Dublin city’s “night-time economy” is a buzz-phrase that has dominated discourse around socialising in the centre of the capital for years, prompting a Government taskforce aimed at getting more people to go out and spend money between the hours of 6pm and 6am.
Dublin City Council (DCC) has earmarked three areas requiring long-term improvement, with the aim of improving the experience of residents and tourists alike: cultural activity, mobility and transport, and safety.
On the streets of the city centre last Saturday night, the first impression was that the first weekend of November may have been a little more subdued than usual.
However, the Dublin By Night Fest taking place across three landmark locations – Dame Street, College Green and Capel Street – between 6pm and 10pm was attended by an estimated 80,000 people. Remnants of Halloween were evident in occasional flurries of costumes.
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But Ireland and New Zealand’s rugby international, showing on terrestrial television with an 8.10pm kick-off, seemed to have convinced some to stay at home, or perhaps settle into particular venues for the evening.
We began on Abbey Street on Dublin’s north side, at The Flowing Tide. Fergus McCabe is one of three owners who took over and renovated the long-established pub three years ago, adding a couple of snugs but leaning into its traditional essence on the advice of customers.
“There are so many trendy bars that open up,” McCabe said. “Myself personally, I find that a lot of trendy bars can be kind of fickle. You look at stuff that’s been here, tried and tested, for 100 years. In our case, nearly 200 years.”
Stained glass windows, designed by Tony Inglis in the style of Harry Clarke, adorn the walls of The Flowing Tide alongside paraphernalia from the Abbey Theatre, just across the road. Actors and playgoers are regular patrons, along with others who stop in en route to gigs at the 3Arena, and a general assortment of office workers and locals.
“We’re very consistent and I’d put that down to a couple of things,” McCabe said. “If you look outside, we’re on the main route to the two Luas lines. Your nearest cab rank is about 20 metres away, so you’re never hanging around here. As a result of that, you get all sorts of different people.”
McCabe and his co-owners did a similar refurbishment of The King’s Inn Pub on Henrietta Street, and focusing on customers has been key to their model, he said.
“We don’t dictate what goes on,” he said. “We think it’s logical and that’s why we’re busy. So, I would say Dublin is a great city to do business in. I would say it really is. Like most businesses, if you listen to what people want, that works.”
Sitting at a table opposite the snugs, Lesley Fagan and Julie McGuire were the last of a group of four friends rounding off a catch-up. McGuire, visiting from Malaga, had requested gathering in a traditional Irish pub and another friend suggested they come here. It was not yet past eight o’clock, but for Fagan, it was unusual to be still out in Dublin.
“I don’t [come out much] because I am dubious about coming into town at night,” she said. “I’m of a certain age, and I just don’t feel comfortable coming into Dublin at night-time. I meet friends in the afternoon and we go for lunch, and then leave. We don’t normally hang around town at night-time.”
Fagan planned to use public transport to get home – first a Luas and then a bus. As a rule, she doesn’t take taxis by herself, which came as a surprise to her friend.
“To be fair, I don’t see this city any different than any other cities,” McGuire said. “Maybe because I’d lived in London and I’ve lived in Spain. I come here – I feel, not quite safe because I don’t know the country, but happy to walk around. You know why? I can just get an Uber.”
In a survey this week commissioned by the Dublin Inquirer newspaper, 70 per cent of respondents said they believed crime had increased in Dublin city centre in the past year, while 63 per cent said safety fears had made them decide not to visit the city centre. The latter figure rose to to 72 per cent for women and 77 per cent for 18- to 24-year-olds. However, the survey suggested a disparity between levels of fear and actual crime figures for the city centre.
Across the Liffey on South William Street is another historical haunt for Dublin artists in Grogan’s Castle Lounge. Here, Daniel Smith is a third-generation barman, grandson of the late Tommy Smith who took over Grogan’s with his business partner Paddy Kennedy in the early 1970s. The young Smith described the “higgledy-piggledy artwork” on the inside walls as the pub’s defining feature.
“There’s some brilliant stuff; there’s some terrible stuff,” he said. “There’s some stuff you wouldn’t want to put on your worst enemy’s wall but that’s the kind of beauty of it and that’s what attracts people. The art is about the only thing that does change. Everything else stays the same.”
Since the Covid pandemic, Saturday appears to have overtaken Friday as the most hectic day of the week. With more people working from home, the Friday night office crowd has dwindled, meaning a steadier flow of punters the following day. Grogan’s opens at 10.30am on Saturday mornings, catering to a wide range of customers.
“People always would’ve associated it with being an old man pub, but nowadays it couldn’t be further from the truth,” Smith said. “It’s just a very eclectic mix of ages, races, genders. You could meet anyone in here on any given day and that’s the beauty of it.
“I think what a lot of people are looking for nowadays is authenticity. In a city that’s more and more engrossed by groups and chains, they want independent businesses. They want things that are like stepping back in time; they want to go into places where there is a bit of history.”
