Ray Burke on a landmark pub in Oranmore, Galway that played host to many well-known artistes

Irish Times

5 hours ago

Anyone who travelled to Galway from Dublin or from the South of Ireland by road before the advent of motorways or bypasses cannot have missed the thatched pub that stands at the T-junction where the roads converged in Oranmore village.
'Quite a pretty place with a nice thatched pub, an old forge [and] a 1916 memorial' was how the RTÉ reporter Cathal O'Shannon described Oranmore village on a Newsbeat television programme in July 1967.
'All the traffic between Galway, Dublin and Limerick comes through here', he added, standing outside the thatched pub whose landmark location ensured that it attracted passing trade as well as local custom.
The internationally renowned orchestra conductor and jazz pianist André Previn and his better-known future wife Mia Farrow were able to sit quietly talking and sipping Guinness in front of the pub's fireplace, unnoticed by any of the locals, shortly after O'Shannon's broadcast.
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She had recently left her husband, Frank Sinatra, and she still sported her tom-boy hairstyle from the 1968 film
Rosemary's Baby
that made her famous. The couple had booked bed and breakfast next door to the pub in Oran Villa, a guesthouse owned by Maisie McDonagh, mother of the pub's proprietor, George.
A group of musicians who could match André Previn in virtuosity arrived into the pub's lounge one Saturday a few years later at around midday. Three members of the nascent traditional Irish music group Planxty ventured tentatively into the empty lounge accompanied by their mentor, the master piper and broadcaster Seamus Ennis.
Their fragile collective demeanours told that they were recovering from a late night.
Less fortunate than the Hollywood actress or the famed musicians was the Galway hurler Mickey Burke, captain of the team that was beaten by Cork in the 1953 All-Ireland final.
A farmer in Glennascaul, a mile north of the village, Mickey had his teeth knocked out by Cork's Christy Ring in that match. He was never again allowed to finish his drink of choice, a bottle of Guinness, in peace in the pub.
His occasional daytime visits always ended prematurely when someone mentioned the 1953 final. More than 20 years after the match, Mickey invariably had to place his unfinished drink on the counter and walk out.
Another occasional daytime customer was a fine, tall man who lived with his mother on Tawin Island, on the edge of Galway Bay and accessible via a narrow bridge. He never set a foot in the pub at night, but he used to call for a chat and a couple of pints whenever he cycled the seven miles to Oranmore for messages. The pub was usually quiet or maybe empty when he called at around midday. He was such a handsome, sturdy man that the bartender asked him one day why he had never married.
He replied that when he had told his mother that he was thinking of getting married her response was: 'You have never yet had to iron your own shirt in this house' - 13 words that dictated the rest of his life. He never married and he never again raised the subject with his mother.
A greater human tragedy overhung the arrival of three uniformed Gardai into the lounge one mid-winter Saturday afternoon. White-faced and wearing heavy overcoats, the Gardai exchanged barely a word and they left immediately after consuming two double-brandies each in quick succession. They were returning from the scene of a fatal car crash on the road to Galway.
Oranmore village had fewer than 200 residents in 1967. Some feared that a road bypass proposed in Galway Co Council's draft development plan would turn it into 'a ghost town'. The most recent Census recorded a population of 4,721 in the Oranmore electoral division.
The village hinterland was entirely agricultural until the 1960s when the first local industry was established. Producing pre-cast and ready-mixed concrete, it was known locally as 'the factory'. One of its original employees lived in the village. He had charge of one of the factory's machines, but he regularly took unofficial leave to spend part of each day in McDonagh's pub. He always went home at lunchtime to avoid any factory manager who might call into the pub for a newspaper or a packet of cigarettes.
'You'd need to be careful Amby or they'll sack you and put somebody else in charge of that machine', a fellow drinker advised him one morning. 'They can't', Amby replied instantly, 'I have the key to it here in my pocket'.