Durty Nelly's, Bunratty

The claim

Beside Bunratty Castle in County Clare, Durty Nelly's is one of Ireland's best-known pubs and says it has traded since 1620, named after a resourceful landlady of legend. The rambling interior holds a main bar, snug and piano bar, plus the Oyster and Loft restaurants. Traditional music plays seven nights a week for locals and visitors from nearby Shannon.

What the records show

The 1620 and the story of a landlady called Nelly are the pub's own tradition, and no documentary or architectural record of that date has been traced. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, queried again on 18 September 2026, holds no entry for this house: within five hundred metres it records Bunratty Castle, the bridge beside the pub and the house now used as the Bunratty Castle Hotel, and nothing else, so the absence is a search rather than an oversight. Clare County Council says the same in its own way. Volume 4 of the county development plan for 2023 to 2029 is the record of protected structures, and the Bunratty area has five entries in it — the bridge, the castle, the Bunratty Castle Hotel, Bunratty House and Crughaun mediaeval church. This house is not among them, and the name Nelly appears nowhere in the volume. The bridge is the interesting neighbour, because the pub's story puts Nelly at the toll on it: the council dates the standing single-arch humpback bridge to 1804, built of rubble and dressed limestone, and says it replaced an earlier mediaeval bridge. So there was a crossing here long before the bridge that stands, and neither record dates a house beside it. What is on record about the present trade is the licence: Revenue's register of renewed liquor licences, current to 2 September 2026, carries a seven-day ordinary publican's licence at Bunratty under reference LIP0831, held by Clare Taverns trading as Durty Nellys.

What to look for inside

Beside Bunratty Castle
Named after a legendary 17th-century landlady, Nelly
Traditional music seven nights a week

Visiting

Durty Nelly's is in Bunratty, Ireland, at Bunratty West, Bunratty, Co. Clare. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

durtynellys.ie Directions in your maps app