About McGuinness
Dublin-born Brendan McGuinness spent years travelling, with businesses in the US and the Middle East. He spent five years visiting Basel in his travels before deciding to make a move into business here.
A sign in the window of 33 Elisabethenstrasse showed the building available, and on entering, Brendan saw huge possibilities for the raw space of the room.
It fit immediately with my idea of a great layout for a pub.
Brendan says.
With an intense period of renovation—eight weeks from commencement of renovations to the opening, one of the best features of the pub is also the one people notice the least—the floor. Brought across from Ireland, the floor is made of pine boards that originally came from the Guinness brewery, laid there in 1891.
In establishing McGuinness’s Irish Pub, Brendan wanted to create the atmosphere and environment of an authentic traditional Irish pub, a place where both young and old could sit, chat and relax in a clean and welcoming environment and experience genuine Irish culture.
Brendan has a great passion for Irish music and is a long time supporter of young traditional Irish musicians and bands. To this end, Brendan hosts only traditional Irish bands, and since opening has had bands such as Whiskey Still, The Dublin City Ramblers, Celtic Mist, the Sam Seale Band and the Beer Mats, with future hopes to have performances from Mary Black, the Wolfe Tones and many others.
I would love to see bands such as the Dubliners come out,says Brendan.
Opening day, June 2, was a great night. We had a great crowd and fantastic music from Whiskey Still. It was a great end to all of the hard work of the past eight weeks.
In the next few months, Brendan plans to cater for the increasing crowd by opening up the upstairs sections of the pub, with another serving bar and additional tables.
The ultimate aim is to open three more pubs across Switzerland, all with the same high standards the customers currently enjoy and have come to associate with McGuinness‘s Irish Pub.
