O'Flannagan's (est 2017)
March 14, 2017 12:37 PM   Subscribe

How *do* you go about outfitting your fake Irish pub, anyway?

Fake Irish pubs previously
posted by Chrysostom (83 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Dave Barry on the topic:
We also need some kind of law about the number of inappropriate objects you can hang on the walls in restaurants. I am especially concerned here about the restaurants that have sprung up in shopping complexes everywhere to provide young urban professionals with a place to go for margaritas and potato skins. You know the restaurants I mean: They always have names like Flanagan's, Hanrahan's, O'Toole's, O'Reilley's, etc., as if the owner were a genial red-faced Irish bartender, when in fact the place is probably owned by 14 absentee proctologists in need of a tax shelter.

You have probably noticed that, inevitably, the walls in these places are covered with objects we do not ordinarily attach to walls, such as barber poles, traffic lights, washboards, street signs, farm implements, etc. This decor is presumably intended to create an atmosphere of relaxed old-fashioned funkiness, but in fact it creates an atmosphere of great weirdness. It is as if a young urban professional with telekinetic powers, the kind Sissy Spacek exhibited in the movie "Carrie," got really tanked up on the margaritas one night and decided to embed an entire flea market in the wall.

I think it`s too much. I think we need to pass a law stating that the only objects that may be hung on restaurant walls are those that God intended to be hung on restaurant walls, such as pictures, mirrors and the heads of deceased animals. Any restaurant caught violating this law would have to get rid of its phony Irish-bartender name and adopt a name that clearly reflected its actual ownership ("Hey, let`s go get some potato skins at Fourteen Absentee Proctologists In Need of Tax Shelter").
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:53 PM on March 14, 2017 [24 favorites]


Asked about essential components of an Irish bar, McNally offers, “I think everybody recognizes that good stained glass makes a difference"...

Perhaps. What is truly essential are side-by-side framed pictures of JFK and a Pope.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:55 PM on March 14, 2017 [37 favorites]


Well, why not? Everybody around the world needs some place to take their parents when they come visit, right?

(This is actually very fascinating to me, and for some reason, I'm very relieved that this Mel McNally fellow is an actual person from Ireland and not some Irish-American asshole with a very Irish sounding name with lots of Ms and Ns because those guys can't be trusted.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:56 PM on March 14, 2017 [11 favorites]


Providence has several faux-Irish pubs, the most recent of which opened in the decommissioned garage of a still-operating funeral home, which strikes me as in bad taste every time I go by.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:56 PM on March 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


Huh. There's a few 'irish' pubs in Santiago, Chile, which is weird, as Ireland isn't really a thing here. I think they're for expat anglos, mainly?
posted by signal at 12:56 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Interestingly, these faux-Irish places tend to be some of the most comfortable places to sit in for a couple of hours.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:59 PM on March 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


“Do I see [the Irish bar] falling over a cliff? No, I really don’t,” Heverin says. “People walk through that front door with a certain expectation connecting to Ireland and to the Irish. Unless we somehow change status in the world,” he says, audibly smiling, “I think we’ll be fine.”

[cut to title card]

"The Gang Has to Close Down the Bar"
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:00 PM on March 14, 2017 [30 favorites]


Absoutely fascinating, thanks.

The fact that a bar was built by a team of carpenters in the Irish midlands is a detail that tends to go unwritten: Customers generally aren’t made aware of the provenance of different elements of the bar.

There's one of these places in a town I used to live in - it opened about 2003. But the owners were very proud of the provenance and told us they'd imported "every piece" from Ireland.

There's part of me that says I should hate this sort of thing, but I really just can't. I grew up with Irish [American] pubs, and worked in one for some time. Even before companies started exporting them wholesale, pre-designed, they shared a set of common characteristics that were tightly culturally defined, and it's always fun to go from city to city and pop into whatever their old local Irish pub is and find essentially the same features. The green-and-cream paint color, the old Guinness posters, the framed painting of a thatched cottage, some random memorabilia stacked behind the bar.

