Pat Nolan Blog

Mulligan’s – Grand Old Pub of Poolbeg Street

James Joyce drank in it too and wrote about it.

For decades, performers at the Theatre Royal flocked to it while journalists from The Irish Press smoked, fumed and interviewed celebrities in it.

Dancers, Hollywood actors and singers have been welcomed in it, some have been run out of it.Others have fled it.

But Mulligan’s, the Grand Old Pub of Poolbeg Street, has survived and has inspired poets, artists, musicians and writers down through the ages as it so survived.

In recent times it’s become a barometer for global media to gauge public opinion in the country on sport, politics and economic strategies. Several ghosts are also reputed to have appeared on the premises down through the years.

But perhaps one of the more intriguing stories to emerge from a new book about the pub – Mulligan’s: Grand Old Pub of Poolbeg Street by Declan Dunne – is that of a Texan, Billy Brooks Carr, who regarded the pint of Guinness in Mulligan’s as the best he had had ever consumed.

Billy Brooks Carr, from Houston, died in 2011 after which his brothers had some of his ashes flown the 4,500 miles to Mulligan’s of Poolbeg Street where they were placed in the base of the pub’s grandfather clock.

Dozens of Billy Brook’s family and friends have since made ‘pilgrimages’ to the pub to honour his memory and toast his life.

The paperback is now available priced €14.99 and it’s also available as an eBook from all major outlets.


Sign Up for Drinks Industry Ireland

Get a free weekly update on Drinks Industry trade news, direct to your inbox. Sign up now, it's free