The Islay Inn on Argyle Street completes what Glaswegians affectionately call Finnieston’s ‘Highland Triangle’ — the trio of Highlands-and-Islands pubs, with the Ben Nevis and the Park Bar, where the traditional music, fine whisky and warm craic of the West Coast fill the room. A large, open-plan bar built around an island theme, with a broad selection of malt whiskies and frequent Scottish folk nights, the Islay Inn is a working home of Highland Glasgow’s social life on a corner that has served drinkers for over 150 years.
A Long-Serving Corner
There has been a pub on the Islay Inn’s corner of Argyle Street since 1871, when it was kept by Roderick Morrison — a Highlander from the Black Isle in Ross-shire who had come to Glasgow to learn the trade, and who was a stalwart of the city’s Highland societies, the sort of community figure through whom Gaelic Glasgow organised itself. Morrison ran the pub until 1913, after which the corner passed through a long and colourful series of names — the Carousel, Monty’s, the Outside Inn and more, wearing Irish, Welsh and Scottish themes in turn — before settling into its present identity as the Islay Inn.
The Island Theme
In its current form the Islay Inn leans fully into its Highland-and-Islands character, named for the great whisky island of Islay and built around a large island bar. A generous range of malt whiskies and regular Scottish folk nights make it a natural third member of the Finnieston Highland cluster — a place, like its neighbours, where the diaspora from the north-west and the islands gathers for music and a dram. It was for many years a supporter of real ale too, a tradition sadly discontinued in 2023, but its whisky and its folk sessions keep it firmly in the tradition.
Food, Malt and Music
In its present form the Islay Inn has built a strong reputation for its kitchen alongside its whisky and folk nights — everything cooked from scratch, from steak pies and Sunday roasts to venison burgers and a macaroni cheese its regulars rate among the best in the city. It is a large, welcoming, open-plan room, busier and more food-led than its smaller Highland neighbours, but no less rooted in the culture of the Gàidhealtachd: the malts line the gantry, the folk sessions fill the room on the right nights, and the island theme runs from the name to the fittings. To spend an evening working round the three points of the Highland Triangle — the Ben Nevis, the Park Bar and the Islay Inn — is to trace the whole social world of Highland Glasgow, and the Islay Inn holds up its corner with generosity and warmth.
The Triangle’s Third Point
The Islay Inn’s place in this chapter is as part of a set. Finnieston’s Highland Triangle — the Ben Nevis, the Park Bar and the Islay Inn — is one of the most distinctive things in Glasgow drinking: three pubs within a few minutes’ walk that together preserve the Gaelic and West Highland culture of a city built, in part, by Highland hands. To visit all three in an evening is to trace the social world of Highland Glasgow, and the Islay Inn holds up its corner of that triangle with an island bar, a wall of malts and a room that still fills for the music.