About Us

Dar has been lacking one thing, which every other major city in the world has. An Irish bar! But at the end of 2006, this problem was addressed, when O’Willies Irish Whiskey Tavern opened in the Peninsula Sea View Hotel, Msasani, Dar-es-Salaam.

We have a beautiful terrace bar, where you can sit and enjoy the lapping waves and sea views as far as the eye can see. It is perfect for sundowners with the sky turning darkening shades of orange and red and the returning fishing dhows silhouetted against the horizon. But it is once you walk inside the main bar that you realise what Dar has been missing all this time. An honest pub! Mahogany wood panelling and a solid regally carved Victorian style bar. The walls are decorated with Irish pictures and Whiskey prints, while a shelf of bric-a-brac antiques keeps the eyes entertained with its many interesting pieces.

Our aim is to continue the legacy of Alphonse O’Willie. Justin’s great, great, grandfather.

Our Founders Biography

He was born in Shaunoguestown, Ireland (1880) into an infamous family of publicans and cockfighters, Alphonse O'Willie was the seventh son of a seventh son in a family of fourteen. Like his father before him, Alphonse was never referred to except by his surname, and was accredited as per Irish folklore with all the mystic powers attributed to the "fortunate ones," ie. the seventh son of a seventh son. "The appointed ones," as they were also known, were often visited by people who would travel great distances to avail themselves of their healing powers - or the good luck that it was thought would be brought to their families, marriages and business ventures. O'Willie, however, seemed to take his duties far less seriously than the norm and managed to impregnate five prospective brides who were brought to him; and it was strongly rumoured that he was charging a stud fee for his services.

O'Willie had acquired a taste for liquor and horse racing; and it would seem that the former was having a distinct adverse effect on the predictive powers applied to the latter; and he went two entire years without predicting a single winner - which did little to commend him to the public and, more significantly, to his local priest. His final ignominy was when he was banished from his parish for introducing a poorly-disguised goose into a cockfight and, the same day, for being caught in a highly compromising position with a "not unattractive" heifer at a wake.

In his disgrace, he emigrated to America in 1905 where he suddenly found himself integrated into America's finest, serving as a police officer in the infamous Bronx area of New York. O'Willie's misfortune had not followed him across the Atlantic, and he found himself immediately able to relish in his seventh-son-of-seventh-son status amongst the Irish community.

His love of liquor, however, persisted, and his reputation as a drinker was surpassed only by his reputation for non-payment for the same - combined with a growing reputation as a lover and fine boxer - who did not always abide by the Queensbury rules.

O'Willie had also developed a "sleight of hand" technique which combined with his boxing skills gave him a distinct advantage in the local game of "crap," at which he was able to excel. His opponents had either the opportunity of losing gracefully or having the “crap” knocked out of them!
On a particularly lucrative drinking session in 1919, O’Willie met Arnold Rosthein over numerous Guinness and Whiskey they formulated a plan to fix the world series. After succeeding in the greatest sporting fix in America. O’Willie found himself in a position to answer his calling in life.To become a publican and to help intoxicate others.

No sooner had O’Willie purchased his first bar, the government brought in prohibition. Always the opportunist, he closed the front door and opened the back, while turning the upstairs lodgings into a distillery. During the bootlegging era, O'Willie was at his prime, and was said to be a silent partner in over two dozen “speakeasys”. By the time prohibition was repealed he was reputed to be a dollar millionaire and was often seen in the company of the leading gangsters of the time.

As always it was the drink that changed his situation. While on a heavy night with his new found friends he got into an argument with Al from Chicargo, when the insults started all hell broke loose, O’Willie got a broken nose and Al one hell of a scar.

It was about this time O’Willie decided he had taken as much as he could from America. Besides the fact scarface Al was looking to take as much as he could from O’Willie physically. So he returned to his native Shaunoguestown in Ireland for what was his first holiday since leaving there twenty years before.

On his first night at their family-owned pub, on being reminded of the dubious incidents involving the goose and the heifer, he is reputed to have "beat the crap" out of nineteen fellow drinkers - including eight of his own brothers.

Deciding that family where best loved from afar, he set off to get as far as possible. He border a ship destined for South Africa but after blinding the captain with bad poteen (illegal spirit), he had made from metholated spirits and engine oil, he was shipwrecked in Zanzibar.

When asked by a bystander who witnessed the tragic event if he required the services of a priest, he vociferously declined, explaining that sex was the furthest thing from his mind at that moment!