Cork's ‘country bar in the middle of the city' riding a wave of Beamish as hipsters plump for stout

Irish Independent

26-04-2025

That's how Michael O'Donovan, proprietor of The Castle Inn on North Main Street and Chairman of the VFI, describes the building that's not only his family's business for generations, but also his home.
Wood panelling on the walls, memorabilia wherever you look, even a payphone (albeit missing its handset) on the wall of the tiny snug where we sit down; while Cork's face is changing rapidly, the Castle is a cosy corner where time seemingly stands still.
'We used to keep prescriptions behind the bar,' Michael says, as he pours the latest pint for a Spanish couple sitting at the counter, too busy staring into each other's eyes to take any notice of the interview that's taking place on the other side of the bar.
'It was a community back when I was young. My mother was very good to the regulars, she'd go to the chemist, and she'd have their tablets so they wouldn't forget.
'We used to have a guy who used come in everyday. He used to live in social housing and at the time, he had to be back in his house by eight o'clock, so we had to get him out here at seven. He could be tough going at times as well!
'But at seven o'clock, you know, you'd point at your watch, and he would - if he had a full pint, half pint, or whatever, 'twould be, as he'd say, 'down the hatch' and out the door.
'When he was sick in later life, meals and wheels used to deliver here at lunchtime for him, and we'd heat the food, and we had his prescriptions here. We'd get it in Murphy's Chemists every couple of weeks.'
The bar and the community around it was inseparable, which gave Michael a great introduction to the importance of keeping your customers happy, not necessarily with fancy cocktails or constant entertainment, but the knowledge that they're valued.
'I grew up in the bar. You know, some of the older customers would tell stories of me throwing my tractor down the stairs and driving around the bar floor here when it was small in the mornings and banging into their legs, a few of them blame me for having walking sticks!
'This bar here is probably part of the fabric of the community here. Lots of the buildings around here are businesses, and there's not people living in them. So it's a shame that not that more people aren't living in the city centre.'
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North Main Street is a much different place to the community in which Michael grew up in the 1970s, the scourge of dereliction has made parts of the street an eyesore, and the vacating of the Shopping Centre by Dunnes Stores a few years ago has left it cut adrift of other shopping districts like Oliver Plunkett Street.
"The Castle Inn's place as a community hub comes at a time when the city's communities are being ever eroded. Less and less people now live in the vicinity of The Castle, while the dockers and brewers from Beamish and Crawford - situated just down the road - that would have frequented the pub down through the decades no longer hold a place as part of the city's industry.
'It's changed an awful lot. In the summertime, there used to be car parks up in Grant Street and we used to have soccer tournaments there during the summer, and street leagues used to take place out in the Lough for the GAA.
'It became a phenomenon in the '80s - when I was in school here up in the Mardyke, that a lot of people were moving out from the city to the suburbs, and I suppose it's been to the detriment of the city centre, really.
'We were one of the preferred bars when Scottish and Newcastle took over. A lot of the old Beamish staff used get a drink every day in the brewery, but when Health and Safety came in and you couldn't drink on site, we were one of four preferred pubs where they could get their drink.
'You can say it now because the Brewery is gone but what would happen was that they would save their pints for the big weeks of a big match or something like Cheltenham, which was synonymous here. Back then it used to be a three-day festival, and they'd all work until half 12 and then all the Beamish staff would be in here for it.'
The bar, like the stout, is still enduring into the future, despite its rich historic roots, and Michael says despite the ongoing trends that come and go, Cork's own black stuff is undergoing somewhat of a hipster revolution.
'Draft products now are the 'in' thing, especially stouts. I think we would probably sell as much Beamish as Guinness, in any given year. Ever since COVID, stout has really been on a huge upward trajectory, because people could get any beers they wanted in the supermarket, but they can't replicate having a point of stout in a bar. That's what gets people out.
'They're all in their 20s and 30s. When you're talking across the counter, coffee has had such a growth in the last number of years. I think there's a bit of a connection. There's kind of a little bit of a burnt taste off the Beamish, and it's very similar to coffee. So if people like coffee, then they inevitably like Beamish as well.
'The Beamish surge at the moment is the coffee surge.
'As a bar we have to give a good offering for people to come in. You have to be relevant to your audience. And, you know, thankfully, touch wood, we've stayed relevant to people.
'In that regard, and that's what I go back to. We have to be careful of minding the heritage of the bar, because if we try and change too much, we could destroy the heritage, in which case, you'd lose what people come to see,
'A lot of country folk, no matter where they come from – Kerry, Cork, Waterford, Tipperary - they're very comfortable coming in here. Even when students, when they come to town for the first time in September, their parents would come here because they'd been here 20 or 30 years ago, and they'd bring in the son or daughter, because they know it's a safe haven and an oasis for them to go to.
'We've always been like that.'