What an Irish pub is for in Pattaya, and how to pick one
An Irish pub in a Thai beach resort is three things at once, and the good ones know which one they are. It is a room with the commentary on, where the rugby or the Premier League or the GAA is the point and the Guinness is the reason to stay for the second half. It is a kitchen, with a breakfast that Irish and British regulars eat at two in the afternoon and a roast on Sunday. And it is a clubhouse, for the several thousand Irish who live in the city, and who use it the way an Irish pub at home is used: as the place you go when you do not want to decide where to go.
Picking one depends on which of the three you want. The Irish House and Dicey Reilly's are the big rooms with the screens and the kitchen, and they are where the matches are watched. The Shamrock and Harat's are smaller and closer to a pub at home, with a counter you can talk across. Aiden's and the Dirty Shamrock are the new ones and by their reviews the friendliest, which is what new pubs are. O'Gara's and Paddy's are the ones the regulars have moved to when the others got busy. The Sinbin is closed, and the list says so rather than pretending.
The Guinness test is the one every Irish visitor applies and every Irish pub in Pattaya fails and passes at once: the stout is from a keg, through a proper tap, and poured in two parts by somebody who was taught, at most of them; and it is at twenty degrees in a room that is at thirty on the pavement side, which changes it. The reviews that say "the best outside Ireland" are usually written in the cool season.
The pint at a bar that is not a pub
We are on this page because we have a Guinness tap and are not an Irish pub, and the honest thing is to say what that means. The tap is real, the keg is real, the pour is two parts with a settle, and the reviewer who called it one of the best he had had outside Ireland was Irish and was not paid. What we do not have is the rest of it: the commentary, the breakfast, the clubhouse, the counter of Irish regulars who know each other's counties. What we have instead is a band three metres from the glass.
That makes us the second stop rather than the first. The way Irish regulars use us is this: the match at the Irish House or Dicey's, where the screens are and the sound is on, and then a baht bus or a walk to Soi Diana for the band, the cold, and a pint that was poured properly beside a stage rather than beside a television. The screens above our counter have the match on with the sound off, which is a courtesy to the people who are checking a score and not a promise to the people who came for one.
Every Irish pub on this list is ranked by Google's rating weighted by its review count, with the rule stated so you can argue with it, and the map at the top puts each one at its distance from our door. We are not on the ranked list, because we are not a pub, and we have put ourselves at the bottom of the page where a bar with a tap and a band belongs.
