Whelans

Wexford Street, Dublin 2

Not quite in the city centre environs, yet not quite out of them, Whelans hunches like a meths addled drunk begging at the door to the filth rimed public toilet that is the city centre. Pause to converse with this sodden madman and you may never reach the hidden treasures of the junkie's playground that awaits you farther on; never gaze in awe at the garish splendour that is Zanzibar or cringe at the stag-infested puke trough that is Temple Bar. But still tarry awhile with this chancre-sored raving pisshead and you will leave feeling almost relieved, validated, as if you have performed a mighty deed of self sacrifice in giving just a little of your time to ease the suffering of this bewildered and benighted gentleman of the road, this psychotic juicehead whose demented ramblings and stinking whiskey breath make your head swim and your eyes water. An old sot whose repeated requests of `Gis ten pee forra cuppa tee' eventually make your teeth hurt. Yet, despite all this and despite the fact that I usually wish I was somewhere else I do have a sneaking fondness for the dirty old shittrap.

The problem with Whelans is that it is essentially two venues. One a small and cramped bar of no great shakes and the other a small and cramped live venue which on a good night can provide you with an absolutely cracking gig and on a bad one a nightmare crush of sweating, disgruntled drunks. Together they provide an adequately sized bar/club, which the greedy management insist on stuffing to maniac capacity so that at some points in the night the place can literally come to standstill. This can obviously become infuriating if it's taking you twenty minutes to get a drink or take a piss. Personally I have learned to cope with this by getting shitfaced drunk and rudely elbowing my way through the crowd muttering under my breath and occasionally shouting `Scuse me! 'Scuse me! Coming through here! 'SCUSE ME!' This works to a certain extent but if you are a person of a retiring nature be prepared for some dirty looks, trust me though the booze coupled with the maddening crush of limbs should take care of any inhibitions you may have. However there is nothing like treating people like cattle to make them turn ugly so be prepared to down elbows and claim it was the bloke next to you should the mood in the place suddenly turn nasty.

In general, the crowd in Whelans tends to be a relaxed, dressed down lot with a rather broad mix of ages from 20's to 30's and beyond. Whelans is a place where the ultra trendy will simply not go and this is what gives it some of its laid-back laissez-faire attitude. Who cares if the beer is pisswater and the jacks is a sewer? There are no illusions of grandeur. The occasional literati or glitterati that do decide to slum it with the unwashed will quickly find there are no velvet ropes here to protect them from being doused in J.D. and Coke or mashed against the bar by some sweating Mayo man up for the match and driven mad by the exorbitant price of the Black stuff.

Whelans has many bad points not least of which are its small cramped nature, the poor quality of the beer, the overpowering smell of disinfectant and cheap air freshener, the rubberwalling policy, the mishmash design of the place, the fact that the dance floor is always, always covered in broken glass by the end of the night, the constant and endemic pint robbing that goes on by some thieving bastards, the preponderance of browness and awful German artwork and finally the bare, sodden and dirty floorboards that give the place a homeless, worn out feel to it. However, having said all that it is still has a certain slummy appeal. Being probably the most intimate live venue in Dublin, it's a place where you can see an excellent mix of established crowd pullers, up and coming Irish acts and an array of exotic and unusual bookings from Cuban salsa bands to readings and spoken word performances from figures as wide and varied as counter culture hero Ken Kesey, author cum singer Kinky Freidman, to others such as that antipodean arch Goth Nick Cave.

So in closing I will say this; that despite its many failings I have to approve of Whelans for a good night out. It's inexpensive, the music is appealing, the crowd are relaxed, the bouncers are amenable but don't expect too much for your couple of quid and expect to get those elbows dirty.'Scuse me 'Scuse me, hey that's my pint, HEY! HEY YOU STOP!