'It's getting harder': How pubs are surviving in a Cork town
Cheers’ proprietor these past 11 years, Ballybofey native Paul McNulty is a big supporter of live music. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
In 1915, according to a list which looks to have been compiled about 30 years ago, Fermoy had 77 hostelries (see panel). In a thriving garrison town which was home to perhaps 3,000 British troops, in a time of very different attitudes and laws, that number might have been sustainable, but 21st century Fermoy has only 11 pubs, and few of them are open full-time.
On a beautiful Saturday morning in May, the lounge of the Wagon Tavern is packed for the Tidy Towns coffee morning, and by the time the event is over, between the raffle and the cake sale, almost €1,000 has been raised. In his thank-you speech, Councillor Noel McCarthy, chair of Fermoy Tidy Towns, is sure to thank Tom Ahern, the Wagon’s owner, for always being one of the first to sponsor their efforts.
Tom tells business is good but “you have to monitor everything” and he is blessed to have his family to help him.
“If I wasn’t able to constantly fall back on family for staffing, I’d be banjaxed. You’re watching everything, costs have gone through the roof between lighting, heat, Sky Sports, IMRO, PPI, food, everything, there’s no end to your outgoings.
“Other than that, everything is good,” he says. “You must be positive, and it’s great to be open and to see people enjoying themselves.”
As it happens, Tom bought the Wagon from Noel McCarthy in 2006.
Noellie Mac, as he is universally known, grew up in the pub trade, and he had the Wagon for 11 years, getting out, as he puts it, at a good time, and buying the nearby Carry-Out off licence.
“I have fierce admiration for publicans these days, because they’re facing challenges now that weren’t there in my time,” the county councillor says. “
The price of drink, and the tax associated with it, the smoking ban was the start of a lot of changes for publicans, the morning after drinking driving ban, everything has gone against publicans.”
Depending on who you ask, and maybe on who’s asking, the pub trade in Fermoy is, perhaps unsurprisingly, utterly goosed simultaneously thriving. A Saturday snapshot shows that the trade shifts over the course of what most publicans privately agree is the town’s best day by a country mile.
Down the town, in Charlie Mac’s, where this reporter worked some 20 years ago, there’s a good lunchtime crowd in, drinking pints and watching sporting events on the pub’s myriad television screens.
Ian O’Brien has owned Charlie Mac’s for the past seven years, and he says he kept the name to capitalise on the popularity of the former owner, local insurance broker Charles McCarthy and his family.
Cha did something similar himself, around the turn of the millennium, when he retained for a few years the name Duggans after he bought the pub from Lil Duggan.
“I’ve seen a real change in business in the past seven years, and we’re busier since Covid than we were before,” Ian says.
Back up on Cork Road, across from the Wagon, is The Cross, and by 5pm most evenings it’s busy. Its customers tend to be older, most of them regulars from the days two decades ago when Albert and Brigid McGonagle ran the pub.
Brian Enright has run the pub for 14 years now, and he steps outside the main door for a chat. “My business is going grand,” he says. “I have a great gang here, I serve who I want to serve, I run a good, clean house, we have the fire lit most evenings and the older lads appreciate the bit of company.
“There’s no messing tolerated, and anyone who tries anything gets the door straight away.”
Across the bridge, a little later in the evening, his words are echoed by Richie O’Flynn, who for the past 15 years has been the proprietor of the Avondhu Bar.
“I run a straight show and a clean show here, no messing, any messing and you’re out the door,” he says.
“We’re a good party pub. I still enjoy the game, still hanging in there, although ‘tis getting harder, there’s a big change, with people not coming out as much since Covid, there’s a lot of drinking going on at home.
By 9pm, Charlie Mac’s is hopping, with standing room only at the bar. There’s a 30th birthday party in full swing and on stage inside the front window double-act James and Kar Comerford are setting up to play for the evening.
Across the road, there’s a handy crew already in place at TJ Goodtymes, once the Bonnán Buidhe, where 30 years ago Christy Dignam sang with a white rat on his shoulders. Owner Kevin Corcoran is about to take to the decks. He has been in business the past 22 years and he believes the pubs left in Fermoy are all “tipping away grand” until the busy times hit.
Up the street at Cheers, a pub once known as “Hell”, five-piece band Franklin – “From the 1940s to the 2000s” sets up for the night. Cheers’ proprietor these past 11 years, Ballybofey native Paul McNulty is a big supporter of live music.
“We do music Thursday to Sunday, that’s very important to this pub and it’s not easy to do,” he says. “We would rarely have a cover charge, so it really depends on the support of the public, and without that support you don’t have a chance.
“But that’s the same in everything in the pub trade,” he says, as the band strikes up. “ If you haven’t the public you have nothing, and thanks be to God we’re blessed here with a great crowd.”
A list which has done the rounds these past three decades shows 77 public houses and hostelries in Fermoy “in the 1915 period”. The list adds a note showing that number had shrunk by 50 to 27 at the time of its compilation.
