Dining in Ireland

Typical Irish dishes, meal costs (from fast food to pub grub to fancy restaurants), and the variable price of a pint in Ireland

Restaurant meal
from
$26

3-course meal, sometimes w/drink
Full Story 
Pub meal
from
$19

sandwich, burger, meat pie w/ drink
Full Story 
Fast food
from
$7

fish n' chips; kabab; curry
Full Story 
Pint in pub
from
$5

stout is cheaper than ale/lager
Full Story 
Beer from grocers
from
$2.80

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Pub grub in Ireland

Pub grub remains the cheapest way to get a full meal in Ireland, with burgers, sandwiches, meat pies, and other typical bar fare going for about €10 to €15 (including a side of chips—Yanks call 'em "fries"). Add €3.50 to €5.50 for a pint, and your full meals rings in under $20. Full Story

Restaurants in Ireland

Proper restaurants have come a long way in both quality and—since the recession of 2008 started—price.

Many restaurants—even top, award-winning restaurants in Dublin—now offer set-price meals for €19 to €30, including two to three courses (a choice among three to five options for each course) and often a drink. At the fancier places, these deals tend to be early-bird specials (say, before 7pm) or pre-/post-theater, but at many they're available at any time. Full Story

Fast food in Ireland

Irish fast food is much like British fast food, a mix of traditions and tastes imported from anywher form the local waters to the far corners of the old British empire: fish 'n' chips, kebabs, curries, etc. These typically range in cost from €5 to €8—though you can have a slice of pizza for around €2 to €3.

Perhaps the most popular Irish fast food is that old pub standby, the toasted, a drier variant of the grilled cheese, sometimes with ham, toasted in an oven (occasionally, oddly, cooked with the cellophane wrapping still on). This will run you €1.50 to €3 (though, given the option, I would pay extra for them to remove the plastic first). Full Story

A note on beer and cider prices

Sex and Beer
Now that I have your attention, I should probably correct that title to "gender and beer." This is about sociology, not sex.

Cider in Ireland is drunk almost exclusively by women. Women are also usually the only ones to order half-pints of anything. (The Y-chromosome apparently precludes Irish men from seeming un-macho by halving their alcohol intake.)

Gender is not the only cultural dividing line at the pub. Older Irish men tend to prefer stouts—or, occasionally, ales—while the younger generation has developed a taste for lighter lagers, particularly imports like Heineken.

A pint of beer in an Irish pub costs anywhere from €3.20 to €5.60 (up to €6 in Dublin).

Stouts, like Guinness, are usually cheaper by €0.30 to €0.50 than are ales or lagers (and, for reasons no bartender could adequately explain, third-rate Beamish stout is cheaper than Guinness or Murphy's). Thats' ain pub. A can of beer in a gorcery sotre will run €2 to €3.

Cider is often the most expensive drink on tap, often costing about €0.30 to €0.40 more than an ale and lager.

A few Dublin quirks: pints in Temple Bar cost about €0.40 to €0.60 more than elsewhere in town, and pubs (again, largely in Temple Bar) with a special license to stay open late often raise the price by €0.50 to €1 at 11:30pm. Full Story

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This article was by Reid Bramblett and last updated in September 2011.
All information was accurate at the time.


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Copyright © 1998–2013 by Reid Bramblett. Author: Reid Bramblett.