This colourful new Irish festival is serving Manchester’s coldest pint

Manchester’s favourite Irish venue, O’Shea’s, has announced a two-week Irish festival, with celebrations beginning this weekend.

The festival puts an end to the two-year celebratory drought, topped off with pint after pint of ice-cold Guinness on tap.

Held on the site of O’Shea’s Beer Garden, there’s also a brand-new food menu from the Eat New York team with an Irish American twist, and the cocktails will be free flowing with espresso and passionfruit martinis on tap.

O’Sheas have built a reputation for pouring some of the best Guinness outside of Ireland, brilliant live shows and heart-stopping sports since opening in 1994.

The converted, turn-of-the-century packing and shipping warehouse is set between the traditionally Irish area of Little Ireland and St Austins on Princess Street.

Since opening, it has been a destination point for Irish hospitality and traditions, and during the government-enforced closure, the operators have extensively refurbished the interior.

The venue, a stone’s throw from Piccadilly Station, has been beautifully re-designed, draped in the colours of the Emerald Isle.

Now, for the long awaited St Patrick’s Day celebration, they promise to fit that two year wait into a fun packed two weeks.

The food menu from Eat New York includes a range of suitably titled burgers, bagels, subs and fries.

There’s the Dirty Old Town burger (chuck and brisket patty, fried onions, American mustard, house ketchup and pickles) for £8.50 – and you can add on black or white pudding for £2.50.

Then there’s the Galway Girl chicken burger (buttermilk fired chicken, Cashel blue cheese, buffalo sauce, pickles) for £10 and the NY Pastrami burger (hot pastrami, mustard and sauerkraut) for £8.50 – and you can add on Clonakilty Irish sausage for £2.

There’s also an Irish melt bagel with deep fried cheese, red onion chutney, red cabbage slaw and Cashel blue mayo (£8.50), and a vegan meatball sub (£8.50) as well as a selection of loaded fries.

There’ll also be live music from bands and local performers including Green Hot Clover, The Joe Keegan Band, Live Lounge, Culainn, Nicky Mc Callan, Quare Craic, Barry James and the Irish Ramblers, Mollys, Chambers featuring Richard Sanderson on fiddle, and The Last Drop.

The Guinness may be cold, but the welcome is sure to be warm. Sláinte!

The festival will run from 10th – 20th March 2022 at O’Shea’s Beer Garden.