There are certain things that make the Irish pub, as a form, excellent. The article mentions "spaces within" the pub and certainly it's easy to understand what he means. Irish pubs have a geography with a nice variety to it. There's the bar, of course, where you don't sit unless you pretty much plan to be convivial. There are often high-tops or standing rails/tables by the front window. There are sometimes booths and often a snug. Because of this variety the places accommodate a lot of social choices, from large friend groups to intimate conversations to spontaneous connections.

And society is the reason for the pub to exist, and good Irish pubs promote that. I like that they are spaces for conversation. The pub I worked at was magical for many reasons, but one of them was that they kept a set of basic reference books behind the bar, which were frequently pulled out to settle arguments and debates. A Guinness Book (for which this series was invented) a dictionary, a NY Times Desk Reference, etc.

I love that no matter where I travel, if there is a decent Irish pub there,I can feel at home.
posted by Miko at 1:00 PM on March 14, 2017 [24 favorites]


..because those guys can't be trusted.
It's so true.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:01 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


w/r/t to Dave Barry's irritation at things hanging all over the wall: I think his target was more the Friday's variety of decor, which had its own MeFi post a while ago - really great article and discussion that got kinda surprisingly deep into the semiotics of hanging old shit all over the wall.
posted by Miko at 1:02 PM on March 14, 2017 [9 favorites]


Huh. There's a few 'irish' pubs in Santiago, Chile, which is weird, as Ireland isn't really a thing here.
As I remember it you had at least an O'Higgins or two..
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:03 PM on March 14, 2017 [12 favorites]


This "epiphany" is probably the ultimate point of the article, but I'll state it out for the record anyway: I think the people who are ordering the Ikea version of an Irish pub like this are kind of missing the point. It isn't the trappings that make a pub really welcoming, it's the proprietors.

I say this about ten minutes before I start doing my hair before going outside into the middle of a blizzard to go up the street to the place I've referred to as the Best Bar In The World. And yes, the owners are Irish, and yes, there are some things in the place that sort of look like some of the flatpack pubs on offer - but the owners weren't as such trying to make an "Irish Pub (tm)" kind of place. They just really genuinely wanted to have a good place for people to hang out.

I don't know if i told this story, but I was likely the very first beer they poured when they opened. The space used to be a neighborhood bodega, but then it shut down and they had the scaffolding up for weeks while the space was being renovated. No one knew anything about what was going into the storefront's place; then the scaffolding came down, but paper went up over the windows for another couple weeks while they kept working. Still no word about what the place was. So when I saw the paper down from the windows one night on my way home, and two guys packing up, I poked my head in and asked, "sorry, I know you're not open tonight, but when do you open, and what will you be?"

The men laughed, and then one introduced himself as the owner. "We're going to be a sort of Irish gastropub, and we open in three days," he said. "But...you want a drink now?"

I blinked. "...well, okay!" And they poured me a beer, and for the next hour or so we beckoned in anyone curious enough to peer through the window as they passed by, and had a little spontaneous pre-opening party there.

That was in 2011. The owners have expanded to include a party space in the basement, they've added live music, and a pub quiz (which the owner swore that first night they would NEVER do), but the music is still thanks to a Spotify account in back of the bar, and the people running it have EXCELLENT taste. They do go a little all-out for St. Patrick's, but that's to be expected when the owners are a couple from Mayo and one of the bar handles is something the owner's grandfather used in his own pub back in Ireland. They have Irish pub food, yeah, but they also have a damn good shrimp po'boy, and the mac and cheese is TO DIE FOR.

This is the place where I broke my foot one New Year's Eve, because one of the owners had started a kick line to "Come On Eileen" and I was a klutz. Fortunately the other one was tending bar and saw what happened, helped me to a chair and fussed over me a bit ("can ye wiggle yer toes, luv?") before getting ice so I could try and dull the pain before hobbling home. They've treated me to lots of rounds, whether I was dragging friends there, or I"d just reported getting dumped, or just because.

