I WORKED FOR a travel agency for years and then as a pub manager in Wicklow, and that’s what gave me the idea for Rural Pub Tours – that coupled with living in Temple Bar in Dublin and seeing how packed all the bars were with tourists, day and night.
I thought some of them would like a country-pub experience, with the chance to speak to locals and see beautiful scenery along the way.
Most days I’m up at 8am, and very often I’ll go into town and hand out flyers to promote the business. I set up in the summer of 2008, and, thankfully, it has taken off.
I’ll check the internet for bookings and then go and make sure the bus is clean. Last year I hired one, but it was costing me a salary, so this year I bought my own 16-seater bus, and it’s much better.
I’ll do my homework on the group that’s due – learn their names and a little about where they’re from – and then I’ll meet them for departure at 3pm.
We get a mix of ages, from the early 20s to late 60s, and although both groups can be a little wary of each other at first, by the time we come out of the first pub they are all laughing and joking.
The route is plotted so that they’re never on the bus for more than 30 minutes at a stretch. It matters, because when people are drinking they need the loo. The longest stretch is the run home, which is 50 minutes, and by that stage, around midnight, they’ll be asleep or singing.
The route takes us to pubs such as the Blue Light and Johnnie Fox’s – which they go mad for – and the Glenmalure Lodge, where we have our dinner and which I love myself when I’m out with friends.
We also go to the Merry Ploughboy in Rockbrook and Byrnes in Greenane, which is like going back in a time machine.
We finish up in the pub in Redcross I used to manage. It was there that I had the original idea – we were brainstorming to find a way of attracting people to the pub in the long winter nights.
The atmosphere is great and there’s live music, and by the time you’ve spent nine hours with people it feels like being out with friends.
When we get back to Dublin they always ask me to go on somewhere with them, and it seems rude to say no, though it’s costing me a fortune, as I end up buying them all a drink.
Still, it never feels like work, and by the time I get to bed, at around 2am, I’m still on a high from the day.
Shane O’Donoghue is founder of Rural Pub Tours (ruraltours.ie)
In conversation with Sandra O’Connell