In Pictures: Cork tipplers soak up sun and tasty pints
Tom Dalton, proprietor and his son Bob and Jessica Crean serving customers at The Butcher's bar in Kilworth. Photo: Eddie O'Hare
Raise a glass to the villagers of Kilworth, Co Cork, who may well be the luckiest tipplers in Ireland. Three of their pubs opened on Monday serving a parish with just over 1,000 people.
The Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) estimates that around 4,000 pubs reopened for outdoor service, which enabled 25,000 staff to return to work.
While other villages throughout the country remained dry due to lack of outdoor seating areas, Kilworth was buzzing with two of its three pubs opening at 10.30am and a third in the afternoon.
Snooker ace Aaron Hill, 19, and his father, Stephen, made the commute from their Cork City home to Chris O'Brien's bar in the village as they're friends with her family.
Aaron said sipping a pint in a pub and socialising with friends was almost as good as beating Ronnie O'Sullivan, which he did last September.
“It's great to have some banter with the lads,” he said.
Ms O'Brien got a large concrete area laid at the back of the pub only last Saturday to accommodate outdoor drinking.
She married into the pub in 1976.
“I opened at 10.30am and a few regulars were waiting. They were really looking forward to it. We renovated all the bar last year during lockdown.
"Covid has been very expensive for us, even though we got grants. By the way, the umbrellas have just arrived,” she said.
Jim Daly, one of her customers, had suffered the double whammy of not being able to have a pint in a pub and losing his job in construction.
“When we found out they were opening I just couldn't wait. Now I'm also back at work. It couldn't get much better than this and long may it continue,” he said.
A few doors away at the Butcher's Bar, owned by Tom Dalton, Joe Doran, 59, said: “It's great,” as he sipped his pint. “It gives us a bit of freedom and normality. I really missed the banter.”
Mr Dalton said he wasn't operating a booking system at present, but anticipated he'd have to when inside opening resumes on July 5.
Friends Seamus Barry, 46, a retail worker, and soldier John McCarthy, 43, were doing a lot of catching up having not seen each other socially since last Sept.
John pointed out that soldiers visiting nearby Lynch Camp would now welcome a few scoops in the village during their downtime from training.
Jessica Crean, 20, relished being back in the bar serving pints as she was unemployed during the lockdowns. “It's really great to be back,” she said.
At Aherne's, also in the village, they were preparing for a massive influx of punters later in the afternoon as Kilworth were hosting a hurling team from Crusheen, Co Clare.
Christina Ahern, who runs the pub with husband, Justin, said they'd “had to do a fair bit of adapting” to create a large outdoor space for customers.
She's especially looking forward to welcoming back some of her regulars who don't have any other social outlet. She worried that a lot of people have suffered emotional isolation because of the pandemic lockdown.
Christina said they had to get rid of a lot of drink because it had gone out of date and restocked with a number of new varieties of beers, which she hoped her customers would like.
Her father, Joe, pointed out that they worked on the backyard as a lot of other pubs did and were allowed to do so as it was within “the area of the license.”
None of the three Kilworth pubs serve food, but a few kilometres south, the Rathcormac Inn was hopping with hungry families and thirsty punters.
Neilus McHugh, 61 had come for a couple of scoops from the nearby village of Bartlemy, which hasn't had a pub for years.
“This tastes very good,” he said looking at his pint. "It's great to be out again and to be in company.”
Tony Healy, who has run the venue for the past three years, added a new outdoor covered seating area complete with a massive TV.
“We were booked out for the whole day and are booked out also for next Friday and Saturday. We try to give priority to our locals though,” he said.
The reopening of the pub was particularly welcomed by Liam O'Keeffe, a widower who is originally from the area, but who only moved back home a few years ago after spending most of his working life in Britain.
“I'm enjoying this pint of Guinness very much,” he said. "My wife died three years ago. It is great to be out and socialise again with people and I'm sure everybody else here thinks the same,” he said.
O'Mahony's in the village of Watergrasshill also had a combination of eaters and drinkers arriving when they opened at 2.30pm.
Owners Victor Murphy and Máire O'Mahony said it's emotional for people gathering together and they have a stage outside which they hope will soon see musicians playing on it again.
Two old friends were delighted to meet to have a serious discussion about hurling, and who will win the All-Ireland.
Retired farmer Donal O'Riordan and Bernard Burke, who works in computer sales, were enjoying dissecting the recent hurling matches even more than drinking their pints.
As Bernard is originally from Co Tipp he was backing their hurlers for the top spot. Donal, somewhat begrudgingly, had to eventually agree.
“It's great to be out meeting people again. Sure I had a few cans at home, but it's not the same,” Bernard said.
“I never thought I'd see the day that the whole world would have been turned upside down from this (pandemic). We will have to get everybody vaccinated. The new strains (variants) are worrying,” Donal added
The busiest pub the visited was District 11 in Glanmire, which wasn't surprising as it's the biggest in size and population base.
Proprietor Leo Brennan has owned it for 20 months, and for half of that time, it has been closed.
When he opened at noon there were 15 customers waiting outside.
“In my opinion government grants were a life-saver. I'd have been gone without them. We used the restart grant to invest in our beer garden,” he said.
Jack Moloney, 19, was one of his customers. Working for Greenstar, he noticed a lot more drinks cans in their collections during lockdown. That's likely to decrease now the pubs are back.
His older brother, Gavin, 27, works in digital marketing and Covid-19 made him even busier because of a shift to online.
But there was a downside to his lockdown.
“I'm a Guinness drinker and it's just not the same out of a can. Then there's also the atmosphere (of a pub),” he said.
Leo's employs more staff now than pre-Covid, which has to be a good sign for general economic recovery, and he expects to bring on more when indoor dining and drinking restarts on July 5.
“We are (currently) only operating reservations for food. I'd say 70% were here for food. We were totally booked for food. We could have booked 10 times that number for food today,” he said.
In an effort to kickstart the local economy he's also sourced supplies from as many local businesses as he can.
Ian Field, 52, a security company project manager, and his wife Jenette, were enjoying the grub and the company of another couple.
“I can't remember when I had a drink in a pub last, it was possibly October. It's the atmosphere, the chatting with friends. I'm looking forward to my second vaccine and then I'll have more confidence (going out),” he said.
“It's nice to get back to some kind of normal. We will have to plan ahead to make other bookings,” Jenette added.
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