They had a fire on Valentine's Day and had to close for major repairs, and just announced on Facebook that they are re-opening today at last, and even though we're in the middle of what looks like fimbulwinter outside I"m going to be heading there. I've even got an IRL meeting in the works to bring people there.

You may be able to flat-pack the hurling sticks and the bodhrans, but you can't flat-pack Gerry and Audrey. Proprietors like them are what really makes a pub a pub.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:04 PM on March 14, 2017 [70 favorites]


Huh. There's a few 'irish' pubs in Santiago, Chile, which is weird, as Ireland isn't really a thing here.

A fair number of Irish came to South America to join Bolivar, and not all of them went home. I'm also pretty sure there was some Ireland - Chile emigration before and after that (maybe to avoid anti-Catholic persecution?), so it's not completely insane.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:04 PM on March 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


the owners weren't as such trying to make an "Irish Pub (tm)" kind of place. They just really genuinely wanted to have a good place for people to hang out.

I so agree with you about the proprietors - and I really think a fair number of people who buy these packages have that motivation. The dream of owning an Irish pub is in large part the dream of being one of those people. I set aside the likes of Ri Ra.
posted by Miko at 1:06 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


IKEA for drinkers
posted by Postroad at 1:06 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


(This is actually very fascinating to me, and for some reason, I'm very relieved that this Mel McNally fellow is an actual person from Ireland and not some Irish-American asshole with a very Irish sounding name with lots of Ms and Ns because those guys can't be trusted.)

I'm a (half)* Irish-American asshole who shares his last name. My main priority in a bar is cheap drinks and a juke box. In some places this is the best people can get. "Authenticity" is a mug's game.

*The other half is Italian, first generation American
posted by jonmc at 1:10 PM on March 14, 2017


"Authenticity" is a mug's game.

What exactly is a "mug's game", or, for that matter, a "mug", anyway? I get that you are seemingly intending to be saying that "authenticity" is doubleplusungood, but it occurs to me that I have no idea what this means.
posted by thelonius at 1:12 PM on March 14, 2017


society is the reason for the pub to exist, and good Irish pubs promote that. I like that they are spaces for conversation.

If memory serves me correctly, a quote on the menu of a beloved Irish pub in my home town of Louisville, Kentucky, is "A pub is a poor man's university."

Said pub is mostly decorated with large photographs of the owner's childhood in Ireland.

The tone of the article (and the Dave Barry essay cited above) always remind me of the Simpsons episode where Moe converts his dismal tavern to a family restaurant, and in its (probably only) TV commercial, he describes it as for people who like a place "with a lot of crazy crap on the walls."
posted by Gelatin at 1:14 PM on March 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


you can't flat-pack Gerry and Audrey

patience
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:14 PM on March 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


What exactly is a "mug's game"

Meaning there's always somebody who's going to be more-authentic-than-thou, whereas I'd rather just relax and have a drink. (My regular local is an Irish bar of dubious authenticity (although the bartender is from Ireland) in the Bronx, with a multi-racial and ethnic clientele and a pool table. I'll take that over worrying about anything else.
posted by jonmc at 1:14 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Huh. There's a few 'irish' pubs in Santiago, Chile, which is weird

But is it? The main drag in Santiago is named after Bernardo O'Higgins, not directly but from a quite Irish family name.
posted by sammyo at 1:19 PM on March 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


Ah, what Nerd of the North said...
posted by sammyo at 1:20 PM on March 14, 2017


The first flat pack pub I went to was in Shanghai in the mid-nineties - an expat place (although now I'm sure it has more of a Chinese clientele because the economy's changed) where you could easily spend a couple of hundred yuan on meal and a drink or two. (At a time when a solid salary for a Chinese person was 200 yuan a week.)

