After a four-month break in its 400-year-old history of serving alcohol to smugglers, pirates, sailors and an assortment of famous drinkers, one of Ireland’s oldest public houses re-opens today.
Grace Neill’s Bar, at Donaghadee in the County Down, closed suddenly in March “due to a gas line problem within the building” and a licensing issue that dragged on for weeks. Now pub and restaurant owner, Paul O’Kane, has taken over the 17th century tavern’s lease with the ultimate aim of buying the premises outright.
O’Kane—, who with his wife and business partner, Mandy, also runs the Stables and the Groomsport Inn further up the coast in Bangor — says he will also fight to re-establish the premises as an award winning eatery. In 2010 it featured in the Michelin Eating Out In Pubs guide.
“The bar and restaurant has always been a major tourist draw to Donaghadee and it’s been very badly missed since its closure,” said O’Kane. “I want to bring tourists back into the town.”
Among the better known visitors claimed to have been served at the hostelry since it opened its doors in 1611 are Russia’s Czar Peter the Great, on his way to Warrenpoint to study boatbuilding. The English romantic poet John Keats and Robinson Crusoe author Daniel Defoe also dropped in during visits to Ireland.
In recent years Grace Neill’s has also attracted a stream of international ghost hunters eager to record evidence of the site’s dozen or so “spirits”.
Local councillor Mark Brooks, who runs the Bow Bells restaurant in Donaghadee, commented: “Grace Neill’s is a vital part of the town’s tourism offer, as well as having been a fixture of the town’s commercial and social life for over 400 years.”
The pub was built and first opened as The King’s Arms, a name it carried for more than 300 years.
Grace Neill herself was a noted resident of the seaside town who, by family tradition, was gifted the King’s Arms as a wedding present from her father. She ran the premises until her death in 1918 at the age of 98. The pub was then renamed in her honour and has carried her name ever since.
There is a long running dispute, however, over its claims to be Ireland’s oldest bar, a title hotly disputed by the owners of Sean’s Bar in Athlone – listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest pub in Europe – which claims it served its first drink as long ago as 900 AD.
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