Excitement mixed with trepidation as Limerick and Kerry pubs reopen
Customers Jono Crute and Joel Anderson enjoy their pints at Mother Macs on High Street in Limerick, which reopened today. Picture: Liam Burke/Press 22
Wet pubs in Limerick City tentatively opened for the first time in six months on Monday, while in Kerry, the excitement was building as much-loved rural pubs welcomed back their regulars.
However, Limerick's pub owners remain on alert of potentially having to close their doors again, should there be a spike in Covid cases.
Two weeks ago, the Treaty City, and county, teetered on the edge of restrictions similar to level three, before the number of cases began to ease somewhat.
“We’re kind of relieved to be getting back to business, but at the same time we're a bit apprehensive,” said Aengus D’Arcy, owner of JJ Bowles pub, regarded as the city’s oldest.
D’Arcy has reduced capacity from around 100 “to about 40-50”, which “will change the whole atmosphere”.
“It’s kind of good news for Limerick at the moment, but that could change very quickly for the worse for us,” he said.
For the first time since the riverside pub opened in 1794, customers must wear masks entering the premises and while walking to the toilets or smoking area.
Despite the restrictions, D’Arcy remained upbeat, and was “looking forward to a bit of craic again”.
Mike McMahon, who runs Mother Mac’s, on the opposite side of the River Shannon, said he’d invested “up to €30,000” on making the premises Covid-friendly.
After opening the doors at 10.30am, trade was “slow but steady”.
McMahon has installed perspex screens, created 11 new snugs, and even upgraded “air extraction and air handling".
“We are moving dirty air out of the premises and clean air in, in a more efficient manner,” he said.
He agreed the situation remains “very fluid”.
“If I am asked to close again, I will do it, without question.” Donal Mulchay, proprietor of Nancy Blakes, and Tom Collins bar, was thrilled to be open again. “It’s fantastic, and it’s great to see some of our oldest regulars coming straight back into us,” he said.
Mulcahy said he hoped to start booking live music acts in the near future, but acknowledged the reopening could be short-lived.
“There’s a possibility we could close again," he said. "If we got 24-48 hours [out of this], we’d be locking up and coming back in six months' time, but I have to be positive — I wouldn't have opened today if I wasn't.” In Kerry, much-loved rural pubs were back in business after a shutdown last March that was initially expected to last two weeks.
After being told in July that there was to be a further delay, traditional pubs like the Inny Tavern, in the croí lár of the Dromid Gaeltacht, were crestfallen.
The difficulty for large bars like the Inny Tavern — located midway between Cahersiveen and Waterville — was getting people in the door in the first place, not social distancing, Inny Tavern owner Humphrey O’Connor had said.Today, he and his wife Noreen were over the moon.
“We’re all excited,” he said. "It’s a real relief to have the door finally open.
“Really, the way it is, people love to come to the pub for their few pints.” He has used the weeks of the lockdown to remodel the Inny and give it “a complete facelift”. There will be further changes: the O’Connor’s have also rethought their long 14-hour days, and will now open only from 5pm each evening.
They felt very hard-done-by in July and August, with the doors having to remain shut despite such a great number of staycationers around Waterville and south Kerry, Humphrey said.
The anglers and summer vacationers were now gone, but he expects the autumn to see hillwalkers and a few hunters come through the doors.
The weekend trad music and country-and-western bands that the pub was well known for will have to wait for a while longer, however. There will be no return of the great south Kerry set dancing at the Inny for the foreseeable future either.
Healy-Rae’s pub in Kilgarvan took the bit between the teeth in August and began serving food.
Danny Healy-Rae, local TD and outspoken critic of the continued closure of traditional rural pubs, said they have been open for five weeks.
Welcoming the reopening of wet pubs, he said owners could finally get back to serving their customers, who now no longer have to travel miles to the nearest big town to taste a pint.
And while the Healy-Raes would continue to provide food, he said that most people really only wanted the pint and the chat.
“Most fellas, what they really want is a pint," he said. "The only diversification was to come into the pub and have a conversation. We hope it will continue and everything works."
Licensed before the Famine, the Beaufort Bar in the village at the foothill of the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks had only ever closed for family funerals, Christmas Day, and Good Friday.
The silence in a building that has been in public use since 1841 was “eerie", said Padruig O’Sullivan.
“It was quite strange — eerie, even — to have the place so silent,” said O’Sullivan, the fourth generation of his family to run the pub.
Live music will not be returning for some time. Even the television will only be switched on for the news each evening and immediately turned off afterwards, to allow the conversation to flow.
“People have an awful lot to talk about and discuss over a pint,” said O’Sullivan.
Bar stools have been removed and it will be table service only. The past six months had seen a number of loyal customers pass on, and they would be remembered.
“A number of people have passed away, and we’ll be thinking of them,” he said.
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