Our first night in Ireland, we knew we’d be super tired from traveling, but wanted to hit the ground running & take advantage of our limited time in Dublin. What better way to settle in than on the famous Musical Pub Crawl. Visiting some of Dublin’s best pubs, this pub crawl combined two things that the Irish excel at: traditional music & beers.
We started at Oliver St. John Gogarty’s, a giant pub/restaurant/cafe/hostel in Temple Bar. The Pub Crawl meets in public bars, but as a group in private rooms with a bartender dedicated just to your group. Once we were checked in, we met our musical hosts for the evening, Mark & Joss. Over the next few hours, they took us & about 57 others through a historic journey of Irish music.
We had our first Guinness of the trip & as we were enjoying our beverages, the live music started – Mark on guitar, Joss on the squeeze box (which he has been playing since he was 8). I loved how Mark started the show: “Irish music is like Guinness: you can find it everywhere in the world, but when you come to Ireland, it tastes different.”
They explained that playing Irish music in a pub is called a session, not a concert. Musicians play with no microphones or speakers. They’re not playing for anyone, they’re playing for each other.
musical pub crawl from Christina Tuff Saull on Vimeo.
Our second stop was at the Ha’Penny Bridge Pub, a pub right on the River Liffey. The pub is family owned & my Bulmer’s was served by the owners son. It’s one of the only pubs in Temple Bar that locals will drink at.
At this stop, we learned about different types of Irish music for dancing: a jig (which is danced to in 6/8 time) & a reel (which is danced to in 2/2/ or 4/4 time). We also learned that guitars were only used in Irish music starting in the 1970s & was shunned at first.
Musical Pub Crawl from Christina Tuff Saull on Vimeo.
We got our first taste of Irish weather as we were leaving the second stop: it started pouring. It was also at this point in our trip that the jet lag (it was nearly 10pm) & the fact that we hadn’t had dinner (can we say hangry?) caught up with us. As we started walking over the River Liffey, the rain started coming down harder & we decided to skip the last stop.
The Musical Pub Crawl was by far the most touristy thing we did during our trip, but it was also one of the most awesome. We fell in love with Irish music on the crawl & made a point to seek it out throughout the rest of our trip. The pub crawl is incredibly reasonable for what you get (only €12 per person) & we found that the drink prices at the pubs were at or below what we paid throughout the rest of the trip. The Pub Crawl was a great way to spend our first evening in Ireland!
Note: Our tickets to the Musical Pub Crawl were provided complimentary, but, of course, all opinions are my own. We were going to do this anyway & it was awesome.
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