Tir na nÓg Cafe

I had a delicious sandwich. Free internet

This café will always have patrons. Why? I’ll tell you why. Irish weather.
I’ve been in here three times in the past year, each time it was because I was showing my boyfriend that St. Annes is amazing and suddenly the heavens will open up. Cue a dash for the café and a hot drink. WE still haven’t made it around the park.
The café is nice, if a little too cosy. The tables are quite close together and the large windows, though clearly intended to make the small space look bigger, can feel somehow oppressive when there’s a lot of people in. I’ve never sampled food here, just the coffee which is decent.
They host business breakfasts (I’ve seen signs) and have a few bits to keep the kids occupied (crayons and the like) so they’re really going for a broad demographic — however I feel they get more grannies than anyone else!
Overall it’s worth a look. If only to gaze out over the park from the windows.
PS: Echoing Cathal’s comments below — I don’t really get the name. Tír na nÓg café? Considering the rich history of the park, the nearby gardens, the red stables… the everything else, why did they choose a name that would be more suited to trying to wrangle in tourists than appeal to the locals?

This a very nice little café with a wonderful view of St Anne’s park. This place does not have many tables so could be considered cosy. They offer the usual café fare such as coffee, cakes, scones, soup and while I didn’t order any hot food they did have a small menu.
They have an outdoor seating area which is packed on sunny Sunday’s but was not open today due to being a Tuesday and because it was snowing! Yes snowing at the end of march! Typical confused Irish weather.
The reason this place lost a star as my coffee was just meh and the raspberry scone was dry like a day old scone.
But the service was pleasant and after a long walk exploring the park ruins and socializing dogs in the newly opened dogpark it was nice to sit upstairs and relax while the kids played in the huge playground.

I’m mainly reviewing their coffee to begin with. My visit was an unintentional dash thanks to the vagaries of the Irish climate-​one minute I was toddling through St Anne’s park with my coat slung over my arm planning my attack on the market, the next I was being pelted by hailstones. I took refuge in the restaurant and got myself a coffee-​for once I wasn’t actually hungry. The staff didn’t bat and eyelid at the fact that I was obviously dishevelled and just using it as a place of shelter. They also brought the coffee to my table so it felt really relaxed. Scones looked delicious-​it was all I could do not to order one. (Proper home-​baked-​looking raspberry ones-​yum!) The coffee was good and I never felt rushed at all.
The room itself is great-​windows on three walls so it’s really bright with lovely views of the courtyard and park.
Downsides were a bit of a smell of frying… and, potentially, the fact that it had quite a few families with buggies etc also present. Good if you want to go somewhere with the kids, maybe not so much if you’re childless!

Having a blatantly dewy eyed-​Paddywhackery-​bullshit name like Tír na nÓg would usually cause me to reject an establishment out of hand, but in this instance a friend insisted that the food was worth it, so in the end I acquiesced and went along with them to the restaurant with the ill-​considered name.
Located in the picturesque red stables in northside Dublin’s St Anne’s Park, Tír na nÓg is in the same site as the Rose Garden Restaurant, which I knew probably existed as I had seen signs for it, but it always looked locked up, and I had never seen anyone enter or leave it’s supposed site, or heard anyone ever mention (probably why the business is now closed, on reflection).
So, one thing that Tír na nÓg has going for it is that definitely exists and is open occasionally. The restaurant is in the loft of the stables, which is bright and airy and gives you a nice view out over the park.
The food is fairly simple fair — I had a chicken pie — but very good. I find that chicken pie is a perennially disappointing dish: the idea of it is really nice, but the execution is usually a gloopy mess. The chicken pie in Tír na nÓg, on the other hand, is delicious: big chunks of chicken, perfect pastry, highly recommended.
And Tír na nÓg is very reasonable. Most of the mains were € 9 or so, so a meal with coffees came to less than € 40 for three people. Pretty decent.
So if you’re in the vicinity of the red stables in St Anne’s and you’re feeling peckish, give Tír na nÓg your custom. Not only is it very tasty and good value for money, but there aren’t any restaurants for at least a mile in any direction, so it’s not as if you have much choice in the matter.