Tag Archives: The Honk

CLARE publicans are getting ready for the expected resumption of normal trading after years of restrictions and rolling lockdowns. Popular Ennis bar Taylor’s was set to remain closed for the rest of January , but this morning Susan Taylor said those plans have now changed. “We are going to open next week and we’re just waiting to hear the news about the restrictions.” The pub does not serve food and the 8pm closing time had meant that opening just wasn’t worthwhile. However the expected resumption of normal trading times in the very near future has changed the outlook. In Newmarket on Fergus, John Quinlivan, who runs the Honk, is looking forward to normality resuming. “It was very hard, especially in a place like this where we wouldn’t open until the evening anyway. We’d open at five or six o’clock and you’re supposed to close again at 8pm, that’s very difficult.” He said that January is always a difficult month anyway, …

ADJACENT to Shannon Airport’s runway, The Honk Bar is in the rural townland of Rineanna in the parish of Newmarket-on-Fergus. John and Mary Quinlivan run the bar, which has been in John’s family for a couple of hundred years. “We’re the eighth generation here; it’s been in the family the whole time. It would be one of the oldest pubs in the country, definitely one of the oldest in Munster.” Born and reared there himself, John’s brother Pat also ran it, before John took over in 2001. “It’s part of the community. The local Community Alert was set up here; the few meetings that are on would be in here,” he says. It may be relatively isolated but its location close to the airport means it is fairly well known, right around Clare and Limerick. John has been around the bar all his life and says the changes in pub culture have been drastic. “When I was a young fella, …