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Alison, Charlie and Bill Chawke. Rolling News/Brendan Gleeson
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Who are the Chawkes? Inside the hospitality empire built by publican Charlie Chawke
Bill and Alison Chawke were jailed for two-and-a-half years between them yesterday after they pleaded guilty to assaulting two men.
THE JAILING OF Bill and Alison Chawke this week has put one of Ireland’s best-known hospitality families back in the spotlight.
The siblings, children of prominent Dublin publican Charlie Chawke, were sentenced after admitting their roles in a violent assault on two men at the Dunraven Arms Hotel in Adare in November 2023.
For more than five decades, the Chawke name has been associated with some of Dublin’s best-known pubs, multimillion-euro businesses and, at times, public controversy.
During sentencing on Tuesday, their own barristers acknowledged the assault had brought “embarrassment” on the Chawke family name.
Who is Charlie Chawke?
Charlie Chawke grew up in Adare, Co Limerick, where hospitality was already part of the family business.
In 1959, his father, Bill Chawke, and mother, Maura, left their farm in Knockannes to open Bill Chawke’s pub in the village, laying the foundations for what would become the family’s involvement in the licensed trade.
Charlie moved to Dublin aged 16 after finishing school and began working in Davy Byrne’s pub before buying his first two licensed premises in 1970, The Junction on Camden Street and The Bridge House in Dolphin’s Barn.
His biggest breakthrough came in 1982 when he bought The Goat in Goatstown, a pub that would become synonymous with both Chawke and south Dublin.
Over the following four decades he expanded his business steadily.
Today, companies owned by Chawke operate:
- Searsons, Baggot Street
- The Goat, Goatstown
- The Old Orchard, Rathfarnham
- The Dropping Well, Milltown
- The Bank on College Green
- The Oval Bar, Abbey Street
- The Lord Lucan in Lucan
- Bill Chawke’s Bar, Adare
- Aunty Lena’s, Adare
- Fired Up Pizza (four locations)
A business worth tens of millions
The hospitality empire is spread across a number of companies, whose latest published accounts show combined net assets of more than €22 million.
Among the largest are:
- College Inns, which operates The Bank Bar on College Green, with a net worth of more than €7.1 million
- Charjon Investments, one of the family’s principal holding companies, with a net worth of almost €6.4 million
- Searsons Inns, with a net worth of around €4.7 million
- Milltown Inns, linked to The Dropping Well, with a net worth approaching €1.9 million
- The Orchard Inn, associated with The Old Orchard, with a net worth of almost €1.9 million
- Chawkes Woodfired Pizza, with a net worth of almost €1 million
One of Chawke’s biggest business deals came in 2005 when he paid a reported €22 million for The Old Orchard in Rathfarnham, a transaction widely reported at the time as the most expensive pub purchase in Irish history.
What about Bill and Alison?
Both of Charlie Chawke’s children jailed this week have long been involved in the family business.
Bill Chawke has served as a director of Searsons Inns since 2012 and is also a director of Chawkes Woodfired Pizza, the company behind the Fired Up Pizza chain.
Company records show he has previously held directorships in four other Chawke-linked hospitality businesses.
Alison Chawke has served as a director of Lena Chawke Limited, which operates Aunty Lena’s in Adare, since 2010.
She also joined the board of The Orchard Inn Limited in 2019, the company linked to The Old Orchard pub.
No stranger to controversy
Charlie Chawke is a rather well-known public figure, and has frequently made the headlines beyond his pub trade.
In 2007, he appeared before the Mahon Tribunal. There, he confirmed contributing IR£2,500 (around €3,175 at the time, which adjusted for inflation would be about €6,446 now) towards then-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s legal expenses during his marital separation in late 1993, describing it as “just a few quid for a friend”.
He also entered the world of football in 2006 as one of the investors in the Drumaville Consortium, the group led by former Republic of Ireland striker Niall Quinn that completed the takeover of English football club Sunderland AFC. The group later sold their stakes in the club to American businessman Ellis Short in May 2009.
Planning disputes have also followed a number of Chawke’s recent developments.
In 2021, An Bord Pleanála rejected plans by his company Charjon Investments for a €186 million, 299-apartment development centred on The Goat in Rathfarnham after widespread local opposition.
In 2024, Chawke sought planning permission to convert a former betting shop beside The Goat into a funeral home, a proposal opposed by rival funeral directors.
Separately, Chawke was previously a casualty in an armed robbery – in 2003, he was held up by two men armed with sawn-off shotguns outside The Goat while taking cash to the bank. He was shot in the leg by one of the men and his injuries were so severe that his right leg was later amputated.
His comments have also occasionally sparked public debate.
In 2014, Chawke drew criticism after saying he preferred Irish people to work in front-of-house roles in his pubs because visitors wanted to receive an authentic “céad míle fáilte”.
The remarks were criticised by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, while Fáilte Ireland said that there was no evidence tourists preferred to be greeted by Irish staff.
Back in the spotlight
The Chawke name returned to the headlines this week after Bill and Alison Chawke were jailed over an assault on Gerard Cox and John McHugh.
Judge Fiona O’Sullivan described the 2023 attack as “unprovoked” and said it contained “an element of ferocity”, while the defence accepted it had caused considerable embarrassment to a family.
Their defence was that they claimed the two men had stared and smirked at them.
The court heard yesterday that the siblings set upon the two victims, punching and kicking them and at one point during the attack, they gouged the men’s eyes.
Bill Chawke initiated the attack, lunging at one of the men, while Alison Chawke threw a glass pint at the victims.
Alison Chawke bit John McHugh on his face and kicked him in the head as Bill Chawke wrestled with him on the floor of the foyer of the Dunraven.
Bill Chawke was sentenced to two years and six months with the final 12 months suspended, and Alison Chawke was sentenced to two years and two months with the final 14 months of the sentence suspended.
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