The Dagda

The Dagda occupies a single ground-floor room in an eighteenth-century tenement on Buccleuch Street, a few minutes from the university and a short walk from Newington. It traded for years as a quiet, largely overlooked bar called Procters before reopening under its current name and independent ownership, with a stone-flagged floor, a long counter and a gantry of pump clips collected over successive changing guest ales. Rotating cask lines sit alongside a regular beer and a respectable whisky selection, chosen without reference to any brewery tie. Thursday nights bring a quiz that draws a mix of students and long-standing locals, and the room fills steadily rather than suddenly through the evening. There is no food menu beyond bar snacks, and the pub keeps its identity as a drinking room rather than trying to become a restaurant.