It had obviously been imported from Ireland, as had the staff. I only went there once because it - and the little expat community around it - were really kind of gross. They tolerated an older man (like, in his fifties older) who propositioned almost all the young foreign teachers and actually kicked my apartment mate very, very hard in the thigh when she would not make out with him - he was central to the social life of the group. It was just a gross place, although very fancy. The business expat community at the time was pretty garbagey, and then there were a couple of self-proclaimed communists from the UK who hung about, one of whom explicitly came to China to find a wife. He didn't speak much mandarin and the young woman he married didn't speak much english. She seemed nice enough and I hope she kicked him to curb later. I was young enough at the time that I couldn't quite believe how awful everyone was.

Anyway, that put me off the flat-pack bars. There's a pleasant one a mile or so from my house that looks like a flat pack but is so cheap that I assume everything is locally sourced. It seems to be run by left-leaning people and has reconciled me a bit to the faux-Irish, although I admit I still prefer the Irish-American bars from the fifties where there's not much decor except a couple of pieces of kitsch.
posted by Frowner at 1:20 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


We have a few flat-pack Irish pubs in the Twin Cities. They're actually quite nice in both furnishings and atmosphere, and the establishments are nice places to be. That being said, the moratorium against cliche Irish imagery is so pervasive that it surprised the hell out of me to go to Dublin and see leprechauns, shamrocks, and that Celtic(tm) font everywhere. I get that a certain amount of that is meant to appeal to tourists, but it is quite excessive. It'd be like going to downtown or Uptown Minneapolis and seeing Paul Bunyans, blue oxen, log-cabin interiors, and signs saying "Uffda!" and "You Betcha!" in 90% of establishments.

So, if you really want an authentic Irish pub, you should actually paint it kelly green with shamrocks and leprechauns all over it, and call it a super cliche name, because that describes like 90% of the pubs in Dublin.

Amusingly, I did see an "authentic American" themed restaurant in Cork. So...there's still an open niche in the market.
posted by Autumnheart at 1:20 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


As I remember it you had at least an O'Higgins or two..


Which had precisely zero impact on the average chilean's knowledge about Ireland; and I'm not talking deep, 'real' knowledge, I doubt your average Chilean even knows what a shamrock or leprechaun or celt or St. Patrick's day is, or where they make Guinness. Ireland is really not a thing around here, yet we have Irish Pubs for some reason, which, as I stated above, is probably anglo expats.
posted by signal at 1:20 PM on March 14, 2017


These 'Irish' pubs seem just fine, right up until a pint of ice-cold Guinness come blasting though like a strutting toddler.
posted by Kabanos at 1:21 PM on March 14, 2017 [9 favorites]


In this context, "mug" means "sucker" and "mug's game" means "sucker bet".
posted by Daily Alice at 1:21 PM on March 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


I spent 8 weeks once traveling through India trying to stave off the DT's with their 3% beer there. The stop over home was in Dubai (it's like Vegas with slavery and a monarch and religious fundamentalism). In the basement of my hotel, there was a "O'Flaherty's" teeming with drunk middle aged Germans on their cut rate vacation. On like 8000 TV screens they were playing American basketball. There was a middle eastern guy with an acoustic guitar and Casio keyboard playing "folk songs." They did have Guinness and bangers and mash. I believe this particular watering hole is an example of how you prevent the local population from drinking while attracting foreign business persons. Reader, I discovered the appeal of sobriety that night.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 1:22 PM on March 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


In this context, "mug" means "sucker" and "mug's game" means "sucker bet".

Now you're on the trolley!
posted by thelonius at 1:24 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


You bet, rube! :)
posted by jonmc at 1:25 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


And then their whiskey selection consists of just Jameson, and a bunch of scotches (!)
posted by Kabanos at 1:25 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


There's a local Irish-y bar here that has all of the usual trappings - it's in a historic building and so has an authentic feel (strange small hallways, odd nooks, apparently haunted) but I know the contractor who did the remodel and it's all veneer, right down the kilts the servers wear for some reason. It's corporate as it gets.

