Press Kit

AI engineer uses voice agent to call every pub in Ireland over Paddy's weekend to make the “Guinndex”

Former pub owner calls 3,000+ pubs across all 32 counties using an AI voice agent to create the most comprehensive pint price index ever compiled for the island of Ireland. 1,000+ verified prices. National average: €5.95. Only a handful of the people Rachel spoke to seemingly realised they were talking to an AI agent. Now crowdsourcing prices from the public to keep the index alive.

guinndex.ai

What the data shows

The national average price of a pint of Guinness is €5.95. The most common price is €5.50. But where you drink matters enormously.

Dublin is the dearest county by a wide margin, averaging €6.75 a pint. The cheapest pints are in the west and midlands, with Laois at just €5.38. The gap between Dublin and the cheapest county is €1.37 per pint. The cheapest pint in the entire index is €3.00 at Glynn's Bar in Dunmore, Galway, although he may have just been taking the mickey. The most expensive is €10 at The Auld Dubliner, Dublin, which incredibly seems to be accurate.

Despite the rising cost of a night out, the Guinndex unearthed 12 places across Ireland where you can still get a pint for a fiver or less, including one in Dublin.

Dublin doesn't fare well on any measure. Of the 46 pubs in Ireland with a perfect 5.0 Google rating, not a single one is in Dublin. They're in places like Augher (Tyrone), Kilmakilloge (Kerry), and Rathdowney (Laois).

The CSO tracked pint prices from 2001 to 2011, then stopped. In the 14 years since, the price of a stout has jumped from €3.93 to €5.95 (+48%). The Guinndex fills the gap.

The reactions

Only a handful of the people Rachel spoke to seemingly realised they were talking to an AI agent. The calls produced dozens of memorable exchanges. When questioned, Rachel told them truthfully that she was putting together a wee price comparison list. Most people accepted that and moved on.

At Malzard's Pub in Kilkenny, the bartender laughed and offered to buy the round: “They're normally 6.20, but if you can't afford one, we'll buy you one. We'll look after you.”

At Doogies in Northern Ireland, the bartender opened with: “Twenty-five pound. But if you're coming in for a wee drink, I'll give it to you for a fiver.”

At McIntyre's Bar in Donegal, the bartender launched a full interrogation: “Five eighty. What time is it? How many are coming? Where are you coming from? What part of the country are you from? Who's this I'm speaking to?”

At Drumlane Bar in Cavan, the person who answered was in the kitchen: “I'm in the kitchen. I don't work in the bar at all.” He went behind the bar to check. Five sixty.

At Beaufort Bar in Kerry, the bartender played coy: “It's far too cheap. You'll have to come in to find out the price.” Rachel persisted. Five sixty.

At Buddy's Bar in Tipperary, Rachel asked the price. The bartender asked her name. Rachel said she was just putting together a wee price comparison list. “Fuck off.” Fair.

At The Plough in Curraglass, Cork, the bartender refused to give the price no matter how many times Rachel asked: “You'd have to call in and I'll tell you.” Rachel said she couldn't do that. “Ah, well done. You'll never know, though, will you?”

At The Linen House in Lisburn, Rachel got trapped in a Premier Inn phone system. Two AI systems talked past each other, neither able to help the other. Rachel said “Oh, dear” four times. The virtual receptionist kept apologising. Nobody got a pint price.

Pat Hayes, owner of The Arch Bar in Thurles, Tipperary, was one of the thousands of people who picked up Rachel's call over the weekend. When he later found out he'd been chatting to an AI, he took it in good spirits.

“It was a good laugh. I had no idea it wasn't a real person,” said Hayes. “But look, knowing the price of a pint is important. People want to know what they're paying before they walk in the door. If someone's putting together an index of every pub in the country, fair play to them. It's good for the customer and it keeps us all honest.”

How Rachel was built

Building a voice agent that can ring an Irish pub without getting hung up on is harder than it sounds. Cortland built a pipeline that discovers every pub in Ireland using Google's Places API (5,200+ pubs indexed), then calls each one using ElevenLabs' conversational AI agent platform and an old Irish SIM. Prices are extracted from call transcripts using Anthropic's Claude AI. But the voice itself was everything. He tested dozens of AI voices before landing on the right one.

His decision on personality and accent was inspired by Rachel Duffy from The Traitors, who is from Northern Ireland and was the first female traitor to win the show. “She played an absolute blinder,” said Cortland. “That's what I wanted. Someone warm, someone you'd believe. A Northern Irish accent that makes ‘we were lookin' to come in for a wee drink’ sound completely natural.”

The script went through multiple iterations. Early versions had the agent confirming the price back (“Grand, so that's six seventy, is that right?”), which extended calls and gave people a chance to get suspicious. The final version keeps it simple: ask the question, say “thanks very much,” hang up. The transcript captures everything.

Rachel still needs work. She's alarmingly convincing on a straightforward call, but she struggles with IVR phone menus and Irish banter. When a bartender cracks a joke, she doesn't always know what to do with it. “Perhaps I should have made her American,” said Cortland.

AI and the pub

The Guinndex arrives at an interesting moment. Earlier this month, Anthropic published research on AI labour market impacts showing that bartenders, cooks, and dishwashers are among the 30% of occupations with zero exposure to AI automation. Computer programmers, by contrast, are the most exposed at 74.5%.

“AI isn't coming for the person behind the bar,” said Cortland. “As a former bar owner, I know this. AI can't (yet) pour a pint, it can't read a room, it can't tell when someone's had enough. But it can call 3,000 pubs in a weekend and tell you where to find a decent pint for under a fiver. The physical work is safe. The information layer on top of it is where AI lives and where we all should be aware.”

Search the Guinndex and help it grow

The full dataset is live at guinndex.ai. Search by county, town, or pub name to find the price of a pint near you. The site includes an interactive map, county-by-county breakdowns, and the ability to compare prices across the country.

The AI calls were the jumpstart, but the Guinndex is now open for crowdsourced contributions. Anyone can hit the “Contribute” button on the site to submit the price of their last pint, flag a correction if a price is wrong, or share photos of pints and pubs for the Guinndex social media channels. Pub owners who want to update their listing can also message to make an amendment with the “Contribute” button on the site.

“The whole point is for this to be a living index, not a one-off snapshot,” said Cortland. “Rachel got us started, but keeping it accurate means hearing from actual people in actual pubs. If you're sitting there with a pint right now, tell us what you paid.”