RESTAURANTS AND PUBS AT THE CENTRE OF THE DISPUTE

THE merger in February 2016 meant Gleeson and his rivals would control some of Dublin’s bestknown pubs and restaurants.

Perhaps the most high profile is The George, the country’s most famous gay bar. Also in the group is Whelan’s pub on Wexford Street, which is an institution for fans for live music where acts including Jeff Buckley, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Ed Sheeran, Hozier, and Damien Rice have played.

The Mercantile Group takes its name from the Mercantile pub on Dame Street — the place where Leopold Bloom worked in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Cafe en Seine, on Dawson Street, is also part of the group. The pub is housed in a three-storey building where French prisoners of war were kept after the 1798 rebellion, according to the bar’s website.

Restaurants in the mix include Pichet, previously best-known for its association with MasterChef Ireland judge Nick Munier. Munier left the restaurant in 2014 after a dispute with Gleeson and others. Another restaurant is Farrier & Draper — which also includes a bar — located in a Georgian townhouse on the ultra-trendy South William Street. It was opened not long after the completion of the merger.

A third eatery in the group is The Green Hen, a French bistro located on Exchequer Street. On Wexford Street is the Asian restaurant and cocktail bar Opium.

Le Petit Parisien — a French cafe on Wicklow Street — is owned by the Mercantile Group, as is Soder + Ko, a restaurant on South Great George’s Street that is closed for renovation work but serves “a creative blend of Scandinavian and Asian-inspired quality drink and food”, according to its website.

Other properties in the group include the East Side Tavern and the South William Bar.