British pub chain JD Wetherspoon has announced plans to open three new bars in Ireland over the coming months.
The company, which currently operates two pubs in the Republic, said it is to open The Great Wood in Blanchardstown on June 23rd, The Old Borough in Swords on July 21st and The Linen Weaver in Cork on September 1st.
JD Wetherspoon is to invest more than six million euros on developing the new pubs and will create approximately 150 jobs.
The company has acquired a number of other properties in the Republic of Ireland including a former homeless hostel on Camden Street in Dublin. The group is to invest more than €4 million developing a new pub and hotel at Camden Hall.
"Our first two pubs have proven extremely popular and we are looking forward to opening our next three pubs," said JD Wetherspoon founder and chairman Tim Martin.
“We have also acquired a number of other sites in the Republic of Ireland and look forward, in due course, to developing and opening them as Wetherspoon pubs. We are also continuing to look for good sites across the Republic of Ireland,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Martin told the Irish Times that the chain’s two Dublin bars were performing “in line with, if not better than expectations.”
The chain, which plans to open 30 bars across Ireland over the next five years, was founded in 1979. It operates more than 900 bars across Britain. In Ireland it runs the Three Tun Tavern in Blackrock and the Forty Foot in Dun Laoghaire.
Having fallen out with Heineken last year in a row over pricing that saw the pub chain stop selling its products - which also includes Murphys - Mr Martin joked that the dispute ended with a "good old-fashioned Irish compromise with both sides really dissatisfied."
