The future? I’ve no Plan B but couldn’t imagine life without this pub...

A few miles out from Cork city, heading west towards Banteer, as the road becomes windier and the trees get taller and greener, you’ll soon find yourself in Cloghroe, a village and townland that forms the wider parish of Inniscarra.

After the school on your left, a homely looking public house appears. It’s The Wayside Inn and has been part of the community here for more than a century.

It boasts a good-sized car park, behind it a fine green space with benches. In old Irish lettering, the original name D Ó Laogaire has stayed over the door as a nod to the generation before who have kept it alive since 1907.

Inside, Kathleen O’Leary pours a pint and chats with the regulars. She is both proprietor and licensee.

“The license has been in my name since the early 1980s, after my father died,” she says. “But we go back to at least 1907. I even have documentation from that year, some kind of agreement with Murphy’s Brewery.

“My grandfather’s name was David, and that’s the name still over the door.”

Kathleen’s grandfather passed away in 1941. By then, his son, Kathleen’s father, D.J. O’Leary had emigrated to America. However, as was the tradition of the day, he returned home to steer the ship.

“He was the eldest son,” Kathleen explains. “If he hadn’t been, he might never have come back. But in 1942 he took over the licence. At times it was more a liability than a fortune, being a country pub, but he kept it going.”

Kathleen grew up in the house beside the bar and has never lived anywhere else - “other than five years at boarding school in Kinsale”.

Around the time she left school, the family business had a few strands to it.

“We had a shop and petrol pumps too. My mother was the businesswoman, really. She minded the money; she had the head for it. For a long time, the shop was actually the main part of the business, and the bar was incidental.”

The pumps were the only ones between Cork and Banteer, the old style, with glass bottle mechanisms, Kathleen recalls.

By the 1990s, the shop and pumps were gone, with health and safety rules and modernisation. What used to be the shop was converted into a cosy-looking lounge, with a fireplace and lowish ceilings. On the day we met, it was raining heavily outside, magnifying its appeal as a refuge on a cold or wet afternoon.

“Petrol pumps and a pub in the same place, it’s not ideal in today’s world,” Kathleen laughs.

The pub has seen its share of history too. During the War of Independence, Kathleen’s grandmother Julia witnessed the Black and Tans raiding the bar. “They came in, turned on the taps, and flooded the place with beer.”

Kathleen relays a story her grandmother told her. “They also took paraffin oil from here and set fire to a house up the road. So that caused a few divisions around the place at the time. Granny used to tell us those stories.”

In more recent years, the pub developed a reputation as a gathering place for the greyhound racing community. Kathleen’s father and her uncle, Jack Lynch, were well known for breeding racing dogs.

“This was kind of known as the greyhound house,” Kathleen says. “When the track was on Western Road in the city, the crowd from Newmarket, Millstreet, Banteer and Kanturk would call in here, either on the way to the track or on the way home. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday nights were busy purely from that trade.”

After the greyhound track relocated to Curraheen and drink driving rules evolved, that particular customer base shifted. Yet still, only last year, local customers Brendan and Kim O’Connell celebrated in the bar after their greyhound won the English Derby in Towcester. “It was massive, most of us were watching it here on the television. The celebrations went on for days.” said Kathleen,

Today, the Wayside Inn is a blend of loyal locals, golfers from nearby courses, and GAA supporters. Kathleen’s son Jack, who works in corporate IT, is heavily involved with Inniscarra GAA. “We’re very proud here,” she says. “Inniscarra won the county in 2022 and went senior. We’d be watching all the matches. You’ll always find the golf or rugby on the TV too.”

The pub doubles as a community hub.

“We do a lot of meetings here,” Kathleen says. “The golf society, the GAA, the camogie club, the gun club, even the local Fine Gael branch. It’s a bit like a community centre at times.”

For older customers, the role is simpler; it’s a place for company.

“Some come more for the chats than the drink,” Kathleen says. “I love my customers, I enjoy what I do, and I think they’d be very upset if we closed in the morning.

“We give a service to the community, and it’s better that we’re here than not.”

Kathleen runs the bar with her husband, John Keating, though for health reasons he’s not as involved as he used to be. Their son Jack helps out. “He has his own job, but he’s interested in the pub, he enjoys it and I respect that.”

In those early years, taking the reins at the Wayside Inn was not necessarily a choice for Kathleen. Her father suffered from multiple sclerosis, and she gradually took on the responsibility. “I fell into it, not necessarily by choice, but I’ve no regrets,” she says. “It’s been good to us. We’ve had all the things we needed within reason.”

Like with every rural pub, the O’Leary’s have met all the challenges: Changing drinking habits, stricter drink-driving laws, rising costs, you name it. And Kathleen puts their survival down to keeping things modest.

“The fact we didn’t have any big mortgages or loans probably allowed us to get through the bad days,” she says. “Renovations had to be paid for, of course, but we never overextended.”

Today’s trade is steady but unpredictable. “You could be very busy one evening, and quiet the next,” she says. “If there’s a match or a party it can be great. But you can’t really predict it.”

Tourists are rare, since the pub is off the main road. “That suits me fine,” Kathleen adds.

The walls of O’Leary’s are lined with photos related to Inniscarra’s GAA teams, greyhound racing, nights out, and local golf. There are pictures of Seamus Heaney, of John Daly the golfer, and a plaque twinning Inniscarra with Plougonven, a town in Brittany, since 1996.

“When the Breton visitors come, this is their base,” Kathleen says. “They stay in local houses, but gather here. That’s been going on nearly 30 years.”

So, what of the future? Kathleen says it straight. “I’ve no plan B, quite honestly,” she says. “I don’t intend to retire any time soon. Jack has his own career, but he is interested, and he brings business too. We’ll see what happens down the line.” As she puts it herself though: “I couldn’t imagine my life without it.”