A PUB-LOVER'S GUIDE TO CORK CITY

FROM CRAFT COCKTAILS TO FIRESIDE PINTS, CORK'S INDEPENDENT SPIRIT IS ON DISPLAY ON AN EVENING'S BAR-HOPPING.

-  PÓL Ó CONGHAILE

It’s a country pub in a city. That’s my thinking as bartender Michael O’Donovan lets my pint of Murphy’s settle on the counter, pausing for an intuitive amount of time before topping off the stout’s creamy crown. There are licks of flame in a tiled fi replace nearby. The wood spits and crackles as the conversation eases into gear.

The Castle Inn is on South Main Street, a stone’s throw from Cork’s main drag. A pub has stood on the site since the 1870s and has been run by the same family since the 1930s. It’s a traditional pub with a small snug inside the window, timeworn red-and-cream wood panelling and little tubs of snuff for sale behind the bar. Walls are galleried with old beer ads and black-and-white photographs of sports legends like hurler Christy Ring, wearing a flat cap in the days before helmets. The interior design here is timeless.

Outside, night is falling and streetlights reflect off rainy pavements. Inside, it’s brightly lit, warm and cosy. I pay for my pint and join in the chat softly orchestrated by the bartender around his counter. We talk hurling and high gas bills and taxis and technology. Anything and everything. The man beside me has placed his glasses on a rolled-up newspaper.

I ask if I can photograph the fi replace, and O’Donovan nods, telling me how the chimneys connect like secret passages through the old house above. “If these walls could talk,” he says, smiling.