Dublin, a city cleft in twain by jabberjaw and the endless scroll of pixelated screeds. A place of dichotomous repute, where the very air, thick with the ghosts of poets and patriots, is breathed in and spat out with equal venom and veneration. For every ten a penny balladeer, their throat slick with the romance of the gargle, there lurks a shadowy legion, a heft of souls who’ve supped only on the city’s drearier dregs and found the taste to their bitter liking.
We, of course, align ourselves with the former, our tongues ever ready to attest to the plenitude of the craic, the untrammeled beauty that winks from behind a veil of grey stone and ceaseless rain. Yet, we are not so blind in our affections as to mistake this sprawling, begrudging metropolis for some gilded utopia. There are days, oh yes, when the heart yearns for an egress, a flight from the relentless urbanity, a pilgrimage to where the green reigns and the clamour of the city is but a distant, forgotten hum.
And when such longings strike, and the coffers are bare and the clock a cruel master, a semblance of the pastoral can be unearthed, a bucolic whisper not a stone's throw from the city's very core. We speak, of course, of that venerable institution, that authentic country redoubt nestled in the heart of Kilmainham – The Old Royal Oak.
The provenance of its name, a matter of some scholarly chin-stroking on our part. Does the ‘Royal’ nod to the nearby Hospital, a loyal subject in nomenclature? Perhaps. But our own delvings have led us down a more winding, Anglo-influenced path, back to the sceptred isle, our erstwhile colonial master. For across the water, the pubs are littered with Royal Oaks, a veritable forest of them.
The tale, as we’ve pieced it together, harks back to the tumultuous 1600s, a time of schism and strife, of Roundhead and Cavalier. In the fields of Worcester, a battle raged, a fierce dispute over governance or perhaps the proper seasoning of a sauce, the annals are unclear. There, the soon-to-be King Charles, a man of questionable mettle and decidedly un-canine lineage, found himself pitted against that Cromwellian scourge, that black-hearted bane of a millennium. Seeing the tide of battle turn against him, our Charlie, in a moment of prudent cowardice, sought refuge in the embracing boughs of a mighty oak.
A decade hence, with the unpleasantness concluded and his royal posterior once more warming the throne, Charles, ever the raconteur, would spin the yarn of his arboreal salvation. And the English, in their peculiar fashion, immortalised the tale in song and, more importantly, in the naming of their public houses. Thus, the Royal Oak became a symbol, a toast to survival and the enduring strength of the monarchy.
The Oaker, as it is affectionately known, is a study in an almost monastic simplicity. A single, undivided chamber, a testament to the less-is-more philosophy. To the left, low-slung seating invites a comfortable subsidence; to the right, a bar of modest proportions dispenses its liquid sacraments. When the faithful convene, the space constricts, a sudden, convivial intimacy. We, on our last visit, secured our perch at the bar by a whisker. The walls, a gallery of local ephemera: landscapes of a softer, greener Dublin, faded advertisements for long-vanished elixirs, framed jerseys of sporting heroes, and a canopy of flags, a silent, colourful chorus.
A call of nature prompted a journey towards the jaxx, but not before a detour, at my friend’s insistence, to inspect the snug. And what a revelation it was. Peering through an unassuming doorway, I found not a pub snug, but a family sitting room, a haven of domesticity. Its occupants, their eyes glued to the flickering drama of a televised match, regarded my intrusion with the mild bewilderment one might reserve for a stranger who has wandered, unbidden, into their home. Returning to the bar, I sang the praises of this sanctum of cosiness, demanding of my companions that our next sojourn be within its hallowed walls. And so it shall be.
Shane Coppinger
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10 June 2025
10.0
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