“You’re shite craic,” Anton slurs at me. He’s clearly missing the sickly O-Dog, his usual drinking partner. “I’m going down The Club for a nice cocktail. And maybe an aul’ bop,” says Anton. “Lots of good looking women, wha!” He departs to the belly of the Czech Inn complex to the fitting strains of 50 Cent’s In Da Club.
The Czech Inn, with its peerlessly punning name, feels like a nighthawks institution within Temple Bar despite being established less than a decade ago. Its address too, Essex Gate, seems fateful. The Czech Inn is placed on that invisible dividing line between the two Temple Bars and is a doorway to both. To the east, stretching off towards Westmoreland Street, is the ‘One Hundred Yards of Horror’, stags, hens, the negative space of cobbled streets shaping rivulets of human exhaust. To the west, up the hill towards Christchurch, is, well, much of the same, but at least retaining the jewellery boutiques and knick-knack stores of Cow’s Lane and (now-defunct) utopian art spaces that differentiate the Old Town. Even the street signs on either side of the building have different postcodes: Essex Gate in Dublin 2, Exchange Street Lower in Dublin 8. The city centre, the Liberties.
In the midst of Temple Bar’s unique brand of mayhem, the Czech stands Janus-faced, looking both east and west. A slice of actual Bohemia catering, somewhat unknowingly it feels, to local bohemians. It stands apart the surrounding hubbub by cheerfully embracing central European heritage, long before those Staropramens and Pilsners became chic. Moreso it refuses to diddly-eye-ify itself to charm the tourists, instead remaining a haunt for a broad cross-section of folks looking for a late-night drink in the area, without the baggage it entails.
And, boy, is it late when we (make sure not to) stumble through the door. It’s bright and medium-busy for the early hours of Saturday morning. There’s space for our group to sit comfortably and get served easily. There are O’Hara’s ales on draught (which go down easily) beside the selection of Czech beers. We are peacefully left to our own gossip and tomfoolery to tie up the loose ends of this night. When our table is finally, politely asked to make our way, we are given generous time to dawdle before re-entering the now dimming fray of late night Temple Bar.
At the exit, there’s an irate man in an ill-fitting suit who’s taken exception to someone from the Club. “I’m the boss… I’ve really had enough of yis now. Out! And don’t come back!” Anton leans his head back in the door: “Vaclav Havel… Vladimir Smicer… The Unbearable Lightness of Being… your boys took one hell of a beating!” I knew I shouldn’t have taken him out I think to myself, and slink off to DiFontaines.
The Czech Inn
Essex Gate,
Temple Bar,
Dublin 2
Words: Ian Lamont / Photography: Evan Buggle
