Toasting 100 years at O’Donoghue’s

FOR four generations and 100 years, O’Donoghue’s Pub has stood as a landmark in North Clare. Between the Burren and the sea, it stands in Fanore along the Coast Road from Ballyvaughan to Lisdoonvarna.
Recently, the O’Donoghue family and their regulars celebrated the pub’s centenary, a feat only a minority of businesses achieve.
Anthony O’Donoghue built the pub on his return from Boston in the early 20th century. It was built for £100 with stone from the nearby Caher Valley and was first licensed in 1911. A 1915 agreement with Arthur Guinness shows that at the time, stock arrived by steamer from Galway to Ballyvaughan. Anthony ran the pub until his death in 1929 when his wife Sarah continued the business.
Then in the early 1930s, Paddy O’Donoghue, Anthony’s nephew, a tradesman and county footballer, took over. Paddy played centre-field for the Clare team in 1917 but missed out on an All-Ireland title, beaten by the Wexford team that won four in-a-row. Paddy married Bridget Linnane from Doolin and they had seven children who were reared at the pub including PJ and Brendan.
“When I was going to school, a lot of the stories here or the tales were in Irish. So I picked up quite a bit of Irish and I understand or understood quite a few of the older people. Many of the old people spoke nothing only Irish. They spoke Irish to me and I learned quite a bit of Irish here. Every day’s greeting was Cé chaoi bhfuil tú? or Lá breá or Lá dona, whatever it was, depending on the weather. In all conversations, God was brought in in your wishes. The cuairt or visit was very important too at that time,” recalls Brendan O’Donoghue.
PJ remembers how in his father’s time the pub, like many others, was fronted by a grocery shop.
“He used to sell hardware and groceries and he used to buy butter from the locals. They used to come here with their butter and sell it to him. He used to buy bales of rubber that would come in off the sea at the time of the war and he used to sell it whenever he would get the market for it. There was a scarcity of rubber at the time,” he outlines.
“We used to have a lot of the Aran islanders coming in here when we were kids. They would be in fishing but I think a lot of the people in Aran were connected to the people here but that is gone now and the Aran Islands have changed too. They might take us out on the currachs and maybe give us lobsters and at that time, they would wear their pampooties and their old clothes and all speak in Gaelic and they might not have any English but that is gone. It doesn’t happen anymore,” he laments.
PJ remembers a time when six gardaí were stationed in the small village of Fanore.
“They were anxious to be in the pub but there was no where else for them to socialise, of course. We had nothing against them. They would be strict, you know yourself. I remember one night in the 1940s, the Super came in at 3 in the morning looking for the guards, saying they were supposed to be up minding land but they were here drinking,” he laughs.
PJ took over the pub in the early 1950s and ran it until his retirement around 2005. He married Marie Guerin from Lisdoonvarna and the couple had one son, current owner Pat.
“We have our own part of the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival. We have had it for the past 50 years. You won’t find it anywhere else in Ireland. They drive out here from Lisdoonvarna, eight miles, and they dance here from 4pm to 7pm, then they go from about 8pm back into Lisdoonvarna but we seem to have the day entertainment,” he says.
“We had one man here for 31 years, Johnny Barrett. He was a one-man band. He died two years ago and we have found it very difficult to replace him. He had a huge following and I believe they are doing a memorial for him in Charleville. But we have another man now, Patrick Sullivan, he is very popular. Often we would have 500 people here. We had a lot of good years from the matchmaking and I would say a lot of men met their wives here,” he continues.
PJ was in charge of the pub throughout the 1950s and 1980s, two of country’s most difficult economic eras. However, it was the last few years before his retirement he found the most challenging.
“I watched a major decline in the rural pub. Pat might have some hope of surviving with the tourist thing we have here but as you know yourself, that is the age at the moment with all the pubs closing. The pub is the centre of the social activity in the village and it would be a pity to see it dying,” PJ says.
“We had a high proportion of bachelors here that had no mortgages or anything like that and they could stay in the pub for half the day or that. Now most young people have mortgages. Life has changed, I suppose. But then you have drink being bought at a very small price too. You can go into any supermarket now and buy 12 bottles of beer for about €9 so that is what the pub is up against. It is the price of the drink I think that is the problem,” he adds.
“Socially, a lot of the people who used to drink during the day are gone. Most of the characters are dead. We would have had a lot of old characters that would come in and say we had a fellow here one time called Mick Quinlan. Tourists would come in and he would say to them, ‘where are you from?’ They might say ‘we’re from London’, then he’d say ‘I have a cousin in London, you might know him,’ and all this type of thing. They are not there any more,” he recalls.
“Now the area has some tourists but even with that, I’d say Pat will have to branch into accommodation as well if he doesn’t, he will find it hard enough to survive. You have to be in food too,” PJ continues.
Pat took the reins six years ago and despite the difficult economic climate nationally and internationally, he believes there is a future for the pub.
“I went to Canada when I was 19 and came back when I was 24 and took over the pub. I am 31 now. I’m married to Patricia from Mexico and we have two children with another on the way, that makes this the fifth generation here in the pub,” explains Pat. 
“My father’s whole thing was the dance in September and there was a big drink trade back then so the place wasn’t modernised much. I built the kitchen after I took over and the place is building a reputation now for its food and its Guinness. Two years ago, I got an award in Stars and Stripes Magazine for the Best Pint of Guinness in Ireland and now I have more than 100 Irish whiskeys here. It was great to celebrate the pub’s centenary and I haven’t changed the small bar myself so it is still very authentic. Overall, I’m fairly optimistic. The pub is going well really,” Pat concludes.