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Sources: Nashua Holiday Inn – including landmark Killarney’s Irish Pub – closing, facing demolition

By Dean Shalhoup - Senior Staff Writer | Aug 11, 2021

File photo The main entrance to Nashua's Holiday Inn, shown in a recent photo. (File photo)

NASHUA – Word that one of Nashua’s most beloved and enduring pubs, along with its companion function hall famous for its bar inside a life-size replica pirate ship, are apparently closing for good ignited a firestorm of disbelief and sadness over social media starting early Tuesday morning.

Attempts to reach North-South LTD, the Portsmouth-based firm that is listed in city property records as the current owners, have so far been unsuccessful.

The one phone number listed for North-South LTD is no longer in service.

But several sources, including people familiar with employees, indicate that the hotel, pub and its several function rooms will close Sept. 2.

Many of the same sources said the property has been sold, or is in the process of being sold, to people or a business planning to raze the building and build a high-end car dealership on the site.

File photo The bar in The Bounty, formerly The Bounty Lounge, is built into the replica pirate ship that is the centerpiece of the Holiday Inn's large function room. (File photo)

“No, say it isn’t so,” wrote one of the scores of people who posted comments to social media.

“Oh, this is sad news. The Holiday Inn was my first job,” wrote another.

The Holiday Inn was one of the few businesses in the area of Harris Road and Northeastern Boulevard when it began operations in the late 1960s.

The hotel featured a couple of pubs with different names and themes before the first incarnations of today’s Killarney’s Irish Pub began doing business on the first floor of the three-story hotel.

An Irish singer and entertainer named Kieran McNally began playing regularly at Killarney’s some 35 years ago, a streak that continues today with his regular Wednesday night appearances.

Courtesy photo Killarney's, the Nashua Holiday Inn's popular Irish pub, following a recent renovation. (Courtesy photo)

Other musicians have performed over the decades, and Karaoke nights were on the schedule for several years, but McNally has outlasted them all.

A follow-up to this story is possible once more information becomes available.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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