Number of Kilkenny pubs down by over a quarter since 2005

57 pubs in Kilkenny have closed their doors since 2005, a reduction of 25.2% from 226 to 169 in a 19 year period.

The closures in Kilkenny are closely reflected in the decline around the country with the number of pubs nationally falling by over 2,100 from 8,617 to 6,498, a drop of 24.6%.

All 26 counties of the Republic saw a fall in pub numbers with an average of 112 shutting every year, a figure which rose to 128 in the five year period since 2019 and the onset of Covid-19 pandemic.

Limerick was the worst affected county with a 37.2% reduction while Dublin had the lowest level of closures at 1.7%.

DIGI said in the report that the high cost of doing business was a major contributing factor in the declining pub numbers recorded, a sentiment that has been echoed by the Irish Hotels Federation who met with TDs and Senators to push for government support to reduce operating costs before the upcoming budget.

The hospitality industry supports 270,000 people nationwide, including 6,600 in Carlow and Kilkenny, something which CEO of the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland, Pat Crotty, highlights as a key impact of the increasing pub closures in the county.

“57 fewer pubs in Kilkenny basically means 57 families who used to make a living out of the pub trade are gone,” he says.

“The pubs aren’t just numbers, they aren’t just businesses, in virtually every case they were family businesses,” he adds.

As well as being devastating for the business owners themselves, the closure of pubs also greatly affects wider communities, especially in rural areas, as yet another social outlet is lost.

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“Smaller communities have lost their Garda station, their shop, their post office, they’ve probably even lost their petrol station at this stage. There’s nothing in a lot of places except the pub,” Crotty outlines.

“You can think of all the places where the pub is virtually the last thing left as the anchor to the community for socialising and if that went it would create fierce isolation.”

The rate of pubs shutting their doors has greatly increased since the Covid lockdowns with 26 of the 57 closures in Kilkenny occurring since 2019.

Factors like high rents, energy costs and insurance premiums along with changes in taxation have made it more difficult for pubs to break even in recent years, something which the Vintners’ Federation and Irish Hotels Federation are calling on the Government to address.

“In the last five years we’ve lost half as many as in the previous 20, so the speed is accelerating rather than reducing,” Crotty explains.

“The Government needs to make a decision, does it actually want pubs? Does it want rural pubs as hubs of community and social activity? If it does, it’s going to have to put something back in.”

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