Temple Bar, Dublin

The Temple Bar at Night

The lights of the Temple Bar, one of Dublin's most popular drinking establishments, beckon customers on a frosty December evening.

McDaid's Pub

McDaid's Pub, Dublin

McDaid's Pub, Dublin, the surreal haunt of Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan, Brian O'Nolan (Flann O'Brien), Brian Donleavy ('The Ginger Man'), Anthony Cronin and a host of other Irish literary giants.

In his book 'Dead as Doornails', Anthony Cronin writes: "McDaid's was never merely a literary pub. Its strength was always in variety, of talent, class, caste and estate. The divisions between a writer and a non-writer, bohemian and artist, informer and revolutionary, male and female, were never rigorously enforced; and nearly everybody, gurriers included, was ready for elevation to Parnassus, the scaffold or whatever."