00:00Faltje, welcome. My name is Ciaran Ward. I'm the bar manager here at O'Neill's
00:04Victorian pub and townhouse in Dublin. Let me take you inside and show you what a
00:07true Irish bar looks like.
00:13I've been here since 1997 so it's 28 years now. You meet different people
00:19every day, you're meeting lots of different staff here. Just every day, no
00:22day is the same.
00:26A lot of people will know me, yeah. We have a lot of regular customers who work
00:29locally, he'll come in for lunch, he'll sometimes come in for dinner or come in for
00:32after work drinks. So we'll be on first name terms with a lot of our regulars.
00:39Well, I come to this one about twice a week, good service, nice staff, you know,
00:44and then that's it. And a place kind of with a little bit of history like this, it
00:48also makes it more interesting.
00:51O'Neill's opened in 1885 and was owned by the same family until the early 2020s.
00:57But more on its history later, first to the drinks.
01:01When you're ready to order at the bar, you'll notice a few beers that are typical across
01:07Ireland.
01:07This is Harp, another very well known Irish lager. It's a European style lager. Light
01:12refreshing on a nice warm day. Rare thing in Ireland, but yeah, it's a really good beer.
01:18This is Smiddichs, a very traditional Irish red ale. Tastes malted barley, roasted malted
01:22barley. Dates from the 1790s, I believe. And it's probably the best known red ale you'll
01:27see in Ireland. Guinness, probably Ireland's best known beer. It has a creamy, velvety taste,
01:34bitter notes, kind of chocolate, coffee-ish. It's creamy because of the carbon dioxide and
01:38nitrogen mix as opposed to just carbon dioxide. So that's what gives it that creamy, velvety
01:42taste. If you pour it straight to three quarters, just above the harp, and then let it settle
01:47and back pour it, the nitrogen helps the creaminess of the pint.
01:52But Irish pubs aren't just for adults ordering drinks.
01:57Everybody's allowed. A lot of bars in Dublin and Ireland nowadays, food is involved. So you get
02:02every mix. You get families, you get people with children, you get older crowd. It's not all just
02:07coming into the pub to drink nowadays. But before you're ready to step into the pub,
02:11there are a few Irish phrases to know.
02:15Fáilte, welcome. Gúirabh Máhagat, thank you. Slán, good boy, simple. Slánte, cheers. So some of the
02:26simple ones that some have actually practiced before they get here. Am I pronouncing that right? You get
02:30a lot of that. And what about do's and don'ts in an Irish pub? Please don't order a black and
02:36tan
02:36tan or an Irish car bomb. Black and tan has a different meaning here to what it might have
02:42in the rest of the world, particularly the States. So black and tans were a British paramilitary unit
02:47here who pretty much terrorized Ireland in the early 1900s. And not an Irish car bomb because
02:51people died really close to here by a car bomb. So yeah, things like that you just don't do in
02:56Ireland.
02:56Here tipping is appreciated but not expected the way it is in the rest of the States. The service will
03:02say the same. Nobody will think any different if you tip or don't tip. Behave.
03:06Listen, behave. It's simple. You can tell the bars when you come into it. If you walk into a bar
03:10like
03:10here, we don't want roaring, shouting, singing, screaming. There are thousands of Irish pubs all
03:15around the world. But how are those in Ireland different from those abroad? And how can you
03:21recognize an authentic one? Some are really, really good and some are nothing like an Irish bar.
03:27They might be decorated somewhat like an Irish bar, but to me, to an Irish person, they don't feel like
03:31an Irish bar.
03:32When you start to see the same people in the same pub, it's like, okay, you know that like,
03:35it's not just tourists coming in and out. It's easy to strike up a conversation with someone
03:40in a pub in Ireland. People come to Ireland and experience an Irish bar and they like the atmosphere.
03:46They like the way they're run. They're replicated throughout the world, but I don't think ever
03:49equals. You know, it's not the same. What do you like about Irish pubs?
03:55Have you ever visited one in Ireland or are you planning to?
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