In 1914, Margaret O'Donovan opened a fully-licensed Bar & Grill in what is now known as O'Connor's Seafood Restaurant.

The O'Connor family bought the premises in the late 1960's and the restaurant evolved into a specialty seafood restaurant in the mid-1980's.

In early 2003, Anne O'Brien, the great grand daughter of Margaret O'Donovan and her husband, Peter, relocated to Bantry to take over the restaurant. Since Anne and Peter took over, the restaurant has enjoyed great critical and commerical success.

"Peter and Anne O’Brien have gifted O’Connor’s with a spanking new, nautical livery, turning it into one of West Cork’s smartest rooms, and they have notched up the food offer as well, delivering their simpler, signature dishes such as mussels, battered fish, local lamb and Skeaghanore duck with sharp precision.

A calm professionalism marks out this Bantry address, making it a sure thing. "

John & Sally McKenna, Bridgestone Guides

"Here they treat their fish with respect. What I liked about O'Connor's is that the food is well-prepared and the fish is cooked properly. I was delighted with it's simplicity."

Paolo Tulio - Irish Independent

The BIM Seafood Circle recognises and awards hospitality and retail businesses that consistently deliver the highest standards of seafood and service.

Georgina Campbell Seafood Restaurant of the Year 2009: O'Connor's Seafood Restaurant, Bantry, Co Cork
sponsored by BIM

"This long-established seafood restaurant is right on Bantry's main square (site of the May mussel festival each year), and has been completely refurbished since Peter and Anne O¹Brien became proprietors a few years ago - creating the stylish, but very comfortable look it has today. And they took care to retain all of the things that have always made this place special - the same staff, the same great seafood and, best of all perhaps,
the same fair prices.

So, you'll find a lobster and oyster fish tank sending all the right messages, and Bantry Bay mussels, cooked all ways, are a big speciality - try their Mussels in Murphy's Stout (steamed in stout and cream), followed perhaps by lobster (when in season), and served with an abundance of fresh vegetables.

Daily specials on a blackboard might include another eight or ten fish dishes, but there's a fair choice of non-fish dishes available too, all using local produce - roast rack of local lamb, perhaps, (served with black pudding mash and a port & thyme jus) ­ and, at lunchtime, there's a more casual menu, including hot or open sandwiches (fresh local crab and mayo; smoked salmon & Durrus cheese) as well as a mini-menu of Bantry Bay mussel dishes and hearty fare such as Seafood Pie or sirloin steak.

And - although this famous restaurant is no longer directly in the O'Connor family, there's actually a very old family connection as Anne O'Brien's great-grandmother was the original owner of the bar licence back in 1914 - which makes for pretty good continuity by any standards."