Charlie’s Bar, Enniskillen has won the influential award at the PubAid’s Community Pub Hero Awards 2025 for the second year in a row.
Una Burns from the pub was at the ceremony in the Houses of Commons to accept the award for being the best Community Support Hero, Northern Ireland.
The pub saw competition from almost 700 entries nationwide for the prestigious pub industry awards, now in their sixth year.
On winning the award, Una said: “We are so proud to be named ‘Northern Ireland Community Pub of the Year’ for the second year in a row.
“As a family business, we are privileged to give back to the community that has supported us for over 80 years. Whether through sponsoring grassroots sports, supporting local charities and voluntary groups, or fundraising, we are delighted to play our part and hope to continue for many years to come.
“Community is at the heart of Charlie’s, and to be recognised on a national level is something truly special.”
This Community Support Hero Northern Ireland Award recognises licensees who help their communities and pubs who are good neighbours to their local community.
The pub won because Una and her team raised over £23,000 from its viral advert in 2023 and used this to help charities over the past 12 months including Age NI and the South West Age Partnership. The latter spent the funds locally to provide meals for vulnerable seniors and restart the local Dementia Choir which had been previously paused due to a lack of funding.
Since their award win in 2024, Charlie’s Bar has funded and installed a defibrillator at the venue, ensuring they are prepared for emergencies and contributing to local health and safety. Several staff (both full-time and part-time are trained in the use of it) and it is registered with the NI Ambulance Service for their use. The judges were impressed with the team’s dedication to continue to help support the local area, especially after having such a huge success with their viral advert and award win 12 months ago.
Des O’Flanagan, co-founder of PubAid, said: “We launched these awards to celebrate the great work that pubs do for their community. Charlie’s Bar is a perfect example of how pubs and licensed premises support and are a hub for many people in their community. The awards are in their fifth year and the volume of entries this year was staggering. What clearly came across from reading all the entries is that there are so many people that are doing amazing work nationwide. It was very hard to get to a shortlist so even getting to the finals is an amazing accolade for Charlie’s Bar.”
PubAid, which organises the awards in association with Matthew Clark and the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group, refreshed the awards and created more categories to congratulate more community pubs throughout the UK. There were 33 finalists in total across five categories.
