people who are hosting me (via airbnb) recommended a place called Johnnie Fox, but that was a long bus ride away. The Merry Ploughboys seemed a bit staged and also required buses and wasn't quite what I was after. What I wanted was a bunch of musicians sitting around small tables in a pub just playing. And that is what I found at O'Donoghues (thank you Google). Reviews said it was touristy, and maybe it was, but it was the music experience I wanted. People from the bar would join the musicians crowded into a corner of the bar to play whatever came to mind. A little girl, less than 10 years old brought in her drum and played, a huge smile on her face, only been playing a year. If this was staged, it was pretty well hidden. If you want to just hang and listen to great music while quaffing a couple of pints in Dublin this is it.

To bad they only have ham and cheese sandwiches. I had to go across the street for my fish and chips. But then, there was standing room only and no tables to eat at...