Raising a glass to one of Ireland’s oldest pubs

One of Ireland’s oldest family run pubs is celebrating 150 years of service, having served thirsty locals and tourists alike since 1873.

Kiernan’s Pub in Carlanstown has survived wars and economic turmoil and seen the foundation of the State, all while serving impressive pints of Guinness. They have also seen some famous faces and musicians play to lucky punters. The pub that is steeped in history dates to the early 1800’s and was bought at auction by an ancestor of the current owner in 1873. Formally the Black Lion Inn, it was a stagecoach stop off for weary travellers just before the toll bridge in Carlanstown. The cellar was made redundant when the now owners, Sean and Sharon Kiernan, added a cold room to the pub and closed the cellar door for the last time a number of years ago.

Sean Kiernan is the fifth generation of his family to take over the quaint traditional Irish pub alongside his wife Sharon, the couple are also celebrating 25 years running the bar.

"It is a big honour, there are not too many that can say that they have a pub and it is family run for five generations over 150 years,” said Sharon. "It is a very big thing for us and we are celebrating running the pub 25 years as well. Hopefully we are doing a good enough job, we must be, we are still here!

"The pub was bought by auction in November 1873 into the Kiernan name. Sean is the fifth generation to run the pub, hopefully our kids will be sixth although we want them to go and live their lives first.

"Sean’s mother Agnes ran the pub for twenty years with her husband John, before that his parents Jack and Rosie were the owners. Before that it was a man called Brian Kiernan and before that was the original Jack Kiernan.”

The original features of the pub still remain to this day, something that attracts people from far and wide to visit the family run establishment according to Sharon who said:

"The place to us is sacred and we have always respected it. We have kept it the same as it always was, we only put in new floors and new furniture and we had to take down one partition when we took over as it was actually dangerous. Everything is original, the partitions, the counters, there is an original set of drawers behind the counter, we never touched anything.

"People come in here and say wow a traditional Irish pub and they are fascinated looking around at things and if it is not too busy we let them down into the cellar to see the original corking machines."

Sharon says stepping into the cellar is like going back in time where the hooks are still in place in the ceiling where the bacon was hung to feed the guests and was sold to the locals and RIC constables stationed directly across the road. If you go down the cellar you will see the hatch where the barrels used to be rolled in off the street when they would be delivered, that’s where they used to do all of the bottling."

"It’s so much steeped in history and to have all of the books for the barter system is just so amazing to look at."

Sean who worked behind the bar from a young age says it is the characters he remembers the most.

“They are a big loss because they had all of the old stories,” he said.

He added that modern inventions of the glass washer and cold room were the biggest change in recent decades.

Many famous faces have frequented the historic pub as Sharon explains:

“We had the band Air Supply in, Steve McFadden who plays Phil in Eastenders. Eimer Quinn used to live in the area and she was doing a TV show and came in and said this where she felt most at home. We had the Vice American ambassador came here to celebrate a night because he wanted a traditional Irish pub."