Mon 30th Jun 2014 - JDW to open first Irish Republic pub next week JDW to open first Irish Republic pub next week: JD Wetherspoon is to open its first pub in the Irish Republic, in the Dublin suburb of Blackrock, next Tuesday (8 July), with the creation of 60 new jobs. The company has spent €2.38m (£1.9m) developing the outlet, on the site of the former Tonic Bar, in Temple Road, Carysfort Avenue. It will include a dozen hand-pulls, which is thought to be six more than have ever featured on the bar of a pub in the Irish Republic before. Chief executive John Hutson told Propel: “The pub was finished ten days ago and we’ve been busy training. The main difference we’ve found in building the pub is the local regulations – there are quite a few new regulations around fire that have come in. There will be 12 hand-pulls with real ale from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as local and regional beers. Cask ale is nowhere near as commonplace in southern Ireland as here. But it’s something that we’ve always championed. We’ve taken the view that Dublin is an international city and there is an expectation that we will serve cask ale. I was in Dublin last week and my taxi driver told me that he always drinks cask ale when he’s in Scotland and visits our pubs. I also remember opening our second or third Scottish pub in Paisley and a customer collared me and suggested we serve London Pride (rather than just local cask ale). So the idea is to serve great UK cask ales.” The pub will open from 8am to midnight and is licensed from mid-morning – it will serve food throughout the day. The pub, which will be called the Three Tun Tavern, will be managed by John Hartigan, who is Irish but previously ran a Wetherspoon pub in Islington, North London. Among the local beers on sale will be Tom Crean’s Irish Lager from the Dingle Brewing Company, Rebel Red from the Molson Coors-owned microbrewer Franciscan Well in Cork, and beers from Eight Degrees Brewing in Mitchelstown, County Cork, including Howling Gale, Knockmealdown Porter and Barefoot Bohemian Pilsner. At the centre of the pub, a curved oak bar has been built as a reference to a tun, a large beer cask, while the interior design is based upon the concept of "faded grandeur", in homage to the grand houses of 18th century Blackrock, many of which have disappeared. There is also a "reading room", with panelled ceiling and vintage books dedicated to Blackrock’s most famous author, James Joyce. Photos, a local history board, commissioned artwork by local artists and information boards relating to events, historical buildings and characters of the area will be displayed in the pub. Included in the artwork are original works from the Dublin-born impressionist artist Gerald Hegarty, who lives and works in Blackrock. A lithograph from the Dublin-based Renate Debrun is also part of the collection, as well as an original John Alexander Halliday piece, titled View From Deepwell, which depicts a view from the terrace at Deepwell, across Dublin Bay. Wetherspoon also plans to open in the former Newport Cafe site on Paul Street in Cork city centre. The company is investing €1.5m into a refurbishment of the site, which is currently closed. Hutson told Propel that the company is hoping to go on site very shortly. The development is more complicated because two buildings are being “knitted together”. Wetherspoon is also eyeing the 40 Foot, a pub in Dun Laoghaire, just south of Blackrock, a site that is owned by the Irish "bad bank" Nama.