The Gibney family has been quenching the thirsts of locals and visitors alike in their Malahide establishment for four generations. In that time they’ve managed to create a warm, welcoming environment that cannot be rivalled. Whether it’s a regular haunt or a first-time visit, the Gibney family’s famous hospitality will ensure you keep coming back.

Our History

In 1937 James Gibney began our adventure in Malahide, and what can we say other than we're still here... We've seen it all over the years – the Allies won, the Swinging Sixties, Beatlemania, 80s hair, when Jack's Army went to Italy, Y2K, and everything else in between. We have a long and interesting history, so why not join us and become part of it?

The coastal seaside town of Malahide is today celebrated as the mecca of Dublin's social and leisure activities, but some fifty years back, it was merely a country village surrounded by pasture and corn land.

When the Gibney family first arrived here on the 6th of December 1937, they were entering what was essentially a 'spit and sawdust pub' with a back yard that contained an apple garden and a pungent-smelling piggery.

For the Gibney family, who have been five generations in the Dublin licensed trade, this may have appeared an unusual acquisition, but it continued the family migration trend northwards towards the coast.

At the time James Joseph Gibney paid £2,500 for this pub he also owned the Royal Hotel in Howth and the Phoenix Bar in Parkgate Street, the once-famous refuge of Michael Collins. It was here that young Jack Gibney learned the business of the licensed trade before moving to Malahide.

His father, James Joseph, was regarded as something of an entrepreneur in the trade and had also owned the Abbey Tavern in Howth, which he sold in 1925. His forebears were also conspicuous in the Dublin trade, having served at Bow Lane Street, the Haymarket in Smithfield, where they ran a bakery, grocery and eating house, and also at Benburb Street.

In 1937, and for many years beforehand, the Malahide pub had been known as the Abercorn Tavern, the name which had been adopted by Henry Barton Cooke on 6 June 1890, when he acquired the pub from James O'Hara and the ground landlord, the Right Honourable Richard Hogan Baron Talbot de Malahide. By 1917 Henry Cooke was suffering financial distress and the premises became partly invested in Ormond Quay auctioneer and valuer Andrew Keogh, who had forwarded Henry some £400.

On your next visit you should pay particular attention to the pitch pine, Liscannor-slated Well Room. Here you will see a wishing well which is not just another gimmick of contemporary pub modernisation. This was previously used as the Wash Room where all the bottles were washed before bottling. Don't be tempted to stick your nose into the wishing well. It holds some 14,000 gallons of water and was used for many years as the village well.

While you are there, ask Tony or one of the lads to show you some of the five-gallon porcelain casks of whiskey from Locks Distillery in Kilbeggan and Powers of John's Lane. You can then wander into the courtyard and enjoy the quality of the Malahide sea air washed down by some healthy libations from the bar.

For a nocturnal fling, try the Caughoo Bar, named after the legendary horse who raced, fleet-footed as a stag, through the mists and fog of Aintree to win the 1947 Grand National. But don't try to emulate him, you may not be quite as fleet footed as you think when you leave the bar.