Ron and Diane Kendrick are calling time on the Coach House and Olde Bar in Glaslough. The couple have run the Main Street pub for 38 years, and Diane's family have owned the building since 1962. They are retiring, and the landmark is on the market with a guide price of €2 million, the Anglo-Celt reported on Sunday 18 October.
"I promised my husband I would retire in 2027, when we're 65 years here," Diane told the paper. "I thought it was a fair innings."
A family building since 1962
Back then the premises was a shop, hardware business and commercial hotel run by David Patton Limited, and Diane's uncle, Jim Wright, managed it. When the company decided to sell, Jim asked his brother Wallace to buy it with him. Wallace left the linen trade, sold his farm and moved to Glaslough with his wife Ruby and their baby daughter, Diane, who grew up on the premises.
The hotel closed, but the grocery, bar, petrol, coal, animal feed and delivery trades kept going. Diane remembers a van that went round the country with groceries for people who couldn't get into the shop. In 1967 Wallace turned the coach house hardware store into a singing lounge, one of the earliest and largest in north Monaghan, the Anglo-Celt says.
When Wallace became seriously ill, he asked Diane and Ron to take over, keep the business in the family and look after Ruby. They took it on in 1988, bought Uncle Jim out, and married in 1989. Ron was born in England and moved to Monaghan at the age of eight; Diane taught History at Monaghan Collegiate.
Puckoon and Westlife
The Olde Bar has had its brushes with fame. Spike Milligan's Puckoon was filmed there, with many villagers as extras. During filming, the actor Elliott Gould took a liking to the bar's "Goulding's Manure" clock, one of Wallace's antique clocks, and offered a blank cheque for it. Ron told him there was nothing for sale "other than a drink".
Another time, Castle Leslie asked whether a band could shoot a video in the Olde Bar. The band was Westlife. Diane, a superfan, came home from school to find paparazzi and screaming fans outside. Ron recalled that he spotted a problem with a keg of Guinness just in time, as the band were "downing the pints".
What's for sale
The selling agents, ERA Tobin Estate Agents of Carrickmacross, describe a cut-stone building from about 1860 on a site of about 1.32 acres, 150 metres from the gates of the Castle Leslie Estate. It includes the Coach House lounge bar, the Olde Bar with its snug, the covered courtyard known as the Birdcage, and a seven-bedroom house with landscaped gardens and parking. The listing says the owners are retiring despite having extensive bookings for 2027 and beyond.
The Birdcage was the pub's last big change. After the Covid lockdown, the covered courtyard let them reopen with social distancing, and it has since hosted day-two wedding parties, birthdays and anniversaries. Their daughter Alexandra's coming milestone birthday will be held there as a farewell.
The Kendricks are not going far. They have bought a bungalow on the outskirts of Glaslough and plan to stay involved in local community groups. "I'm going to miss it," Diane said.
We first reported the sale when the property came on the market in early October (our earlier report).
