New Wetherspoons in city-centre chapel

PUNTERS who enjoy a drink in the capital can look forward to lapping up cheap pints in the city centre – as a new Wetherspoons bar is on the way.

It’s believed the outlet could offer the cheapest tipple in town – with a pint of Beamish stout costing €2.95 in Irish Wetherspoons and its most popular lager, Fosters, setting drinkers back just €2.95 a pint.

Interestingly, the godsend for frugal boozehounds will partly occupy a former chapel.

The new pub to be opened by popular UK franchise JD Wetherspoon will be located on Lower Abbey Street in the heart of Dublin.

Development has already begun for the new business, and the company’s €4million investment will create 75 jobs. The pub, which will be called The Silver Penny is due to open next May.

Two protected buildings will comprise the 1,600 square metres new gastropub. They are the 150-year-old former Trustee Savings Bank building at 12B and the former 1839 Baptist Chapel at 12C Lower Abbey Street.

The venue will feature two bars, with the main bar at ground-floor level, serving an impressive two-storey space surrounded by a first-floor gallery with a large roof light.

This area will form the main hub of the interior while a second, more intimate bar will be situated in an ornate former banqueting room upstairs.

It is the third Wetherspoons pub in development in the Republic. The others are in Carlow and Dublin. The franchise already has five pubs open here.