Walking through Finstown, we noticed that the Pomona Inn is open again, and is looking very smart
Too many pubs – often the heart of a community – are closing and it was good to see this one re-opening after four years.
It has the look of being a proper old pub, and so I thought I’d find out a bit more about it.
I’ve copied this extract from the Wikipedia entry about Finstown – I think that’s allowed!
“Formerly called “Toon o’ Firth”, the origin of the Finstown name is thought to come from an Irishman named David Phin who came to the area in 1811. A soldier with the 9th Royal Veteran Battalion, he married a Kirkwall girl in 1813. In 1820, he opened an ale-house which was called the Toddy Hole by arrangement with John Miller of Millquoy. Four years later they quarrelled and Phin left for Aberdeen, but his name remained. The ale-house building is now the site of the Pomona Inn hostelry, after an old name for Mainland Orkney. The British poet Zaffar Kunial is a direct descendant of Phin and has written about Finstown and George Mackay Brown in a poem that appeared in The Dark Horse magazine (Autumn/Winter 2021).]”
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