Believed to be Dublin’s oldest pub, this building may go back to the late 17th century but there was a tavern here, or near to here, since 1198 (and most likely there was an even earlier tavern preceding this, perhaps higher up the hill, to serve the old Celtic highway and the ford over theRiver Liffey known in Irish as the Áth Cliath).The greatest memories of the Brazen Head are those of 1798 and the years immediately before it. Here, the chiefs of the United Irishmen used to meet, plan revolution and then relax with a few beers. It was to the Brazen Head that Oliver Bond brought his new-found friend, Thomas Reynolds, to meet the men who were planning the fight for Irish freedom.
Little did Bond know that Reynolds was an informer who gave the government the information that led to the arrest of almost the whole Leinster Directory of the United Irishmen, in Oliver Bond’s own house at nearby No.13 Bridge Street. And so it was that the Rising lost almost all its leaders at one blow. The Brazen Head was also frequented by another revolutionary, Robert Emmett. When Robert Emmet stayed there, he occupied the room overlooking the passageway leading to the door of the Inn from which all the callers to the house could be observed. Emett was duly arrested and beheaded and his ghost is believed to haunt the building today.
