A Terrible Stay in Temple Bar

I had always dreamed of going to Ireland and staying above a traditional pub, becoming one with the locals whilst watching live folk music. Strangely, that isn’t quite what happened when we went to Dublin.

I searched extensively for a room above a pub, but even the grottiest looking place was double our budget. So we settled for a cheap hotel, right in the centre of Temple Bar, and hoped for the best -which is far from what we got. Our first clue should have been the taxi driver's querying face at the name of it, then his frustration of driving up and down the same street until at last one of us spotted a tiny, tiny, door between two abandoned buildings. We jumped out, pushed open the toy door, only to be met with a sheer wall of inclining stairs.

Unsteadily we climbed up them, dragging our bags behind us. Ev’s face was full of fear as each step I made was wobblier than the last. At the summit we were greeted, or rather not greeted, by a couple arguing ferociously in another language. After a few uncomfortable minutes, the woman turned her attention to us, and flicked her chin upwards, internationally translating to, “What do you want?”

I smiled broadly, “Hi, my name is Lucy and we have a-”

“Too early.”

“Yeah we had a very early flight, so we thought we would just come straight here.” I tried to keep smiling at this angry lady but my heart rate was rapidly accelerating. 

“Come back later.” She grumbled.

Ev and I exchanged wide-eyed looks. After a few more painful interactions she allowed us to leave our bags, but we had to leave them exactly where we stood, and she would not, by any means, watch them. Great!

Feeling so warmly welcomed, we headed back down the vertical stairs and into the city.  We quickly forgot about her, and any concerns we may have had about our stay in her establishment, as we headed into a pub for some breakfast and beers.

We were the only customers and the staff were having barista training, ever nosy as we are, we un-shamefully observed the entire thing and very quickly we both felt more adept in the art of coffee making. After a few beers we decided to make a plan for the day, we didn’t have to strain our brains too hard as a hop-on hop-off bus pulled up directly in front of us so we quickly climbed on board and sat huddled together on the open-top deck.

Just minutes into our tour all the beer Ev had consumed was busting to come out. We had an empty water bottle and saw only one option, it was my job to hold his coat as a protective shield. His timing was impeccable, as soon as the operation began we stopped at traffic lights, metres away and eye level to an office full of people, at whom I stared intently hoping to deter their glances- my guard keeping had improved since the glacier lake incident in Germany- but still we were quite clearly indiscreet.

I’m not too sure why, but we decided to get off the bus shortly after but didn’t feel like waiting for an actual stop so just jumped off at another set of traffic lights making us completely and utterly lost. We were out of town, or at least it felt that way. Everything was boarded up, eerily empty and quiet, apart from one man who was serenading strangers as they passed-which we now had to do as we walked a very long walk back into the centre. Our short attention-spans were clearly flagging on the bus but this walk was less than desirable. 

Once we returned back to the centre we strolled through St Stephens Green, and admired Christ Church Cathedral from outside, before heading back into a pub. We laughed the day away and then thought it was probably time to revisit the hotel and see if our bags were still there.

Thankfully, they were! And so was the grump. Reluctantly she checked us in and showed us to our room- our jaws sank to the centre of the earth; she quickly scuttled off. It was disgusting. Grubby, mouldy, damp. Our mattress was about a centimetre thick, the shower hardly worked and the lock in the door repeatedly stuck, imprisoning us in this hell. I was sure we would die in here, either from contracting something deadly, or the grump was going to kill us in the night. Trying not to panic, I panicked.  We were skint, obviously, so couldn’t stay anywhere else. Ev did his best to reassure me that it was just for two nights, we won’t be here much, and we probably won’t die, but he too had concerns. So, I temporarily composed myself and we headed out again.

We decided lunch would help; we ordered a huge pie each and ate them gluttonously. Next up we had to, had to, go shopping.  I have a dreadful habit of buying the wrong size shoes, and insisting I wear them on holiday. In Prague that same year I had boots filled with blood as they were so small, so pretty, but so small and all we did the entire weekend was walk. So once again, I was in the market for correctly fitting shoes. I purchased some hideous black and white Aztec print Clarkes trainers – to which Ev has never stopped mocking me for- but I was already desperate for some foot respite so ugly it had to be.  

After a day of ambling, we headed into a busy pub to spend a few more hours drinking and chatting. We were astonished to find out that as the day goes on the price of beer increases! Tactically, we ordered as many as we could until it hit the next tariff. The pub population was ever increasing as we all stood like squished sardines. We soon found out why when the live music began and the atmosphere went through the roof, everyone was piled up on tables and chairs and all singing our hearts out. We danced around and mingled into the crowd, beaming from ear to ear. It was so much fun, this was the Ireland I was hoping for!

When the music stopped we left feeling lighter and decided to not yet go back to the dreary hotel.We ended up in a club called Coppers, (which we later found out is renowned for being awful), where the music was absolutely shocking. We played a game in which every song that comes on you react as if it's your favourite song and you haven’t heard it in years. As you can imagine the longer this went on the more dramatic we got with our reactions and subsequent dancing. We had a crowd of very very young, disgusted, onlookers. We found ourselves hilarious but it seemed no one else did, but by now we didn't care at all. 

Finally, we couldn’t bear the music any more so stumbled the streets home, Ev very gentlemanly gave me his shoes to wear as my feet hadn’t quite recovered- the ugly shoes weren’t my saviours after all. After a hilarious half an hour in the kebab shop, we crawled into our off-coloured bed. I was layered from head to toe so nothing could touch my skin,  hoping desperately we would live to see another day. 

Thankfully, we did wake up, at exactly ten o’clock- the end time of our included breakfast. We pulled on a strange ensemble of clothes and raced downstairs. Hanging our heads as we entered a room containing only the male part of yesterday’s welcoming committee, who sighed dramatically as we began helping ourselves to the food he was eager to put away. He stood and stared directly at us the entire time we were eating ,with a menacing look in his eye. The most uncomfortable bowl of stale cereal I have ever eaten.

Feeling slightly refreshed and very hungover we spent the day much the same as the previous, leisurely walking between sights, we visited Trinity College and Dublin Castle admiring in awe. When evening came we met my cousin, Sam, and his Dubliner girlfriend (now wife), Claire at a cool little bar.

After a few drinks, they took us to a street food restaurant. It was Ev’s heaven, so much chicken- by the bucket load. We chatted and ate and ate and ate and ate. Until all four of us had stupidly eaten ourselves so full that beers were no longer going down, but the food was just too good not to. We forced ourselves up and out to watch some more live music and attempt to drink more and had a lot of fun being out together but eventually, the chicken took over and we needed our beds. Still so worth it.

The next morning we opted to swerve the uncomfortable breakfast and headed to a small local bakery instead, we chatted to the owner for a while about all sorts of things, business, travel, politics- he was a very interesting man. When our conversations reached a natural end he announced that he was closing up until the afternoon so decided to gift us numerous snacks, just purely as a kind gesture! Arms full of delicious food we headed out to try and find a taxi, but not before Ev handed out all of our gifted food to the homeless people we passed earlier, passing on the kindness, as he does so well.