That being said, they do have good local music and Irish folk dancing club nights, and they've also adopted a gay night to use some of the space that used to be a Belgian beer and cigar bar before the smoking ban killed that little project.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 1:25 PM on March 14, 2017


you can't flat-pack Gerry and Audrey

patience


Does anyone recall the Cheers packaged bars they deployed at airports some many years back, replete with animatronic Norm & Cliff sitting at the end of the bar, making occasional comments? I believe these were very short lived after one of the two actors sued for royalties.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:29 PM on March 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


Ah: here it is in The New Yorker.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:31 PM on March 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


A couple of decades ago, I was touring through Scotland after conducting some business and, as one will, took advantage of the trip to explore the bar culture there. I'd been in a few fantastic pubs while staying in Stirling for a few nights and, on the fourth day, thence drove north to Callander, tucked in the foothills of the Highlands (a drive with some of the most achingly beautiful countryside you could ever hope for, by the way).

Anyway, that evening sitting in the Claymore, after buying a few rounds, having a few bought for me, and generally making new friends, I commented offhandedly to my drinking buddies about the incredible bar culture in Scotland. They nodded and smiled, taking the compliment graciously.

And then one looked at me and asked in a light burr, "Have you ever been to Ireland?"

I said I hadn't, and he said "Ahh - they have a really good pub culture there," and all the other Scots around us nodded in agreement, without any hesitation or seeming irony.

It struck me that these fellows, who probably felt a lot of rivalry with their neighbors - as is natural for humans - would offer such straightforward and undiluted praise for them on this point.

I still haven't made it to Ireland. But my impression ever since that night has been that Ireland must be where unicorns go to have a pint.
posted by darkstar at 1:40 PM on March 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


The late lamented comic Cul De Sac from the late lamented Richard Thompson had a running joke about a family restaurant named "P.J. Piehole's" and terminally fussy Petey going into trauma over the things on the wall that would fall onto him... or worse: 1, 2, 3. The definitive statement on "over-decor'ed" restaurants of all genres.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:41 PM on March 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


These 'Irish' pubs

Irish-ish?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:46 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


In my old neighborhood in Seattle the Irish Pub is where I went to drink and celebrate with friends when I was happy; the American bar was where I went to drink and commiserate with friends when I was sad.
posted by Tevin at 1:49 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


This article actually made me feel a lot warmer toward the flat-pack Irish pub culture. I guess I assumed it was something like Chipotle, but it turns out to be an actual Irish phenomenon, started by Irish architechture students studying what made pubs feel like pubs. I don't see a problem with spreading that knowledge, to the betterment of Irish workers. And it sounds like each pub is really customized to its space. Irish people making Irish things. You could do a lot worse!
posted by rikschell at 1:50 PM on March 14, 2017 [19 favorites]


I've even got an IRL meeting in the works to bring people there.

posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:04 PM on March 14 [7 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]


I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
posted by schadenfrau at 1:55 PM on March 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


That being said, the moratorium against cliche Irish imagery is so pervasive that it surprised the hell out of me to go to Dublin and see leprechauns, shamrocks, and that Celtic(tm) font everywhere.

I'm guessing you were in Temple Bar, which started as an arts-friendly urban renewal project, but is currently a tourist trap not often frequented by locals. Or wandered into a Carrolls gift shop in the city centre.
posted by kersplunk at 1:55 PM on March 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


Also: a bar without a snug or varied spaces is garbage. Irish pubs really do have socialization figured out.
posted by schadenfrau at 1:56 PM on March 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


Bernardo O'Higgins

You think, of all the names in the world, I could recall "Bernardo O'Higgins" in a hurry. I feel ashamed.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:00 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Perhaps. What is truly essential are side-by-side framed pictures of JFK and a Pope.