At 27, Smith is living in his family home, as is the reality for many of his peers. To some extent, he thinks Dublin nightlife is now reflecting a generation abandoning its hopes of finding affordable housing.
“The night-time economy probably thrives because of other negative societal factors,” he said. “[Young people] kind of know quite early on that their chances of buying a house are quite slim, so they put an emphasis on going out and enjoying themselves, having nice holidays and going out on a Saturday night and meeting their mates for a few pints. That’s their way of living.”
Twenty-one-year-old Áine Walsh was sitting on a stool outside the Castle Market perimeter of Grogan’s, alongside Tobias Unger (also 21) who was visiting from Vienna. Walsh loves the area, regularly attending Grogan’s or Cis Madden’s when she wants an evening pub.
Though she feels safe in the spaces she knows and trusts in the city centre, Walsh said there were “not enough measures put in place to facilitate young women travelling home on night-time transport”. Walsh lives in Clontarf, a 35-minute cycle away, which is how she gets home instead of spending €25 on a taxi. The journey on a bike is “just not safe at all”, she said.
Around the corner is Drury Street, where a young crowd began gathering more regularly in a newly pedestrianised environ post-pandemic. Some local businesses took issue with the volume of people descending on the street’s unchanged infrastructure, and ultimately revellers were moved on.
“There was something really beautiful and organic happening on Drury Street, where people were just sitting out and drinking,” Walsh said. “It’s been really sad to see them get rid of that on a systematic level. I think that was a really nice example of a possibility of what Dublin could look like if there was more nightlife.”
She and Unger were not yet sure whether they would go in search of a dance floor as the night developed. Walsh loves a club setting and said good dance venues are available “if you know where to go”.
“I’m in NCAD [National College of Art and Design] and they do really good balls and events. But from an outsider perspective, if you were a tourist coming to Dublin going to a club, I don’t think there are that many options. They just close so early.”
One place tourists tend to find easily is the sparkling Christmas tree of Dublin pubs, The Temple Bar. Between 40 and 50 staff were on duty for Saturday night, with up to 600 patrons inside and any number of selfie-takers capturing its facade.
“All the pubs in the area have live music,” said Michael Delahunty, a manager who has worked at The Temple Bar for two decades. “That’s what tourists want. They want to come over and enjoy the atmosphere and the bit of a buzz about the place. For the most part, every pub does that really well in the area.”
From when the doors open in the morning until they close at around 2.30am, there is a flow of customers in and out of the bar. Talking about the night-time economy, Delahunty said he was encouraged by steps being taken to make the area safer.
“Over the last couple of months, we definitely have seen more of a presence of gardaí around the area which is fantastic,” he said. “The visible presence of them in the area makes everyone else feel a lot safer. For the most part, it’s a really safe and good area.”
Isaac Harper, Lewis Chamberlain and Tom Cotter were visiting Dublin from Leicester in England. Live music and a vibrant atmosphere were central to their itinerary. They were staying in a hotel in Christchurch, a 10-minute walk away from the Temple Bar, so late-night transport was of little concern.
“I think it’s brilliant,” Harper said of Dublin. “The nightlife’s brilliant. People are so friendly. It’s just really good. I feel safe and I think the Irish people are just nice people in general.”
“We’ve come from Leicester, got one plane here and 20 minutes in a taxi straight to Dublin town centre,” Chamberlain adds. “It’s been easy. [We’ll just be] barhopping, having a few drinks and seeing where the night takes us.”
(Last month, an English tourist who was allegedly assaulted following a confrontation in Dublin’s Temple Bar area in the summer died. Anthony Herron, who was aged in his 40s, was hospitalised with serious head injuries following the incident. He was later repatriated to the UK where he died on Saturday, October 25th.)
At the intersection of pubs around Dame Court, Juliana Almeida’s review of the city was not a positive one. Originally from Brazil, she has been living in Ireland for four years.
“I think night-time in Dublin is really bad,” Almeida said. “I really feel bad for young [people] because there’s nothing to do in the city. There’s no art, there’s nothing. And it’s so sad. This is the capital and come on – we close at 2am … There is so much potential here. I just think it’s a waste.”
Almeida believes people working in the service industry are particularly unfortunate when it comes to nightlife, both in terms of logistics and being able to access social spaces outside of their working hours.
“[The city] should have better buses running until late,” she said. “What about people that are working in pubs? How do they come back home? They need to cycle home. What if they live in Lucan? It’s a nightmare.
“I have so many Irish friends that are all moving to Australia or Canada, because there’s nothing here to do. You just work. It’s like a robot life.”
One of the pillars of Dublin’s late-night scene is Camden Street, which caters largely to students and punters in their 20s. Ryan’s Pub is a staple of that community – a Tipperary hurling stronghold, it was hosting its fair share of rugby fans on Saturday night.
