The Village Pubs of Cork: ‘In summer, you make your money, winter is quiet... you hold on’

Far down in West Cork, beyond Clonakilty, beyond Skibbereen, and near the jagged coastline by the beaches of Sandycove and Tragumna, is the village of Castletownshend. Hidden.

One way in, one way out; sound doesn’t seem to travel so far there.

Below the village, next to the pier, is The Castle Hotel, owned by the Townshend family from which the village gets its name.

Picturesque, Castletownshend has an appearance as though it’s from a time past. Georgian houses line both sides of the street; a sycamore tree grows up out of the centre of the main road going through the village.

Secluded, it gives the feeling of being in another place all together.

A few yards down from the main street’s steep hill stands Mary Ann’s, a pub and restaurant that has been keeping locals and visitors fed and watered for generations.

Behind the bar is Fergus O’Mahony. He’s been here for 43 years, since 1983. Though he didn’t plan it that way. We chat at one of the restaurant’s tables.

“I came back in May, ’83, to run Mary Ann’s for what I thought would be a couple of years,” Fergus says. “And 43 years later, here I am.”

The building itself dates to the 1830s, though there is an interesting tale behind its location. Around the 1790s or early 1800s, a tsunami hit the south-west coast of Ireland, damaging the village. Castletownshend was then rebuilt, but uphill from its original location near the harbour. The site where Mary Ann’s stands was once a field; hence the tree growing in the middle of the village.

“It was originally a one-storey, thatched place,” Fergus explains. “We found a newspaper in the wall from the time, with the headline ‘Prussia inflicts great defeat on the French’. So, it was here then. In 1871 they took the thatch off and added a second storey.”

For about 70 years, the bar was owned by the Fennessy family, and they had a shop and hackney business so there were horse stables out back, which is where the restaurant is now.

In the early 1930s, the bar became Casey’s, and in 1947, after the death of Mary Ann Casey, the pub was willed to her maid, Mary Ann Hayes. The name became Mary Ann’s, and it has been so ever since.

Fergus never considered changing it.

“We’re in about 40 international guides, and we’ve built a great reputation for food,” he says. “Edna O’Brien herself chose us when the New York Times asked ten famous writers to pick ten pubs, so we still get mentioned there every year.”

Over the years, Mary Ann’s has welcomed a steady stream of visitors from around the world: Americans, Canadians, French, Germans, Dutch, and, more recently, a surprising wave of Belgians. Fergus explains, “They’ve only 60km of coastline over there. We’ve 3,500. Lovely people. One Belgian yacht came in the other night, four on board, and they fell in love with the place.”

The main section of the pub, the original bar, has a low wooden ceiling and its walls decorated with historic artefacts - items from century-old carriage lamps to the wheel of a yacht.

The counter was salvaged from a shop in Skibbereen, and the shelving behind the counter dates to 1910. “We keep everything as traditional as possible,” says Fergus.

“We’ve updated where needed, new kitchen extension, repaired ceilings, but the bones of the place are the same.”

Running a rural pub in Ireland hasn’t been easy. Mary Ann’s survived the recession of 2009, the long closures of covid, and Fergus’s own health battles. He has had four different cancers since 2011, the last in 2018. “I’ve been through the mill,” he says quietly, “but we keep going.”

Fergus’s wife, a former banker, took over running the food side of their business in 1988.

Today, Mary Ann’s employs three full-time chefs, with up to ten staff in peak season. “From May to November, I work every single day,” Fergus says. “You need to be a certain type of person to do this.”

It’s seasonal. Winters are quiet, but weekends keep the lights on. “In summer, you make your money. In winter, you hold on.”

The pub hosts celebration events for the parish team, Castlehaven GAA - they have won five county football titles so they keep him busy at times.

Like many of the rural areas featured in this series, Castletownshend has seen its services dwindle. McCarthy’s pub up the road closed last October and is currently for sale.

Fergus says: “The shop is the most important thing after the pub. You can get your pint of milk, your loaf of bread, your box of tea, and it’s the post office too. If you had to go to Skibbereen for that... disaster.”

The shop’s role echoes that of Mary Ann’s. It’s a place where people meet, catch up, and feel part of something. Even if it means tackling the village’s steep hill.

“You wouldn’t want to climb it every day,” Fergus laughs, “but it’s a nice community here. That’s the backbone of it.”

Mary Ann’s has also found itself featured in film and television. Hollywood star Kevin Costner once called in when scouting for the Michael Collins film.

More recently, the village stood in as a wartime outpost in an upcoming movie being shot at the nearby West Cork Film Studios about Jimmy Stewart, and during the filming of Graham Norton’s TV series, Holding, Mary Ann’s became the make-up base and executive’s lunchroom, with Fergus and his staff making coffee from 7am.

After four decades, Fergus is realistic about the future.

“This place will be sold as a going concern, a bar and restaurant,” he says. “You have to be honest about your limits.

“I’m 65 in December. I started when I was 22. I’m not leaving it to the next generation, but it’ll be here for someone who loves it.”