Profits up but Chawke ‘can’t afford to retire’

One of the country’s best known publicans said yesterday he can’t afford to retire and that his Orchard Inn pub in south Dublin — bought for a record €22m nine years ago — is probably worth half of that today.

Charlie Chawke — 65 in June — was commenting on new accounts just filed to the Companies Office for two of his nine pubs, the Goat Bar and Grill in Goatstown and the Bank on Dublin’s College Green, showing an increase in profits for 2013.

It was outside the Goat in 2003 during an armed robbery that Mr Chawke lost a leg as a result of a gunshot wound. New accounts for the firm that runs the pub — Charjon Investments Ltd — show that accumulated profits increased by €97,117 to €1.55m in the 12 months to the end of March 2013.