The Old Storehouse sits on Crown Alley in the heart of Temple Bar, Dublin, a traditional Irish pub that has been pouring since 1989. It runs live music every day from mid-afternoon to close and spreads across three separate bars under one roof. For trad sessions in the tourist heart of the city, it earns its corner.
This is a Temple Bar pub that leans into the brief rather than apologising for it. The venue's own site bills continuous live music daily from 3pm to close, which is the headline a visitor actually wants in this part of town. You come for the session, the Guinness and the room, and the Storehouse delivers all three without pretending to be a quiet local.
The layout is the clever part. Three bars give you a choice of mood: a quiet snug for a settled pint, a livelier main bar where the trad sessions run, and the larger venue bar known as O'Flaherty's for the late crowd. A regular plays the rooms by the hour, starting quiet and drifting toward the music as the night builds. That spread is the reason it works on a busy night.
The drink is what you would order in any proper Dublin house. A pint of Guinness is the default and the right call, with a deep shelf of Irish whiskey behind the bar for anyone moving past the porter. Pricing sits at $$ for Temple Bar, which is to say tourist-quarter rates, so it pays to settle in rather than buy quick rounds.
The kitchen does honest work alongside the music. A full food menu runs from noon to 9pm every day, built on fresh Irish produce in a straightforward pub register. It is the kind of plate that soaks up an afternoon of pints rather than chasing a guidebook star, and that is exactly the job it needs to do here.
The room is classic Temple Bar trad: dark wood, low light, and the sound of fiddle and box carrying between the bars. It is busy and it is loud once the sessions warm up, which is the point rather than a flaw. Anyone after a silent corner should pick a different night or a different postcode.
The crowd is mostly visitors, as it would be on Crown Alley, with a steady thread of locals who come for the music rather than the location. It fills early in high season and the energy climbs with the sessions through the evening. Treat it as a place to join in, not to people-watch from the edge.
Best time to go is mid-to-late afternoon, when the first sessions start and you can still claim a seat near the players before the rooms fill. The bars run to 1.30am on weekdays and Sundays and push on to 2.30am on Friday and Saturday, so there is room for a long night. Reservations are taken only for groups of six or more, with walk-ins welcome the rest of the time.
For value, read it for what it is. The Storehouse is a working trad pub in the most-visited square of the city, priced accordingly, and it earns the rate with genuine daily music and three rooms to move through. A visitor gets the Temple Bar session without the worst of the gouge, which is a fair trade. Come for the music and the pints, not a bargain.
This is the spot for a daily trad session and a slow Guinness, not a quiet night out. For more of the city, see our guide to the best live music bars in Dublin, the Temple Bar guide, the full Dublin city guide, and our best live music bars in Dublin pillar.
Sources: The Old Storehouse official site · Dublin Sessions · Tripadvisor · Yelp
