It’s been around 50 years since the Flowing Tide last changed hands. And it’s fair to say that, in that time, the landmark Dublin pub has quite literally seen more than its fair share of drama thanks to its location at the corner of Marlborough Street and Abbey Street, and across the road from the Abbey Theatre.
The pub’s relationship with the city’s acting community goes back even further, however, to December 1904, when the Abbey Theatre produced its first play. In 1907, that association was recorded for the first time by several national newspapers when enraged patrons flooded into the Flowing Tide disgusted by John Millington Synge’s depiction of the stage Irishman in The Playboy of the Western World.
That particular commotion was to be overshadowed, to say the least, during the week of the 1916 Easter Rising, when the Flowing Tide was hit by an artillery shell which the crew of the HMS Helga had intended to “deliver” to the nearby GPO.
Second home
In more recent times, the pub has enjoyed a more peaceful existence, relatively speaking, serving as a something of second home for the Abbey’s actors and its more general clientele.
While the Flowing Tide is leased currently and continues to trade well, it is now being offered for sale with vacant possession by Eddie Bohan of agent Bohan & Hyland at a guide price of €2 million.
Located immediately across from the Abbey Theatre and within a short walk of O’Connell Street, the subject property comprises a four-storey-over-basement building with bar, lounge and 4,000sq ft of office space overhead.
Although the pub is being sold with vacant possession, Bohan says the current tenant is keen to stay and take on a new lease if this is something the new owner is interested in. The pub and overhead office units (when fully let)could provide the purchaser with an annual rental income of about €170,000, he adds.
