AN IRISH pub owner has opened up about the role Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher helped put his bar “back on the map”.
John Finan’s family have run JJ Finan’s pub and hardware store in Charlestown, Co Mayo since 1953.
But while the pub’s rural setting has made for challenging trading conditions, regular visits from Gallagher and his friends have helped keep the local bar open.
Gallagher is a regular visitor to Mayo where his late grandmother Margaret Sweeney, who was a popular figure around the pub and local community, lived.
The singer’s regular visits have helped put the bar on the map as a popular spot for Oasis-loving tourists to visit.
Finan told the Irish Mirror: “Anytime he came to Mayo he liked to come here, he went to every pub in the town and loved to play a game of pool with the locals.
“We’d some good nights in here and I appreciate the man; my bar trade is gone, rural society is falling down, you can’t drink, and drive and Liam has put us back on the map.”
“He brought a good few tourists and stag dos in, people are asking me if Liam drinks here.
“I’m going into retirement in a few years myself, so it’s a big boost that our pub is being featured in the new film.
“He’s done me a lot of favours singing in the pub a few years ago with the locals.”
Finan still remembers the emotional impact of Margaret’s passing on the local community over a decade ago.
“Their grandmother Margaret Sweeney was so special to me; the night she died I was crying,” he told the Irish Mirror.
“She used to give me a few quid for my young lad for birthdays and Christmas, that’s one of the reasons I like the lads – they come from decent people.
“The day of the burial the Noel and Liam had a grand time here, they sat down talking to a lad in the bar for a good hour and had a bit of craic with him.”
JJ Finan’s stills holds a special place in Gallagher’s heart though, with the singer’s new documentary, As It Was, detailing how jamming sessions with locals at the pub helped the Oasis frontman rediscover his love of music following the band’s break-up in 2009.
The full Irish Mirror interview can be accessed here.
As It Was hits cinemas on June 2nd.