I'll do you one better. The Irish pub in my hometown had a framed photo of Gerry Adams.
posted by hwyengr at 2:01 PM on March 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


Oh, and instead of JFK photos, every drink cost $x.50, so your change always had a Kennedy half-dollar.
posted by hwyengr at 2:02 PM on March 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


At least these people make the effort, I was obliged to live in Milton Keynes for a few years in the 1990s and there was a supposedly Irish pub there where the only effort anyone had made was the sign outside and then various single sheets of an Irish newspaper that the owners had pasted to the walls. It was not at all redolent of any decent pub that anyone, Irish or other, would want to spend quality time in. They only survived for any amount of time since there was a pub deficit in MK at that point.
posted by biffa at 2:05 PM on March 14, 2017


McNally’s first U.S. opening, in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996, comprised five styles in one.

That has to be Fado, right? It's about the right time for that opening, and I remember them talking about importing the bar from Ireland. They implied they bought an actual pub in Ireland and disassembled everything to ship it to the US. But I guess close enough for chatter at the bar.
posted by COD at 2:08 PM on March 14, 2017


What is truly essential are side-by-side framed pictures of JFK and a Pope.

when i was a small kid in the early 60s that's what we had in our home - it really was a thing for irish-americans back then
posted by pyramid termite at 2:19 PM on March 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


I am here at Best Bar In The World. The place was already full when i got hereand when they hugged me in welcome and told me to take a seat i said i wasn't sure i saw one.

"There is ALWAYS a seat for ye here!" They insisted, squeezing me in.

DAMN I LOVE THIS PLACE
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:20 PM on March 14, 2017 [25 favorites]


If they have draft cider, then I don't care what's on the walls.
posted by candyland at 2:26 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


And then their whiskey selection consists of just Jameson, and a bunch of scotches (!)

My local is an ostensibly Irish-ish beer bar with a genuine selection of Irish whiskey that I assume nobody drinks because they come for the food (pretty good) and the beer (likewise).
posted by uncleozzy at 2:26 PM on March 14, 2017


I've called every one of these bars Fibbar McStereotypes for years now.

Then again, there's a local hole owned by a gentleman from Cork in town. Hearing him yell, "It's half tree, now fuck right off" was the highlight of my week back in my hard drinking days.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:27 PM on March 14, 2017 [10 favorites]


Make sure to ask if they have Bushmills.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:31 PM on March 14, 2017


There's one of these a few blocks away from me and I always switch to the other side of the street when I walk by because of all of the bro dudes and cops hanging around.
posted by AFABulous at 2:32 PM on March 14, 2017


"I wish to subscribe to your newsletter."

If you live in NYC, it's gonna be a brunch in a couple weeks. I have heard raves avout the chilaquiles they do here.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:39 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


If you live in NYC,

I DO! That is exciting. So are the chilaquiles.
posted by schadenfrau at 2:47 PM on March 14, 2017


When i am at home, mods, is it okay if i post a link to the meetup post in here?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:50 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've been to these bars in Portugal and Italy. Because I needed to drink somewhere and I was feeling homesick.

So tired of that "you'll have to excuse me I'm not at my best" song though. The Unicorn song I could hear forever.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:52 PM on March 14, 2017


We go to an Irish bar on occasion because sometimes it's what you need (it's also right across the street from my boyfriend's shop, so there's the convenience factor). It has all the typical Irish bar decor, but it's run by an actual Irish person. So we do claim some authenticity by going there. Or something. (The drinks are cheap and the food is decent, anyway, and the staff is always really great toward us. It's my preferred location to watch sports, when I do.)

While we were recently waiting for our plane in the Copenhagen airport, we ended up in the O'Leary's. It's basically the Danish version of the Boston version of an Irish bar that was also in an airport. There were a lot of levels there. (It was also fine! They had drinks and food and it was a play to kill some time!)
posted by darksong at 3:49 PM on March 14, 2017


The walls of Ireland's 32 in San Francisco used to be* plastered with a whole bunch of old IRA posters. No idea if that scored the place any points for "authenticity" but it wasn't the sort of thing you normally see in one of these establishments.

