Sale of landmark Laois pub in Portlaoise confirmed by well-known local family

The sale has been agreed of one of best-known pubs in Laois after being on the market for less than a year, according to its owners.

The sale of the Portlaoise property was confirmed to the Leinster Express / Laois Live by Ivor O'Loughlin, whose family previously ran O'Loughlins Hotel on Main St.

Mr O'Loughlin was unable to go into detail about who the successful bidder was and was not able to say if it would reopen as a pub. He said the sale had been agreed in recent weeks. He declined to comment on the sale price.

The premises, which also include a shop, was put on the market by the O'Loughlin family in May 2025, soon after the operators of Nanny Kelly's ceased trading. The Chris Kelly Group were the most recent tenant.

The O'Loughlin family have been involved in the pub/hospitality trade in Portlaoise since 1995 when Ivor's father Declan purchased what became known as O'Loughlin's Hotel on Main Street. They would go on to purchase Egan's Pub nearby.

The O'Loughlin family now run a pub in Carlow town. MORE BELOW PHOTO.

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After many years of trading as one of Portlaoise's best-known pubs, Egan's closed in 2014. It would reopen for a short time as The Blue Door where Mr Lillis, a former Laois GAA player, co-operated the Manhattan Mixer for a time.

Mr Lillis returned to the Portlaoise premises in 2018 when he went into business with Alan Clancy from the NolaClan pub group to open the business as Lilly's. Former Dublin footballer Bernard Brogan also had an involvement.

Lilly's Bar & Kitchen officially announced closure in February 2024 due to what was described as an "untenable challenging economic landscape, marked by escalating costs".