The claim
A three-storey bar in Galway's Latin Quarter, the King's Head claims a building with 800 years of history, once home to a mayor of Galway. Its name comes from the story that Colonel Peter Stubbers, said to have beheaded Charles I, took the house in 1649. Today it is a busy music pub with free bands nightly, a bistro and its own red ale.
What the records show
The pub claims a 13th-century building, once a mayor's house, seized by Colonel Peter Stubbers, whom it calls the executioner of Charles I; that identification is unproven. When the house became a pub is undocumented. The claim names a century and no year, so the ranking sorts it from the century's first year. The national inventory has now been searched, and it holds no entry for the house at all: within fifty metres of 15 High Street the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage records five buildings and none of them is the King's Head. That comparison is worth having, because the inventory is not shy of medieval fabric in this street. It dates Nos 11 and 12 High Street to about 1820 on late medieval or early seventeenth-century walls, reading a Font coat of arms above one shopfront and, over a doorway at No. 12, a limestone chimney lintel lettered Ave Maria Gracia and IHS with the date 1615; round the corner at 26 Shop Street it finds a mid-sixteenth-century house behind an 1890s front, identified by a plaque naming Thomas Martin and Evelin Linche and dated 1562. Where medieval stone survives on this street the surveyors say so and quote the date carved on it. Nothing of the kind is recorded for No. 15, so the 800 years rests on the pub's own telling.
What to look for inside
- Name tied to the legend of Charles I's executioner
- Won 2026 awards for live entertainment
- Brews its own Blood Red Ale
Visiting
The King's Head is in Galway, Ireland, at 15 High Street, Latin Quarter, Galway. 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.thekingshead.ie/
- www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/oldest-pub-in-every-irish-county/
- archive.org/details/historyoftowncou00hard
- services-eu1.arcgis.com/HyjXgkV6KGMSF3jt/arcgis/rest/services/NIAHBuildingsOpenData/FeatureServer/0/query?where=1%3D1&geometry=-9.05405%2C53.27168%2C-9.05255%2C53.27258&geometryType=esriGeometryEnvelope&inSR=4326&spatialRel=esriSpatialRelIntersects&outFields=REG_NO%2CNUMBER%2CSTREET1%2CORIGINAL_TYPE%2CDATEFROM%2CDATETO&returnGeometry=false&f=html
- 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
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