The Blue Light pub at Barnacullia on the edge of the Dublin Mountains is not the sort of run-of-the-mill bar that you would find on the corner of the average street.

At one time, it served as a private hilltop lighthouse for smugglers as they arrived by sea in Dublin. The story of this unusual dual purpose as a drinking den and pirates’ shining light is in its name.

In a quiet corner of the pub, Paddy Healy, son of the present owner, says how a beam from the top of the bar once guided importers of contraband wine, spirits and other goods into Dublin Bay.

Customs officers used to check along the Dublin coast looking for smuggled goods coming in by boats. But as the historian Donal Fallon has noted, the smugglers had their own intelligence network involving the mountainy men in the pub on the fringes of south Co Dublin.

When the customs officers in Dún Laoghaire harbour clocked off, a light signal would be sent up to the pub in the foothills of the mountains.

A beam of blue light would then be sent back out to the bay using a ship’s lantern. This let sea smugglers know that the coast was clear.

: Steve Humphreys