Cork GAA star Larry Tompkins to sell popular pub

Who's big enough, and brave enough, to fill Larry Tompkins' boots, and to pour the pints, in the Cork city bar that proudly bears this GAA Hall of Fame sports star's name?

Up for sale this week is the extremely well-known Tompkins licensed premises, a quayside bar that has more than earned the right to call itself Cork's Sporting Bar.

A retreat for lovers of many sports codes and which each year holds pre-Cheltenham Festival warm-ups and celebrations attended by the great and the good of the horse-racing fraternity, it has carried the Larry Tompkins name over the door since the former Cork GAA football star, All Ireland winner and County Team manager acquired it over 20 years ago.

Set between St Patrick's Bridge and the Opera House on Lavitts Quay, Tompkins Bar goes to market this week with estate agent Tony Morrissey of Lisney (incorporating Morrissey's), who expects it to sell for over €700,000.

It's been owned and run by said Mr Tompkins, whose stellar football career saw him play in his birth county of Kildare, in Wicklow, Cork and west Cork's Castlehaven, as well as a spell in the Bronx and New York in the 1980s.

Mr Morrissey says Larry Tompkins “has traded successfully in this excellent location since 1998,” and the tall, traditional-style quayside corner property has about 5,000 sq ft, trading over two levels and it includes a two-bed apartment up top.

Auctioneer Tony Morrissey says Mr Tomkpins' decision to step back from the taps “represents an excellent opportunity to acquire this well-known licensed premises, enjoying a current sound annual turnover but also offering undoubted scope to increase the business through active, hands-on management.”

Better 'hands-on management?' Better not let Larry Tompkins see that quote: he even took over as Cork Senior Football Manager in 1995 from another GAA legend (and one-time Cork city centre bar owner,) Billy Morgan.

Big shoes to fill, indeed.