Mulligan's

Our Take on Mulligan's

Mulligan's of Poolbeg Street is a serious pub. Licensed in 1782, it predates the United States Constitution and outlasted every trend that has swept through the Irish bar trade since. It serves no food. It has no cocktail menu. It does not try to be anything other than exactly what it is: one of the finest drinking establishments on the island.

The room is spare and purposeful. Dark wood, worn tiles, the kind of bar counter that has absorbed enough spillage to have opinions of its own. The back bar carries spirits but the real business here is Guinness. John F. Kennedy reportedly drank here as a young reporter covering the aftermath of the Second World War. The staff have been maintaining its reputation ever since.

Tucked off the main tourist paths behind the old Irish Press newspaper offices, Mulligan's draws a genuine mixed crowd: journalists from the nearby courts and press buildings, older locals who have been coming for decades, and the occasional visitor who did their research properly. It is ten minutes from Dublin's main tourist circuit and a world apart from it. If you want to understand what the best Dublin bars were before the craft beer revolution rewrote everything, start here.

One warning: Mulligan's closes earlier than many Dublin pubs and takes no bookings. The quality of its Guinness is not a coincidence. The lines are cleaned rigorously, the temperature held correctly, and the pour given the time it requires. We rank it among the best pints in the country.