https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/living/2025/0601/1515918-irish-publicans-on-the-bar-trade-the-show-is-basically-over/
seems like the Irish pub scene will soon be over.
Young people having no money left after paying rent to their landlord is one big reason plus in rural ireland pubs taken over by cocaine dealers meaning old lads afraid to go to local pub anymore is another
Do you know if there has been a swing away from pub owners owning their own location? To me it seems that back in the day that the premises was owned by the publican, maybe more so in rural locations where it may have also been a shop, and this helped keep down what would be a big cost these days.
I grew up working in pubs, from 13 years old until I was about 30. Always wanted my own pub but never had the money to invest. Became a bar manager in a large hotel but I could see the end of the trade coming. Thankfully I was never able to get the money together. Pubs were dying but COVID really put the nail in the coffin.
It's too expensive now to run a pub/nightclub unless you are in a really good location. Outside of good locations in very large towns or cities, forget about it.
I'm from a small rural town that used to have 18 pubs about 20 years ago. We've 5 now and only one of them does any business worth talking about. The others only open in the evenings and will close down when the owners retire. By the looks of things their owners seem to be doing it for a hobby rather than making any money.
You had to put up with them to get the shift/ride.
stop🤣
More time spent in church than college? Spoofing. I’m sure there’s some truth to it but it’s likely just overblown to create hysteria.
Staff we're crap long before 2013 and probably always were. Ide say you just started to notice more.
I totally agree about owners though as many are clueless. You hear this a lot especially when it comes to things like pedestrianisation that "no one knows better than the business owners about their own business" and it is shockingly untrue in so many instances. Usually they either never had a clue or their ideas are 30 years out of date.
It was too many, particularly when there were pubs almost beside each other. Just not enough people within walking distance (no car parks).
One of the pubs that closed, did okay at the weekend when they served food but when that stopped, they lost most of their trade.
Has to be cost. A fiver odd for a pint,get a cheap six pack for not much more than a tenner. Plus weed a coke,no hangover.
Defo have to agree ….. like you I do not go to pubs that often and stopped going on regular basis in around 2013 ….. precisely because of this attitude ….. staff stopping serving before closing time and having an attitude ….. also staff listening to loud modern country music on a radio and ignoring customers ….. I believe opening and closing times should be stated in plain sight for customers to see …..
A lot of these old places do not make the effort and have staff with an attitude ….. yet they think they have a god given right to our custom ….. if pubs were as 'magic' as some claim more would go to them ….. 95% of what I saw in pubs down the years were drunks, self styled Pat Kennies moaning about Anglo Irish Bank, unfriendly staff, impersonal bands, disillusioned owners and uninventive drink choices ……
Dunno the source of this graph but it's a bit grim if correct
You are the only one knows the area so do you think 7 pubs was the right amount or a bit much in an era men don't drink 7 nights a week ?
Most people hated nightclubs back when I was young too. You just had to put up with them to get a drink past 11. People talking about techo in clubs must be older than me because all I remember is pop music. Shte like 50 Cent, Black Eyed Peas and worst of all that fuking "We are young" song.
I would say like me you don't have a clue what young people actually do.
Sorry, I meant within a 2 mile radius of me. Actually I under estimated slightly, just over 2.5 mile radius.
The 2 pubs remaining are about 5.5 miles apart on the same road.
There were 3 others between them on that road. The other 2 were on a road off that road. One of those was likely a victim of Covid. It reopened briefly but closed shortly after.
Even without instagram, a lot of those places were actually smoky, damp, manky carpet ridden sh1t holes.
is this what people of a certain age think all younger people do or something?
In early 30’s and I don’t go to nightclubs or pubs because the people there are usually freaks and it costs too much to justify. I’d rather stay home with the Mrs, order in food, smoke a few beers, get me hole, go to bed.
won’t tell me getting your eardrums burst, potentially given a seizure with strobe lights and probably sexually assaulted is a more fun evening
Yeah I think a lot of the negative stuff associated with it wouldn't be tolerated by young un's these days. Imagine putting a group of health conscious Gen zer's into a time machine and sending them back to a smoke filled 90's nightclub stuck to the side of a hotel somewhere.
I'd doubt they'd like it all that much. It wouldn't be very "instagramable". They'd rather have their photo taken with Conor McGregor in the Black Forge Inn, or showing off the gym body in Marbella.
Demographics.
Twenty years ago a quarter of the population was of the prime pub going age of between 20 and 35, now that cohort is around 18% and more health conscience.
I went back contracting recently where the majority of the staff were in that 20-35 bracket and I was really surprised by how into the gym most were. Twenty years earlier when I was in their age group going to the pub after work at least a couple of times a week was a definite.
There's just a different dynamic and while I don't chime with it I don't miss the booze orientated social scene of the past.
My first reaction when teenagers tell me they don't go to nightclubs is that they're missing out on a vital formative life experience. I used to love nightclubs. Loved revisiting a familiar haunt, loved finding the best new places. The building excitement as we queued outside listening to the bass emanating from within. Dancing, shifting, the craic at the chipper or on the bus home. Loved it.
