The Village Pubs of Cork: We don’t do shots or cocktails

After sampling that edge-of-the world feel of the harbour in Ballycotton at The Blackbird bar last week, it only seemed right to see what other gems lay here this week, below the sound of the gulls and the beam of the lighthouse.

It was Sean McGrath’s traditional signage that caught my attention; in raised lettering, cast out in concrete fascia, the name up over the door. Below it, an ordinary entrance and wide windows. Painted neatly in green and white, its unassuming facade nearly gives it all away. From it, you’ll likely guess that the interior will remain largely untouched by modern overhauls. Upon entering, your assumptions will be confirmed.

A solid, traditional-looking pub with a wooden counter with stools all along the front awaits, Sean McGrath’s contains tables and seating dispersed around the edges, and its character outweighs what any modernisation would do for it.

Behind the bar is Sean McGrath, the man himself - the name over the door is his, not an ancestor’s. It was Sean who bought the bar nigh-on 40 years ago, in 1986.

I’d popped in on spec’ in the hope of finding an article-worthy pub for the series, and introduced myself.

“Oh you,” Sean says. “I’ve been reading your articles. I’d have a few things to say about them!” he jokes. His humour is dry.

When a seasoned publican like Sean says that, you listen, but he goes easy on me, saying he enjoys them.

We shake hands before we chat, and there’s a bit of banter between him, the customers and me about the unannounced visit.

“We don’t do shots or cocktails. It’s just a normal country pub. We don’t have a clientele that demands them,” Sean says, with a certain pride.

Before Sean bought it in 1986, the bar was owned by a former Cork footballer, Tadgh O’Driscoll, who had it from 1960.

“And before that it was owned by the Connors, Bridgie and Mikey. And at that stage, it was a pub and a butcher shop,” says Sean. “How long they were here, I’m not sure, but the building itself would be at least 130 years old.”

The 1980s had seen a huge recession. “I’d six young kids,” he recalls. “I lost my job, and there were no jobs to be got. So I had to find something else to do.”

His experience of bar work was minimal. “I’d pulled a few pints now and then, if someone was stuck, but I knew the pub from growing up locally and decided to take a chance.”

The front bar remains as it was when he bought it; 40 years ago, Sean added a small extension at the back, converting an old kitchen and sitting room into a lounge space which is used for gatherings, meetings, or parties. It looks straight out on the sea. “It’s not busy this time of year,” Sean says, “but come the summer, it’s good.”

Ballycotton was still a lively fishing village when Sean took over and there were eight pubs in the village, but as time moved on, fishing declined. “Now there are three pubs,” Sean says.

“The number of boats is way down, and the in-shore lads can’t make much out of it anymore. Between quotas, Brexit, and wind farms, the whole thing is after changing.”

Ballycotton, he says, is second only to Kinsale for property prices in Cork which affects the village population numbers by keeping demand high for holiday homes which prices out the locals. “It’s heading to the stage where, in winter, nearly half the houses in Ballycotton are closed up. That’s not good for schools, pubs, or churches.”

Drinking habits have changed over the years.

“When we came here first, you’d have five or six old lads in every day at lunchtime for a few glasses of stout,” Sean says. “That’s gone. Same with the Sunday pints after Mass. People don’t do that anymore.”

One trend he notices is people are drinking less whiskey. “There’s a huge decrease in the consumption of it. Because all the older fellas would have a drop when they’d come in first. They’d have a drop, then a pint, and you know, that doesn’t happen anymore.”

Sean reckons that a lack of public transport to villages like Ballycotton has been a contributing factor to changing attitudes towards alcohol and pub culture.

While laws and public attitudes around drinking and driving have hardened, the public transport to and from the village has stayed the same.

“There’s no rural transport worth talking about. If you get the morning bus to Midleton, you can’t get back until four o’clock. That’s not a service.

“If they put a small feeder bus between villages and towns, it would make a world of difference.”

Regardless of the evolving cultures around alcohol consumption, McGrath’s remains as one of the main meeting points in Ballycotton,

“It’s a community centre, really,” Sean says. “A good one, for the want of a better word. There’s always talk,” he says. “Politics, sport, fishing, you name it.”

The Russell Rovers GAA members drop in, as do crew from the RNLI, of which Sean was a long-time committee member.

On weekends and holiday periods, the crowd is mixed. Locals, returners from Cork city, summer regulars. “A lot of them come back every year,” Sean says. “You’d know them by name.”

In contrast to The Blackbird, music isn’t a big feature in McGrath’s “There’s plenty of places for that. Some people want a quiet spot. We fill that need,” he says with his dry humour.

He expresses a worry about traditional style pubs, like Sean McGrath’s. “It’d be a major pity if they disappeared,” he says. “There’s room for places like this in Ireland, and it’d be very bad for rural life if they were gone.”

He cites the support he received over 40 years from his wife Denise, his children, and the loyal customers and friends he made.

His daughter now works alongside him full-time, learning the ropes. “Hopefully, she’ll take over some day,” he says. “I don’t particularly want to stop working, because I enjoy doing it”.

Is Sean glad he changed career and took on the pub?

“Well, somebody told me years ago, it’s easier to work 12 hours for yourself than eight for someone else. And it’s true.”