Traditional Irish Musical Pub Crawl

We arrived at the Ha Penny Inn really excited for our Musical Pub Crawl. We went upstairs and got a couple of nice ales and were soon joined by several others. Two musicians went to the front of the room, introduced themselves, and began chatting about traditional Irish music. They cracked some jokes along the way, especially about the Temple Bar as not being a place for real music. Well they played a song and started bantering about pubs, music, and traditions. And they played another song. More talking and chatting and talking and talking snd they played another song and more talking. This was supposed to be a musical pub crawl, but by 9:00pm we’d heard maybe three songs and heard lots of talking. And the crawl? Well, turns out we were going to walk twenty minutes to the next venue, same musicians, just a different place, and that was it for the evening. We walked and walked and walked some more to arrive at a basement room set up like a seventh grade classroom, ready to hear more talking snd less playing. We were very disappointed!! Why leave the Ha Penny at all? Seems like a setup to sell some more beer than an evening with musicians. We left. Would not recommend. We had more fun at The Temple Bar.

This was one of the most memorable evenings I've spent anywhere - it was our last night in Ireland and I can't think of a better way to end an already amazing trip. We were expecting great music, but our two hosts Brenda Castles and Stephen Fagan kept us in stitches with their humorous stories and quips. The food was excellent as well. A special treat was the unexpected appearance of an Irish dancer during the dinner portion of the evening. We were lucky enough to catch a set by Stephen later in the evening and he was gracious enough to invite our singer-songwriter daughter up to the stage to perform one of her songs. We will definitely book this event again on our next trip.

We heard about the Musical Pub Crawl from Rick Steves guidebook. Well Rick, you let us down on this one buddy. It was not what we were expecting. For the first stop, we met at a pub in the Temple Bar district of Dublin. That area is known to be a super touristy area with high drink prices. The musicians were good and entertaining, but they are imported just for the tour. It is NOT a genuine traditional Irish music in a pub experience. We only got taken to two places, and the second was NOT a pub. It was the generic basement of a restaurant with NO atmosphere and it was a quite a walk to get there on the other side of the river. The same musicians played at the second spot. Really??? I expected that we would go to at least 3 spots and that there would be different musicians at each pub. That's a genuine pub crawl! If you are going to other towns in Ireland, (particularly Dingle which is Music City Ireland) don't waste your time on this. Or talk to your concierge and find out where the good Trad music is in Dublin.