But I had conveniently forgotten an awful lot of what went on too:
There was a lot of ecstasy in those days, and some very unsavory types supplying it.
Towards the end of my nightclubbing years, drink spiking had become a legitimate concern.
Almost every girl I knew had a story about being cornered, or worse, by some drunk and horny chap.
Horrible letchy creepy bouncers who would let a group of friends in and stop the last girl and make her beg and plead to be allowed in. Was this just a Galway thing? Never saw it anywhere else.
Waiting for taxis or buses often meant hours on the roadside or giving up and embarking on long walks through various towns and cities in silly heels and impractical clothes.
One friend of mine that frequently got so off her knockers that she would go missing. We often found her unconscious somewhere or wandering off with sketchy strangers. So many nights were ruined by her inability to stop when she had had enough. And there was never any shortage of sketchy strangers.
And the high-pitched humming in your ears when you eventually got to your bed!
I loved it and I came through it relatively unscathed but would I be happy for an 18yo to take all those risks? We had some great nights that went down in history but some very uncomfortable or forgettable nights too. And probably some very narrow escapes.
Ah yes, what an experience. Loud techno rave shyte, closed space with very little room, no air conditioning, people getting pissed etc.
Why do old cnuts want young people to experience pub and nightclubs (key thing here is the middle aged 40 year olds now still think clubbing is the 'thing" nowadays).
Don't know exactly how rural you are talking but 7 pubs in 2 miles with Ireland's lack of density sounds like the old way was the abnormality rather than the 2 you have now.
A lot of opinion pieces in the indo about the death of nightclubs too and how its such a travesty that young people aren't getting to experience it nowadays. As if every single young person is going to be into clubbing. Most of the nightclubs in small towns were terrible anyway. Plus there are so many options for young people now that didn't exist 20 years ago.
I never found pubs to be particularly friendly and welcoming either ….. often the opposite actually ….. they can be very clannish and they can be paranoid of the likes of tourists and ask them out flat where were they from and what brought them here …… I more or less stopped going to pubs in around 2013 ….. it was just messy drunks and morose conversations about Anglo Irish Bank at the time ….. the same old same old week in week out year in year out ……
I do not believe that young people today necessarily drink less than those of other generations ….. those who drink will always drink many to excess too ….. but they are just not factoring pubs into the equation ….. many are meeting in each others' houses ….. and/or saving up to go to festivals and the like …..
The club scene has been dying for decades …..even 25-30 years ago the club scene was showing signs of cracking …… many began to tire of the clubs with the massive crowds, often full to capacity and one could not even get in …… not to mention the ear-piercing loud techno and rave ….. they instead met in houses and had their own thing going incl karaoke machines …… I remember my first night in a club ….. Cher's pro club reinvention from her original style Believe played non stop …… watered down budweiser and a beer called breo ….. and manky seats and tables ….. every time I hear Believe to this day I am brought back to the nights I spent in the clubs ….. and not with nostalgia !!!!!!!! …….
So many people need the use of their car so if you take drink driving laws seriously that limits your drinking quite a bit .
Rural area. Used to have 7 pubs within 2 miles or so. Only 2 now.
Various reasons for closures. In at least 2 cases, the older customers were literally dying off and the younger folk (not many of them anymore) just aren't interested.
One of the 2 remaining is open all day, everyday and seems to do great trade at the weekends when they have live music.
Pubs need to diversify and find a niche. The days of just selling the generic stuff with football on the telly being enough to draw people in are gone. I do think we need to develop more evening social outlets, Cafe is great but not going to be open at 9pm.
Cork, Limerick and Dublin actually.
Most big towns would have a few examples too. Yes they have more footfall but "well off" is definitely not true. There are plenty of people out drinking in Irish cities that are no more well off than out the country. Large parts of rural Ireland are populated by people commuting to cities doing the exact same jobs as city people.
Most proper rural pubs I have been into are exactly the kind of cliche dump you hear people talk about. No effort put in and an auld one behind the bar who is actively hostile to the idea of being a bar person. Rare I have been in one looks worth saving.
The pubs uiu speak of are in Dublin with lots of tourists and well off people , few parts of rural ireland have those types of people to get custom from
There is a huge space between bad toilets and gastro pub.
You can put effort in to a pub without spending much money and without doing food. Some publicans think you can still just open the door and start making money. A lot of pubs barely have a mop.
An old fashioned pub that didn't renovate much over the years is now a gold mine if it is run well. Look at the likes of Callanan's, Tom Collins, Grogans or The Long Hall. No food and little else going on other than being a well run pub.
I'm not disagreeing with you but hotblack isn't too far wrong. I used to have a serious drinking problem for years that was so bad I needed professional help. I had to get my liver and all my organs checked a few months ago due to medication I'm on. (medication has nothing to do with alcohol) and they all came back in perfect health. The medical community do over state things from time to time.
You're taking all this very personally. Nobody on this thread is responsible for pubs closing. Nobody but you is making it about your drinking habits.
Not just the pretentiousness but the sheer puritanical nature of what some of them post. If posters don’t want to go to pubs, there is no one forcing them . Those of us who do don’t need a lecture on disordered behaviour or the numbers of units of alcohol we should drink .