The list begins at Cork Road, with Mrs Geaney’s, “now Albert’s Bar”. Albert McGonagle went to his reward in 2018, and the pub has been The Cross for several years now. Lena Coughlan’s, once O’Regan’s, is these days the Wagon Tavern. Dustup Murphy’s is now the XL shop. What was in 1915 Pat O’Brien’s became for many years The Forge and is now Gallagher’s Sports Bar.
Mrs Maggie Heskin’s pub on Upper McCurtain Street was known in 1915 as “Hell” and 30 years ago as Tom’s Tavern. Now it’s Cheers Bar. “Fish” Donovan’s was for many years the FBA office, Mr Kennedy’s became Trisha’s Hair Salon, and Lil Moloney’s became Cavanagh’s Cycle Shop. Mrs Maggie Hobbs’ pub became the much-missed Fitzgibbon’s Bar (see panel). Magnier’s became Dan O’Regan’s Fish Market, now Suzsa Boutique. Nan Harrington’s became An Bonnán Buidhe, and now TJ Goodtymes.
O’Donnell’s shop is closed now. In December 1920 it was the Blackwater Hotel, and its owner, a Mr Prendergast, was shot in the Royal Hotel by the Black and Tans and his body was thrown in the river.
Mick Maye’s, Maggie O’Donoghue’s, Danny Dunn’s, Scannell’s, Miss O’Keeffe’s, later Mary’s Tea Rooms, and the Bus Bar, later the Music Store. Miss Donegan’s is now Stack’s pharmacy, and O’Regan’s, later Tim Duggan’s, is now Charlie Mac’s, as is The Hole In The Wall on Abbey Street. Many of the premises of 30 years ago are now almost as forgotten as those from 1915.
Eagers National Hotel became Fitzgerald’s Butchers and is now a vape shop, Cotter’s Grocer and Bar became Kerin’s and is open to the elements now. On Patrick Street, Jane Baylor’s Flour Meal and Bar became Paddy O’Sullivan’s and is now Vodafone, while Mary Julia O’Keeffe’s Bakery and Bar became Dick Barry & Son and Mulcahy’s Bar became Barnes’ Jewellers. Slasher McCarthy’s became Kate O’Brien’s and is now O’Crualaoi’s Butchers.
These days, Fermoy has 11 pubs. Cork Road is served by The Cross, Gallagher’s, and The Wagon, while McCurtain Street has Cheers, TJ Goodtymes and Charlie Macs.
Across Kent Bridge, the northside is served by the Avondhu Bar, Clancy’s and Crean’s. The Quays Bar is open at the weekends, and the Royal and Grand hotels are gone. Places like the Mart Bar, the Shamrock Bar, Feach Amach’s and Jerry O’Driscoll’s are sadly missed, and bar Lombards on O’Neill Crowley Quay, Fermoy has no pub east of Pearse Square.
D. Fitzgibbon’s on McCurtain Street is known universally in Fermoy as Nuala’s and for generations it served as a traditional small pub, a museum and a living-room. Most evenings there would be a fire burning in the snug, and a stove lit across the way from the bar in the room off the hallway.
The walls were decorated with historical documents and portraits of patriots, and there was literally history in those walls, some of which were impossible to paint because they had become embedded with salt absorbed decades earlier when salt was a thing sold on the premises.
There is a distinct twist in the traditional brass knocker on the front door, a legacy from an attempted raid by British troops.
Nuala Fitzgibbon, the proprietor, has a day book dating back to 1869, and she believes the premises has been a public house since at least 1850.
The earliest surviving licensing documentation dates to 1877 and is in the name of Michael Dunlea, although the pub is believed to have previously been in the name of Michael’s wife Elizabeth Browne before she married. Elizabeth died in 1895, a childless widow, and bequeathed the business to her niece Margaret Fitzgibbon. When the will was contested by relatives, the premises was put up for auction but none of the neighbours would bid against the popular Margaret and she picked up the pub at a bargain £50.
Margaret and her husband Richard Hobbs had only one child, Samuel, who died in infancy, and, when Margaret reached old age, she signed over the pub to her nephew Daniel Fitzgibbon. Daniel ran the pub with his wife, Mary Hyde, and they reared their two sons and two daughters, the first children to grow up over the pub.
Mary continued to serve in the bar until she passed away in 1994. Her daughter Nuala became the licensee in 1982.
John Murphy, former mayor of Fermoy, recalls great chats about history and politics and hurling by the fire in the snug.
“Nuala would never throw you out without giving you sufficient warning,” he said with a laugh, “but you’d know when ‘twas time to go.”
There was a nice tradition in Nuala’s, observed by every new generation, a small consideration which saw customers bring their empty glasses to the counter. Nuala said it dated back nearly three decades to Bob O’Mahony and the late Tom McLellan, young bucks who nervously brought their guitars one night into what was considered “an older pub”.
It became a fun meeting place of an evening for younger people who respected that they were guests in a pub with an older clientele. Nuala said she was delighted to see younger customers and her mother always had been, too.
Nuala’s closed during Covid-19 and has not reopened.
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