Second Limerick community save the last pub in the village

A SECOND pub in County Limerick is rising from the ashes thanks to the power of community spirit.

A syndicate of locals in Kilteely gave a gin and “tonic” to their parish by purchasing Ahern’s Pub - the last one in the village - and ensuring the doors stayed open last year. Renamed The Street Bar, the story garnered local, national and international attention and inspired a documentary by an Oscar-nominated director.

The have also influenced a group of community-minded people in Herbertstown who said farewell to their last watering hole - the Arch Bar (pictured below) - at the start of the year.

Local residents Fred O’Connell and Pat Dooley are spearheading a committee to purchase, refurbish and reopen the pub. It is on the market with a guide price of €199,000. Their motto is, “Revive our pub, reconnect our village”.

Group director of REA Dooley Group, Mr Dooley said: “We just made a decision that we would do our best to try and emulate the success of Kilteely because once the last village pub closes, that’s it, you’ll never get it back.”

The Arch Bar, known locally as Geddies, was run by Ger Wright for a number of decades until retirement earlier this year. Described as “a loyal friend to this parish”, Fred and Pat and now a 22-strong committee want to continue Ger’s good work.

“When a village loses its pub, it loses a big part of its life,” said Pat, who said they are quite confident that they are going to be successful in the purchase.

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Twenty two men and women have signed up but the auctioneer says they will keep the shareholding open for a while longer because of the big refurbishment cost to go into the pub afterwards.

“While we’re there or there about in terms of the contribution towards the purchase it’s going to need a capital cost because what we want to do is to turn it from maybe an old man’s pub into a pub that caters for everyone in the community,” said Mr Dooley.

They have set a shareholding amount at €10,000 per share which can be a group of people like a family, a team, a group of friends or a club. It will remain open for a limited time for interested parties.

The committee meet every Tuesday evening at 8pm in the village and it is “all shoulders to the wheel”.

“We have marketing, recruitment, finance, and development committees. We’re deliberating over a few new names for the pub like they did in Kilteely and I want to thank them because we have had a number of good meetings with them to emulate their success,” said Mr Dooley.

If all goes to plan, they will get the keys to the Arch bar, begin refurbishments and save the last bar in Herberstown in the coming months. Locals will drink to that.