As members of my family owned pubs I was never that keen on visiting pubs and much preferred meeting my friends in restaurants. However, when I purchased my apartment I Dublin 1 there was a huge selection of pubs nearby and then, more recently, many became (or added) restaurants while others reinvented themselves as gastro pubs.

Beginning about ten years I began to notice that many pubs were being sold and replaced by hotels - the Big Tree on Dorset Street being just one example.

Sadly it is now expected that many pubs that were forced to close their doors because of covid-19 restrictions will never reopen as pubs.

A few days ago it was revealed that about seven hundred objections have been lodged against plans to build a nine-storey hotel over and adjacent to the Cobblestone pub in Smithfield, Dublin. It should be noted that many of the objections had been due to the fact that the pub was a popular venue for traditional Irish music and one such objection read as follows: “The Cobblestone is unique. It’s one of the last few pubs in Dublin to hear traditional music and to experience Irish culture. Traditional music in a pub is exactly the sort of experience that most tourists coming to Ireland seek out. Not a hotel bar. The proposal to engulf it into a hotel will destroy it.”

Colin Marron of Marron Estates Ltd, stated: “The whole of the Cobblestone buildings are retained including the roof structure and the new building will be cantilevered over the roof of the existing building. The pub will be reconfigured internally but it is certainly our intention for The Cobblestone to continue to operate the famous music pub it has always been.”