For 25-year-old Áine Ryan, helping to turn her home into a pub one night a week is a full-on family affair that has put Jim O’ the Mill in Tipperary very firmly on the map. For the Ryan’s five daughters and their parents, home is a 200-year-old mill deep in the rolling hills of Upperchurch and just a short drive from Thurles. But journey there any Thursday night and the music, culture and people that you meet within its walls will transport you back to a time when music, friendship and welcome were the measure of how well people lived. With only one beer on tap and two roaring fires, this is a place designed to celebrate Ireland, family and good neighbours.
Áine’s father Jim inherited the mill, and the farm it stands on, with a seven-day pub licence intact, but with a life on the land firmly established he wasn’t driven to run a full-time pub. Instead, he decided to open one night a week, inviting friends and neighbours in to talk and play music - he is well known as an accomplished fiddler, singer and storyteller himself.
Immerse yourself in a 360-degree video experience of a trad music session from Jim O' the Mill's pub (For the optimum experience please use a VR headset)
As his family grew over the years, so did the popularity of his one-night per week music sessions and eventually his daughters joined him in welcoming friends new and old into his home. All adults now, his five daughters are united in their sense of place, the importance of protecting culture and tradition and are immensely proud of their parents’ achievements. Musicians travel from all over the world to join them in song and tune, they say, and they never know from one Thursday to the next who will turn up.
Sometimes music sessions will spark up in each room and battle for dominance as the evening grows into a crescendo. The atmosphere is electric and the appreciation and silence suddenly afforded a singer is a very special experience.
Jim O’ the Mill is a place worth travelling to and the Ryan family, as custodians of Irish music and culture, should be rightly proud of what they have created. Regulars here may fondly refer to you as “stranger” as they call for you to sing or play on your first visit but, if you do join in, you’ll quickly feel at home in this uniquely Irish establishment at the beating heart of Ireland.
THE LOOP at Dublin and Cork airports
The Loop is a must-visit at Dublin and Cork airports for airport shopping.
The shopping arena has the best brands from around the world including alcohol, confectionery, fragrance, make up and skincare.
The Loop has a large collection of beauty brands, including MAC, Clarins, Bobbi Brown, Jo Malone, La Mer and Chanel.
To make the aiport shopping experience as seamless as possible The Loop offers two great free services. For those that like to shop in advance, Click and Collect is ideal as you can browse and purchase all your shopping needs 12 hours in advance of your flight via theloop.ie. Your purchases can then be picked up on departure or arrival at the airport. You can even shop up to three months in advance of your flight.
They also offer a Shop and Collect service, the easy way to do your airport shopping. Buy anything you want from any of the shops in the airport and they will store it for you, free of charge. Then just collect it when you arrive back from your trip abroad – they'll even text you a reminder.
