SUE Gray has opened up about her time running a pub in a border town in Northern Ireland during the height of the Troubles.
The former top civil servant, who took a break from her career working for the British state to become a publican in Newry in the 1980s, spoke about how she “learnt so much” from the experience.
Speaking to Ed Balls on the failed politician’s Political Currency podcast, Gray revealed how “the opportunity arose” to buy The Cove and how she and her husband decided: “Absolutely, let’s go for it.”
It must have been an exceptional turn of events for Gray, who said she was at the time working in a benefits office.
Nonetheless she took it in her stride. Gray’s husband Bill Conlon, a country music singer from Portaferry, didn’t seem to like it as much and would “go back to London quite regularly”, presumably on pub-related business though she doesn’t specify.
She said: “He would, when he was back, sing in the pub.”
The pub appears to have been a favourite among the local IRA men of the area and one story has it that she was allowed to pass a paramilitary checkpoint one night when one of the men said: “That’s Sue Gray from The Cove, let her go on.”
Whilst we're on the subject of Sue Gray, genuinely hilarious watching her stumble through this definitely 100% true story of how she came to run a pub in ireland during the troubles pic.twitter.com/gD2G5yRIRi
— NJ (@NoJusticeMTG) August 20, 2026
It would have been a good place for them to meet, given that Gray says it was a country pub, on a street with no lights.
Gray revealed that running the pub wasn’t always easy, saying: “I had some difficult things to deal with.”
Balls sympathised saying that Northern Ireland “was not the safest and most stable part of the world” at that point in time.
But the community were very helpful to Gray, she said. “I was very fortunate in that, honestly, the people that would come into the pub were so massively supportive,” said the future Whitehall mandarin.
We can only imagine the full extent of support Gray got from her patrons but she does note that some would occasionally stay after closing time to help her shut up, which is incredibly generous of them.
Then they would presumably slip away down the dark streets leading away from The Cove, where it would be probably quite hard for anyone so inclined to trail them. Not that anyone would have any reason to, of course.
Gray has previously denied being a spy.
