Voted "The Best Bar in the World" by
famous Lonely Planet Guide.
The Harbour Bar is one of the oldest, most well known
and storied bars in Ireland and was founded on the mid
1880’s.
This bar has an amazingly diverse crowd and a unique
look – the bar is littered with original antiques and
interesting bric-a-brac, accumulated over 80 years, by 3
generations of the O’Toole family. The Harbour Bar
offers a truly authentic Irish pub experience as an
antidote to the sterile atmosphere of some modern pubs.
The bar served as the original model for all the
worldwide “Irish” superpubs.
The bar hosts traditional Irish music sessions on
Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and the lunge boasts
the best indie music venue south of Dublin.
The bar also caters to tour groups and has ample parking
Legendary actor and hellraiser Peter O'Toole often drank
in the bar when he was working in nearby Ardmore Studios
and, indeed, often had to be helped back to his hotel -
the International on the promenade, long since destroyed
by fire - by one of the owners, Des O'Toole, who would
deliver him into the care of the night porter. As a
token of his appreciation, he donated a mounted deer's
head used as a prop in Woody Allen's “What's New,
Pussycat?”and it remains proudly on display in the back
lounge.
