We continue our search for the Best Smithwick’s Experience in the city by visiting R. McSorley’s at the eastern end of Ranelagh village. McSorley’s has for years managed to be popular both with a regular local crowd and attract a wide,r more eclectic mix at the weekends when it can get really busy.
Visiting a bar with which you have a decent amount of familiarity at a different time than you are used to visiting it has a tendency to make you look around and think, “Is this really the same place?” This feeling is pertinent on a Wednesday evening in McSorley’s of Sandford Road in Ranelagh when I come to taste their Smithwick’s, far more accustomed am I to Saturday night meat-market in McScorley’s of the same address. I look around the walls and take in an entire room full of heretofore ignored paraphernalia detailing the 1997 World Snooker Championship triumph of local hero Ken “The Ranelagh Rascal” Doherty. There was an impressive array of “Baize of Glory” puns in 1997.
In the slowly gathering hubbub of the evening before a night of international football friendlies, Ronnie Whelan is, in the background somewhere, explaining the concept of the space between the defenders and midfielders on the seven o’clock RTÉ news bulletin. Extra staff arrive in anticipation of a crowd of 100-plus for a table quiz later in the evening, and there’s a real feeling that even this plain-jane Wednesday evening is going to positively fizzing come closing time.
I settle in for a (very reasonable) meal of a not-at-all bad burger and fries served cheerily on modish wooden slabs. It’s not quite up there with Bunsen Burger, but punches above its weight in terms of bar food, while my pint of Smithwick’s provides a nice clean bitterness to balance out the taste of the food. It more than does for a satisfying supper as I lose myself in the pages of my book and slivers of eavesdropped chat.
McSorley’s, with it’s double life a craft beer bar and a makeshift suburban nightclub come the weekends, is dimly lit and slightly labyrinthine, spaces delineated into nooks rather than snugs. Ultimately however, up close, it has many of the facets that make what is considered a ‘traditional’ bar. The TVs screen the match, but it’s not the focal point of people’s attention. Perhaps a do-or-die qualifier might have patrons more rapt, but this is a casual, fun bar with the option of high-end beer and decent food where the chats are the order of the day for patrons here. All the better for it too, as McSorley’s comes across as bar with an easy, comfortable atmosphere with optional treats rather than a specialist’s haunt.
McSorley’s
Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6
t: 01 4979775
w: mcsorleys.ie
