You can only read this if you promise to behave yourself
This is my first ever blog posting and I'm feeling kind of ambivalent about writing about my favourite pub, so you have to promise that if you are reading this and if you visit the place, you don't let me down and disgrace me in front of the regulars. OK?
The pub is called Grogan's and it's on South William St in the middle of Dublin, sort of parallel to Grafton St and at the back of the Powerscourt Centre. It's not like any other pub I know. At first glance it's not even that impressive - the ceiling has that nasty hospital-style tiling with all those tiny little holes - you know the sort that you count when you're clutching your guts and waiting for a doctor and you haven't got anything to read? The wood-look laminate stuff that covers large portions of the place is more than a little bit hideous and the carpet requires a strong stomach to look upon. However, this superficial ugliness hardly impinges on the eye of the discerning drinker at all. The first thing that really strikes you on entering the place is the collection of art that hangs higgledy-piggledy all over the shop. There's a permanently changing collection of work by artists from all over the place, and it is all for sale.
Having a pub as an art gallery is a great leveller; at any given time there is an awful amount of terrible crap and an impressive, if smaller, collection of genuinely good work by very talented artists, and since you have paid the price of a pint to sit there and look at the stuff, you are quite entitled to voice your opinion and decide which is the good stuff and which is the crap.
The single most impressive thing on display is a stained-glass piece just to your left as you come in (it's not for sale). It's a portrait (I know the word portrait strictly refers to a painting of a living subject, but such is the atmosphere and distinct character of Grogan's that it seems the proper term to use here) of the pub itself, featuringminiature portaits of beloved and celebrated regulars , most of whom are now dead (just ask Tommy the barman, one of the few remaining survivors of the window's curse̷ 
The picture's perspective is so cleverly designed that it seems to be painted from the point of view of wherever you happen to be in the pub. (At least that's how the fragmented perspective feels after a few pints̷
The clientele in Grogan's varies a lot and the place takes on different atmosphere depending on the time of day or day of the week. In summers at the weekend it gets packed, and the seats outside are among the most prized outdoor drinking spots in Dublin. I prefer to go during quieter times on a weekday afternoon, and it's then that the place seems most truly itself. It's then that you will find the old artists and writers and musicians sitting over pints and engaging in the most rarefied of Dublin cultural conversation. At least that's what they'd tell you they were doing - preserving that elusive combination of erudition and bullshit that makes the place unique. This is the time to here stories of self-aggrandisement or -deprecation or - more frequently - of the former dressed up as the latter. You'll find the names of Behan and Joyce and Yeats flung around without much respect for the poor men who made them, but the really surprising thing is that all this talk is not asbsolute and total nonsense. If you are prepared to take some of these guys on on their own terms - and if you are prepared to be lectured to - you can find some remnant of the real old Dublin culture that seems to have disappeared elsewhere.
And that's why I can't have you coming in here and spoiling the place. Come in, by all means, sit down and have a pint of really excellent Guinness. Engage a stranger in talk of "Ulysses" but do so with a touch more humility than you feel. Don't sing - it's not that kind of place - and please, although I'll be delighted to see you there myself, don't tell them I sent you...
