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Dublin’s liveliest nightlife area is the Temple Bar district and it’s there that you’ll find the heaviest concentration of restaurants, pubs, and young tourists.
Nestled between the River Liffey and Dame Street, the area is named after Sir William Temple who owned the land in the early 17th Century while the word ‘bar’ refers to a riverside path in old Irish. Promoted as ‘Dublin’s Cultural Quarter’, the Temple Bar has retained its medieval street pattern with all its roads still being cobbled and narrow.
By the 1700’s, the Temple Bar had acquired some considerable notoriety as a regular haunt for drunkards and prostitutes and the 19th Century saw the area decline in popularity until it was regarded as one of Dublin’s least fashionable districts.
This is what probably saved it from the property developers who demolished a good part of the city’s historic architecture during the 1960’s.
The Temple Bar soon acquired a bohemian image as artisans and galleries were established in the area and in 1991 the Irish government set up the non-profit organisation Temple Bar Properties so as to regenerate the district as the city’s cultural quarter.
Famous cultural features in the Temple Bar include the Irish Film Institute, the Temple Bar Music Centre, the Gaiety School of Acting, the Irish Photography Centre, and the Arthouse Multimedia Centre.
Some of the first-class pubs include The Porterhouse, the Oliver St John Gogarty, the Turk’s Head, the Temple Bar, the Quay’s Bar, and Eamon Doran’s. The Temple Bar Book Market is held on Saturdays and Sundays in the Temple Bar Square.
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