K3

Liffey Street, Dublin 1

Appearing recently on the former site of Coopers bar, K3 curls around Liffey Street emerging from several angles in differing guises. On Abbey street it is the unassuming Kielys. The standard façade for incalculable Irish pubs. A few steps inside and yes you appear to be in a genuine "old style" Dublin pub. Plenty of burnished wood and mouldering advertisements for "Walls Restorative" and "Mossey's Refreshing Tobacco tonic". But as you head towards the back seeking the safety of the snug you emerge Narnia-like into the world of K3.

And to be honest there are worse places to be. K3 is something of a metaphor for the current Dublin pub scene. I should have disliked this place intensely, it has elements of all that is loathsome surrounding commercial development in this city but I didn't quite hate everything. Yes it's woefully expensive and somewhat soulless but it's also relaxed, low key and without the undertones of terrible cultural savagery associated with most of Dublin's new temples of Mammon. K3 seems a pub at ease with itself, perhaps because it attempts to be neither a fake "Oirish" pub rejigged in a modern context such as Messrs Maguires nor a "theme" bar. Some bastard creation fashioned from of a nightmare landscape of papier mache and some sweaty designer's warped egomania. Rather it gives you an option. It respects its heritage whilst forging a new identity for itself, in essence a metaphor for the modern Irish consciousness. Struggling to accept and accommodate our past whilst looking forward to and embracing our future. This is Dublin's first truly post-modern bar. A bar that acknowledges its debt to the past yet slyly comments on jaded clichés through its self referential décor

Now, apart from lapsing into that utter piddling shite because I didn't want to jam burning needles into my eyesockets at the thought of spending an hour or two there: was it any good? Well, yes and no. Gauging the crowd was difficult as the paint is barely dry and I suspect word of mouth is just beginning to spread. At a glance I would say any denizen of the nearby Pravda would feel at home. The kids were dressed up in their best and all looking well but again that is starting to mean less and less these days. Bouncers were numerous but seemed friendly enough. Bar staff and floor crew were also courteous, well turned out and took orders with a smile (Yes, I was in shock!) The surroundings were salubrious and seating was in a comfort zone far exceeding any reasonable expectation. It required much effort just to get yourself upright. The plush Habitat couches and lack of vast open tracts of bare floor mean that hopefully a rubber walling policy is not in place.

Money, money, money is the impression K3 would like to give. But it just doesn't quite make the grade. For starters it's on the wrong side of the Liffey to attract the clientele it wants and the Morrison Hotel this ain't, no matter how much the management wishes it were so. To be fair the place looks very nice, straight from the pages of a catalogue. But there is something inherently sinister in stretching a thin veneer of respectability over the act of getting floothered. Let it out I say, let the filthy savagery of the act have its head. Let's do away with these sanitary representations of the bacchanalian rite.

A second recent visit to the place confirmed my belief in the true nature of the Irish people: savage barbarity. Confronted with this vista of clean glass, plush furnishings and sanitary toilets they immediately proceeded to piss all over the floors, scrawl " Tiocfaidh Ár Lá" on the walls and put big fucking boot marks all over the Habitat interior. Ahh it warms the cockles of me heart so it does.

K3 like most new venues is a product of current economics and whilst not as offensive to the eye as the majority of new developments it is essentially yet another giant bar sprung up on the banks of the Liffey. Giant bars are all well and good as a novelty but they remain impersonal spaces; detached and slightly sterile venues of interaction. The customer is never that important to the Giant Bar, there are always hundreds more clamouring at the doors. This was the least odious of them I have visited and that is the nicest I am going to be. Plenty of you will love the place. Its plush modernity, its sleek attractive styling, all are appealing but these are features best left in the hotel lobby or the corporate courtesy suite.

Overall this is a niche market pub. Maybe a place to drink if GUBU is full (of pierced tossers) or if you're waiting on Fiachra and Bunty to appear from one of their late night currency orgies in the IFSC before heading on to the Free Cuban Refugee All-Star Castro Salsa night in HQ. Not a place to go for a quiet pint (or a cheap one), and not really a place to hang out in either. Definitely a dressed up bar with some ideas above its station. Give it a go if that's your thing, avoid if it isn't.