With St Patrick's Day approaching, the Dom team takes a look at some of the best London Irish Pubs and tries not to overuse the word craic.
Despite there being 157,285 Irish people living in London, (according to Wikipedia at least), and a so-called London Irish pub on a surprisingly high number of street corners, I’m ashamed to say that all I actually know about Ireland comes from watching Ballykissangel and Father Ted. As far as I can tell, the whole country does three things well – discussing ecclesiastical matters, doing crazy scams on tourists and drinking. Hard drinking.
In fact, it’s pretty safe to say that the Irish are machines when it comes to drinking. We have an Irish guy in our office, and he can just shrug off hangovers like it ain’t nothing. Say we headed out on a pub crawl, the morning after I would feel like death, and have to spend the day wearing sunglasses and necking Evian, whilst over there on the Dev table, he just knocks back a black coffee and gets on with it. It’s incredible.
Anyway, with St Patrick’s Day in London on the horizon we decided to tell you about some of our favourite Irish establishments in London. I’ll try not to use the word craic.
Kings Head – Kingsland Road
257 Kingsland Road
London E2 8AS
+44 (0) 20 7739 2352
Oh what delicious irony that a pub with such republican sentiments is called the King’s Head. A personal favourite, I was taken there on a date once and sort of fell in love with the place. OK, so all the weird mugs, Gaelic football flags and local drunks hanging off the walls are a bit scary at first, but this place has a real charm.
There’s a dartboard, wonky pool-table, a jukebox that only plays U2, Boyzone and the Dubliners and the landlady is really nice
The Tir Na Nog – Wandsworth
107 Garratt Lane
London SW18 4DW
020 8877 3622
Named after the legendary land of youth where the great hero and poet Oisin rested after the battle of Gabhra, The Tir Na Nog is a pub resting on the five pillars of good food, pool, football, music and being Irish – pretty much all of the things you need for a good time.
Having a really friendly atmosphere and a reputation for Irish music that is second to none also helps.
The Bohola House – Bethnal Green Road
423 Bethnal Green Road
London E2 0AN
We’re party guys here at Spoonfed, so most of the time we’re down in Bethnal Green we’re either looking at weird art on Redchurch Street, or going crazy to some mash-up wreckno at The Star. But sometimes we just want a quiet drink and that’s when we go to Bahola.
Sort of like the pub that time forgot, stepping through the door is like taking a trip back in time to one of those seedy bars your dad use to go to in the mid-'70s. A personal favourite of our Arts Editor Tom Jeffreys, this pub is full of flies and miserable looking old guys who are all called ‘Tommo’ and will impart their curiously hard to follow life story for no reason at all. But hey, that’s the charm.
We once sat and watched a documentary on The Dubliners in there once – to be fair it was one of the most boring films I’ve ever seen, but the general ambience of this place kept me riveted – that and the blow-your-head-off amazingness of the Guinness.
The Toucan – Soho
19 Carlisle Street
London, W1V 5RJ
If it’s a proper Irish pub you’re after, then you can’t go much wrong with the Toucan. It’s named after the bird that used to be on Guinness adverts and it even says “The Toucan – An Irish Pub” on the side.
Despite being a bit on the pricey side and let’s be honest – a bit of a tourist trap, this pub is pretty much how you’d imagine an Irish pub to be like – dark, dingy and serving some of best Guinness known to humanity. This place has a legendary reputation for kicking off drunken bar crawls through Soho as well.
Kenilworth Castle – Shepherd’s Bush
104 St Ann's Road
London, W11 4BU
I remember Kenilworth Castle, I used to go there on school trips. The brochures always promised a ‘castle’ but when you get there all there is is a few stones and some trees. I’m sorry Coventry and Warwickshire tourist board, but a gatehouse is not a castle – it’s a gatehouse.
The Kenilworth Castle pub in Shepherd’s Bush is almost the opposite to the experience of the real thing. Expecting one of those horrible old man’s pubs, I was actually pleasantly surprised. Ok so it is a bit of an old man’s pub, but they have pool for 50p, you have to walk through the toilets to get to the pool room and the proprietor is known to put out plates of sausages near to closing time.
It’s also 524631.005485 times better than Walkabout.
Don't want to limit your St Paddy's Day activities to boozing? Check out our London St Patrick's Day homepage.
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