Gleneagles Bar, Mġarr, Gozo

Gleneagles Bar

Triq Martino Garces, Mġarr harbour, Għajnsielem, Gozo

Grade C · TraditionTrading · checked Sept 2026

Gleneagles Bar is locally dated 1732. No earlier record has been found.

Claimed

1732

First record

none found

Building

c.1732

The building. The harbour's barrakka, a cabin raised in 1732 to shelter passengers waiting for the passage boats, credited by the Għajnsielem council's harbour history to Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena and put up beside an osteria the same account records as still standing; the sloping roof is unusual.

Waterfront

Locals

Bar notable

Literary

The claim

A small bar at Mġarr harbour on Gozo, standing beside the jetty the passage boats once used. The Għajnsielem council's history of the port dates the building to 1732, when it was raised as the harbour's barrakka, the cabin in which passengers waited; Gozitans call it Il-Barrakka still. The novelist Philip Nicholson wrote as A. J. Quinnell with his elbows on this counter, and took the initials from the barman's son.

What the records show

The 1732 comes from the Għajnsielem local council's own account of Mġarr harbour, which says the building went up as the port's barrakka — the cabin where passengers waited for the passage boats — under Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena, and which places it beside an osteria that was still standing when the account was written. English Wikipedia carries the same year and the sloping roof. The year therefore belongs to a shelter for travellers rather than to a drinking house, and nothing traced says when the cabin began to sell drink, which is why the year is graded as tradition and the entry sits outside the ranking. That drink is served here is recorded by a publisher with no interest in the house: the Times of Malta, in an appreciation of Philip Nicholson printed on 14 July 2005, has him at the counter with his elbows on it, quietly amused by the tourists who came in hunting for the author A. J. Quinnell — a pen name he built from the rugby player Derek Quinnell and the initials of the barman's son. That account is twenty-one years old, and no later description of the counter has been traced: Times of Malta, Malta Today and gozonews.com all refuse an automated request. What has been traced is the Malta Tourism Authority's public register of licensed establishments, read on 18 September 2026, which carries Gleneagles as a licensed bar at 10, Triq ir-Rebħa, Għajnsielem GSM 2400, under reference BAR-16436. OpenStreetMap records the house as a café, mapped in December 2024.

Dated evidence for Gleneagles Bar, earliest first
Year	What	Source
1732	Claimed founding	Local history
c.1732	Present building	Għajnsielem local council's history of Mġarr harbour, which credits the barrakka of 1732 to Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena

What to look for inside

Raised in 1732 as the harbour's barrakka, a shelter for waiting passengers
Known on Gozo as Il-Barrakka, and roofed with an unusual slope
Philip Nicholson wrote here as A. J. Quinnell, taking the initials from the barman's son
A niche of St Andrew on its wall is on the national inventory as number 01073

Visiting

Gleneagles Bar is in Mġarr, Gozo, Malta, at Triq Martino Garces, Mġarr harbour, Għajnsielem, Gozo. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

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