More than two decades since it closed its doors for good, The Mantrap Bar in Oban is all set to reopen this June.
While the bar has been the star of stage and screen in those intervening years – the pub has remained closed until now while also being used as a soup kitchen and storeroom.
Situated up a side street, just off Oban’s seafront- the bar is small but that is part of its charm, says owner Daniel MacIntyre.
Mystery surrounds origins of bar’s name
The Mantrap Bar grew to international fame after being featured in author Alan Warner’s The Sopranos, later the stage play Our Ladies of Perpetual Succor.
The play was then turned into an internationally well-received film Our Ladies. The Mantrap was featured in his novel Morvern Callar – also made into a film.
The Man Trap was also the title of the very first Star Trek shown on television in the US.
Locally, someone is bound to know how the name came about – but to date no one has told Mr MacIntyre.
He said: “Local band Chunks are 25 this year, and they played their very first gig in the Mantrap. I have no idea how they fitted in a band and a crowd- but they did.
“Plans to reopen have created quite a buzz among locals that it is going to be opening back up. I think people are keen to get back in.”
‘Our businesses are at the heart of the community’
The licence to reopen is before Argyll and Bute’s licencing board at the end of April.
Mr MacIntyre has an altogether laid back idea for the Mantrap, he said: “This will be the place that people come to enjoy good company. All our businesses in Oban are about putting the community at the heart of what we do.”
He and his business partners have created a “must-have” table in Oban at The View, on George Street. The newly refurbished venue has a viewing platform where drinks are served overlooking Oban Bay and beyond.
This new venture will be part of the same complex. He said: “The Mantrap will be what people want it to be. It is all on one level – so that makes it ideal for accessibility. But it could be used for regular darts and dominoes nights, or for a student base, for meetings and groups, Gaelic choirs, or for private dining.
“This space will be what the community wants it to be.”
Where did The Mantrap name come from?
Internationally renowned author, Mr Warner, who is originally from the Oban area, said the Mantrap name had always stuck in his imagination – and that is where it came from in his books.
The Aberdeen University senior lecturer said: “I just thought it was such a great name; when I wrote Morvern Callar, I was determined to use it somewhere. I recall when you went in it, it had that big metal trap hung up on the wall.
“Which gave the name of the bar a sort of double meaning – a literal and metaphorical mantra.
“I knew Angie the barman circa 1983. But I would never describe myself as a regular.
“Certainly not on Saturday nights, when I cowered out in Connel.”
He continued: “In my novels, I have taken a lot of liberties, and basically, I used The Mantrap as a name for a geographically fluid place.”
‘It’s just such a wonderful name’
“Always struck me as an odd combination! Ironically the building was once a Temperance Hotel – there was little temperance on display in my day.
“In The Sopranos novel, somehow the nightclub is situated directly on the sea front – when the girls carry piles of seaweed up from the shoreline to the back of the toilets to climb up on, and clamber in the back toilet windows.
“This was an event which actually happened once when I lived in Ireland, at a sea front nightclub and I just re-located the event to The Mantrap – but that wouldn’t really make sense in relation to the actual location, would it?
“It’s just such a wonderful name: The Mantrap. Who decided on that name and thought it up?”
Do you know who named The Mantrap in Oban? Let us know at livenews@pressand journal.co.uk
