‘I visited one of Ireland's last remaining early houses - what I discovered amid sunrise pints surprised me'

Pint-lovers were having the craic at the crack of dawn in one of Ireland’s last remaining early houses which still serves booze from 7am when the Irish Mirror visited yesterday.

We headed to Molloy’s on Talbot Street and chatted with punters enjoying a tipple shortly after sunrise.

General Manager Agata Kot-Świder, who has worked in the city centre watering hole for eight years, says she has become really close with the regulars and said they’re now like her family.

Barman Sam Doyle with General Manager Agata Kot-Świder and supervisor Derek McDonnell

The pub boss also wanted to dispel the myth that everybody who has pints in the morning is an alcoholic - saying they have customers who pull up a bar stool at 7am who have just finished a night shift and it was their “evening”.

She told us: “It’s great craic, you can learn a lot from the customers. Everybody should come into an early house at least once. The staff enjoy being behind the bar and the customers enjoy the pints. After so many years, you’re so close with the regulars and you treat them like a family.

Agata said running an early morning pub early is no different from a regular one. She explained: “Like all pubs, we’re watching who’s coming in. We don’t want any trouble. There’s a nice atmosphere.”

Derek McDonnell, who works as a supervisor in Molloy's, added: "It's a fantastic place to work. I’ve been introduced to some very interesting characters over the years here. He said initially he had some worries at the start but they have long since passed.

The pre-dawn pint-puller explained: “You think ‘How is this going to work?’, ‘Are we going to get lots of people on roll-overs’, 'Is it going to be messy?’ But no, what you typically get is shift workers or people who are retired who might have worked night shifts whose system might just be set to that.

“This is the customers’ evening time, they’ve done a full 10-hour or 12-hour shift. They’ll arrive at 7, half 7, and have a couple of drinks and go home.”

He added: “You do get the odd person like with any bar who has maybe a drink issue but it’s a lot less than you would think. The ones who do come in are not messy, they don’t give us any hassle at all. Even if you did get somebody who was a bit sloppy or messy before the staff even gets to say it to them - somebody else will. The customers won’t tolerate it in the same way as we won’t.”

Punters Eamonn Hunt and Larry Fagan

Derek said on some mornings, there could be up to 300 people in the bar before 8am. One memorable moment for him was when a group of Norwegians flew to Ireland for a football match.

They turned up to Molloy's to have a pre-match pint but decided to stay in the pub and watch the game on the TV because they were having so much fun - despite all having tickets.

One punter who chatted to us this week was Vincent Quinlan, who is originally from Drimnagh but living in Kilmore West. He says he heads to Molloy's most mornings for a couple of pints.

The 82-year-old has been drinking in the Talbot Street pub for more than 50 years and when asked what keeps bringing him back, he joked: “The drink.”

Vincent Quinlan, 82, has been drinking in Molloy's for more than 50 years

Speaking about the boozer, he said: “I've been drinking here for over 50 years. I like it. “There’s a good crowd in here. We all know each other. There's a bus outside my door which drops me in. I always drank in here even when I worked as a painter and paper hanger. It's a good pint of Guinness and if it wasn’t I wouldn’t be here.”

He added: “I come in every day except Sunday. I never go out on a Sunday, there’s a certain portion of fellas who only go into pubs on a Sunday and they think they own the f**king place.”

Meanwhile, former railwayman Larry Fagan said he prefers going for beers in the morning because his body clock has been flipped from years of working nights. He also said he feels much safer going out in the morning compared to the evenings.

The 76-year-old said: “It’s not safe going out in the evening. I’d only go out in the evening with my sons. Dublin has gotten more dangerous, of course it has. Anybody can see that. I come out in the morning, I have my couple of pints and I go home.

“In the evening, it’s dodgier, they’re too fond of the knives nowadays. In anyway, I done night work for 40 years and my body clock is set. So this is my evening. I’m up between 3 and 4 am."

His pal Eamonn Hunt also said some elderly people find it tough to sleep at night so often decide to head to the early house particularly if they’ve been awake for most of the night.

