BUILT ON
TRADITION.
Made for Craic.
The Hidden Naggin started with an old caravan, a few mad ideas and Jonny McGeough's love for the kind of Irish pub that feels harder and harder to find.
THE STORY
For years, Jonny talked about building a pub on wheels. After too many weekends sitting in wet festival tents watching rain lash sideways across fields, he wanted somewhere he could actually enjoy a pint and maybe sleep in afterwards.
"I was fed up in a tent. I kept asking Dad if he could build me a pub I could bring to festivals. He said I was mad, but the idea stuck."
The idea stayed as talk until a trip to Nolan's pub in Rosscarbery, West Cork, in January 2017. Nolan's had been open forty years that July and owner Denis Nolan was planning a celebration. Over a pint, Jonny mentioned the idea of building a mobile Irish pub. By the end of the conversation, hands were shaken and Jonny promised he'd have the pub down to Rosscarbery that summer.
There was only one problem.
The pub didn't exist yet.
THE CARAVAN
They knew they needed a twin axle, a bigger four-wheel caravan that would be steadier on the road and roomy enough inside to feel like a real pub.
Jonny's dad found one while driving through Ballyconnell. It was sitting in a field, battered and half destroyed. It had belonged to four lads who'd once brought it to a Fleadh years before and never got around to getting rid of it.
Most people would have seen scrap.
Jonny's dad saw potential.
A small deal was shaken on at the door. The caravan was towed home that day.
"When Mam saw it coming down the lane she said, 'Get that thing out of here. You're not wise.'"
She probably wasn't wrong.
Years later, one of the original four owners sent Jonny a message on Facebook: "That's my old caravan." He still has the message.
BUILDING THE NAGGIN
There was never a grand business plan. Jonny's dad jotted a rough idea in pencil on a piece of paper and that became the blueprint for the whole build.
It was a family job from the start, Jonny the ideas, his dad the build, and his mam the interior touch. With only six months before West Cork, most evenings were spent in the shed working through it.
The caravan was stripped right back to the axle and rebuilt from the ground up. Fully insulated, finished in fibreglass, and then given an exterior coat of sand and paint mixed together to recreate the rough, uneven texture of an old rural Irish cottage.
Every detail was handmade, the sash windows, the John Deere green half door, the woodwork and the interior fittings.
"Dad can turn his hand to anything. He made the door, the windows, everything. Once he got going it all started coming together."
The biggest debates came around the wheel arches inside. They could have taken the easy route, seating on one side, an electric fire on the other, but instead Jonny's dad built a proper cottage-style fireplace on one side and a dresser on the other, made from an old bedroom unit.
At one stage, Jonny nearly veered toward an 80s retro-style pub before deciding to stay true to the old Irish cottage atmosphere that started the whole thing.
Thankfully, he did.
INSIDE THE PUB
Inside The Hidden Naggin feels less like a themed bar and more like stepping into your Irish granny's house.
Most of the memorabilia came straight from Jonny's granny's home. The rest was picked up in charity shops, antique stores and old shops around the country over years of collecting vanishing Ireland. There's turf stacked by the bar, humour signs on the walls, and net curtains on the sash windows, the old nosy enablers.
The wallpaper is original Irish wallpaper from 1938. It was deliberately left choppy and uneven because Jonny didn't want anything to look too slick or modern. A turf-scented candle sits inside the door and hits you the moment you walk in.
"The Pope, the Sacred Heart, the old signs, all of it's genuine. Nothing was bought to look fake old."
One of the smallest details in the pub probably means the most.
Mounted on the wall is an old horseshoe that belonged to Jonny's dad's horse, Céili, who passed away over fifteen years ago. The walking sticks inside the pub slot perfectly into it.
"Dad still looks at it sometimes and says, 'Poor Céili.' Madness, I know. But it shows you what he thinks of the place."
She's sturdy enough to take a good Irish jig, too.
WEST CORK
By July 2017, the pub was ready. Barely.
They towed it over 400 kilometres from Fermanagh to West Cork and parked it outside Nolan's in Rosscarbery for what was supposed to be two nights.
Instead, word spread. People started arriving from all over, locals, tourists, neighbours, curious passers-by. What was meant to be a short visit turned into a five-day stay. The pub even made the Southern Star.
One photograph from that weekend still stands out to Jonny more than any other, a man called Gary sitting at the bar with a pint and a pipe, looking completely at home.
That weekend proved something important.
People weren't just interested in a mobile bar.
They connected with the feeling of the place.
"It was Nathan Carter who was in it early on and said I should be renting it out. So I did. I called it The Hidden Naggin and put it up for hire, and as the years go on, the more people want it."
THE ZACH BRYAN STORY
Years later, this little pub built in Fermanagh somehow found itself backstage at Zach Bryan's Phoenix Park shows.
Aiken Promotions booked The Hidden Naggin for five nights as part of the VIP backstage area for Zach, the band, friends and family. Guinness and Diageo sponsored the drinks. Jonny already had tickets to the gig as a fan. Now he was setting up his own pub behind the stage.
Getting onto site felt surreal, passing through three rounds of security into a backstage area full of cabins labelled:
- Zach Bryan Dressing Room
- Zach Bryan Wardrobe
- Zach Bryan Gym
"Everyone on site was amazed at what we were setting up. They couldn't believe it was a pub."
The weather was perfect all five days. Zach spent two hours in the pub before each gig and three hours after, just enjoying a beer and winding down. He posted several photos from inside, including the now-famous image of him sitting on the bicycle outside.
That photo has since become a trend, people recreate it at events all over Ireland.
"We had to let the tyres down because people kept trying to take the bike for a spin."
Zach's father, Dwayne, never left the place. After the gigs, Jonny noticed one of the old walking sticks from inside the pub was gone. Dwayne had left a note, he couldn't leave Dublin without it.
It's been appearing in his social media photos ever since.
"He takes it everywhere with him. We don't mind, we're delighted."
MORE THAN A MOBILE BAR
Since West Cork, The Hidden Naggin has travelled all over Ireland for weddings, birthdays, festivals and celebrations of every kind.
For Jonny, the best part has always been the same, seeing people's faces when the pub first arrives.
Nobody hangs back.
The doors open and people immediately start wandering inside, pointing at things they recognise from their childhood, old family homes or pubs they grew up around.
The older crowd especially connect with it. Jonny loves doing birthdays for people over fifty, they appreciate every detail inside the pub and take it all in.
Nan McAdam celebrated both her 98th and 99th birthdays inside The Hidden Naggin and is preparing to celebrate her 100th this year.
Jonny remembers every wedding. He knows the Naggin has been the main talking point at each one.
"At the end of the night people rarely talk about the drink. They talk about the atmosphere and the feeling of the place. Word of mouth is what keeps us going."
That was always the point.
To build something that felt like a proper Irish pub.
Just one that happened to end up on wheels.
