9 SOUTH ANNE STREET, Dublin
From the record · Deep research
Independent reporting and heritage records on this pub, drawn from a curated list of Irish news outlets, Revenue Commissioners, NIAH, and the Dictionary of Irish Architects. Every claim links to its primary source.
Revenue's renewed-liquor-licence register lists licence ref S0001 as a Publican's Licence (7-Day Ordinary) for KEHOES at 9 South Anne Street in Dublin city, with TRIMBLEGROVE LIMITED as licensee.[1]
NIAH records John Kehoe at 9 South Anne Street and Duke Lane as a regional-rated former house with architectural, artistic, and social interest.[2]
NIAH dates the building to 1715-1900, records its original use as a house, and records its current survey use as a public house.[2]
The NIAH description says the building is a corner-sited former house built c.1725, with a lower c.1880 return and later public-house use.[2]
NIAH identifies a Victorian wraparound pubfrontage, panelled stall-riser, painted timber fascia, four-panel timber door, and carved timber joinery.[2]
NIAH says Kehoe's has been in use as a public house since 1803 and describes its late Victorian pubfrontage and interior as among Dublin city's best preserved Victorian pub interiors.[2]
NIAH records the pub as a haunt of Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan, and Flann O'Brien.[2]
The Irish Times reported in 1996 that Dublin publican Louis Fitzgerald paid GBP2.01 million at auction for Kehoe's bar on South Anne Street.[3]
The same Irish Times report said Fitzgerald denied plans to move the licence and said the Victorian bar would stay in business.[3]
Reviewed pub lore
Established
First licensed in 1803, just off Grafton Street on South Anne Street. The interior visitors see today is the product of a late-19th-century Victorian renovation.
Literary links
Identified by Joycean scholars as the setting for the first part of *Grace*, from *Dubliners*. The back exterior wall carries the Joyce inscription: 'In the particular is contained the universal.'
Architecture
Original Victorian fittings: mahogany bar, traditional snugs, the partitioned counter that has shielded poets from publicans for over two centuries.
Regulars
James Joyce, Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh and Myles na gCopaleen all drank here — the latter three frequently when they had fallen out of favour over in McDaid's.
Reputation
Among Dublin's literary-pub triumvirate alongside McDaid's and the Palace Bar. The mid-century writers' rotation between the three pubs is part of Dublin's drinking history.
Community memories
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