The claim
A plain traditional bar on Barrack Street, at the gate of Elizabeth Fort, which reopened at the end of May 2024 after a refit that added a snug and a butcher's block counter. It was The Gateway for generations and Barbarella for a short while before the new owners went back to the name a local historian found had come first. Live music and DJs at weekends.
What the records show
The bar's own site says Cork's oldest since 1698, and Yay Cork reported the same year as the widely held local belief when the pub reopened in 2024. No record of 1698 has been traced, and nothing has been established about the age of the building. One thing the 2024 reopening did settle, through a local historian the new owners consulted: the first name over the door was the Old Bear, not The Gateway, which is what the pub was called for most of living memory. It traded briefly as Barbarella before Ernest Horgan's team restored the older name and reopened on 31 May 2024. The licence that followed the reopening is on the public record: Revenue's register of liquor licences renewed for 2025/2026, standing as at 2 September 2026, carries a seven-day ordinary publican's licence at 125 Barrack Street, Cork, under reference CXP617, held by Press Down Entertainment Limited and trading as Old Bear, with Raymond Ernest Horgan as its nominee — the publican the reopening reports name.
What to look for inside
- Reopened 31 May 2024 under the name a local historian traced as the first
- Stands at the gate of Elizabeth Fort on Barrack Street
Visiting
Old Bear is in Cork, Ireland, at 125 Barrack Street, Cork T12 YY52. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- www.oldbear.ie/
- www.yaycork.ie/corks-oldest-pub-has-a-new-name-old-bear-is-eyeing-up-a-june-opening-on-barrack-street/
- www.yaycork.ie/new-pub-old-bear-opens-this-friday-and-heres-a-surprise-fact-about-the-name/
- www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/excise/licences/liquor-licences.aspx
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
Run this pub? There is a badge for it
Free to put on your own site, no permission needed. It shows what the pub claims and what the records support, and it changes when the data does.
How to use it, and how to change what it says — if you have a document we have not seen, we would like to read it.
