The claim
A corner house in Temple Bar where Essex Street East meets Eustace Street, with sash windows over a wraparound timber front and rooms to let above. It traded as Farrington's for years before the owners went back to the older name, a nod to the wooden Viking figure said to have stood on this corner. Whiskey and craft beer at the counter, Irish cooking from late morning, music most nights.
What the records show
The pub's own account gives 1696 as the year the premises was first licensed, and says the house sold drink from the 1500s as the Wooden Man Tavern, named for a carved Viking figure on the corner. Neither statement has been traced to a record. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, read again on 18 September 2026 from the survey's published data rather than from an archived copy of its web page, dates the standing building to about 1900, records both its original and its present use as a public house, and cites the earliest document anyone here can point at: mid-nineteenth-century maps show two buildings on the site, and Thom's Directory of 1862 has them held by a single tenant as a vintner's. The survey's own date range for the fabric, 1910 to 1930, is later than the c.1900 in its description, and the two are printed side by side in one record. It also notes that Essex Street was opened in 1674 and divided into east and west in the 1760s, which is worth weighing against a tavern at this address in the 1500s. A second publisher now says something about the building. Dublin City Council's Record of Protected Structures for the development plan of 2022 to 2028 protects 29 Essex Street East as entry 2645 and describes it in two words as licensed premises; 28, the other half of the address the national survey gives, carries no entry of its own. The council's position for 29 falls on the survey's position for this house, and the nearest other entries are 15 Eustace Street round the corner and 30 Essex Street East next door. Grade C: the 1696 is the house's own and the document is two centuries younger than the claim.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1696 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1900 | Present building | https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/50020101/the-norseman-28-29-essex-street-east-eustace-street-dublin-2-dublin |
| 1862 | First record of a drinking house here | National Inventory of Architectural Heritage |
What to look for inside
- Thom's Directory of 1862 records the two houses on this site held by one tenant as a vintner's
- Traded as Farrington's, for a character in Joyce's Dubliners, before the older name came back
- Named for the Wooden Man, a carved Viking figure said to have stood at the corner
Visiting
The Norseman is in Dublin, Ireland, at 28-29 Essex Street East, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, D02 XH60. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- www.norseman.ie/
- www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/50020101/the-norseman-28-29-essex-street-east-eustace-street-dublin-2-dublin
- www.openstreetmap.org/way/281359242
- data.smartdublin.ie/dataset/f1dd00f0-5914-4b97-b66e-0dbb4bcb510c
- www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/excise/licences/liquor-licences.aspx
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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