Popular Cork harbour pub Murph’s Bar for sale after owner says it got too popular

Murph’s Bar, with 150 years of history and strong local support, listed for €650,000 after major revival

Tide house: Once owned by Murphy Brewery, the 150 year old Murph's Pub near Monkstown has found a new level of support. Estate agent Stephen Clarke is selling from €650,000

A Cork harbour pub with 150 years of history and a 50-year link to Murphy’s Brewery is up for sale — just two years after being revived by its current owner — because it got too popular.

That’s according to experienced hospitality professional Eugene Sheehan, who is now selling the award-winning Murph’s Bar, located by the water in Monkstown/Raffeen.

Flying the local flag

Mr Sheehan has worked in hotels, catering, and hospitality since the early 1990s — including at the Rochestown Park Hotel with Liam Lally — and helped set up the Maryborough House Hotel in 1998. 

He later worked in the finance sector’s hospitality division in Ireland, abroad, and with Qantas Airways, before returning to live in the Cork harbour area.

“I was having a pint in my local, Murph’s, and said it would be my dream to own it,” Mr Sheehan says. “A week later it came up on Daft, and I got to buy it.”

In a whirlwind two years, he refurbished an overhead apartment, brought in food deliveries from eateries in Monkstown and Carrigaline, and hosted food trucks at the 60-seat bar — which also has outdoor seating for 60 — next to the Raffeen Creek wildlife reserve.

Would you like water with that?

Mr Sheehan took over from long-time owner Irene Murphy, whose family had acquired it in 1995 (it had been called the Eastern Star) from the Gramby family (once connected to the Westlodge Hotel in Bantry) and who had had it since 1965.

Before that, Murphy’s Brewery owned the bar from 1915 to 1965.

The bar won the 2024 Irish Pub Awards regional and national accolades for ‘best customer service’, and Mr Sheehan says he’s selling as it now needs a family, or a couple, with the energy to run it to continue its trajectory.

“You don’t see people here on their phones,” Mr Sheehan says.

“They are having a chat and engaged in conversation. You see people buy one another a drink. It’s a proper ‘local’, as well as having good passing traffic along Strand Rd.”

Good place to be stranded?

While he has three staff, he’s says the running of the bar has been a one-man band and after 80-hour working weeks to build up the trade and reputation, he wants a break.

The expected arrival of the 5.6km Monkstown leg (from Glenbrook to Raffeen) of the ‘Lee to Sea’ greenway — a 45km cycleway from Inniscarra to Crosshaven announced by Cork County Council last year — will see walkers and cyclists pass the front door of Murph’s, which has 60m of road frontage facing the creek, near Ringaskiddy, Carrigaline, and serving the wider Monkstown/Raffeen area, back toward Rochestown.

It’s on the market with a guide price of €650,000, through local estate agent Stephen Clarke of REA O’Donohue Clarke.

Mr Clarke says “this is a unique opportunity to purchase a profitable, turn-key business with huge potential to further develop the food trade”.

DETAILS: REA O’Donoghue Clarke 021-4251010