Grogan's Castle Lounge

About this place Grogan's Castle Lounge

Grogan's on South William Street is not a gay bar but it has been part of Dublin's LGBTQ+ social landscape for decades through its consistent welcome and its role as the preferred pub of a significant proportion of Dublin's artists, writers, and creative community — which has always had substantial LGBTQ+ representation. The pub is one of the finest traditional Irish bar rooms in Dublin: plain, without decoration, with a clientele that reads books at the counter and stays for five hours without noticing. The landlords have maintained a genuine open-door policy toward the gay community since at least the 1980s. Grogan's is the answer to the question of where to go when you want a proper Irish pub experience in a place where you will not feel out of place as an LGBTQ+ person — it is a five-minute walk from the George's Street and Capel Street scenes.