On Talbot Street in the north inner city, a short walk from the Spire, The Celt Bar is one of Dublin’s better known traditional pubs – live music every night, hearty Irish stew, the usual. But it is the back section of the bar, known as The Shed, that gives the place its other reputation.

The Shed was built in 1864 as a horse stable. By around 1900 it had become something rather more significant – the first trade union hall in Ireland. This is where Jim Larkin, the labour activist whose statue stands on O’Connell Street, held his meetings, delivered his orations, and organised what became the first ever union strike in the country. The space has a Belfast roof – one of only four surviving examples in Ireland – and despite everything the building has been through, the architecture has remained largely intact.

It is in this older section of the bar that unexplained cold spots have been reported, along with a general sense of presence that a number of visitors and staff have found difficult to account for. No specific figure has been identified and no particular account has been documented in detail. The Shed’s atmosphere, however, is noted by enough people that it sits comfortably in the company of Dublin’s quietly haunted drinking establishments.

Whether what lingers there belongs to the working men who packed into the hall in the early 1900s, or to something older still in the fabric of the building, is a question The Celt leaves unanswered.