Cork's Flying Enterprise complex sells for over €5m

Family decision to call time on the iconic venue sees new local owner take over, with staff to be retained

The Flying Enterprise complex on Sullivans Quay.

Was there ever a bar as well named as The Flying Enterprise?

The Cork City bar and business premises has just sold for over €5m, making it the biggest bar sale in Cork and across Munster this year.

The vastly expanded licensed and entertainment premises, virtually an entire quayside block of a quarter of an acre, was built up over the past 45 years by owners Finbarr and Dolly O’Shea.

It includes the Courtyard Bar, capable of holding parties of 700 at the old Sullivans Quay CBS site, a shop, Quay News, off-licence, and five overhead apartments.

The Flying Enterprise went up for sale in April and attracted very strong local, national, and international inquiries given its location, profile, very strong income, and trading figures, said its selling agent Margaret Kelleher of Cohalan Downing.

Ms Kelleher said the buyer was local, with international backing, and it would continue to run as a trading entity as-is, with all staff retained after the O’Shea family owner’s decision to retire.

Former owners Dolly and Finbarr O'Shea in 2014. File picture: Jim Coughlan

Near St FinBarre’s Cathedral, the South Mall, and the Brewery Quarter, the mixed-use commercial/licensed property earns €185,000 per year in rents separate to bar income: Munster Technological University pays €105,000 a year to lease three classrooms in the building, and the five apartments add another €80,000 annually.

It was this very level of combined income that drove the sale price to just under the €5.3m asking price, said Ms Kelleher who had described it on launch as “an iconic, long-established licensed premises with further development potential”. 

It has planning for new entrances on the curiously-titled Sober Lane and for a new function room.

It is one of the very strongest Munster licensed sales in recent years, only eclipsed by the sale of the Reardens, Washington St, nighttime venue along with the Oliver Plunkett Bar in a combined c €30m deal last year to Attestor Capital.

Also due to close as a bar sale and redevelopment opportunity shortly is the Cotton Ball, Mayfield, for a sum close to €1m.