*Haven't been there in many years, but the place is still there, so they may yet be.
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 4:06 PM on March 14, 2017


I've also been to an Irish bar in Lisbon, basically none of us had a map and we didn't know where to go to find any other bars. I have similar stories around visiting Irish style bars in Bergen, Berlin, Amsterdam (watching football, not my choice) London, Brugge (the only bar that had a TV showing the world cup) and others that have all faded into a single memory.
posted by biffa at 5:00 PM on March 14, 2017


tangentally related: The Rumjacks - An Irish Pub Song
posted by isauteikisa at 5:29 PM on March 14, 2017


So I used to work for an international company in Oslo, Norway. We were doing this massive event and flew people in from all over the world. They put me in charge of running things despite my not knowing the city or the language at all, so I'm running around throwing together an itinerary and need something to eat for the poor bastards that's close to the hotel.

"Just take them to Friday's! It's next door!" says one of my cohorts.

So that's how our entire group of people wound up going to TGI Friday's for dinner. For the Americans coming off a massive international flight, it wasn't exactly thrilling.

Weirdly, it's probably the place I ate at most overseas. For the guys I worked with, it was exotic and novel. Probably the equivalent of going to a faux-Irish pub here.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 6:26 PM on March 14, 2017


Speaking of the Auld Dubliner, the one located near the campus I work on just went out of business.
posted by Squeak Attack at 6:37 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've even got an IRL meeting in the works to bring people there.

posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:04 PM on March 14


I am sincerely hoping that this happens before I head home to London...
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 6:46 PM on March 14, 2017


We have a few flat-pack Irish pubs in the Twin Cities

As someone who has been to a couple of the suburban Houlihan's in the Twin Cities, I know the pain. Then there's Kieran Folliard's bars

One of the greatest bar nights of my middle-age was when me, my wife, and another couple wandered around St Paul's West 7th St on a treacherously below-zero Valentine Day. It was the year of the hockey strike and all the bars were empty. So we ended up in The Liffey, the poshest of Irish bars. I remember when it was being built by Kieran Folliard (who had a posh Irish bar in Minneapolis) and many decried it as faux Irish.

That frigid night the Liffey was packed to the ceiling. The Belfast Cowboys were playing "Jackie Wilson Said" at high volume when we walked in, there were two bridal parties getting wasted, the bar had just gotten kegs of Summit's new oatmeal stout, and I swear there were a couple of St Paul's finest sitting at the bar - I hope it wasn't Irish coffee they were drinking while in uniform. Damn, that was a great night.

Keiran knew how to create atmosphere.
posted by Ber at 7:08 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm guessing you were in Temple Bar, which started as an arts-friendly urban renewal project, but is currently a tourist trap not often frequented by locals. Or wandered into a Carrolls gift shop in the city centre.

I walked through Temple Bar a couple times, but no, the prevalence of cliche iconography was considerably farther-reaching than that. All along O'Connell Street down past Trinity College, and for several blocks to the east and west. It surprised me to see it, honestly, in large part specifically because of the way flat-pack Irish pubs make a point of not trying too hard with the Irishness. Besides, Temple Bar is what, two blocks long? Blink and you miss it. To me, it was indistinguishable from the rest of city center.

I was also surprised by the prevalence of KFC and hearing aid stores. What's up with all the hearing aid stores?
posted by Autumnheart at 7:21 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Houlihan's isn't an Irish pub, it's a chain. That's like saying Chili's is a Mexican pub.

I personally prefer Keegan's.
posted by Autumnheart at 7:33 PM on March 14, 2017


And society is the reason for the pub to exist, and good Irish pubs promote that. I like that they are spaces for conversation. The pub I worked at was magical for many reasons ...

America is dying exactly because there are no such places here. We are adrift in echoes, and never have to confront that which makes us uncomfortable.
posted by newdaddy at 7:44 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


there are no such places here

? The one I worked for is in America. It's just the same as when I worked there.
posted by Miko at 8:37 PM on March 14, 2017


It was the year of the hockey strike

Christ, that's the most Minnesotan set up for a story I've ever heard.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:50 PM on March 14, 2017 [13 favorites]


Re robo-Cheers, behold the Norm and Cliffy animatrons, Bob and Hank.
posted by zippy at 10:17 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


As a musician who plays a lot of Irish music I spend a lot of time in pubs. The one thing a pub needs to be really authentic is a weekly session. Of course, you won't even find these in every pub in Ireland, but if you're lucky there is a session in your town.

