Those were the days..

I picked up a great old Dublin guidebook in town the other day. Published in 1972, Essential Dublin promises to tell visitors and locals all they need to know Dublin.. Such as how to survive on a shoestring or how to live it up in pubs, discotheques and sauna baths! Sauna baths?! Anyway, it's a bit of a hoot and interesting to see how much things have changed and how much things haven't changed at all.

In the introductions and throughout the book, there's lots of bleating on about all the new affluence in the city and how the great old buildings are being torn down in the name of progress. Values are being ignored and those wretched young people are spoilt rotten.. Didn't I just read that in the paper today?

The section on the best pubs in the city is interesting.. Here's a list of the best pubs in Dublin in 1972. The Palace Bar, Doheny & Nesbitts, O'Briens on Leeson Street, The Stage's Head and The Long Hall. All still standing today and all still the best pubs in Dublin. The Long Hall is described as "the glittering lights, mirrors, lamps should classify it as kitschy but somehow the whole mixture works, making itone of the most attractive pubs anywhere" It doesn't sound like it's changed a bit in 35 years. I'd imagine the author's heart would've been warmed to see everything around it being pulled down and rebuilt a few years ago while the Longer was left untouched.

Good to see also that in 1972 "no pubs are barred to women though there is an unstated convention that women use the lounge bar if there is one" It doesn't say what women should do if there isn't a lounge. Go home and wait for the 80s, I suppose..