A good Dublin pub crawl takes planning. The Irish capital has hundreds of pints poured on any given evening, but a handful of drinking dens stand out — and a new guide from Condé Nast Traveller UK rounds up 13 of the best, from centuries-old institutions to sharp recent revivals.

For pure atmosphere, The Long Hall on South Great George's Street is hard to beat. Essentially unchanged since 1881, it pairs a glossy crimson ceiling with carved wooden partitions, antique clocks and red leather stools. A few doors down, Kehoe's on South Anne Street has been pouring for 220 years — bag the snug with its secret hatch to the bar in winter, or join the pavement crowd under the flower baskets in summer.

History runs deep elsewhere. Mulligan's on Poolbeg Street was licensed in 1782 after a stint as an illegal shebeen, and counts both James Joyce and a young John F. Kennedy, then a newspaper journalist, among past regulars. Davy Byrnes on Duke Street is the pub where Leopold Bloom orders his gorgonzola sandwich and glass of Burgundy in Ulysses — it still throws a party every Bloomsday on 16 June. And John Kavanagh's in Glasnevin, known locally as The Gravediggers for its spot beside the cemetery, dates to 1833 and serves what many consider the city's finest Guinness in music-free silence, ideally with a bowl of coddle.

Music lovers have two clear anchors. The Cobblestone in Smithfield — self-described as "a drinking pub with a music problem" — hosts serious traditional sessions from a family that has played for five generations. O'Donoghue's on Merrion Row, where The Dubliners played their earliest gigs in the 1960s, still rings with trad tunes nightly and even has rooms upstairs. Whiskey fans, meanwhile, should detour to Bowes on Fleet Street, with more than 200 bottles on its shelves and a claim as the founding spot of the Irish Whiskey Society in 2009, or to The Capstan Bar in the Liberties, five minutes from Teeling Distillery and famous for its ham and cheese toastie on Brennan's batch bread.

Newer arrivals prove the scene isn't frozen in time. O'Reilly's on Merrion Row got a 2025 facelift that kept the wood panelling but added colour and apothecary-bottle flair, nodding to its past life as a chemist. MJ Wright on George's Street is a family pub built on a former restaurant site that takes food seriously — Carlingford oysters, Cork burrata and a dry-aged beef and Guinness stew, plus Sunday roasts and open jam sessions.

For a change of scenery, The Blue Light sits in the Dublin Mountains about half an hour from the centre, its terrace looking over the city to Howth. The 300-year-old pub takes its name from a light that once signalled smugglers the coast was clear — fitting, given how hidden it still feels at sunset. Back in town, Grogan's Castle Lounge on South William Street doubles as an art gallery, with an annual Christmas show and legendary no-frills toasties.

It's a useful list for anyone designing a first trip or a return visit: cluster the city-centre pubs on foot, save the Liberties and the mountains for separate afternoons, and you'll sample four centuries of Dublin drinking culture in one weekend.