The Stag's Head

Great pub, great pints, great food, great craic. You truly capture a sense of the hidden Ireland when you accidentally stumble upon The Stag’s Head. Finding it is akin to discovering a rare treasure as it is concealed through a narrow passageway off Dame Street, although access can also be gained through Exchequer Street or Georges Street. When you enter inside this feeling of discovered booty is greatly intensified as a virtual paradise of culture and old-world values confront you. This is probably Dublin’s best-preserved Victorian pub – and everything here is of authentic Victorian origin. Take time to look around and savour the sumptuously carved Victorian mahogany fittings, the mosaic marble tiled floors and granite tabletops. Visiting the Stag’s Head is a wondrous experience whether you call when the premises is cosy, warm and glowing at night time, or in the early morning when this is an old repository of liquid culture is radiantly illuminated by wafts of sunlight filtering through the stained glass windows. The mahogany bar, capped with red Connemara marble, follows the classic Victorian architectural pattern, being long and punctuated by exquisite partitions that divide into private compartments or stalls. History Though a tavern has existed on this site since the 1780s, this premises first attained great fame in the 1830s as ‘John Bull’s Albion Hotel and Tavern’. This was one of the most sought after premises of the age in close proximity to ‘Dublin’s Theatreland’ and the fashionable stores of Dame Street and College Green. A popular music hall business was developed on the site, a trend continued by proprietors Alica and Henry Murphy during the 1840s. William Wormington succeeded them here in the 1860s and James Kennedy took the reins in the 1880s.