It's where the famous flock for a late-night drink, the place where you can rub shoulders with Bono in the loo, but its owners want to sell it for a lot more than a song, writes Shane Hegarty.
Dublin is a fickle city. Only a year after Lillies Bordello opened in 1992, the style press was writing it off. No longer so hot, they said. No longer so cool. Sure, it had been fun for a while, but let's see what's opening down the road.
Over a decade later and the nightclub has not only survived the changing trends but also flourished. It was the place that came to epitomise the shallow core of Irish celebrity; frequented by megastars, superstars, fading stars, jaded stars, wannabes and never-gonnabes, it has been the glass bowl through which the rest of us watch the glitterati swim about. Where Eddie Irvine once gave up his seat to Bruce Springsteen. Where Eamon Dunphy goes to get tired and emotional. Where Louis Walsh discovered Samantha Mumba.
Where Mel Gibson, Mick Jagger, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn go for a pint when in town. It's a place that socialite Gavin Lambe-Murphy once described as his second home. And people still went.
But Dublin remains capricious. On Wednesday, the nightclub was up for auction. With a starting price of €4 million, including the adjoining Tex-Mex bar and restaurant Judge Roy Beans, it proved too spicy. There were no bidders and, for a moment at least, a venue that has turned heads since it opened was struggling for attention. Its owners, the Egan family, will have to wait a little longer to cash in on its reputation. Although the auctioneers say that since Wednesday there has been a number of interested parties.
Michael Flatley was at the auction. The lord of the dance loves Lillies. No wonder. It was here that he met the woman he wouldn't eventually marry, when he plucked Lisa Murphy from the crowd and whisked her to the VIP bar. A few years back he tried to buy 50 per cent of the place and last week was convinced that the club would sell for much more than a €7 million asking price. It is, he said, "one of the greatest nightclubs in the world". He wrote in the Sunday Independent: "What other place in the world could you go to and bump into the Corrs, Julia Roberts, U2, Tom Jones, Van Morrison and Liam Neeson?" That would be some night out. But Lillies has always traded on the notion that if you were to lift its roof, it would reveal many scuttling megastars. That if you visit the toilet, you'll be standing between Flatley and Bono. That if you go to the bar, you'll be discovered by Louis Walsh. That if you leave without having seen at least one member of Westlife then you're entitled to a refund.
LILLIES - NAMED AFTER turn-of-the-century beauty Lillie Langtry by its former owner Gerry O'Reilly - has always been as much about giving the stars a place to escape to as giving ordinary folk somewhere to gawk at them. It does its bread-and-butter business in the main club, for anyone who is dressed well and acting civilised. The major celebs, and those who like to think they are, are more likely to be sequestered in the third-floor Jersey Lil's, the most VIP of the club's bars, a place for those with a platinum membership card and a platinum reputation. It is here that you'll find Eamon Dunphy and Ron Wood singing Raglan Road, while in one corner Eddie Irvine seduces Naomi Campbell and in another Michael Flatley seduces himself.
To gain platinum membership you must be over 32 and be either invited by the club or recommended by two other platinum members. Privileges include a separate entrance and exit, so you don't even have to share the same carpet as the public. There's beefed-up security and former Eurovision star Paul Harrington on piano. And, most importantly of all, it is a "press-free area". If there is one thing worse than meeting the public, it's meeting a journalist.
So, the stars can do their own thing, free to join the common people in the main club if they feel up to it, but nicely protected from them if they don't. They can buy a drink in peace and powder their nose without being stared at.
Celebrity hang-outs have come and gone in Dublin over the decade and some, such as Renards (owned by former Lillies manager Robbie Fox) still cling on to their reputations. But Lillies has always been the place with the greatest sense of "other", of privilege, of a bar on the top rung of the social ladder. "Lillies is a private club and people can join if we feel that they will fit in," explained manager Valerie Roe in 1999.
Some Dubliners, as it happens, would prefer not to fit in. The Scotsman recently described it as a "pretentious venue for ageing celebs", in an article written by a local journalist. The satirical online magazine, The Evil Gerald, once ran a mock news report about it burning down. "Charred heap of ashes not so trendy anymore," ran the sub-headline. "Where will we strut and pose now?, sob distressed celebs." Not that it's likely to have raised a smile from its owners. Lillies escaped major damage in 2001 when a fire in Judge Roy Beans caused smoke damage.
It has also had some damaging encounters with the law. In June 2002 the Dublin Circuit Court awarded €27,000 to a couple who had been the victims of a "commando-like assault" by doormen led by a former Yugoslav special forces soldier, Dino Vidan, who had been trained in unarmed combat. The assault occurred after the couple had been refused entry to the club. Roe was unhappy with the outcome, saying that her bouncers were not "violent gougers" and that life on a nightclub door had serious dangers. "I've been spat at, I've had bottles thrown at me and I've never retaliated. Patience is a virtue in this business." In June its owners were fined €750 when Lillies and Judge Roy Beans was open well beyond closing time. In March of last year, 60 people were found upstairs in Lillies at 4.40 a.m. The next night, TV presenter Patrick Kielty and 100 others were found in Judge Roy Beans at 4 a.m., and the owners were fined €4,000. The judge commented: "If you have got famous people, you must put them out like everybody else and if not, then frog-march them off and call the Garda."
IT IS A delightful sentiment, but unlikely to happen. If Bono was to be frog-marched from the premises it might somewhat dent Lillies precious reputation. There had been much speculation about interested buyers. Former footballer Lee Chapman (best known as husband of celebrity's unluckiest specimen Lesley Ash) was said to be readying a bid. Robbie Fox was rumoured to be interested as were several of Dublin's most successful pub and club owners.
If it is sold, its new owners will take on a 99-year lease, 34 of which have passed, with rent currently at €272,994. But they'll also be buying a club at a time of flux in the pub trade. The club has been affected by the recent review of nightclub closing hours. Meanwhile, late-night bars, the smoking ban and the fact that people are opting to drink at home are affecting all nightclubs. And while it remains the capital's celebrity hub, the VIPs are increasingly spending their weekends in cities such as Barcelona and Paris. Sometimes the only trend that matters is the market. In the meantime, for those unlikely to ever fit in with Lillies, or to ever want to, there is only one fact you need to know. The price of a pint of Guinness there is €5.30. Surely even rock stars balk at that.
The Lillie's File
What is it?
Famous Dublin nightclub and celebrity hangout
Why is it in the news?
Along with its adjoining bar, Judge Roy Bean's, it was up for auction on Wednesday, but didn't attract any bids.
Most appealing characteristic
It has a sumptuous interior, with mahogany panelling and leather padding, chandelier and red velvet drapes.
Least appealing characteristic
It's proud to keep the social elite segregated from the great unwashed.
Most likely to be seen in it
Bono, Michael Flatley, Eddie Irvine
Least likely to be seen in it
Most of the rest of us.