Dr Quirkey’s Good Time Emporium
In my teens in Dublin Barney’s or the Pierott Club, before it was converted into a superpub, were my amusement haunts.
Or if I wanted to squeeze in a frame or two of snooker it would be Ricardo’s up on Camden Street - which you may know from The Commitments, it being used as the scene of their rehearsals.
Mostly though I went to places that didn’t have names, or lights come to think of it. You just went in darkened doorways guided by small blinking machines.
So Dr Quirkey’s came after my time, and long after O’Connell Street was already lost to what it might have been.
Still, there’s a better class of hoarding on O’Connell Street these days. I grew up in a gap-toothed Georgian and Medieval Dublin, with fillings of alternating red and white hoarding boards. Now though they can be any colour, and carry messages telling you to be a better person and that sort of stuff - with pictures of starving children in Africa in case you forget to be good.
But here, to the right of the once great Carlton cinema, I noticed a building being worked on and draped in the image of a completed building. That’s interesting, I thought - among many thoughts to be honest:
And what is the building depicted on the drapes? Well if you read the sign on the pseudo-fascia you can see it’s Dr Quirkey’s Good Time Emporium. And if that doesn’t convince you, have a look at the building immediately to the left of the once great Carlton cinema:
Yes, it’s the un-draped Dr Quirkey’s.
Obviously I remain out of the loop, so I don’t know if this means that Dr Quirkey’s is moving, or doubling, or if it nows own the Carlton? But if you ever visit Dublin and stay at the Gresham Hotel, this is the view across the road. It’s just yards up from the GPO where a bunch of Irish people famously fought against a bad time empire for a good time emporium.
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
great closing line - you rock
We used to play snooker in that really filthy dingy place upstairs in a laneway behind Dame Street. It was great because you could nip straight down to the Stag’s Head afterwards and have eight quick pints.