A Walk in Time


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Mulligans pub of Poolbeg Street, Dublin is two minutes walk from the main thoroughfare, O’Connell Street and has been at the core of the city’s cultural and imbibing life for nearly 300 years. Originally a shebeen (unlicensed drinking venue) it has been ‘legal’ since 1782, making it one of the oldest premises in Ireland’s metropolis.

The decor has made few concessions to the intervening centuries and now mature customers are being served the house’s famous Guinness and strong whiskey by a third generation of the Cusack family, who inherited it from kinsmen.


The remaining mature customers will regale you with lore and lies of the days of half a century ago when doughty dockers from the great port rubbed shoulders with the celebrities from the world famous Theatre Royal across the street, the newspaper men from de Valera’s Irish Press Group next door and the freshmen from the local and ancient Trinity College, who in banter (now called craic) got the ‘hard times’ from the other groups at the bar.



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Many of these then students, now eminent men and women in many walks of life across the world, continue to return for a drink and to enquire about their ‘tormentors’.

Mulligans Regulars

Mulligans Regulars

The great and the good and the not so great and quite probably the not so good have all frequented Mulligans and still do. Anyone who has ever gone out drinking in Dublin will have at some time passed through our doors.

Down through the generations the Mulligans crowd has ebbed and flowed and swelled to the rhythm of the city and the nation itself. Meet some of our regulars.

Dublin City Guide

Dublin City Guide

A comprehensive guide to some of the most famous landmarks in Dublin and the stories associated with them. From theatre to guinness and nightlife to transport, our Dublin City Guide gives the inside view on where to go and how to get there.

Accompanied by a labelled interactive map, courtesy of google – a bird’s eye view of the best of Dublin city.

Meet The Mulligans Team

Meet The Mulligans Crew

The Mulligans crew have been around a long time but, we hasten to add, like the place itself they have aged gracefully.

You’ll find here the easy familiarity of a master with his craft, just like the barmen of old – friendly, lightning fast and ever ready with a razor sharp wit.

Dublin has always been famous for its wit and there’s nowhere more Dublin than Mulligans. Come and meet the team.



John F. Kennedy when he was a journalist with the Hearst Newspapers, shortly before he became junior senator for Massachusetts, visited in the mid 1950s to be shown Joyce’s favourite perch at the bar.

Thousands have come since and are still coming to pay homage at the literary shrine.

James Joyce and Bloomsday. Outside the pub door you will see a constantly maintained montage on the wall celeberating Bloomsday, 1904, the day that is the setting for James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. How much of the classic he wrote at the counter of the premises while he sipped his guinness is controversial but he certainly made relevant notes there that were later developed into passages that survive in the final draft, scholars tell tell us.

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The Story of “Briscoe”

One late night in the early 1960s the generosity and hospitality of the house exceeded what the gardai thought were legitimate licensing hours. As the raiding police banged on the street door a celebrated senior barman Tommy McDonnell, universally known as ‘Briscoe’, ordered all his pickled customers to retire with their drinks to the cellar before he welcomed the law onto the premises. The inspector and two rookies, still suspicious, in due course withdrew having done their duty but were told years later that in the Catholic Ireland of the day that they could have stumbled upon on a ’scandal’.

The Abbot of Kilnacrott Abbey was on his second bottle of claret on the premises – albeit in a private area upstairs. The abbot was a regular if discreet guest on his visits to Dublin on his community’s business.