Rural Galway pub becomes live music venue to stay afloat

A farmer and publican in southeast Galway has turned his country pub into a live music venue for leading artists in order to survive.

So far, Paul Noonan of Bell X1, Sean Keane, Eleanor Shanley and Mike Hanrahan from Stockton’s Wing have taken to the stage at the Cornerstone Bar in Gurteeny in sold out gigs that have brought a new vibrancy to the small community.

Garry Gorman, who has run the watering hole between Woodford and Portumna for the past 25 years, makes no apologies when he insists a pub is absolutely critical to the life of their village.

But skyrocketing running costs and fewer patrons mean it’s getting harder to justify keeping it open.

After being locked down during Covid, he reopened the pub but scaled back to four evenings a week. The adjoining shop which his mother Breda managed remained shut. The other village pub is also closed.

Garry used the time to renovate the inside of the pub and created an intimate room which could be used for gigs seating up to 80. Availing of the Government support scheme to help artists return to the live music scene, he staged concerts for the first time in the pub’s history.

And they were so successful he hopes to keep going without the State subsidy, even if it means he just breaks even.
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