Tag Archives: Mark Kelly

INDOOR dining and drinking is resuming across Clare today as Covid-19 restrictions loosen a little further. The move could hardly be better timed for publicans and restaurateurs as the heat wave has just ended and this afternoon is set to see the return of rain to the Banner. Ennis publican Mark Kelly reopened Dan O’Connell’s in June and today he will also reopen the Diamond Bar on O’Connell Street, one of the town’s best known pubs. The Diamond has only been open for a handful of days since the pandemic began in March of 2020. “We have only been open for a couple of days last year, that was it, so it’s great to be opening again.” He said a lot of work had to be done to get the pub ready to go. “It had be cleaned from top to bottom, we had to stock up again, everything.” Mark says it is quite difficult to find staff at the …

WHEN a young Maureen McMahon started pulling pints behind the bar in Derry Honan’s pub in 1970, it was all down to political pull. “When Maureen came here first, it was very much a Fianna Fáil pub. The owner, Derry Honan was a Fianna Fáil senator then and his wife, Treas was a senator later on,” said Maureen’s husband, Michael Daly, as she bowed out after 44 years behind the bar in what is now Dan O’Connell’s Bar in Abbey Street. “The clientele was different at that time. It was Tadhg Wynne that got me the job here, and he was a very strong Fianna Fáil supporter. When I first came into Ennis I stayed with Tadhg in Parnell Street and he got me the job here. He was a lovely man. I used to cycle out home to Connolly then on my days off and then cycle back after visiting my father and brother, Pat Joe McMahon and sister, …