The Lismore

Named after a small Hebridean island, this self-styled ‘Highland pub in the middle of Glasgow’ resists the trend for gentrification in West End watering holes by keeping it old-school: good beer and whisky, good atmosphere and a little traditional music.

Opened in 1996, well before Partick Cross started to experience a trendy resurgence following its post-shipbuilding industry slump, The Lismore has built up and maintains a mixed and faithful clientele – from students enjoying better-than-average prices to hardy silver-haired drinkers getting in a cheeky hauf an’ a hauf (a vintage Scots standard, a half-pint of beer and a ‘half gill’ measure of whisky, drunk in tandem).

It’s a low-ceilinged corner bar, long and narrow in layout, with seats, tables and perches tucked into every little nook and cranny, meaning the atmosphere is buzzing when the place is packed. The dark wood décor includes specially commissioned stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Highland Clearances, in tribute to ancestors of some of the Lismore’s regulars – Highlanders and Western Islanders driven off their land and into the cities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The urinals in the men’s room offer you a unique opportunity to pay personal respects to three of the men behind the Highland Clearances, and we’ll say no more about that.

There are regular folk music sessions every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evening at The Lismore, as well as an open-mic night every Thursday – not to mention impromptu jams whenever the mood so takes the many musicians who enjoy a wee dram here.