Photograph: Gareth James / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Editorial Review
John Kavanagh, the Gravediggers
The Atmosphere
“A family pub against the wall of Glasnevin Cemetery. No music, no television, no nonsense.”
The Kavanagh family has run this pub beside Glasnevin Cemetery since 1833, and the same family runs it now. The name comes from the gravediggers who would knock on the wall for a pint. The front bar has no music, no screens and no interest in changing, and it pours what many Dubliners consider the finest pint in the city. It is twenty minutes out of the centre by bus or taxi, which is exactly why it has stayed itself.
The long version
The Kavanagh family has poured pints against the wall of Glasnevin Cemetery since 1833, and nothing about that arrangement has needed fixing.
Prospect Square is not on the way to anywhere, which is exactly why the pub on it has stayed itself. Walk in and there is no music, no screen, nothing competing with the sound of the room: low conversation, a door opening, a glass set down. The bar runs along one side, unfussy, and the family behind it has been the same family since 1833.
The name comes from the men who used to dig graves next door and knock on the pub's back wall for a pint without leaving their work behind them. That wall is still there. So, more or less, is the arrangement.
The pub sits on Prospect Square, tucked against the wall of Glasnevin Cemetery in a part of Dublin most visitors never have reason to see, rows of small terraced houses and quiet residential streets that feel a world away from Temple Bar a few miles south. It has passed down through the same family for generations, and the low turnover of both ownership and habit is exactly why it still feels unchanged.
“The wall the gravediggers used to knock on for a pint is still there, and so, more or less, is the arrangement.”
The room
Use the old front bar rather than the newer lounge. It is smaller, plainer, and closer to what the pub has always been: no screens, no music, no interest whatsoever in changing to suit anyone passing through.
It is twenty minutes from the city centre by bus or taxi, and that distance has done the pub a favour. It never needed to perform for visitors because for most of its life it barely had any.
There is also a newer lounge bar attached to the building, brighter and more conventionally furnished, useful on a cold afternoon but genuinely a different room in character from the front bar. Ask which side you are being seated in if it matters to you.
What to drink here
Guinness, and by many Dubliners' account among the best pints in the city, which is a serious claim in a city with no shortage of competition for it. There is nothing else to really consider ordering.
A second pint here costs you nothing but time, and Dubliners who make the trip out tend to treat the visit as an afternoon rather than a quick stop, settling in with a newspaper or simply talking.
The pace here rewards more than one pint. Nobody is going to hurry you toward the door.
Who it suits
Anyone willing to leave the centre of Dublin for an afternoon. It pairs naturally with the Glasnevin Cemetery tour next door, which is genuinely worth the trip on its own, and the two together make a full and unusual half-day.
It does not suit anyone chasing a big night out. This is a pub for an afternoon pint and a conversation, not a late one.
What we would not pretend
It is genuinely out of the way, twenty minutes from town, and there is not much reason to go unless you are also visiting the cemetery. Do not expect a lively night out here.
How we would use it
A weekday early afternoon, the cemetery tour first, then across to the old front bar for a pint before heading back into the city. Not an evening plan, a daytime one.
Rooms Worth Requesting
What it actually feels like.
Use the old front bar rather than the lounge. Combine it with the Glasnevin Cemetery tour next door, which is genuinely excellent.
Why we recommend it
A space that justifies the journey.
Nearly two centuries in one family, and a front bar that has refused every temptation to modernise. This is the pint we send people out of the centre for.