MacCarthy's Bar is the best-known pub in Castletownbere, partly because Pete McCarthy used it as the title and final stop of his comic Irish travel book. It began as a nineteenth-century pub and grocery, and some of that mixed-use character still clings to the place.
Come for a pint, the snug, and the sense of a pub that belongs to the town rather than to visitors. Traditional music turns up at times, but it is just as good as a low-key harbour-town bar after a day on Beara.