The Village Pubs of Cork: ‘Summer is full, some winter nights you can play football in here!’

A harbour-facing pub and restaurant, Rosie’s in Lower Aghada has been in the stewardship of Vincent and Rosemary O’Keefe for a quarter of a century.

The original building, a traditional rural bar, had no hint of the modern pub-restaurant Rosie’s is today.

Vincent explains how he and his Rosemary came to take it over.

“I had been living in Australia for nearly ten years,” he recalls. “When we came back to Ireland in 1997, we were looking for something different.

“This place came up in 2000 and we decided to give it a go. It was just a country pub then. Nothing like you see today.”

Vincent and Rosemary lived upstairs and began their first renovations in 2001. In 2007, the couple took the plunge and closed the bar completely to rebuild.

“The front wall was practically falling down,” Vincent says. “We thought we’d just patch it up, but one thing led to another. It got bigger and bigger. We ended up with what you see now.”

It was a brave move. Ireland was deep in recession at the time, and many businesses were closing their doors.

“If we had gone in a year earlier, we wouldn’t have survived,” Vincent says. “We were nearly finished by the time it really hit, so we had no choice but to push on.”

Today, Rosie’s, named after Vincent’s wife, is a proper restaurant, and a busy bar, with loyal customers that keep the place ticking over, but running a rural pub in today’s climate poses its own set of challenges.

“In the early years, we tried everything to create a bit of life in the place,” Vincent remembers. “We even did breakfasts on Saturdays and Sundays. The long weekend once, we served 94 breakfasts in a few hours.

“It was never about making money, it was about creating a buzz, a reason for people to come.

“If you were just doing drink, you’d be gone,” Vincent says. “Food is what keeps us going.”

Rosie’s sits a stone’s throw from Cork Harbour, which draws summer traffic through its doors. In those months, the pub can be packed to the rafters. Boaters who dock at the pontoon and people on mystery tours call in, hen and stag parties stop for food and pints, and families sit outside to catch the evening sun.

“We’ve had days in July where you’d swear you were in Spain,” Vincent says.

But winter is a different story.

“You could play football in here some nights,” he says. “People don’t realise how quiet it can get. You take down the canopies, the cold comes in, and people just stay at home.

“It’s the core customers who keep you going then, the locals who’ll call in for a pint and a chat.”

People’s drinking habits, Vincent says, have shifted dramatically since covid.

“ A lot of drinking is happening at home. The government knows it, they get the revenue from supermarket sales, but it’s storing up big problems down the road.”

For Vincent, the cost of running a business is the biggest challenge. Staff wages, insurance, and food costs are all on the rise.

“Hospitality is made up of a handful of full-time people and then mostly students or part-timers,” he explains. “I believe the government should be paying their PRSI. That would ease the burden for small businesses like ours.”

On top of that, Vincent says, the 11.5% employers’ PRSI rate for top earners should be cut. “Wages keep going up, but how are we supposed to keep up? People think a pint is expensive, but they don’t see the weekly bills. Between PRSI and PAYE, It’s not sustainable.”

He cites the competition with supermarkets and off-licences as another major challenge. .

“Food shops should sell food, and pubs should sell drink,” Vincent says firmly. “It’s controversial, I know, but the amount of alcohol being consumed at home is frightening.”

Landlords like Vincent will be hoping the government has been listening when it unveils its budget today.

The licence at Rosie’s dates back to 1916 and when Vincent arrived, Lower Aghada was home to several pubs.

“There was Jacko’s, there was Healy’s, there were two in Rostellan, all gone now,” he says. “We’re the last one left before you get to Jacko’s. That tells you something.”

Rosie’s is a family business. Vincent and Rosemary raised their three daughters while running the pub, two of whom are twins. Their eldest helps out in the restaurant at the weekends while attending college in the city. One of their twins, now 17, has special needs and uses a wheelchair.

“She’s a character,” Vincent smiles. “She can’t walk, but she’s got a memory like an elephant. She’ll remind me of something that happened last year when I’ve forgotten it.”

Rosie’s is open seven days a week and offers food from Wednesday through to Sunday.

“Some people say, why don’t you close Mondays and Tuesdays? But if you start doing that, people stop relying on you. Consistency is everything. We mightn’t pay ourselves, but we’re here.”

After 25 years in front of house, Vincent admits he doesn’t know what the future holds. “I’ll be working until the day I die,” he says “If we sold, you’d only get peanuts. And I love the work, the people, the stories, the harbour, but it’s not easy.

“Rural pubs are dying,” he says. “But we’re still here, 25 years on, we’re still here.”

Asked if one day his children might take it on, he shakes his head. “It’s not the life I’d push on them.”