Hansi, who didn’t want to give his surname, said he has been drinking in Ryan’s for 45 years. He is local to the area, and though he knows it is marketed towards a younger demographic, he sees plenty of space on Camden Street for those of his vintage.
“I come down every evening around six until half past seven,” Hansi said. “At that time, you have a number of locals and this would be a real local pub where you can talk. Real old Dublin. Then I do realise that a lot of the younger generation come in here, which is absolutely fantastic.”
The influx of tourists is the biggest change Hansi has seen over the years. His map of potential destinations these days is limited to a handful of pubs he knows well, but he watches the city “buzz with nightlife” from a distance.
Daniel Breslin, a taxi driver, said Saturday is his best night for business. He often continues driving until 3 or 4am, but the night tends to happen in spurts of intensity as droves of people compete for lifts to or from town at the same intervals.
“You have a rush period,” Breslin said. “That’s the way it works here. In London, you have it all spread out so that’s just the nature of it. Half the time, we’re all sitting around.”
A reform of licensing laws could be a way of altering that schedule, he said. This is the central topic of conversation among advocates for major change to the night-time economy, but progress has stalled on laws allowing for nightclubs to stay open later in Ireland.
“We’ve a bit of an archaic set-up with that, don’t we?” Breslin said. “I imagine at the start everybody would be out partying but in London, it’s all relaxed. People are much more relaxed. That’s my own feeling on it.”
There is a lot of talk about the shortage of taxis available to those that stay in clubs and late bars until closing time, when much of Dublin’s public transport has stopped running. Breslin said he can feel guilty if he’s tired and has to head home, when someone might be desperate for a lift in the opposite direction. But there are safety risks for the drivers too.
“I’m a bit younger and I don’t know [how bad it can be],” Breslin said. “You hear about lads getting proper hassled. I’ve had it lucky enough. Had a couple of runners and things like that, but most people are sound. You get people getting sick in your car and all that kind of craic, and then your night can be over.
“You charge them money for it, but sometimes it can go [badly]. Depends who you’re dropping and where you’re going. That’s the risk you take. That’s why you balance if someone’s falling all around the place. At that hour, it’s hard to [avoid very drunk people].”
Breslin was parked at a rank near Dawson Street, where another category of venue is commonplace: Café en Seine, Flight Club and 37 Dawson Street all fit into a cocktail aesthetic that dominates here. Tucked away next to them, just off South Anne’s Street, is late bar Zozimus.
“I think the cocktail scene especially is moving forward nicely,” said Aaron Stanley, who has been general manager at Zozimus for three weeks. “There’s more international recognition for it. You look at the likes of Bar 1661 and 9 Below have been doing good things. We’re looking to try and get into that conversation.”
Stanley has worked in hospitality and the drinks industry for about 20 years, spending time in Dubai and his native Cork before Dublin. He said he tries to encourage a range of multicultural events at Zozimus, reflecting the diversity of the team working there.
Though they may benefit from licensing reform, Stanley was cautious about the subject. “I think the whole ecosystem is going to be challenged by that,” he said. “You’re talking about takeaway food, taxis, the DCC’s cleaning services and things like that.
“If there’s going to be an extension of moving venues into very late opening hours, that’s going to spill into mornings and there’s a daytime economy too to be considered. I would suggest that it be done incrementally. Maybe extending hours by an hour or two at a time and giving venues the option to take that up.”
A long-time advocate for this sort of reform is David Grier, who runs house and techno club Pawn Shop on Dame Street. He is a supporter of the Give Us the Night campaign, which has long advocated for licensing reform and drawn attention to the reduction of nightclubs and cultural spaces in Ireland.
Grier opened Pygmalion on South William Street with a group of friends, and has run clubs in London and Berlin over the years. Regulation, he said, is far kinder to new businesses in both cities than it is in Dublin, particularly for a more selective, artist-focused venue. It is one of the reasons he believes artists are “running out of spaces” in the city.
“There’s not as many places giving grassroots artists here the space to put their music forward,” he said. “[We have] an artsy crowd. Very gay-friendly, obviously, with our neighbours here [in LGBTQ nightclub The George]. Electronic music is born out of gay black clubs in the States really. We’re very supportive of diversity and all that kind of stuff.”
Grier said later opening hours would not make much difference to Pawn Shop financially, but it would allow them greater freedom to give artists the room to run interesting events. Safety-wise too, after a period of adaptation, he believes it would make drinkers less aggressive.
Just before speaking with him, 20 yards away from Pawn Shop on George’s Street, we witnessed a fight break out involving five men, two of whom tried and failed to regain entry to a different pub.
“People drink slower when you don’t put them on the clock. And also you’d have staggered closing times instead of everyone on the street at three o’clock. That’s where you get the problems,” Grier said.
“Not as many people waiting in taxi ranks and chippers all fighting for the same thing. People go home in dribs and drabs when they’re tired. Tired people don’t cause fights. It’s always the people you’re kicking out that don’t want to go that could cause problems.”
