Gather close, I have much wisdom to share with you. Welcome to Trinity, and perhaps to Dublin. Here, your young and impressionable mind will be subject to many exciting and exotic locations in the radius of your college. Below you will find five of the most important formative experiences you will need in order to graduate.
Dicey’s Mondays
Often said to be the horniest place on Earth, or at least in Dublin, this is the place to be on a Monday night if you want €2 shots. This is the Jewel of Harcourt Street; even Paul Mescal is said to have frequented this Garden of Eden. You will dance under the stars in the open air, arms upraised. You will also be hopelessly drunk from the pres because apparently everyone else heard there were €2 shots too, and it’s impossible to reach the bar.
Doyles
Up a narrow set of old stairs you will find a dance floor and an overrun bar. The floors are lacquered with an ancient residue. It will be difficult to pick your feet up as you dance. Everywhere you look is someone you wish you had not made eye contact with. The DJ is very familiar with ABBA, and you are all Dancing Queens. I once watched as a ledge stacked with fifty pint glasses was all knocked down by a couple who were making out and did not stop as the glasses fell down around them. This is all to say, the spirit of dance, and maybe vodka, will make you feel as if you are in the second to last scene of “Mamma Mia!”. Except instead of groundwater raining down, it’s glass.
Pav Fridays
It’s Friday night, the entirety of the underclassmen of Trinity College Dublin crowd the Pav, chatting and decidedly not dancing to whatever show DUDJ has put on. You are so cold. Not even the press of thousands of bodies around you as you stand on the Pav’s steps will prevent you from wondering if you have hypothermia. However, you have to go. You simply must. Especially considering it’s a bargain to wait in an unfathomably long line in a yellow bar which can’t shake the smell of BO for the best-priced pints in Dublin.
Wigwam
At some point in your first semester, you will be buying a ticket to a Freshers’ event at Wigwam. Different societies will lure you there with promises of drink tokens and community building. There will be a theme; maybe it will be wigs, and you’ll spend the money you don’t have. You will go, and wonder if that attempt at meeting new people was worth it. Except it probably was worth it, because now you know who to avoid.
Jazz Night
This is Dublin nightlife’s worst-kept secret. What could once be considered a lovely jaunt to O’Regan’s on a Tuesday night to drink a couple of pints, enjoy some elevator music, and consider yourself a suave surveyor of culture, has now become overrun with The Public. You all are the Public, unfortunately, but that’s not your fault; you are just two years too late. However, you are very welcome to stand outside with everybody else and pretend you know how to roll a cigarette. You will still feel very cool, even though half the city is there.
Oh, to be young and willing to brave the seediest places in Dublin for a cheap drink! I salute you. You will have so much fun. You will have so many stories, and join the ranks of thousands who have braved the walls of these establishments and emerged slightly sticky. Enjoy!
