The opening of The Three Tun Tavern marks the entry of British mega pub chain JD Wetherspoon’s into the fold on our humble island home. For the uninitiated, over the last number of decades Wetherspoon’s have become a high street staple throughout the UK with 900 locations spread throughout the realm of the Windsors.
Needless to say, there was a certain amount of trepidation and cynicism at the notion of stepping into the Three Tun Tavern at all and it’s a testament to how a little context can give even the most mundane place a shade of the profoundly sinister. The décor is far from crass but numbing in it’s banality: cream walls and wood trim cultivating a kind of interzone ‘twixt wake and sleep where nothing can hold any real weight of significance.
The place was packed for a Tuesday night with ghostly spectres of the Celtic Tiger. Beefcake 19 year-olds with Dapper Dan hairstyles and Superdry tracksuit bottoms, people who own – or wish to one day own – boats, all shuffling around the bar’s innumerable wedding cake-esque layers in pursuit of a chicken burger and a pint for less than a tenner.
The very fact Wetherspoon’s decided to make their first venture into the Irish marketplace so discreetly suburban, as opposed to with a city centre monolith, hints at an understanding that we Micks have a certain romantic attachment to our pubs. Sure we put our names on them instead of just calling them the Dog and Cottage or whatever. Perhaps misgivings are empty romanticism – pubs are but businesses after all – and it may even be symptomatic of our nation’s problematic relationship with alcohol that we prescribe some great, potentially misplaced significance to the traditional notion of the public house. Ultimately these philosophical quandaries are down to the punter to consider. Let me recommend grappling with them over a proper pint in a proper pub as opposed to this god forsaken Soma lounge.
The Three Tun Tavern
1-5 Temple Road, Blackrock, Co. Dublin
t: 01 2123644
Words: Danny Wilson / Photos: Evan Buggle
