The Pen Corner

I have always found the staff in this shop amazing. They offer help and then leave you alone. One of my favourite shops in Dublin — I adore pens.

I bought my first fountain pen at the Pen Corner. The service was great — the manager helped match me with the perfect pen. As someone who is obsessed with and collects pens, the Pen Corner had everything I could want in a pen store.

I definitely met Bridget’s «woman of a certain age,» but forewarned is forearmed, and I didn’t take offense at her abrasiveness. I think that is just her manner and isn’t reflective of her opinion of the customers. Pretty sure. I managed to get a smile out of her, but she reverted to that same roughness almost immediately.
Anyway, nice shop. I didn’t look much at the pens (I have a nice one and don’t have the resources to upgrade… yet) but I did spend some time downstairs with the paper. Lovely stuff. It almost feels wrong to sully it with my drivel.

Fountain pen stores are rare gems. If you have any interest in writing equipment, please come here and give them your business. We need to support small shops like this otherwise they will all disappear.
The Pen Corner has a great collection of modern fountain pens. Waterman, Parker, Mont Blanc, etc. You can buy ink in bottles and cartridges. OMG, thank you for having Waterman Havana Brown in stock.
The displays are delightful, the shop is clean, and if you need stationery and cards, check out the little room downstairs. They sell Moleskine and Rhodia journals, Crane thank you cards, and blank greeting cards.
Pens, ink, journals and cards – they do it all here. This is THE place to buy a souvenir from Ireland if you are visiting Dublin. Take home a fountain pen; you will be glad you did.

I love this little stationery shop. Yes, stationery. It’s far from stationary. They sell nice greeting cards and have an excellent selection of pens. When I am rich I shall buy a Mont Blanc or some such.

Oh… the creamy smooth texture of fine paper, soft under your touch…
Hmmm…the feeling of a slender, thick, stubby or long writing tool in your hand as you wrap your fingers around each in turn, trying to find the perfect fit…
AHH, the discovery that, as many notebooks as you may have opened and filled before, each new one brings a sense of delicious pleasure as you spread the pages out and press your pen into it for the first time…
OHohOH…the delight at finding hand-​bound, locally made beautiful vessels just wating to be filled with the spill of your imagination… so many choices displaying themselves to you… so many temptations for you to long for, to want to take home, unwrap, and possess for your own…
mmmm…the sated sound as you pay for your secret delight, a bit of a luxury to be sure, a guilty pleasure, but the countergirl gives you a knowing smile, because she, like the madame of a pleasure dome, knows that you’ll be back when desire becomes too great and your blood sings for the finest joys.
Bottom Line: INKGASM!

For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.
Don’t let the chance of buying a quality, life-​long pen pass you by!
The selection of pens and pen accessories here is brilliant. I’ve never seen a pen store quite so well stocked and supplied.
My experience:
I went in today to browse the shop. I was there only to browse, I had no definite intention to purchase a pen. I do, however, like looking at fountain pens and was curious what was available.
The clerk behind the counter was very polite. He asked if I needed help, I informed him I was browsing — and he said feel free and then left me alone. Brilliant!
I saw a Mont Blanc pen that was on special offer. It was normally 500 Euro down to 200 Euro. I inquired why it was so cheap and the clerk told me it i because they are making room for new stock. He told me that if I wanted it, he’d give me five boxes of ink (35 carts) and a cleaner utility tool.
I’ve always wanted a nicer fountain pen (I had previously lost an auction to get one issued by the Vatican) — so I went outside with my iPhone and looked up prices of this pen… to see if the discount was ‘genuine’ or ‘inflated’. To my surprise, most of the sites I found were selling that pen for 400−580…sterling. This was an incredible deal!
The pen itself was class. But it was the eagerness of the clerk to be helpful and ‘grease’ the sale that really sold it. As I said, I had no intention to buy a pen (so perhaps beware of that!)

I love writing. It’s what keeps me alive. So, by default, I adore pens. In a world that lives on a diet of email and text message, the act of putting ink on paper has become alluring, almost risqué. Writing is a decadent hobby — especially if you stumble into The Pen Corner. Seriously, enter at your own risk. This place should be X-​rated.
It’s not particularly overpriced, but you only go in there if you’re a pen connoisseur. Want a bic? Go to the € 2 shop. The Pen Corner stocks only the most hardcore pens — we’re talking the premium quality pimped-​up kind that make you swoon. This is pen porn.
I should know! After drooling at the G.B. Shaw limited edition fountain pen in the window for several months, I finally came across the shop during opening hours. Feeling frisky, I decided to give it a test run. Pleased with myself for leaving all calm and composed, it took just one glass of wine at The Bank around the corner for me to succumb to its wily ways and dash back to collect it.
The staff aren’t pushy but they do know their pens — especially the guy in the sexy Woody Allen glasses. They’re also generous. The manager was so pleased with my own delirious excitement, he gave me a leather pen holder, a pad of writing paper and three bottles of Montblanc ink in sepia, violet and black. That’s more than € 120 in freebies. Yes, I’d spent a small fortune on a pen, but this gesture was completely unexpected.
You need a big budget for this place but you get a lifetime guarantee on your purchase and the chance to make letter writing as delicious as letter receiving. It’s not for everyone, but it is a writer’s paradise (of the most hedonistic kind).

When it comes to my writing I’ve got plain tastes –spiral bound note books and ball point bics, thanks.
But when I take that short stair case down to the stationary room at Pen Corner I lose all sense of reason. Despite a less than helpful staff (blonde saleswoman of a certain age, I’m looking at you) the store continues to draw loyal customers new and old thanks to the very best selection of beautiful pens and paper products.
The array of note books and journals, greeting cards and sheaf paper plus boxed and single cards is a thing of beauty. Pen Corner has made great strides to incorporate beautifully designed stock that can become your signature without a single pen stroke. I attribute this shop with my ongoing obsession of collecting interesting boxed card sets –shame I don’t know enough people to use them all up.
There was a bit of a scuffle with that less than friendly saleswoman over an injured pen in need of service, but otherwise I urge you to go… go now! And send me a lovely card!

I’m the type of guy who carries a leather conference file to hold an A4 pad full of doodles, has a gel roller ball for scribbles and a matching fountain pen for important letters (that I’ll never write), which I keep in a leather pen sheaf. As you may already have pictured The Pen Place is pretty much aimed at an older version of me with cash to burn.
The Pen Place is in a beautiful corner shop where Dame Street meets Trinity Street. The shopfront is a marble, wood and stained glass combo job that must easily be getting into antique territory. The exterior lends some seriously weighty airs and graces to this, the most notable of pen shops.
Inside they stock all the favourites. They’s gots yer Mont Blanc, and yer Cross and all the jazz. They also have some quirkier brands and styles for the non-​conformer. I personally like the Tombow pens from Japan a lot, they’re young yet classy, and if you’re really super savvy when it comes to hipster accessories then you’ll want a Lamy.
Yep, I like the Pen Place a lot, it is a rip-​off but I think that’s par for the course to be honest. The staff know way too much about pens, it’s just weird, and they have a great selection of filofaxes, letter paper, and all the other stuff that’s become redundant since Web 2.0.

I don’t really know what it is about stationary, but there is something kind of cool about it. Between picking out pencil cases when you were in school and graduating to the posh fountain pen when you’re an exec, it does have a certain draw. So a shop dedicated to pens is pretty fun. And the fact it’s got a bit of a ‘ye olde’ feel about it just enhances it’s charm.