The Moorings & Bridge Bar
A family-run guesthouse, seafood restaurant and traditional pub gathered on the harbour front at Portmagee, The Moorings and its Bridge Bar are the social heart of the village and a favourite base for the Skellig boats. Sea-view rooms, locally landed fish and lively music sessions - with a genuine brush of Star Wars fame thrown in.
If Portmagee has a living room, this is it. The Moorings and its adjoining Bridge Bar have anchored the waterfront in Portmagee for generations - the bar was opened back in 1959 and the family has run the show ever since, latterly Gerard and Patricia Kennedy. What began as a village pub has grown into a small guesthouse with a well-regarded seafood restaurant, but it has kept the easy, unpretentious warmth of the original.
The draw is threefold. There are comfortable en-suite rooms, several looking straight out over the harbour; there's a kitchen that makes the most of what the boats bring in - chowder, mussels, scallops and properly fresh fish; and there's the Bridge Bar itself, where traditional music sessions get going and the talk runs late. Being a few steps from the pier, it's a natural base for anyone sailing out to Skellig Michael, and a fine place to wait out a blown-out crossing.
Then there's the Star Wars footnote. When the films were shot on Skellig Michael, cast and crew washed up in Portmagee, and local lore has it that Mark Hamill - Luke Skywalker himself - not only drank in the Bridge Bar but got behind the taps to pull a pint of Guinness; director J.J. Abrams is said to have called in too.
The Moorings is very much a going concern, with strong reviews and, by its own account, doors open year-round - though, as ever with a small family business, it's worth booking a room or a table ahead in the busy Skellig season and confirming hours off-season.
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