Many Mayo pubs which featured in iconic poster are no longer trading

A COLOURFUL photo montage, ‘Pubs of Mayo’, produced in the late 1990s, is now a collector’s item.

The framed assembly of images was published by Mayo County Council.

The authority commissioned an acclaimed photographer, the late Liam Lyons, to capture the front façade of the seventy or so bar fronts included in the compilation.

Many of the pubs who featured – for a set fee – in the poster have now closed forever.

Mulligan’s of Claremorris is gone, and so too is Cannon’s (Castlebar), Canning’s (Ballyvary), Gibbons (The Neale) and the Humbert Inn (Castlebar). Those bars are just a fraction of the establishments chosen for the poster which are no longer open.

The closure of so many premises which featured in the ‘Pubs of Mayo’ collection reflects the wider picture of bar closures in rural Ireland over the past two decades.

It was recently estimated that 130 Mayo pubs have shut their doors since 2005 with 35 of these closing since 2019 when Covid struck a fresh hammer blow to an already reeling industry.

While many of the premises which featured in the ‘Pubs of Mayo’ poster have disappeared, others are still thriving.

Murray’s of Charlestown is still in the picture trade wise as are Rouse’s (Ballina), Padraig Horkan’s (Swinford), Matt Molloy’s (Westport) and Castlebar reliables Mick Byrne’s and Johnny McHale’s.

‘Pubs of Mayo’ posters still hang in many of the remaining bars throughout the region, bringing an emotional tear to the eye of the more nostalgically minded imbibers.

As one veteran of the local pub scene puts it: “Those now lost pubs were the settings for storytelling, the singing of songs and general craic.

"The poster reminds me of the fun times we enjoyed in those taverns of yesteryear.”