Pubs in Monaghan
Monaghan is better at pubs than it is at most things. The town centre still has a run of bars that were never given a refit, and two or three of them are worth going into for the room alone, whether or not you want a drink. That is getting rare. A lot of Irish towns this size are now down to a couple of large lounges and nothing else.
The old bars
McCarren’s on Old Cross Square is the one to see if you only see one. It is small, plain and quiet, and nobody has redesigned it to look like anything in particular. The usual local description is a pub that time forgot, which is accurate and is meant as a compliment. Go in the early evening. It is not a place that improves with a crowd.
The Shambles Bar at the bottom of Dublin Street is the busier and younger end of the same street. Jukebox rather than a band on most nights, and a good deal more going on at the weekend.
Between these and the hotel bars there are several more genuine front room pubs around the four squares, some of which have no website and no sign of wanting one. Walking Dublin Street, Market Street and Old Cross Square will find them faster than any list will.
Music
McKenna’s on Dublin Street is the town’s music pub. It is family run and has been trading since the 1930s. There are two bars: the Anchor downstairs, which is the traditional room with a jukebox and a pool table, and the Brewery upstairs, which is where the live music, the jam sessions and the weekly open mic happen. It also runs a monthly blues jam which it reckons is the longest running in the country.
Terry’s Bar on Market Street puts on live music at weekends and is the other reliable place to hear something played rather than piped.
On traditional music specifically, be realistic. Monaghan town does not have a fixed nightly trad session the way a tourist town on the west coast does. Sessions here move, and they are as often in the county villages as in the town. McCague’s Bar in Scotstown and Adamson’s in Clones both run trad regularly, and Comhaltas branches in the county keep a schedule going. If you are coming for a session, check the week rather than turning up and hoping.
The pubs that do food
The Squealing Pig is the best known bar and restaurant in the centre and the default answer when someone in Monaghan is asked where to eat. It does full meals rather than bar snacks and it is busy in the evenings, so book if you are a group.
Andy’s on Market Street is a bar with a serious kitchen behind it. It is long established, family run, and it is reckoned to be one of the oldest family run restaurants in the country. It ages and butchers its own beef, which almost nothing else in this part of the county does, and the gin list has got it more national press than the rest of the town’s pubs put together.
Several other bars serve food at lunchtime and stop in the afternoon. Hotel bars are the other option for a sit down meal, and the tavern at the Westenra Arms on the Diamond does live music at weekends as well. The hotels are listed on places to stay in Monaghan.
Drinking pubs and eating pubs
The distinction matters here more than it does in a city. Some of the older bars do not serve food at all and have no intention of starting. If you go into a quiet front room bar at eight looking for dinner, you will be sent somewhere else, politely. Work out which kind of evening you want first. The full picture of where to eat is on eating out in Monaghan.
A caution
Pubs change hands and licences lapse, and the ones with the most character are usually the ones with the least online presence, which makes them the hardest to check. The bars named here were trading when this page was written. If you are travelling for a specific one, look it up first.
Details on this page last checked . If something here is out of date, it probably is our fault rather than yours.