Tales from Dublin pubs: Addison Lodge of Botanic Road
The Addison Lodge is a chameleonic venue phenomenon in existential crisis. This establishment is fighting for its life and the only reason it’s still breathing is because it’s located next to the lungs of the city: the Botanic Gardens of Glasnevin.
It has a colourful history of being listed as a lodge, hotel, bed and breakfast, and a bar and lounge. Presently, the Lodge is in a state of disrepair and shivering in the shadow of its former glorious self. Una Marnell (a Dame of Dublin, but unable to remain in it) remembers with fondness times past in the Addison Lodge when it was bursting with life and custom. Now it has little by way of business and is bursting with another form of life; a large sprawling plant growing from the inside out of one of the central hotel bedroom windows. Is this a science experiment to be donated to the Gardens over the road?
Mould infestations are to be found throughout the property and numerous guests have published photographic evidence online. One such guest captured an image of a sock dangling from the ceiling of his hotel bedroom with a caption: "A sock (!) hanging down from the ventilation. Guess they ran out of filters." – David A. 2018.
It appears the business might be low in cash, but not in innovation. And yet, the Addison Lodge is intriguingly satisfying for those who are predisposed to morbid curiosity. It is both terrible and amazing and mysteriously memory begins to fail. It appears to take on a life of its own, sentient and malevolent. It’s the Irish Overlook, with all the Torransian charm and horror, and, if you listen carefully enough you can almost hear Dick Hallorann hollering in the wings.
We took pints here not once, but twice, compelled to return having been possessed by it after visit one. On entering the car park, we noticed it largely empty with a suspicious car meter jutting out to the side. We came to understand this is perhaps the proprietors’ largest means of income. A sly and deliberately confusing sign regarding parking hours has tricked many a sleepy guest with a heavy fine.
A big and bold “Beamish Sold Here” sign stands free and proud. Alas, no Beamish on the premises, but more about the booze in a moment. At the entrance was found an old advertisement board with the faded phrase “Sunday lunch served here”, it looked like it hadn’t been updated in decades. On the left through the dusty hallway, carpeted, wallpapered, cobwebbed, is the main bar. It was entirely empty save ourselves who suffered several minutes to be served.
Expecting to find a prehistoric Lurch of a barman we were instead met by a very striking young woman, tattooed, pierced, with flowing hair of blue hue, a canary in the coalmine, so to speak. She proceeded to serve us our pints, and for the sake of exploration, we took them over the hallway into the lounge. Once more, there wasn’t a soul present save an old grandfather clock hard at work. Massive mirrors bedecked the walls and the room’s dust was dancing in the bright light.
A sorry sight was where Sunday lunch used to be served, the old carvery bench is now all but an ornament. Stephens took a sip of his pint, grimaced, battled his swallow, and confirmed it was the most rancid pint he had ever tasted over the entire course of his experience. Coll was partial enough to it, his palate being so coarsened and booze beaten.
An exploration of the lavatory revealed a sign by the door, a handwritten call for souls to practice the Irish Language on Wednesday afternoons….Well do I remember the Addison Lodge of my youth: memory conjures up halcyon scenes of golden sunny Sunday afternoons, many idle hours pleasantly lost with happy families crowding the couches and the scent of finest gravy in the fragrant air, my baby self sedate in the pram in the car park whiles one's father ran within to buy pints for himself and Anton the weatherman who worked up the road in the Met Office and now acted as one's temporary babysitter... None of this charm remains.
Of all the pubs on this list, this sorry shambles is perhaps the most fascinating, and warrants the most in-depth (even book-length) investigative study to find out just where and how and when it all went so badly wrong. Even to look for it on YouTube will cough up relatively cheerful images of birthdays and retirement parties from 2011 or thereabouts. Whatever happened thus took place sometime over the intervening years of this decade. A retired policeman in The Gravediggers told us it was once the favourite go-to for the afters of funerals, the crowds lured by its excellent carvery lunches and buffet, but this valuable source of income was lost when the food for some reason was stopped and things went rapidly downhill. An air of quiet death now hangs over the place.
Haunted and chilled by our first visit, yet irresistibly drawn back by its unique dilapidation, we made a point of returning on Bloomsday 2018. This time the bar was sealed up and only the lounge was serviceable. We were the only visible customers apart from a nervous young couple (who surely were among the unhappy residents upstairs) scoffing some dry crisps. In place of the previous tattooed knife-wielding barmaid was a corpulent Brazilian man looking obsessively at his phone, worriedly wondering aloud how best to get the hell out of here to home. The pint he served us exceeded the first visit in terms of sheer rancidity and poisonousness. Andrew Stephens preserved his health and sensibly declined to drink it.
An occasional passer-by, fresh from the Botanic Gardens and expecting quality, would sometimes pop their head in the door, take one look at the drabness of the décor, and hastily beat a retreat to a more populous elsewhere, repelled by the inhospitable desolation.
With nobody around to deter us, and no authority figure who could give a shit, we wandered upstairs to have a timid peek at the rooms, tiptoeing nervously up the heavily carpeted steps, fearful of reprisals from any axe-swinger who might lurk around any corner. A sad little desk, which might have been stolen from a schoolroom, had a tacky sign taped to it; an unsteady scrawl told one that this was 'The Reception'. To further the pathetic impression that this was indeed 'The Reception' and that a dead-eyed receptionist might emerge if one rang, the doorbell of one of the rooms had been helpfully ripped off a wall and savvily taped to the desk. Cutting-edge technology and mechanical finesse, to say the least. Sinister noises could be heard from the rooms: the good folk indulging in a bit of self-mutilation or sado-masochism, perhaps. The lethal atmosphere of the place would surely inspire sundry perversions, the painful last gratifications of lost souls at the end of their tethers, painstakingly cutting themselves as punishment for sins committed in a past life.
A communal toilet had the door ajar, and some faded DVDs and crappy pulpy paperbacks were provided for entertainment. Especially chilling was a door marked by the ominous number '111': the doorknob was missing and a window to the side had the glass smashed.
To judge from comments online, the majority of paying guests only wound up there as a last resort because everywhere else was full. Indeed, the reports on TripAdvisor speak of rats and mould and cobwebs and make for a hilarious litany of complaints, with frequent injunctions to tear the place down. Which begs the question, how is an institution so rundown and blatantly neglected still standing? It surely fails to comply with any basic health and safety regulations, and anyone of a libellous frame of mind could easily make hay. Its principal source of income nowadays would appear to be its car park, which charges extortionate rates. Its days are surely numbered. Let us hope we grab a third visit before that happens...
UPDATE AS OF JUNE 9TH, 2019: THE INEVITABLE FINALLY HAPPENS: THE ADDISON LODGE HAS BEEN SHUT! WHETHER TO BE ENTIRELY DEMOLISHED OR EXPENSIVELY REVAMPED AS APARTMENTS WE KNOW NOT.
FURTHER UPDATE AS OF AUGUST 21ST, 2019: IT IS DEMOLISHED! BUT ONE THING IS CERTAIN. WE SHALL NOT LOOK UPON ITS LIKE AGAIN! R.I.P.
