There's a green pub on Bridge Street in Westport that you'll find entirely by accident the first time, even if you've been trying to find it on purpose. The sign above the door reads Matt Molloy's, which tells you something if you know traditional Irish music and absolutely nothing if you don't. But you'll figure it out soon enough from the sound coming through the front door, which on a good night is a fiddle, a flute, an accordion and a bodhran all going at once, and the whole thing fitting together in a way that makes the back of your neck do something.
About the man himself
Matt Molloy is a flute player from Ballaghaderreen in County Roscommon who won the All-Ireland Flute Championship at nineteen and has been quietly improving on that since. He joined The Chieftains in 1979 and has been one of the core reasons the band sounds the way it does for the better part of half a century. He also happens to own a pub in Westport, which is the kind of life decision that makes you think he had his priorities sorted from early on.
He has been running the place on Bridge Street since 1989. The building itself goes back to 1896, which means it has been a pub for longer than most pubs have been in business anywhere. The sessions that run in the back bar most nights of the week are not a tourist attraction bolted on after the fact. They're the reason people come back every year and the reason locals treat the place the way they do, with some proprietary fondness and absolutely no interest in explaining it to anyone who doesn't already understand.
What happens on a session night
The session in the back bar tends to start when it starts. There's no official eight o'clock booking and no MC to announce what you're about to hear. The musicians arrive, set up their pints, and start playing. More musicians arrive and join in. The set list is not a set list. It's a conversation between the players, conducted at considerable volume and with great warmth, and the rule is that if you know the tune you're in, and if you don't you wait your turn. This is the version of music that Matt Molloy has been part of his whole life, and it shows.
This is what a real trad session looks like, and it's different from a performance in the way that a good conversation is different from a speech. Nobody's playing at you. They're playing with each other, and you're welcome to sit close and watch, or to stay at the bar and let it wash over you, or to buy someone a pint and see what happens. The craic on a good night in there is the kind of thing that's impossible to describe usefully to someone who hasn't experienced it. You'll go home thinking you understand it and then go back again to check.
If this is your first trad session
Walk in. Find a seat. Don't film vertically on your phone with the flash on. You don't need to understand the music to enjoy it, but a little context helps. The tunes you'll hear are mostly reels, jigs and hornpipes, played in sets of three or four at a stretch with minimal gaps between them. It's modal rather than harmonic, which means the chords you're expecting don't always arrive when you expect them, and that's not a mistake, that's the point.
Order at the bar. The Guinness is well looked after. If you're not sure what to order, your man behind the bar will have opinions if you ask nicely, and he's generally sound about it. Don't feel obliged to clap at the end of each tune. Real sessions don't pause for applause. The music just continues, rolling into the next set, and the way to acknowledge that you've heard something good is to turn back to your pint and nod slightly. That's the move.
The guide to Westport itself covers the town's layout and what else is worth seeing, which is useful if you're trying to figure out how to fill the hours before the session gets going.
The wider Westport music scene
Matt Molloy's is the anchor, but it's not the whole picture. Westport has a genuine evening circuit across a handful of pubs on and around Bridge Street and James Street. The Towers has sessions. Sean Og's runs trad nights. The town is small enough that you could do a lap of it in an hour and land back at Matt Molloy's and feel like you'd seen the whole thing, which you more or less have, and that's not a complaint.
The good news is that in Westport you're unlikely to end up somewhere putting on a rack of speakers and charging entry for a Wonderwall tribute. The trad scene here is the natural result of living in Mayo, not a customer acquisition strategy. So if you walk into a session that turns out not to be the one you were looking for, you're still probably in the right place.
When to visit and how to plan the day
The sessions in Matt Molloy's run most nights, but they're at their best from Thursday through Sunday when the musicians show up in numbers and the pub fills out properly. In summer, June through August, there's more certainty, and Matt himself has been known to join in when he's in town rather than on the road with The Chieftains, which is the kind of thing that doesn't get into the brochures but absolutely should. In the shoulder months, October or April say, you might get the session to yourself, which some people find better.
If you're building a day around Westport, one natural shape to it is: something active in the morning (the Great Western Greenway is some of the best cycling in Connacht and starts right in town), lunch somewhere on James Street, a walk out along the Quay in the afternoon, and then Matt Molloy's for the evening. If you've done Croagh Patrick in the morning, factor in four to five hours for the full round trip and treat the session that evening as your reward. And as your justification for not going back up the following day.
The pub gets genuinely busy on summer weekend evenings. If standing in a warm room full of people listening to live music while holding a pint sounds like your idea of a good evening, you're sorted. If that sounds like a problem, Thursday suits. The music is just as good on a Thursday and you'll get a seat near the musicians, which makes the whole thing considerably better.
What nights does Matt Molloy's have trad sessions?
Matt Molloy's Bar in Westport runs traditional music sessions most nights of the week, up to seven nights during the summer months. Sessions are most reliably busy from Thursday through Sunday. The music takes place in the back bar and starts in the evening, though the exact time depends on when the musicians arrive, which is how real sessions work.
Is Matt Molloy still involved with The Chieftains?
Matt Molloy joined The Chieftains in 1979 as their flute player and has been a member since. He continues to tour with the band. When he is in Westport rather than on the road, he occasionally joins the sessions at his pub on Bridge Street, which, if you happen to be there when it happens, is the kind of evening you'll still be talking about years later.
How do I get to Matt Molloy's pub in Westport?
Matt Molloy's is on Bridge Street in the centre of Westport, County Mayo. Bridge Street runs along the Carrowbeg River and is a short walk from the Octagon, which is the natural reference point in the town. The pub is easy to find on foot. Westport is served by bus from Galway (roughly ninety minutes) and by rail from Dublin Heuston (about three and a half hours). Parking in town is manageable outside of July and August weekends.
Do you need to book to get into Matt Molloy's?
No booking is required. You walk in, find a space, and order at the bar. On busy summer weekend evenings the pub does fill up, so arriving before nine gives you a better chance of a seat near the session. There is no entry charge for the traditional music.
What is the "Music at Matt Molloy's" album?
Music at Matt Molloy's is a live album recorded during a session at the pub in the early nineties. It captures the informal, spontaneous character of the sessions that happen there regularly and is considered one of the finest recordings of Irish traditional music in a pub setting. It features some of the best trad players in Ireland performing together in the back bar, which is exactly what happens there on a good Thursday evening. Worth listening to before you visit, if only so you know what you're walking into.