When you enter The Oval Bar on Middle Abbey Street you will probably notice a line of busts on the shelf or window board of the main front window of the bar. The window, just to your right as you enter the bar, faces onto Middle Abbey Street and the busts are of the men of the Easter Rising of 1916.
The proximity of The Oval Bar to O’Connell Street and the General Post Office, important locations in the armed insurrection against British rule in Ireland, probably explains the busts of the executed leaders of the rebellion.
On Saturday of the August bank holiday weekend the bar was probably quieter than normal. A lot of people would have left the city and either gone down the country or left it on holidays.
There were a few tourists coming and going and seeking some respite from the constant drizzle on Middle Abbey Street.
The bar itself is not very large, rectangular with plenty of high stools at the bar and the few tables dotted around.
Upstairs there is some more space and a nice view out onto Middle Abbey Street and O’Connell Street can make watching the world pass by with a nice pint of Guinness a nice way to while away an afternoon in agreeable company.
“Is this a Republican pub?”, she asked.
“I don’t think so, although you would never know”.
“A lot of the prints on the wall and the tricolour sprinkled around the place may be for the benefit of the tourists. Giving them what they might expect to see, rather than it being a genuine Republican pub”.
“But who knows? Do you want another?”
“Why not?’ she replies with a grin.