Loafers Bar

About this place Loafers Bar

Loafers Bar on Douglas Street has been serving Cork's LGBTQ+ community since 1979, making it the oldest continuously operating gay bar in Ireland outside of Dublin and one of the oldest in the country. The pub has been a community anchor through four and a half decades of Irish social change — from the years when homosexuality was still criminalised to the post-marriage equality era — and its survival and continued relevance is a testament to its role as a genuine community institution rather than just a commercial venue. The bar is a proper Cork pub: unpretentious, warm, with a clientele that spans generations of Cork's gay community. It is the kind of place where the person at the next table has been coming for 30 years and knows everyone else's name. For LGBTQ+ visitors to Cork, Loafers is not just a bar to visit but a piece of Irish LGBTQ+ history to experience. The Douglas Street location is a 10-minute walk from Cork city centre.