It comes as the number of early houses in Ireland is dwindling - there are only a few left in Dublin and the amount that regularly serves pints from 7am is even smaller. Early bird boozers in the capital which still open at 7am include Molloy's, The Wind Jammer, and the Galway Hooker in Heuston Station.

They open at this time from Monday until Saturday - it’s prohibited to welcome patrons this early though on a Sunday even for an early house.

Danny’s View

“Pint of Guinness, please.”

The doors opened at 7am and by 7:01am the black stuff was already being poured. The punter took his seat at the bar and continued chatting with another who walked in behind him Shortly after that, a double brandy was being poured for somebody else.

Within 15 minutes, the pints were well and truly flowing. I was surprised at how quickly the place had filled up. If you were dropped at random into Molloys in the morning, you would think it’s a regular pub buzzing with patrons in the early afternoon.

I only remembered how early it was when my regular 7:30am alarm started to sound. My office is right beside Molloys and most mornings while walking by, there would be a scattering of people outside - both young and old.

I always wondered who these early-risers were. Who are these pre-dawn punters lifting a glass to the mark of the start of the day at a time when most hadn't even crawled out of bed The boozers who were awake before the baristas. Well, it seems like there is no one-size-fits-all answer.

When I arrived for my early morning session in Molloy's, there was a motley crew of patrons. The retirees, the night shift workers and the ones who were trying to keep their heads down because they weren’t supposed to be there.

Some elderly men said their body clocks had been permanently altered from a career of working nights and 7am was now their evening. Others said they no longer felt safe going out in Dublin in the evening.

The early house is an outlier in Ireland’s strict liquor laws which up until a couple of years ago prevented pubs from opening on Good Friday. They might not be everybody’s pint of plain but they do serve a purpose.

Other sun-up shops such as Slattery’s and the Boar’s Head on Capel Street can open from 7 am but nowadays only do so on special occasions. But both pubs still welcome punters in, before regular pubs who can serve from 10:30 am, even lift their shutters.

The early morning licenses were traditionally handed out to pubs to allow those on the night shift such as dock workers and those working in fruit and vegetable markets to have a drink when they finished.

The Government stopped handing out the “early morning exemption licenses” in 1962. Historians say there were 44 early houses in Dublin back then - most of which have since shut or no longer operate as a early pub.

Slattery’s owner Brian Conlon said most of their customers would be tourists who have landed in the capital early. The Capel Street boozer, which opens at 9 am, used to welcome punters in at 7 am up until the pandemic. Brian said: “Our clientele would be a lot of tourists who get red-eye flights from the States or the UK.

“We’ve all been there where you’re going on a stag weekend or a weekend away with the lads and someone goes ‘right, we’ll get the 6 am flight because it's €50 cheaper’ and you end up in a city at 7 am with nothing open and nothing to do.

"That’s where Slattery’s comes into it. You arrive in Dublin early in the morning and there’s no one around. A lot of taximen would actually recommend people to come to Slattery’s and have a drink.”

The publican said doctors working in hospitals often pop in after finishing a set of night shifts. He added: “People work different hours. Everybody is just treated the same.

“If somebody arrived at a bar at 11:30 at night and they were drunk, they wouldn’t get served and we have the same attitude at half nine in the morning - if you have too much drink on you, you’re not coming in.

“Before I worked in the early house, I had preconceived notions of early houses that they were kips and they’re going to have drunks all around the place but it’s not like that - we’re strict on our clientele. If we wouldn’t serve you at night-time, we wouldn’t serve you during the day."

Down the road at The Boar’s Head, Hugh Hourican said most of his early morning punters are tourists who are desperate to try their first pint of Guinness in Ireland.

Each year after the All-Ireland Final, the winning team will turn up early in the morning at the Boar's Head - usually with the Sam Maguire in tow - a tradition started by former Kerry manager and player Páidí Ó Sé in 1997 and has remained ever since.

Hugh said Shane Lowry paid him a visit after he won the Open in 2019 before adding: “But it would be nice to have him next Monday if he wins the Masters.”