Offshore Island Pubs of Ireland

I've written, on many occasions at this stage, about my family connections to Arranmore Island in Donegal; and how I only completed its 6 (remaining, of 8) licences in 2022, albeit the last remaining pub was one I had been in countless times as a kid.

Arranmore's 6 pubs is quite a lot for one island, and it has made me wonder about what other offshore (before someone comes and lists most of the pubs in Cork City...) island pubs there are. And also if I can actually tick all of those off too.

This is not a promise to do that. I might, but I'm not guaranteeing I'll do it it like I have with Dublin and also The Rosses. 

I'm going off the 2024-5 full licence file here, so there is a very high chance I'm missing somewhere, but I made a reference back to the 2010-11 file to try find any lost pubs too.

I'm going to start North and work my way counter-clockwise here, so places I've been mostly work their way to the top...  I am also only counting islands you still need a boat to get to - I may have an Achill great-grandfather, but you're basically mainlanders now!

An additional thing to note is that some islands have bars in community centres or social clubs that have club licences. These may be the only bar, or an additional one. I have never counted social club licences as they are unquantifiable - there is no register for them. Another island has a "bar" which I have only identified a restaurant licence for to date.

Tory

LEP397 Tory Island Hotel - I have eaten (as a child), but not drunk, here. This doesn't count as a tick.

Arranmore

LEO002 Neilys 
LEP013 Earlys Pier Bar
LEP014 Glen Hotel
LEP015 Owens Hotel
LEP431 Seaview / Smugglers Niteclub
1009262 Phil Bans

These are all visited, with those trading during the day on a specific day in 2022 linked above.

Clare Island

CBP109 Bay View Hotel - this appears to now be a private rental, with the bar possibly occasionally open
1003341 Clare Island Community Centre / Anchor Bar

Inishbofin

GAP910 Inishbofin House Hotel
GAP911 The Beach Bar
GAP912 Doonmore Hotel
GAP984 Dolphin Hotel

edit: I initially didn't find the licence for the Beach somehow, but then noticed the gap in the sequence and went looking

Inishmore

GAP524 Tigh Joe Mac's 
GAP526 Tigh Joe Watty
GAP527 The Bar, Kilronan 
GAP977 Aran Islands Hotel

The, ahem, gap in those licence numbers made me see if I had GAP525 in my archives - the Lucky Star in Kilronan appears just once in the 2010-11 register, and seems to have closed permanently in 2006, with irregular opening before

I also found GAP528, Tigh Fitz, in these old files - it seems to have been sold as a non-trading hotel with bar in 2021 and is now rental apartments, without a bar.

Inisheer 

GAP863 Inis Oirr Hotel - this is ticked off, twice, in ~2008 and again in ~2012
GAP535 Tigh Ruairí - this was ticked off in ~2012
GAP536 Tigh Ned

Inishmaan 

GAP534 Teach Ósta 

Those paying attention may have noticed a licence sequence with a big hole in it for the three Aran Islands. I have no records of GAP529-533 in any archived file for the last 15 years, but they may have existed. 

Bere

BYP084 Bere Island Hotel
BYP085 O'Sullivans, Rerrin 

Cape Clear

BYP193 Cotters
BYP470 Ciaran Danny Mike's 

Sherkin

BYP196 Jolly Roger
BYP468 Sherkin House Hotel - not open to the public at present

Rathlin

I belive there is one pub - McCuaigs - on Rathlin, but without equivalent data, I don't have licence numbers.

S3667 Project Arts Centre

Coincidental to finally getting this licence ticked off the list, I have been doing a dig through the archives of the Sunday Business Post, which covered the redevelopment of Temple Bar in great detail. I think there may be an article to be had out of that; but without ruining that - this is a ~2000 build, purpose-built arts space, on the site of a more ramshackle former home for Project. 

As such, it doesn't have the classic bars of some of the older Dublin theatres I have visited; but instead it has an actually fairly large (compared to the size of the auditorium), more modern mixed area of low and high tables, plus a bar that primarily serves beers from O'Haras - a good choice for a venue that promotes Irish creativity.  

