New owner to restore landmark Taylor’s Bar to its former glory

Galway City Tribune – For a time, it was the most popular pub in Galway, a place where those in high places squeezed in with the riff raff and the artsy folk would vie with the musicians for prime spot in what once was a grocery shop and butchers.

Renowned for its impromptu music sessions, Taylor’s Bar on Upper Dominick Street was the first bar to really embrace the concept of a beer garden and the conviviality of a barbeque.

When it was sold and turned into a lap dancing club as the Celtic Tiger roared, there was wailing and gnashing of teeth that such a quintessential Galway institution could suffer such an ignoble demise.

Things have now come full circle. The lease has been purchased by well-known publican Johnny Duggan who plans to return the Taylor name to the front door.

“I’d dearly love to reopen it for the Arts Festival because it was very much where the originators of the Arts Festival hung out in their day,” he revealed.

“We’re trying to figure it all out at the minute. It’s a listed building so we’re in talks with the Heritage Officer. It’s a sensitive building to do anything with – the timber is all protected as it dates back to the 1800s. Nothing is protected to the rear but you have to be sensitive to it because of its history.

The last owners did no structural work on it so I could pretty much reopen it as it is.”

The public outcry when it became Le Paradis Club led to the premises being included on the protected register of buildings

The beer garden, which is the old yard, stretches back to the canal. Nearby Carroll’s has recently renovated its beer garden to include a big bus serving pizzas.
For more on the plans for Taylor’s, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.