Irish pubs, a pint, a music session and a story at every bar.

In Ireland the pub is not a bar you go to for a drink but the place where village life happens: you read the paper at midday, watch the match, hold a wake and, several nights a week, someone takes out a fiddle and a flute in a corner. Beer is part of that, and it comes in two colours of its own: Dublin's black stout and Kilkenny's red. This route brings together Geocalia's pubs and breweries in Dublin, Kilkenny, Galway, Cashel and the Powerscourt and Enniskerry area.

Dublin's black, Kilkenny's red

Guinness is a stout: roasted barley gives it its almost black colour and coffee flavour, with little gas and a creamy head you get by pouring it in two stages, with a pause to let it settle. A good pub takes its time serving it, and that is not carelessness. Smithwick's is a red ale, a top-fermented red beer, malty and smooth, that has been brewed in Kilkenny for about three hundred years. As well as the two, almost every pub has a lager, a beer from one of the country's small breweries and a shelf of whiskey.

More than the brand, what sets an Irish pub apart is the room: a long wooden bar, nooks, the snug (a little private booth in old pubs where people drank discreetly) and, when the time comes, a traditional music session, which is not a concert: the musicians sit at a table and play for themselves, and you listen with your pint.

Two breweries with a pint at the end

In Dublin, the Guinness Storehouse occupies the old fermentation plant at St James's Gate: seven floors you explore at your own pace in an hour and a half, from €26 if you buy online, with the pint included at the top, in the glass-walled Gravity Bar, above the city. Children aged 5 to 17 pay €10 and get a soft drink.

In Kilkenny, the Smithwick's Experience, in the city centre on the site of a former abbey, is a 45-minute guided tour with projections and a pint, from €21. If beer is your thing, the Masters of Ale, an hour and a quarter, adds a tasting, teaches you to pull your own pint and gives you an engraved glass, from €50.

Bars with centuries and music

In Dublin, The Brazen Head, beside the Liffey, presents itself as the oldest pub in Ireland, from 1198; it has a kitchen from midday to night and traditional music all seven nights from 21:00, and on Sundays an afternoon session. The Stag's Head, tucked away in Dame Court, serves pub food until 17:00 and has traditional music on Fridays and Saturdays. The Palace Bar, on Fleet Street, has been run by the same family since 1946 and keeps its Victorian snug.

In Kilkenny, Kyteler's Inn claims to have been open since 1324 and is named after Dame Alice Kyteler, accused of witchcraft in the 14th century; in high season there is music every night, at 20:00 on weekdays and at 18:30 and 22:00 from Friday to Sunday. In Galway, Tigh Neachtain, on Cross Street since 1894, is the dark-wood pub of the Latin Quarter, with food only at midday.

Outside the cities, Johnnie Fox's, from 1798, is in Glencullen, in the mountains south of Dublin, with a kitchen from 12:00 to 21:30 and its Hooley Show of music and dance. In Cashel, Mikey Ryan's is a pub with a kitchen at the foot of the Rock, and in July and August the Brú Ború centre puts on evenings of traditional music and dance.

March, summer and winter nights

On 17 March, St Patrick's Day, the whole country takes to the streets and Dublin's pubs fill up from the morning: if you go for that, go knowing there will be no seat in any famous one. From May to September there are more music sessions, the ones at Kyteler's are daily in high season and Brú Ború puts on its show in July and August. But the Irish pub works best in winter, with rain outside and a full room: from November to February the music at the Brazen Head carries on every night.

Train, bus and the last stretch on foot

For a pub route, a car gets in the way. Dublin is done on foot: between the Brazen Head and Trinity College it is about 25 minutes' walk, with the Stag's Head and the Palace Bar in between, and the Trinity City Hotel, on Pearse Street, is five minutes from the last. Kilkenny is an hour and a half or an hour and three quarters by Intercity from Heuston, and Galway about two hours by train. To Cashel you take Bus Éireann's 245X from Busáras, in a little over two hours, and to Enniskerry the Dublin Bus 44 from O'Connell Street, in an hour; Glencullen is a few minutes by taxi from there.

The return is the same: in the cities you sleep within walking distance of the pub, and from Kilkenny or Galway the train takes you back to Dublin. To do it properly, you have a night of pubs and music on foot in Dublin with the hotel at the end, the day by train to Kilkenny and two nights in Galway.