The bar is open after shows, something theatres are allowed to; but rarely actually do. We decided to make use of this, and got to see almost (or perhaps all) the entire cast of the show pop in for drinks themselves. I suspect this isn't something actors would want to do in more traditional theatres, and with some of the cast of the performance I was seeing being quite well known, I suspect it's probably an enjoyable benefit of this venue.

Project is 60 next year - with over 50 years on this site -  which I presume will lead to much celebration.

1022775 Díon

The pubstaurant to beat all Dublin pubstaurants, this vast premises takes the top two floors of the former Central Bank building on Dame Street; and is - currently if not going to eternally be - a bookings required, eating required setup; but one which holds a pub licence for the usual pubstaurant reasons.

I had been in this space before, but not this premises - I was on the last ever public tour of the old Central Bank - the late afternoon, last day of Open House tours in the year they were moving to the new building on North Wall. They did actually feed us - something that has happened on a few Open House tours where the building owner has a canteen (AIB Bankcentre was another); but this was in the canteen in the other building of the complex, not in the boardrooms and similar that once occupied the upper floors.

The opening of Díon was heavily delayed by the financial troubles of the fitout company that was originally working on it, and the fitout is of a very high quality. The food was fine, but the beer menu not so - a common problem with pubstaurants, even those of such a huge scale.

It's definitely worth going here at least once, to see the views. The food may bring you back, but I'd prefer places with pub licences to seem more like pubs! 

N0132 Clontarf Castle Hotel

I thought the bar in this fairly exclusive 4* hotel was residents only, or at least somewhat discouraged random outsiders.

I was wrong. I noticed that there was a line in some marketing blurb about the bar being "loved by residents and locals alike", so headed out there for the tick.

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The hotel is a converted castle, but the physical building is not as old as the history of there being a castle on the site, and I won't bother recapping the building or site history, when the licencing history is more interesting.

The low licence number here indicates that there has been a liquor licence here for a lot longer than the 1997 hotel construction would have got sequentially - new premises in the late 90s were nearly up to N2000-series licence numbers. 

This is because the Castle had become a licenced cabaret venue decades prior, potentially back to the late 50s based on some newspaper archive references. Anyone notable in the Irish cabaret scene performed there, as did various musicians; and by the time of the hotels construction works requiring closure of the cabaret venue; it was basically the last-man-standing of Dublin's cabarets

The Evening Herald devoted a page and a half to "The Death Of Cabaret", talking to Louis Walsh, Sonny Knowles, Maureen Potter, Jim Aiken and others about the impact the closure would have on the dwindling Irish scene.

I'm fairly certain occasional performances of the type that had gone before *did* return when the hotel reopened, but it isn't a feature of the current offerings there.

There is a fairly standard hotel bar/informal dining setup, called Knights. This does welcome non-residents, accommodates non-diners, and there will be other people just drinking there. I had a shockingly reasonable quality (and price) for a hotel pint here, far far better than I was expecting from having visited 130 other hotel bars in the city at the time.

Revenue register update, May 2026

Small update this month of mostly minor data changes

 New:

1022699 MJ Wrights, Georges Street - open since December and already written up

Actual Adult (NSFW, ish) Entertainment pubs - an easily solved dilemma

I have previously written about the trend of there being "entertainment" pubs in Dublin - darts, golf, VR, bowling etc etc. Entertainment for adults that's entirely safe for work.

The thing is, as goes completing Every Pub, is that there are three premises that specialise in actual Adult Entertainment. Strip clubs, to get blunt about it. There were four with licences, but one has closed during the time I've been doing this.

S3794 Lapello - an actual old pub; but with the ground floor changed to a Centra, is an outstanding tick for me, with a Theatre licence.  S3732 The Barclay Club holds an actual Publicans licence, with S3639 Angels finishing up this set with a Theatre licence.

It should just be easy, if a bit expensive, for me to tick these off. There are two problems with that, however.

The first one is that I'm rather uneasy with this type of sex work, where I have little knowledge of just how much agency the workers involved have. I trust that the operators have done all required checks, but I'm still worried about things that might not have been easily found.

The second, and fundamentally more important one here, is that I'm not attracted to women. I've occasionally mentioned my long-term fiancé on here over the years; as well as my decades old history of going to Dublin's gay bars; but it isn't something I feel needed to be pointed out a lot. However, it means that any trip to these premises would be a massive waste of money in that regard.

