Ramble Inn

Grand spot for starting the night off, quite dated but locals are good decent folk. Guinness isn’t bad at all

The Ramble Inn is my local and I’m happy to say that despite what the previous reviewer had to say, I have never smelled faeces while enjoying a pint at this pub. It’s not fancy but it’s no dirtier than any of the hipster joints I used to frequent in Seattle. It’s usually full of regular folks enjoying a few drinks, sports on the telly and/​or darts. The barmen are friendly and my husband swears they serve the best pint in Dublin. As a «Yank» I am an easy target for drunk assholes but I have never had a problem. It’s a nice neighbourhood place to enjoy a pint.

I got the impression growing up that my parents were very middle-​class, and almost seemed at pains to be so. Not that we were very rich or anything, far from it. It’s just that my parents seemed to be constantly striving to be ultra-​respectable.
A couple of examples. We owned the first new-​fangled «Word Processor» on our road (a vintage Amstrad, which is still up in the attic somewhere and would probably fetch a fortune on Ebay for its by now priceless kitsch value). My mother was into organic food and filtering our tap water and all that lark before these activities became mainstream (as in the mainstream for alternative types. You know what I mean). Both my mother and father practiced yoga once a week in a church hall in Clontarf (later I became extremely embarrassed on my father’s behalf when I found out what yoga actually entailed).
But the main thing that I felt marked them out in their efforts at middle-​classedness was that my mother and father never went to pubs, except when we were on holidays.
But there could have been another factor in my parents abjuring the joys of the public house, and indeed there was. It was the fact that our local pub where we used to live was the Ramble Inn in Killester.
The fact is: the Ramble Inn smells. Like faeces. And not just in the immediate vicinity of the offending craporium. The smell of shit from the Ramble Inn was almost palpable from Dr Quill’s chemist at the far end of the row of shops (now an opticians, run by Dr Quill’s son, John).
And while it used to have a pleasant blue and white colour scheme (reminiscent of a nice boathouse), the Ramble Inn is now painted in a dark blue/​sky blue mixture. This resemblance to a Dublin jersey is possibly no accident, as many of the patrons of the establishment wear said garment every day of the week, even when Dublin aren’t playing. You get what I’m saying (pub’s rough as dogs bollox).
So, don’t go to the Ramble Inn, despite it’s quaint name, it’s smelly and full of gruff old drunks.
Thankfully, this state of affairs ensured that neither of my parents grew up to be raving alcoholics, and that I suffered no consequent emotional problems in my upbringing and I grew up to be the well-​balanced individual that I am today, so every cloud has a silver lining, I suppose.