The Turks Head

Parliament Street, Dublin 2

The Turks Head-- Zanzibar's poorer, filthier cousin-- lurks on the outskirts of Temple Bar like some transient kiddie fiddler. Competing with the likes of the labyrinthine Thomas Reids, pompous Porterhouse and the big gay Front Lounge it has chosen to tart itself up like a belly dancer, hike up its skirts and offer punters a hint of eastern promise.

Dirty, gaudy, garish, tawdry and expensive this is a whoor's boudoir of a pub. Dominated by a huge central bar and stripped of all comforts save a number of large uncomfortable stools and some banked couches there is never any doubt as to where you are. This is a meatmarket pure and simple. Tables set at standing height, few seats, bare stone floors, relentless pop music, yes you are in meat hell. Faces scream out at you from the walls the trapped souls of the meat-damned and the bar is eaten through by the acidic drool of the pitiful clientele. Have no doubt my friend you are on the meat-rack and worse still, in the cheap seats.

The Turks Head resides in the dubious realm of the 'Theme Pub'. A category usually marked by the grotesquely extravagant whimsy of some publican with 'artistic' tendencies, too much money and a villa in Santa Ponza. If you are prepared to spend a small fortune you can pull it off, the outrageous Zanzibar is a good example. Regardless of its other merits it looks impressive. Alas fortune has not favoured the Turks Head. If somebody bought Ali Baba's cave off the forty thieves and turned it into a nightclub this is what it would look like, except with less class.

The basement dancefloor is literally this; a gloomy, smelly, badly lit, pokey hole in the ground. Yep it's a cave; I'm dancing in a fucking cave to the relentless beats of the Venga Boys, hell my friends, hell. "To the Barcave for fermented refreshment, but holy mackerel Batman pints in the barcave cost a jawdropping Ł2.95!" Enough to make strong men weep and gnash their teeth and weaker men faint dead away. Now in the past; when the thirst is on you and the beer goggles are wearing off we have all paid outrageous prices for the drink, but holy Christ almighty I'll be fucked if I'll pay that much to drink watery Carlsberg in a cave, mashed in with 500 other gyrating punters. Might as well dig a hole in your back garden, invite your mates around and pay them all to piss on you and tell you you're having a great time.

But one man's meat is another man's poison as they say. And if you like it off the rack then the Turks Head is the place to go. With a flexible door policy especially for the city centre, i.e. trainers are tolerated. The Turks Head attracts a young mixed crowd. Some people are there for the night; others are stopping off on their way to a nightclub. Music is strictly mainstream pop charts and the basement will become an immovable mass of bodies by the latter part of the night. The beer is of poor quality but the bar staff and bouncers are congenial.

The Turks Head is not a place to go for a quiet pint and some conversation. It's a Friday, Saturday night office booze up kind of place. Go with a gang of people; drink, shout, dance, strut your stuff, maybe you'll get lucky and maybe you won't. You will sweat a lot, definitely spend too much on booze and probably make a fool of yourself, but these are the breaks take 'em or leave 'em.