Obituary: Gerry Flynn, sommelier and bar manager with close links to Galway’s artistic community

Druid Theatre artistic director Garry Hynes, Galway International Arts Festival chief executive Paul Fahy, restaurateur JP McMahon and businessman Seamus Sheridan, who worked closely with him over the past two decades, are among those who have paid tribute.

Poet Mary O’Malley said Flynn was everything that made Galway a great place for artists, writers and musicians.​

He had a ringside seat at many of Galway city’s defining events and a particularly close association with the arts and especially with musicians.

Such was his passion for and knowledge about food that he could have been a successful chef

Flynn was born on Snipe Avenue, Newcastle, Galway, and was a talented soccer player in his teenage years. He then worked in hospitality, moving to England for a time. After his return, he was hired as a road manager for the folk music group, De Danann.

He was working in An Tobar bar in Galway in 1993 when he met Gillian Davies on the stairs. She was then in her second year in university. The couple married some years later and reared two daughters, Rosie and Molly.

Such was his passion for and knowledge about food that he could have been a successful chef, according to close friends, and he enjoyed no­thing more than cooking for family and friends.

He was a familiar and friendly face behind the counter in The Galway Arms, The Quays, An Tobar, the Róisín Dubh and latterly Sheridan’s Cheesemongers and Wine Bar, where he worked for over 20 years.

He could host any event, be it a visit by French wine experts, members of a bipartisan US congressional delegation or participants at a fundraising dinner cooked by Michelin star chef Michel Roux.

He presided over these events as a sommelier with considerable panache.

Self-taught, he had a passion for reading and travel and possessed a photographic memory.

Friends say he was not only able to advise on a good bar or restaurant in any European city, but could “give the precise location, recall the best dish and name at least one member of staff”.

Gerry Flynn, I’m giving you 15 minutes to finish your song and get down off that table

Speaking at his funeral in St Nicholas’s Church, Noel Flynn (no relation) described his culinary skills during boat trips on Lough Corrib together and recounted several instances of his friend’s sharp wit.

In one instance, two women arrived at Sheridan’s wine bar and ordered two cups of tea. When Flynn explained that tea was not served, one of the women pointed to a half-concealed staff kettle on a glassware shelf.

“What’s that kettle doin’ so?” she asked.

“Minding its own business,” came Flynn’s reply.

In another case, a visiting North American boomed: “Have you any good Irish wines?” Flynn replied: “Red or white?”

Actor Peter O’Toole, musician Van Morrison and members of The Rolling Stones fell under his spell, but Led Zeppelin was his favourite band.

When he was head barman at a centre city hotel, it was raided at 2am by gardaí who found it packed to overflowing. He was standing alone on a table performing an air guitar version of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven.

“Gerry Flynn, I’m giving you 15 minutes to finish your song and get down off that table,” a garda sergeant said.

Martin Crosbie, his friend and colleague for 45 years, said every chef in Galway “owed something to him”.

His face could “portray a greater range of expressions than the finest Shakespearean actor”, he added, so “you knew if you were in trouble without a word being said”.

Seamus Sheridan said Flynn took great pride in his work and liked the idea that a barman, butcher, barista or barber in many European countries could command a greater level of respect than here.

“He laid the foundations for Galway’s reputation as a food and drink destination,” Sheridan said.

Flynn was “central to building gastronomic relationships between producers from Galway and Anjou, particularly Chalonnes-sur-Loire”, according to his friend Alan Farrell, and was fondly nicknamed Escoffier by them, after the famous French chef and restaurateur.

Dominique Pairochon of the Brotherhood of the Fins Gousiers D’Anjou, the wine-making group that made Flynn an “honorary knight”, expressed great sadness at the passing of “an exceptional friend”.

In a verse written on social media, JP McMahon wrote that Flynn was “always an educator, a mentor, a father, a king of every blooming thing”.

Gerry Flynn is survived by Gillian and their daughters Rosie and Molly, his sister Colette, niece Laura, nephew Ian and extended family.