{"id":573103,"date":"2026-07-07T10:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T10:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/573103\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T10:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T10:12:10","slug":"the-pubs-of-cork-i-used-to-pour-1000-pints-a-day-now-a-pub-is-all-about-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/573103\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pubs of Cork: I used to pour 1,000 pints a day…now a pub is all about food"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visitors to Crosshaven can\u2019t miss The Oar Bar. Shaped like the prow of a ship, the pub is immediately distinctive upon entering the village.<\/p>\n

The premises has stood here for over 100 years, albeit in many different iterations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gone through various names over the years,\u201d landlord James Slevin tells me. \u201cThe Moon Duster, The Divers – the Ancient Mariner was probably one of the very first ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe building itself used to be divided in two. One part was a grocery shop, and the other was the bar. This was up until about the 1970s.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was established as The Oar Bar in 2013 by yachtsman JP English before being sold a decade later to Cork GP Dr Nick Flynn. It was at this point that James came on board to manage the bar and its upstairs restaurant.<\/p>\n

I meet James at the pub on the hottest day of the year. In the glittering sunshine, views from The Oar of boats moored at Hugh Coveney Pier are even more stunning than usual. It was these spectacular views that attracted James to the village in the first place, as he recalls.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen I came down, the minute I hit the corner coming into the village, I said to myself: \u2018No matter what happens, I\u2019m going to live in Crosshaven\u2019.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

A self-proclaimed \u201cproud Dubliner\u201d, James came to Cork via mainland Europe, where he ran pubs in Austria, Germany and Switzerland for over 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started as a young apprentice barman at 14 years of age,\u201d he recounts of his very early career in Dublin back in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

\"JamesJames says the local community in Crosshaven has helped keep The Oar afloat in a turbulent time for the industry.\u00a0 Picture: David Creedon<\/p>\n

The long hours of the pub business were becoming a turn-off for the younger generation in those days, so \u201clike everyone in the trade back then\u201d, adds James, \u201cI packed it in and moved onto something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

In James\u2019s case, that \u2018something different\u2019 was university and a career in IT, running his own computer business until he sold it in 1999. It was a subsequent trip to Austria that brought him back to pubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had family over there,\u201d explains James, \u201cso I went to see them and I ended up taking over the lease of a Scottish bar in Vienna. I said, \u2018what am I doing here? I know nothing about running bars!\u2019 But it came back naturally, especially with the business skills I got from computing.\u201d<\/p>\n

James returned to Ireland just a few years ago – \u201cmy family were grown up at that point and yeah, it was time to come back\u201d – with the intention of working part-time. This has not gone to plan!<\/p>\n

\u201cI met Nick here in the bar,\u201d says James of then-owner Dr Flynn. \u201cWe had a conversation. I said, \u2018look, let me just do one or two days a week. I\u2019ll help you with the back end of the business. Stock management, etc\u2019. Before I knew it, I became General Manager.\u201d<\/p>\n

And at the start of this year, when Dr Flynn decided to depart the business, James – who had quickly fallen in love with both the pub and his new home of Crosshaven – was the natural candidate to take over the reins.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about this place,\u201d James says of Crosshaven, \u201cis that it\u2019s not just a community. It\u2019s like a big family. Everybody knows everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this loyal local population that has helped The Oar to stay afloat in a turbulent time for the pub trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, The Oar has its established regulars\u201d, adds James, \u201clike with any other bar in the village. But what I love about Crosshaven is that all of the local people support every single bar. And that\u2019s very important to us, particularly during the winter months when we rely on local trade a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oar takes pride in its varied programme of events for locals and visitors alike, with speciality nights like karaoke and table quizzes popular fixtures on the calendar, as well as more regular features.<\/p>\n

James elaborates: \u201cWe\u2019ve got our sports bar downstairs and we\u2019ve got the main bar. We\u2019ve got live music every weekend. And we\u2019ve got this amazing restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" \u201cI do my job because I love the business and I love the people and I love to see people with a smile on their face and say, \u2018yeah, I put that there\u2019,” says James. Picture: David Creedon<\/p>\n

The upstairs restaurant has become renowned in Crosshaven not just for its fantastic views, but its high-quality food. James had to make a difficult decision about this offering when he acquired the business, explaining: \u201cWhen I took over, there were a lot of heavy costs associated with the restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Focusing on the bar to begin with, the restaurant closed for a number of months when James became landlord. \u201cWe needed new furniture, we needed a whole rethink of how it was and how I wanted it to be now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The restaurant reopened in mid-June to great anticipation. \u201cWe had a very, very busy opening weekend\u201d, says James. \u201cThe village needs it. I think this part of Cork needs it. A lot of people come down here for the views but they come back for the food.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes a good food offering is essential in today\u2019s pub trade. He\u2019s seen a huge shift in customer expectations over the years. \u201cThese younger guys, they\u2019re not the same clientele we had ten years ago when it was disposable income and, I suppose, the taboo of alcohol wasn\u2019t a thing. As publicans and business owners, we have to adapt to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started as a young 14-year-old, my job was literally pouring probably a thousand Guinness a day and that\u2019s all I did. And then, I suppose, over the years, we adapted into the roll and a bowl of soup, but now it\u2019s become the case that you have to have food to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JamesJames started as an apprentice barman when he was just 14. Picture: David Creedon<\/p>\n

Keeping up with an evolving customer base can be a challenge, but it\u2019s not the main one facing pubs. \u201cIt\u2019s literally the costs\u201d, says James. The price of alcohol, food, energy, staff (The Oar has 21 employees, five full-time) – it all adds up for publicans and adds pressure to an already busy job. \u201cMy job is not just \u2018open bar at 12pm, close at 12am\u2019,\u201d notes James. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot that goes on in the background. Sometimes you can put in 14, 15, maybe 16-hour days and not see the benefit of doing that\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite these challenges, James is in it for the long haul. \u201cI do my job because I love the business and I love the people and I love to see people with a smile on their face and say, \u2018yeah, I put that there\u2019. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about\u201d.<\/p>\n

James is now settled in his new home of Crosshaven and happy at the helm of The Oar. He believes that the pub, and pubs like it, play a vital role in village life.<\/p>\n

\u201cA good pub isn\u2019t just somewhere to have a drink. It\u2019s where communities meet, friendships are formed, and visitors get their first real taste of Crosshaven. Our job at the Oar is very simple. We look after locals, welcome the visitors, and showcase everything that\u2019s great about Crosshaven\u201d.<\/p>\n

See www.theoarbar.ie<\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visitors to Crosshaven can\u2019t miss The Oar Bar. Shaped like the prow of a ship, the pub is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,129073,18,19,17,17827],"class_list":["post-573103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-crosshaven","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-pub"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116878164503864109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573103","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=573103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}