Galway pub’s centenary is a real family affair

At a time when the Irish State only in its infancy, Frenchfort woman Winifred Burke put in bid on a property in Oranmore – and got a lot more than she bargained for.

It was 1922 and she was bidding against just one other man, Michael Glynn from Lydican, when it was suggested the pair team up to buy what would become Glynn’s Bar.

Little did they realise then that it would become far more than a business deal, as the two went on to marry and have seven children together.

They could hardly have predicted either that the son of their youngest daughter, Kitty, would be marking 100 years of business this weekend and that Glynn’s Bar would still be going from strength to strength a century later.

Glynn’s on the Dublin Road boasts the rare achievement of having survived the Civil War, the Second World War, and, more recently, a global pandemic that brought the hospitality industry to its knees.

Seán Ó Máille is the third generation of the family to take the reins. He and his wife Anna have been running it for the last five years – and it’s a great source of pride to be at the helm of a business that’s been in the family for 100 years, he says.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie