The claim
Down an entry off Market Street, a low, beamed bar with an open fire, run by Joanne Shilliday, who has put on the ERA music festival in the Shambles Yard and had beers and whiskeys made with local producers. The name comes from the gap through which food reached prisoners when the building was Armagh's jail.
What the records show
The date the bar keeps, 1615, is the year the building went up as Armagh's jail, where families passed food to prisoners through a hole in the wall, which is where the name comes from. Drinking came later: the same local account gives 1693 for the first licence as a public house, and that is the first record of a drinking house here rather than a prison. The Northern Ireland register of historic buildings has now been searched across the city centre and holds no entry for the bar or for McCrums Court: within the streets around it the register carries the technical institution on Market Street, the terrace at Jenny's Row, the banks on Scotch Street and the former Beresford Arms on Upper English Street. So no listing text exists to test either year, and no licensing register has been traced either, which keeps this at C with the 1693 licence as the earliest date anyone cites.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1615 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1615 | Present building | Local history reported in Armagh I |
| 1693 | First record of a drinking house here | CAMRA |
What to look for inside
- Built as Armagh's jail, with food passed to prisoners through a hole in the wall
- First licensed as a public house in 1693
- Host to the ERA music festival in the Shambles Yard
Visiting
Hole in the Wall is in Armagh, Northern Ireland, at 9 Market Street, Armagh BT61 7BW. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- armaghi.com/news/armagh-news/armagh-behind-the-bar-the-hole-in-the-wall-owner-talks-rascals-rogues-and-remarkable-memories/308138
- camra.org.uk/pubs/hole-in-the-wall-armagh-117665
- www.facebook.com/theholeinthewallarmagh/
- services2.arcgis.com/BdBkthNLO9mzGAMO/arcgis/rest/services/Listed_Buildings_Centroid/FeatureServer/0/query?where=1%3D1&geometry=-6.6549%2C54.3467%2C-6.6511%2C54.3489&geometryType=esriGeometryEnvelope&inSR=4326&spatialRel=esriSpatialRelIntersects&outFields=HB_Ref_No%2CAddress%2CCurrentGra&returnGeometry=false&f=html
- ratings.food.gov.uk/business/724892
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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