Ireland represents a few key things: rain, leprechauns and booze. What better environment could you ask for to get completely stufffaced on a regular basis under the alias of studying abroad as a college student?
Drinking abroad in Ireland is an art form that many can attempt, but few can achieve…especially at the level of masterfulness as yours truly. If you’re one of those students who want to study abroad and prove to the rest of the world that Americans aren’t belligerent, drunken butts, then go the fudge back to your study abroad advisor and switch from Ireland to some other pussy country whose main focus is its fine cuisines or art or some bullstuff. If you’re down to drink your liver into submission then book your flight now for the wildest binge-drinking experience of your life.
First things first. When you study abroad in Ireland, your classes should be irrelevant, easy, and avoidable like “Intro to Irish Studies” or “Calendar Customs.” You want to maximize your drinking time and minimize your “study” and “attending class” time. If you’re too dumb to pass “Early Irish Hero Tales,” then you probably shouldn’t even be allowed to handle scissors unsupervised, let alone travel to another country.
When you head to Dublin you’re going to hear about one thing… Temple bar, temple bar, temple bar. It is essentially a tourist trap geared towards making outsiders pay out the ass. This isn’t to say there aren’t great places to go within Temple Bar but try not to make it your go-to spot, because the Euro is not friendly to the U.S dollar and it will eventually come back to bite you in the ass. You might consider heading up a Sandeman’s New Europe pub crawl so you can experience 5 pubs and 1 club within Temple bar and then be done with it.
The cheapest place with the best atmosphere is the Garage. It’s small but they serve 10 Euro pitchers and reasonably-priced willytails. The Mez is also an awesome spot to hear live music (and no I don’t mean yet another place to listen to “Whiskey in the Jar”). The Mez is an eclectic combination of Rastafarian and grunge. You can often drunkenly stumble into people handing out drink vouchers on the streets for a free shot which are usually weak as hell but hey…free is free.
My personal favorite location is Messrs Maguire. It’s a four-story pub located along the Liffey (the big river that runs through Dublin). They brew their own beers including the Bock, which is 5% alcohol! So go balls out and get the cheapest pint for the highest percentage alcohol. It’s simple college math, people. On your way in, say hello to my good friend Darragh the bouncer, he’s a chill ginger but don’t fudge with him. If you keep walking about 2 junctions west and down a sketchy little alleyway, you’ll find O’Reilly’s. This is the cheapest place I could find in Dublin. Brace yourself—–ALL PINTS ARE 3.25 Euros! The place is best on a Thursday night because they have music and it’s usually pretty busy. Oh, and check out the bathroom since it’s like a funhouse. Another favorite would have to be the Porterhouse where you can go at a normal hour and get some good grub and a Fruili (strawberry flavored beer-DELICIOUS) or one of their other hundred brews. This place also has a decent nightlife as well and it’s on the aforementioned pub crawl.
Now, you may not know this, but Ireland has clubs. These clubs have expensive drinks, high cover charges and are heavily populated by barely dressed Irish girls with big hair and about a pound of caked-on makeup. The catch is, most pubs are only open until midnight so clubs aren’t your best option for late night boozing. So suck it up and pre-game hard so you don’t end up spending all your money in one night. Either pre-game on campus at the Student Bar or go grab a bottle of Working Dog, 14.5% alcohol wine from the store on campus (yeah, it doesn’t taste that great but take a bottle of that to the face and you’ll be good to go).
Some of the good clubs are Dtwos, Diceys and Club M. Then there’s the one and only Copper Face Jacks, more commonly known as Coppers. If you’re going through a bit of a dry spell and just want to get laid, this is the place you want to be. This place doesn’t charge a cover before 11 p.m. so needless to say we went there a lot more than is respectable. I say this because it is the type of establishment where people go to get completely obliterated and go home with someone-or an alley way-or a firehouse gymnasium floor (true life). If you are a girl, you will get hit on relentlessly and if you are a guy, it will probably work because the girl is too drunk to realize your face looks like that (no offense). If you’re 20 or 21, then go to clubs that are 20/21+ or else you’ll end up at a club like Tripod which is jam packed with 18-year-olds who can’t hold their booze.
Here are just some random thoughts. It is possible for you to be too drunk to be allowed into a pub so try to compose yourself, walk upright and don’t throw up in your purse (I should know that stuff is a mess to clean up the next day). Also, if you throw up in a cab, it costs 140 Euro…that’s $191. So sit near the door and tell the cabby to pull over so you can toss your cookies. If you don’t pay the fine they will chase you and/or call the cops on you (again this is personal experience here). This can often happen if you do a red eye in a dirty glass everywhere you go (this is chugging a Guinness and then dropping a shot of Jameson into the glass; swish and shoot).
If you follow these simple guidelines, you’ll find yourself stumbling drunkenly from pub to pub and dancing the night away amongst a scandalous crowd of Ireland’s finest. Just remember to pre-game, get the most alcohol for your buck, and wear a condom. This way, you’re guaranteed to find yourself waking up in the morning questioning where you are, what you did, and why you have a Bulmer’s glass in your pants…as well as who that is in your bed.
