Live Music on the Deck — What to Expect at The Spinnaker
By The Spinnaker Team · Dunmore East, Co. Waterford
There are certain combinations that work so well together that they stop feeling like a combination and start feeling like a single thing. Live music on a harbourside deck in the evening is one of them. The Spinnaker Bar in Dunmore East has been running live music on the deck through the summer season, and people drive from Waterford City specifically for it. Here is what the evenings are like.
The Setting
The deck at The Spinnaker faces the harbour. In the evening in summer — particularly in June and July, when the sky stays light until ten o'clock — the deck is where the village gathers. The fishing boats are in for the day. The harbour is at its most still. The light on the water shifts from the bright white of afternoon to the gold and orange of the long Irish summer evening.
Music in this setting does something that indoor venues cannot replicate. The sound carries across the water. The harbour acts as a natural amphitheatre — not in any grand architectural sense, but in the practical sense that sound behaves well in an open space like this, with the cliff and the village on one side and the water on the other. A good musician on the deck at The Spinnaker sounds like they are playing exactly where they should be.
What's Playing
The music at The Spinnaker is live music in the traditional Irish sense: a musician or two, acoustic instruments, the repertoire of Irish folk, trad and popular music that has been the sound of the pub for generations. It is not a DJ night or a function band. It is a session-style performance in an outdoor pub setting, which is both the most democratic form of live music and, in the right environment, the most enjoyable.
The sessions run on Friday and Saturday evenings through the summer season. The schedule varies — check the Spinnaker Facebook page for the current week's music and times. The team updates it regularly and the Facebook page is the single most reliable source for what is happening when.
The Food and the Music
A live music evening at The Spinnaker is not a concert with a bar attached — it is a pub evening with music as part of the atmosphere. The kitchen is running full service. The seafood chowder at €13.50 arrives between sets. The beer-battered fish (€22.50) and the garlic mussels (€14) are the popular orders for a music evening — food that suits the casual, unhurried pace of an outdoor session.
The combination of harbour view, cold pint, live music and fresh seafood is one of those things that sounds like a cliché until you experience it, at which point it stops being a cliché and starts being the reason you drive 16km from Waterford City on a Friday evening.
Getting There and Booking
Friday music evenings are the busiest nights at The Spinnaker in summer. If you want a table — particularly a deck table — ring ahead: (051) 383 133. The bar can hold a table for you. Walk-ins are welcome if there is space, but music evenings fill up quickly in July and August.
Free parking at the harbour. Lower Village, Dunmore East, Co. Waterford. 16km from Waterford City.
For this week's music schedule: check the Spinnaker Facebook page.
Come Eat With Us
Walk-ins welcome most days. Ring ahead for Friday & Sunday evenings or groups of 6+.
Lower Village, Dunmore East — on the harbour.