A portrait of the Irish pub 

Until he left for college at 19, artist Conor Langton had never owned a house key. Living above his family’s pub, he’d never needed one. ‘The only way into my house was through the pub’s front door. We had one big key behind the bar, which I’d put back through the letterbox when I went to school.’ It was a happy, if noisy, place to grow up (‘even now, I need a good alarm clock’), and left him with a deep affinity for traditional Irish pubs.

‘Everyone who comes to Ireland has an idea in their head of what an Irish pub should be, and I don’t think they’re wrong,’ he says. ‘They’re where we go for everything: to celebrate, catch up or commiserate, to fall in love… They’re cosy and they’re lived in: somewhere you can just settle in and get talking to the person next to you.’

They’re also the subject of his remarkable illustrations. It’s a project that began two years ago, when his dad asked him to draw Langtons, the family’s pub in Kilkenny. More used to penning portraits for the likes of Rolling Stone, Conor relished the challenge. ‘It was just like working on a portrait,’ he says. ‘You’re capturing a character.’

He’s now drawn 40 pubs and counting – a process that starts with a visit to each pub, camera in hand. He’s looking for the quirks that somehow tell a story, the things you might not see at first glance: a crack in the tiling, a faded Guinness poster, or a slanting, hand-painted sign. If he’s missing even the smallest detail, he can’t complete the piece. ‘These are places that have survived for 100 years,’ he says. ‘Everything has to be exact.’

The finished portraits, though, are more than just precision-drawn facades. Dotted with tiny, telling details, they brim with energy and life. It’s there in the fiddle hanging outside, the bright flowers of a window-box; a half-drawn blind in an upper window, or a glimpse of a birthday piñata. There’s a sense of the stories the pubs could tell, and the lives lived within their walls. ‘They’re not new and shiny,’ Conor nods. ‘And that’s what creates the character.’

Is there a danger that they could soon disappear? He pauses for a moment. ‘Twenty years ago, that might have been the case; now, I feel like people see these pubs are landmarks, and part of Irish culture.’ Though many have already been lost, he says, others have found ways to thrive. ‘It’s not about following the latest fads. It’s about staying true to who they are.’

In any case, he’s going to keep drawing. ‘I don’t often get one done a week, but that’s my goal. My plan is just to catalogue as many as I can, working my way around Ireland.’ And beyond, perhaps? He has, after all, already ventured to New York, to draw the iconic Dead Rabbit. He ponders for a moment, smiling. ‘Now then I’d really be in trouble.’

For more on Conor’s work, visit his website.

Eight epic Irish pubs