I have asked all three about going in just for a drink - buying said drink, I never look for freebies. None of them allow it, all have an entry fee that includes a lap dance.

So I'm just not going to go to them. My target, my rules. Additionally, I don't consider these to be places that a normal punter can just go in to, even with an entry fee; which is the basic rule I apply for everywhere else.

Toby, Berni and JDW - British chain pubs in Dublin

The presence of English chain pubs in the Dublin market - currently, just a smattering of JD Wetherspoon premises and no solid plans for any more - is unpopular with many, but it isn't particularly new.

While the first JDW to actually open in Dublin was 1009755 Three Tun Tavern - since sold and renamed The Blackrock - in 2014; JDW had been sniffing around Ireland for quite some time prior to that. They had purchased a building on Capel Street with intent to convert it in to a pub in 2003, however they fairly rapidly sold this, writing down €900,000 on it and other costs involved in the abortive project.

They now operate three suburban and three city centre pubs - N2358 Old Borough, Swords, N2244 Great Wood, Blanchardstown, S3795 Forty Foot, Dun Laoghaire; 1015767 Silver Penny, Abbey Street, 1017594 Keavans Port, Camden Street and S4345 South Strand, Grand Canal Dock. A handful of pubs outside Dublin have all been sold off, and development plans for further pubs cancelled.

JDW aren't the only British pub chain to have poked around at Dublin and backed off.  Mitchells and Butlers have been reported as having kicked tyres on a number of large pubs various times up until 2014, as have Greene King - the latter apparently having gone as far as appointing advisors to negotiate with pub owners in 2013. Whitbread - the owner of Premier Inn who are expanding at a great pace in Ireland currently, formerly operated pubs (and a brewery) and were also apparently looking to buy Irish pubs in the late 1980s.

However, JDW and other assorted big chains are nowhere near the worst of what you could import from the UK, and Dublin certainly had those extremely tacky ones too.

There was a single branch of the Berni Inn pub steakhouse chain, in the premises which is now Tapped on Nassau Street. This chain was best known for offering the exceptionally cliched menu of a prawn cocktail, a steak and chips, and Black Forest Gateau; although clearly this was not compulsory. Drop the prawn cocktail and I'd be quite willing to eat that still, but anyway...

This was a joint venture with Clayton Love Group, the frozen peas to property entity, who had bought Jammets Restaurant that operated on this site before the Berni Inn. It opened in 1970 and seems to have closed in 1986 or early 1987, with there being bar and club elements open alongside the restaurant - such as the Ploughmans Bar and Mac's nightclub. There were proposals for more Berni Inns around Ireland but it appears none ever opened.

More recently, indeed after the sole Berni Inn had close, the somehow still going Toby Carvery brand entered Ireland in 1988. This brand is now owned by the aforementioned Mitchells & Butlers, but in 1988 was a subsidiary of Bass.

Toby Restaurants (Ireland) Limited assembled a small collection of large pubs - S0369 Step Inn, S1236 Mount Merrion House and N0313 Coachmans Inn; and extensively renovated them into the format of Toby Cavery pub/restaurants. These were sold off between 1991 and 1993, losing over £2m in the process between purchase and renovation costs. 

These premises kept their original names, but the renovation added "Toby Carving Rooms" to the pubs, the first one at the Step Inn being opened by TV presenter Derek Davis. The Coachmans is still a noted carvery venue. but is to be mostly demolished for a hotel development; with the Mount Merrion already closed and the Step Inn having moved somewhat up-class in its food service.

I should also add the perplexing presence of a pub-licenced former Little Chef out past the airport, but I don't think this was from a trial of having Little Chef Pubs!

edit: it is probably worth mentioning that Allied Domecq dipped their toes in to Dublin in 1995, but this was a brand protection measure more than anything else. They owned a chain of pubs vaguely based on the Scruffy Murphy's pub in Dublin, so they bought it. This was their only pub in Ireland and I believe was sold before or when Punch Taverns (the former Bass estate) bought their pub estate in 1999. I have documented this before.