The Greyhound, Kinsale

The claim

A small bar on Market Square in Kinsale, red-panelled and low-ceilinged, with snugs, open fires and a counter that leans. Yay Cork calls it the oldest bar in the town and dates the serving to 1690, a licence year the travel writers repeat without naming a record. Guinness and Murphy's, sailors among the regulars for most of its history, and music some nights.

What the records show

The year here is the travel press's and not the house's. Yay Cork, writing in November 2020, dates the serving to 1690 and calls it the oldest bar in Kinsale; the travel publisher The Irish Road Trip says the licence stretches back to 1690 and that the building is older than the licence. Neither names a record, and nothing has been traced for these premises — no licence roll, no deed, no dated map — so the year is entered as somebody else's claim and graded as tradition until a document turns up. On the building, this page said the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage held nothing for Market Square, and that was wrong. Read through the inventory's open data on 17 September 2026, the survey covers the square thoroughly, including the market house of about 1610 that is now the museum, the water pump, the telephone box and several houses turned public house. Its record 20851078, mapped about two metres from the bar, describes an attached single-bay three-storey former house built about 1770, with a two-bay two-storey dormer-attic former house beside it, both now in use as a public house, under a hipped slate roof with wrought-iron eaves brackets. If that is this bar, and the position says it is, the fabric is a century later than the 1690. Two smaller things worth knowing. The bar is mapped as The Grey Hound, in two words, which is why searches under one word miss it, and it also trades under the longer name The Greyhound and Market Bar. The trading is no longer a guess: Revenue's list of liquor licences renewed for 2025/2026, standing as at 2 September 2026, carries a seven-day publican's licence for Market Square, Kinsale, held by Oakley Taverns Limited and trading as the Grey Hound Bar, with Enda Burke as its nominee, reference CXP862. The map agrees, the premises still entered as a pub, with the postcode, on 9 January 2026.

What to look for inside

Dated 1690 in the travel press, with no record named behind the year
Mapped as The Grey Hound, two words, which is why searches miss it
Snugs, open fires and red panelling in two small rooms

Visiting

The Greyhound is in Kinsale, Ireland, at Market Square, Kinsale, County Cork, P17 PV44. 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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