Vaughan's Pub: Céilí pub with a candlelit wedding barn in the Burren

Rustic, candlelit and unpretentious. The barn's dining room is whitewashed stone under dark beams, with a living tree trunk rising through the middle, wrapped in fairy lights. Next door, the dance hall keeps its bare limestone walls and pale rafters strung with festoon bulbs and paper lanterns. Shelves of old teapots, jugs and boots keep it company. Organza drapes, pressed white linen and tall gold candlesticks dress both rooms for a wedding. Outside, the pub wears deep green with gold lettering, and the barn a corrugated green roof over a cobbled yard.

Vaughan's has been pouring pints on Kilfenora's main street for well over a century, and the Vaughan family ran it for generations before Patrick O'Connor took it on. The barn beside it was once thatched. The village is older still: St Fachtnan's Cathedral went up around 1190, and its carved high crosses earned Kilfenora the name City of the Crosses. In the 1990s the pub doubled as Father Ted's local, and head barman Michael, who had a line in the show, still pours behind the bar.

Kilfenora is a village of around 150 people on the southern edge of the Burren, the bare limestone country that covers north Clare. The pub sits on Main Street, a three-minute walk from the cathedral and the Burren Centre. Lisdoonvarna and Ennistymon are under ten minutes by car, Lahinch and its beach about fifteen, and the Cliffs of Moher around twenty. Shannon Airport is roughly an hour away, which makes getting married in Ireland here an easy first stop off a transatlantic flight.

The Burren is on your doorstep. Poulnabrone Dolmen, a portal tomb more than 5,000 years old, is a fifteen-minute drive, and the Mullaghmore trails of Burren National Park about the same. Head west for the Cliffs of Moher and Hag's Head, or down to Doolin pier for a boat beneath the cliffs or out to the Aran Islands. Surfers make for Lahinch, golfers for its links, cavers for Aillwee and Doolin Cave. Many of our couples marry at one of the other wedding venues in the west of Ireland nearby, Newtown Castle or the cliffs, then come here for the party.

Most of our couples fly into Shannon, about 52 km away and under an hour by car. Dublin Airport is a three-hour drive. Ennis has the nearest train station, half an hour from the village. The pub has a large free car park that takes coaches, and local bus and taxi firms run guests back from the Cliffs or out to Lahinch. Our wedding planner in Ireland books those transfers and settles the day's timings with the team at Vaughan's.

You sleep next door. Vaughan's Guest House has nine en-suite rooms, a mix of twins, doubles and one family room. A shared kitchen, dining room and sitting room mean breakfast is whenever you wake. It sleeps 21, and with two further houses the pub can put 43 of your guests up on site. Booking the wedding reserves the whole guest house for your party, and the two of you stay on the house on the wedding night. Check-in is from 3 pm, check-out at noon. Kilfenora's B&Bs take any overflow.

Say your vows on the lawn behind the pub, under mature trees, with a tall hedge closing off the village. The night before, the team tucks a statue of the Child of Prague under that hedge, an old Irish charm for dry weather. If the rain comes anyway, the barn is set for you instead: white chiavari chairs, a draped arch, and candles and fairy lights down the aisle. A legal ceremony is possible on site, and the pub keeps a list of local celebrants.

Dinner is in the barn's dining room, at long tables under the fairy-lit tree, with pressed white cloths, gold candlesticks and white tapers. Up to 120 sit down; the room takes one long table for forty just as happily as a U of three. Personalized menus and a printed table plan come as standard, and there's a locked box for your cards. When the plates clear, the party moves through to the stone hall, where the benches along the walls usually seat Kilfenora's set dancers.

Everything comes out of the pub's own kitchen, which feeds the restaurant every day of the year. Wedding menus lean on Clare produce: seafood chowder with dillisk, Burren smoked salmon, St Tola goat's cheese, Kilshanny lamb, Burren Hereford beef. You pick two starters, two mains and three desserts to fill the dessert towers, and a vegetarian dish is always there for whoever needs it. Later, goujons and chips or fish and chips in paper cones come round, and Tayto crisp sandwiches appear at midnight. A tasting of your menu and wines is included.

The bar is the heart of the place: a curved mahogany counter, Guinness and Smithwick's on tap, J.J. Corry whiskey from down the road, and a Sláinte sign over the optics. Prosecco greets the two of you on arrival, and pre-dinner drinks can be in the garden or on the covered terrace. A late bar runs to 2 am on the night. The front bar keeps serving locals as usual, so your guests share the counter with Kilfenora.

Music is what Vaughan's is known for. Céilí sessions run every Friday and Sunday, and set dancing takes over the barn on Sunday nights all year round. For your wedding, the barn's PA and wireless mic cover the speeches, and a trad band, a DJ or both take the stage beneath the painted Set Dancing sign. Music plays until 1:30 am. Many couples book a fiddler for the garden ceremony too.

Pulling your own pint comes first. After the dinner bell, head barman Michael takes the two of you behind the counter to pour a Guinness while the locals coach you on the perfect head. Then there's the Child of Prague under the hedge for good weather, and Tayto sandwiches at midnight. Kilfenora's céilí tradition is more than a century old, and the barn is where it lives.

Make a weekend of it. The guest house is yours from the night before, and a day-two party in the main bar or the barn keeps everyone together: a casual buffet from the afternoon and live music from seven. One couple followed their wedding with pizza and trad in the barn the next day, and a session in the bar that night. With the Cliffs, Doolin and Lahinch all within half an hour, guests have plenty to do between the two evenings.

The barn, both rooms of it, is yours alone for the day, with its own bar inside. The pub itself stays open, so the front bar fills with locals, walkers and Father Ted pilgrims as it does every day. Most of our couples count that as part of the charm: your guests drift between your private party and a working Irish pub all evening.