THAT PUB YOU’VE always wanted could be in your reach. Better yet, that pub your friend has always wanted could be in your reach, which means €1,000 for you.
Bridie Dee’s bar in Dungarvan Co. Waterford is up for sale, and owner Edmund Martin is taking some creative ways to shift it.
Considering it’s Valentine’s Day, Martin is introducing a ‘lonely hearts’ theme to find Bridie Dee her perfect match.
I suppose we’re saying that the pub is lonely. The pub has provided a space where people have met from all over the area, generations of families used to come in telling us of stories about different people meeting in this pub. We think it deserves to be great once again and we would be delighted to see it reopen with new owners.
Martin inherited the pub from his aunt and uncle after they passed away from cancer in 2011, and he and his wife became reluctant publicans, running the bar during their illness
It was tough working during the week and also all weekend but we wouldn’t change it as we had some great times and met some fantastic people.
The pair live and work in Cork and going back and forth to Waterford became too much to handle, so they shut down the pub in July and it’s been for sale ever since.
Martin, who has been running the pub for three years, decided to take matters into his own hands and launch a social media campaign, offering a ‘finder’s fee’ to anyone who successfully plays cupid for Bridie Dee.
It got to the stage where we had to start thinking outside the box of auctioneers, we’re hoping that the €1,000 incentive will help spread the word.
He hopes that by using the public to sell the pub, “more people will tell others about the pub than more traditional sales methods”.
That’s the most important part, the whole crowd-sourcing public possibly helping us with an owner. It could all go terribly wrong, we’ll see.
We, for one, hope that Bridie finds her perfect match. Contact through Twitter or Facebook or Tinder soon (probably) if you fancy playing cupid.
