The Harbour Bar, BRAY, Wicklow

The Harbour Bar was established in 1872 and was bought by James O’Toole in 1932. It changed hands 81 years later when the Duggan family bought the famous bar in 2013.The Harbour Bar was once both a bar and undertakers, and rumour has it that it is immortalised somewhere in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. Joyce is one of many celebrated people who patronised the bar over its long history. Peter O’Toole, when filming nearby in Ardmore Studios, would often drink in The Harbour Bar and donated the famous moose head (a prop from Woody Allen’s What’s New, Pussycat?) as a gesture of gratitude to the owners for making sure he was returned in one piece to his hotel each night. Other icons that have enjoyed a drink at The Harbour Bar include Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Bono, and Brendan Behan.