Sometimes, we take things for granted. 

Familiarity can breed, perhaps not contempt, but indifference. 

I lived in Dublin for nearly 6 years in the 1990's into 2000, both northside and southside, at a time when the city was still just about affordable enough for someone on (lowly) bookseller's wages. Although I had spent and financially supported Galway's pubs as a student, the city's pubs - and the range of them was somewhat of a revelation - pubs for adults, rather than students. Quiet pubs, what I referred to ( dismissively) as 'old man pubs', early houses, sports pubs, suburban pubs in Drumcondra and Rathmines, early versions of 'superpubs' that were enjoying a brief existence. Pubs with good pints, pubs with mediocre pints. 

And I took them for granted, not appreciating that I had an array of arguably the world's best public houses within 400 metres of Fred Hannas on Nassau Street where I worked at the time, and willing Dubs to introduce this culchie to more of them.  Kehoe's, Neary's, The Duke, Mulligans, The Palace Bar, Bruxelles ( then a much earthier place, they serve oysters now, it was more Blue Oyster Cult in the basement at the time), The Long Hall, The Stag's Head, all pubs which still thrive. 

Then in Rathmines and on the way to it - The Bleeding Horse, Slattery's. Too many, some now gone, or renamed.

I met my wife in Mulligan's on Poolbeg, little knowing the first time we met in the back snug that we'd end up together. (She was with a group of fellow librarians, so no escaping the books at any point). I see from the book's introduction by Dermot Bolger that he too met his wife in a Dublin pub, The International, where on a recent visit I met a group of four (older) north of England women at 11am having pints, as you would of a morning. 

Everyone has associations like these, even if you're not a Dubliner, the city's pubs form it's architecture, almost as staging points, or in the era before the ubiquity of mobiles, as compass points. It was therefore a delight to see the book by Donal Fallon on Dublin's Pubs - A Social and Cultural History - and social in every sense of the word applies here. There have been many books on Dublin's pubs before, many aimed at the photographs for tourists market ( which is in itself no bad thing) but this book captures a myriad of threads and weaves them into a book that, like all good books, makes you want to learn more. 

Donal Fallon & New Island Books have produced a book of lasting importance with this title, handsomely designed hardcover by Niall McCormack at hitone.ie, with period and recent photographs throughout.

It's our book of the year at theBookshop.ie, and I heartily recommend it.