23. Costello's Pub Skehana.

Costello’s Pub, Skehana.

Thomas Monahan occupied a tenancy of 23 acres 2 roods and 33 perches in Skehanagh townland in Griffiths Valuation of Tenements in the mid-1850s. Thomas relocated to the nearby townland of Clooncurreen a few years later as both of these areas had Fitzgerald-Kenney, who resided at Spring Park close to Killaclogher, as their landlord.

The tenancy he vacated was then assumed by John Costello who quickly set about establishing a licenced premises that would later expand to include a bottling facility, an undertaking operation and a grocery business that, prior to it’s closure, we all knew as Costello’s Pub.

Much of the documentary film “Deoch an Dorais” which translates as ‘one for the road’ or perhaps ‘name your poison’ was filmed in Costello’s pub here in Skehana and in particular this was the setting for the ‘Speakeasy’. The filming occurred during the summer of 2015 and it had it’s first screening on TG4 on December 28th. 2015.

Little would John Costello who established the licenced premises in the 1860s, or his descendants, have ever dreamed that almost 160 years later, that very same counter, fireplace and shelving would form the backdrop for a gangster movie, Deoch an Dorais, set in 1920s and 1930s New York, would was filmed in Costello’s, almost exclusively, Produced by Megamedia, Furbo, it sets about telling the true story of an Irish emigrant, Mike Malloy (1873-1933).