Dublin pub breaches €10 pint barrier in latest price blow to tourism
A Dublin pub is charging €10 ($10.85) for a pint of beer in an unprecedented move that others in Ireland's notoriously pricey capital city could emulate.
The threshold was crossed in early 2024 by The Merchant's Arch, a pub in the Temple Bar zone in the city centre, where the nearby The Temple Bar pub sells pints of various beers, including Guinness, for €9.95.
The management of The Oliver St. John Gogarty, another pub in Temple Bar, told a local radio station that it expects to charge €10 per pint soon, blaming inflationary pressures that have made costs such as electricity and hiring musicians more expensive.
However, visitors to Dublin do not need to travel far to find more affordable beer and get away from Temple Bar's "tourist trap" atmosphere.
A 10-minute walk north from Temple Bar, Delahunty’s, a working-class pub popular for live music and televised sport, sells pints of Guinness for €6, which is closer to the €5-6 average in pubs elsewhere in Ireland.
Across the River Liffey from The Merchant’s Arch, a pint costs the same in the popular Smithfield area - in bigger pubs with outdoor beer gardens - such as Delaney’s and Bonobo - which are popular with young people living in the city.
The breaching of the €10 taboo could prove another blow to Ireland’s tourism industry, which in 2023 had to fend off concerns over several incidents of street violence - including targeting of tourists - that prompted a warning from the US embassy to its visting nationals.
Irish tourism officials last year meanwhile warned of losses of up €1.1 billion due to hotels being used to house asylum seekers and refugees, leading to a shortage that in turn has pushed prices up for available rooms.
And in mid-year, Ireland’s pub owners criticized Guinness owner Diageo for price hikes they said pubs would have to absorb - further pressuring margins - or pass on to drinkers, already struggling with across-the-board inflation.
Around the same time, a report by The Drinks Industry Group Ireland showed almost 2,000 pubs as having gone out of business since 2005 - a decline of around 25% - with inflation and Covid lockdowns accelerating the trend in recent years.
