The Wall Street Journal recommends a visit to this ‘real deal’ Cork pub
Authentic Irish pubs are getting rarer.
Happily, however, we’re spoilt for choice here on Leeside. In fact, The Wall Street Journal has placed one rural Cork pub on a list of the best “real-deal holdouts” on the Wild Atlantic Way.
Levis’ Corner House in Ballydehob is mentioned alongside some impressive family-run watering holes, including The Rusty Mackerel in Donegal, Tight Ned in the Aran Islands and John B. Keane’s Pub in Listowel.
The author, journalist Vic O’Sullivan, recommends planning a road trip along the 1,600-mile Wild Atlantic Way from Donegal in the north to Cork in the south “using quintessential pubs as checkpoints”.
He’s only budgeted five days to explore the entire route, which sounds about five days short when you factor in your hangovers, but that’s a problem for another day.
“The final 100-mile leg of the Wild Atlantic Way will take you past the touristy town of Killarney to West Cork and the higgledy-piggledy streetscape of Ballydehob, the access point to the Mizen Head Peninsula.” writes O’Sullivan.
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“Take in the staggering views of cornflower seascapes and Three Castle Head, a limestone medieval ruin that teeters on a bluff by the ocean, before arriving at Levis’ Corner House.
“There, Caroline O’Donnell and Joe O’Leary, a fourth-generation pub owner, pull creamy pints from a large tap devoted to Murphy’s, County Cork’s home-court stout. An old grocery counter that Joe’s grandaunts once presided over is now part of an intimate stage for travelling musicians.”
As O’Sullivan points out, you never know who you’ll run into in Levis’:
“Even local resident and actor Jeremy Irons has played the piano on occasion.” he adds.
