{"id":211358,"date":"2025-12-02T12:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T12:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/211358\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T12:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T12:47:11","slug":"a-man-said-a-pubs-more-important-than-a-church-in-the-village-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/211358\/","title":{"rendered":"A man said ‘a pub\u2019s more important than a church in the village now’"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last two decades, Pat O\u2019Riordan has steered the ship at O\u2019Riordan\u2019s bar in Coachford, mid-Cork.<\/p>\n

A farmer\u2019s son who once drove ready-mix trucks around Cork, he never expected he would end up pulling pints in his local.<\/p>\n

However, since buying the old Coachman\u2019s Inn in 2005, Pat has been central to the pub trade in Coachford, and has watched his village ebb and flow through good times and bad, through periods of emigration, families returning, and Coachford evolving into a vibrant satellite village to Cork city.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

O\u2019Riordans is one of the few pubs featured in this series that opens seven days a week, offering breakfast, lunch and dinner.<\/p>\n

What started out as a Saturday and Sunday breakfast offering about a decade ago has grown into a full food operation that now sits comfortably beside the bar trade without overpowering it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a pub first, a pub that serves food. Not the other way around,\u201d says Pat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that people know we\u2019re open. We open from nine o\u2019clock in the morning for food, seven days a week.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe cater for a working men\u2019s dinner, really. All good local food, produced from local butchers, and vegetables produced locally.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a commitment that we\u2019d be open every day for people; have the door open, have your fire lighting, have a nice, clean, warm bar for them, and have good food on the table.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve silage and building contractors now who ring ahead for their food. If they\u2019re in a hurry, the food is on the table for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The O\u2019Riordan\u2019s building has been a pub for more than a century. Coachford itself was always a lively place: the fairs, the Muskerry trams turning here, and the constant footfall of people coming from the surrounding townlands such as Dripsey and Donoughmore.<\/p>\n

For a village of only 300 people in 2016, the level of activity is surprising to anyone who hasn\u2019t spent time here. But Coachford has a magnetism to it.<\/p>\n

The schools, the falling-in from different parishes, and the recent sewer upgrade that unlocked more than 100 new homes have revived the place.<\/p>\n

\"PatPat O\u2019Riordan in the roofed area he renovated as a pool area and back-bar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the last five years alone, the population has grown significantly – and families are once again settling where their parents once drank and played GAA and soccer.<\/p>\n

Pat bought the pub at the tail end of the Celtic Tiger years. For two or three years, it was all go – packed weekends, busy nights, lots of money around. Then 2008 arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery weekend was a going-away party,\u201d he recalls of that recession-hit era. \u201cParents crying. Lads heading to America, Canada, Australia. Great fellas gone with no work.\u201d<\/p>\n

From behind the counter, Pat watched his customers, who were also his friends, leave – a familiar story throughout the whole of Ireland at the time.<\/p>\n

Things eventually picked up, and things eventually normalised in the pub trade, and then covid hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was very tough,\u201d Pat says.<\/p>\n

But the village rallied. The breweries, Heineken in particular, were supportive. And when the pubs were shut, Pat said something shifted in people.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cPeople realised what the pub meant. A man said to me once, and he wasn\u2019t even a drinker \u2018A pub is more important than a church in the village now\u2019.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s where fellas meet, talk, unload after a hard day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coachford is unusual for rural Ireland in 2025: not one, but three pubs are operating in the village.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to see,\u201d Pat says. \u201cIt\u2019s good for the village.\u201d<\/p>\n

It helps, too, that the village has become a small hub for tourism: fishing competitions in the Lee, rowing in the nearby centre at Farran, traffic passing through from Blarney to Macroom, families heading to Ballyhass Lakes, walkers in Farran Woods, and more recently the Greenway at Rooves Bridge.<\/p>\n

\"PatPat O\u2019Riordan behind the bar at O\u2019Riordan\u2019s in Coachford. He says: \u201cA pub is where fellas meet, talk, unload after a hard day\u201d.Picture: Noel Sweeney<\/p>\n

O\u2019Riordan\u2019s employs 14 people, including chefs and long-serving bar staff, some of whom have been there for 12 or 13 years. Pat doesn\u2019t hesitate to credit them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re fantastic. They treat the place like their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

All four of his children also worked behind the bar at some stage. One has settled elsewhere, but another has recently returned to the village and is becoming involved in the business.<\/p>\n

Pat spells out his worries about the future of rural pubs. Like every publican featured in this series, he has felt the pressures of running a bar in rural Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the government really understands,\u201d he says. \u201cThey could do a lot more – energy, transport, support for rural business. We\u2019re employing 14 people. That has to count for something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another challenge he cites is the younger generation\u2019s reluctance to take on the trade.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cKids see their parents working 16-18 hours a day, some weeks over 100 hours. They have good jobs now, they\u2019re educated, and they don\u2019t want that commitment,\u201d he explains.\n <\/p>\n

Pat says that a good local bar will sponsor and support local GAA, look out for younger lads, knows who the parents are, will try to spot trouble early, and looks out for its customers in ways that \u2018super-bars\u2019 or chain bars simply never could.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you forget your wallet here and had your dinner, no problem, we\u2019ll sort it next time,\u201d he says. \u201cThat won\u2019t happen in a chain. That\u2019s why the local pub is so important. It\u2019s the centre of the village.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Riordan\u2019s has developed its beer garden to facilitate live music and has renovated a roofed area as a pool room and a back-bar of sorts.<\/p>\n

Pat sees the future involving more one-off events, party nights, and things that draw crowds back into rural spaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to evolve,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the pint after work, the chat, the meeting, that\u2019s what keeps it alive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the last two decades, Pat O\u2019Riordan has steered the ship at O\u2019Riordan\u2019s bar in Coachford, mid-Cork. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,17827],"class_list":{"0":"post-211358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-pub"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115650051992963023","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}