The Bleeding Horse pub is that most cliched of phrases - an institution. It has operated on Upper Camden Street since the 1600s, becoming extremely prosperous during the eighteenth century. At the end of that century, it played host to meetings of the United Irishmen planning the 1798 Rebellion. In later years it also was a venue for Fenian meetings.
The origin of its unusual name is, as you might imagine, a source of debate. One of the most popular is that an injured horse ran as far as this spot during the nearby Battle of Rathmines in August 1649. Over the years the establishment has been patronised by literary figures like Oliver St John Gogarty, and was famously mentioned in Ulysses.
The pub is also namechecked in Sheridan Le Fanu's The Cock and Anchor:
...there stood at the southern extremity of the city, near the point at which Camden Street now terminates, a small, old-fashioned building, something between an ale-house and an inn. It occupied the roadside by no means unpicturesquely; one gable jutted into the road, with a projecting window, which stood out from the building like a glass box held together by a massive frame of wood; and commanded by this projecting gable, and a few yards in retreat, but facing the road, was the inn door, over which hung a painted panel, representing a white horse, out of whose neck there spouted a crimson cascade, and underneath, in large letters, the traveller was informed that this was the genuine old "Bleeding Horse"...
References:
'Dublin Pub Life and Lore: An Oral History', Kevin C. Kearns
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