Bridie Keating

To understand Keating's Bar, you have to understand Bridie Keating. She took over the pub and ran it for more than fifty years, and in that time she became inseparable from the place itself. Not because she was larger than life — though she was — but because she treated every person who came through the door as if the pub existed specifically for them.

She dried wet gear for strangers who'd come in off the water. She knew the names of children whose parents had been coming since before they were born. She kept a Damian Foxall feature on the wall — the world-class sailor who learned to love the sea from Derrynane Harbour and who thought of it as home port long after he'd raced across oceans.

When Bridie passed away in 2018, at the age of 83, the tributes came from across Ireland and around the world. That is not a small thing for a small pub at the end of a Kerry road.

She is why people call it Bridie's. That name is not going anywhere.