Guide Index. Red words? Check the Dub Glossary!
Please note! The info in this article is... um... a couple years out of date. Murphy's is gone. So sorry!
There's still comedy to be found. I'm leaving this article up for posterity, hopefully helping to illustrate the sort of fun that can e found on a Dublin night out. Thanks, Mick
Looking for something brilliant to do in Dublin? Highly recommended: Murphy’s Laughter Lounge.
Murphy’s is this lame-ass wannabe Guinness that they brew down in Cork. Corkheads will try to tell you that it tastes a hell of a lot better than Guinness, that it’s a superior porter in every regard. But you won’t be able to understand what the hell they’re saying. All you’ll hear is this bunch of sing-songy culchie gibberish, with the occasional fart thrown in. But I digress.
Seeing as it can sell no beer in Dublin based on the merits of its beverage, Murphy’s opened the best stand-up club in the country, about three years ago. People go in there, drink heavily, and laugh their guts out.
A whole crowd of us from work went in this one night. Choking down that vile black pseudo-Guinness, we remarked on the trademark dive comedy-club brickface decor and worn (yet comfy) seats left over from when the club used to be the old Screen Cinema. Then some trippy hip-hop music started and this weird lookin’ fella charged down the aisle to the mic. He started laying into the wanker foolish enough to sit up in the front seat. At first, I thought, "He’s taking the piss!" Putting on this West Virginia accent and making jokes about his victim’s sheepshagging ways. But No! It turns out, this MC who had everyone in the house dying inside 30 seconds was a fellow DFA. Our host host fer the evening was none other than Dessie B, the super-powered New York-born 'urban hip hop warrior.' After growing up with an Irish immigrant father, Des Bishop wound up moving to Dublin himself in his teens to begin his tragic, insipid rise to superstardom. The stories he told were absolutely hilarious.
Anyway, there was a whole mess of comedians that night. Some of them didn’t have what it takes, I’ll be honest. The first guy sucked goatdick! Not literally: it’s just that his act wasn’t funny. The last duo didn’t make much sense either, but maybe that was the twelve pints of Murphy’s we each scoffed. This one guy in the middle, somewhere, was hilarious. He kept picking on his big head. (It was big.) He said to himself, "Pat, your head is so big. You look like an unhappy offspring of Colm Meany and Art Garfunkle. (He did!) I went to fairs when I was a kid, this big head lolling on this little body. People would try to take me home, thinking I was a balloon on a stick. " Really funny, that guy was. I hope he didn’t ACTUALLY think that he was freak of nature.
Anyway, here’s the details so you can go see for yourself: the Lounge is on Eden Quay, Dublin 1. Telephone number? 1800 266 339. Eden Quay is on the north side of O'Connell Bridge. The Laughter Lounge has this huge red glowing sign that only a right tosser could miss.
Guide Index. Red words? Check the Dub Glossary!