by Gary Quinn

This literary landmark has helped rewrite the story of Irish whiskey and there’s a seat at its bar waiting for you

Handsome as it is, the Palace Bar has always been defined by the people within it. The Widow Ryan, its former owner in the 1940s, poet Patrick Kavanagh in the 1970s, the editors of The Irish Times in the 1980s, and countless other dreamers and optimists who’ve hatched a plan for themselves within its walls. For more than five decades the Aherne family have stood behind the bar, each in their time steering this great Victorian pub through the dips and peaks of life on an Irish side street. It’s a place that allows the conversations between customers bubble up into action – the deals struck at the bar, the books plotted in the back room, the headlines rewritten, the lyrics reshaped and the love affairs masked in ‘just one more’.