A few people have mentioned the Twin Cities - there are sessions at the Dubliner (an old St.Paul dive bar), Merlin's Rest (an English pub) and Keegan's.
posted by misterpatrick at 10:17 PM on March 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


We have the Claddagh here in Toledo. The walls are covered in Guinness signs, there is stonework and stained glass and soccer on the TV. There are a handful of snugs, some nights there is live music, the food is hearty, and the beer is served at cellar temps.

For a regional chain, they're pretty good. It's a cozy place for a late bite or some soccer shit-talking.

They are no Baile Corcaigh, a now-closed joint in Detroit that was the Real Deal, but they're not Friday's, either.
posted by MissySedai at 10:46 PM on March 14, 2017


Anywhere there are expats, you'll have these. All around Tokyo (and other parts of Japan) you've got the Irish bar (Dubliners is the chain that most reeks of flatpackishness, and no matter how hard I resist, I'll probably end up at for at least a pint this Friday) or the English bar (Hub is the biggest chain, then there's the Pig n Whistle in Kansai). If you go in, you're almost guaranteed to find the majority of customers fit one of two types: expats who just want something simple and easy, and don't really want to deal with the idea of going to a bar they don't know that might not be as easy or simple (i.e. might require language skills), and Japanese people that view going to the branded foreign pub as a minor form of vaguely authentic foreign experience (ooh, fish and chips! Guinness! Foreigners!)

They aren't the only people there, by any means, but they're going to make up a majority of the customers, and they're enough to make me want to avoid it entirely, due to either loud drunk pronouncements of "what's wrong with Japan" or going through the "where are you from, how long have you lived in Japan, can you use chopsticks" conversation roughly five to ten times. That, and being a forty year old white guy living in Japan, watching other FYOWGLiJ doing their level best to drunkenly hit on Japanese women in their twenties is more wince inducing than nearly any other activity I can imagine, other than being a FYOWGLiJ writing a comment about how they'd never be caught dead in a bar like the Hub...

oh, wait...
posted by Ghidorah at 11:21 PM on March 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


Kabanos: These 'Irish' pubs seem just fine, right up until a pint of ice-cold Guinness come blasting though like a strutting toddler.

Oh, don't get me started on this fuckery. Ice cold AND poured like it's a race against time.

Fortunately, this sort of behaviour gets called out from time to time:

Vancouver bar’s poorly poured Guinness draws ire
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:14 AM on March 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh, ber, is it The Liffey that's so nice? Only because they dynamited The Irish Well years ago, and The Half Time Rec is 51% sports bar and 49% not.

/hamburger
posted by wenestvedt at 8:27 AM on March 15, 2017


My mom's late husband was Irish. Born in the Us, but his father was IRA and had to flee the country under an arrest warrant sometime in I guess the 30s or 40s? Anyway, so he was very proud of his Irish heritage. He passed away recently and Mom distributed some of his things, sending me a small bar advertising sign mirror with "O'Connell & Flynn Old Irish Whiskey" on it. I asked her if there's a story behind where it came from, but nobody seems to know or remember.

I haven't had the hear to tell her that Googling shows zero signs of any actual "O'Connell & Flynn" distillery, but plenty of links to people selling similar "signs," (sometimes even calling them "rare"), which suggests to me the thing is the kind of faux-Irish-antique created for exactly this sort of prefab pub.
posted by dnash at 9:17 AM on March 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


Authenticity.

We can fake that.
posted by prepmonkey at 10:04 AM on March 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


43and9th, check here.....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:27 AM on March 15, 2017


Perhaps. What is truly essential are side-by-side framed pictures of JFK and a Pope.

Have I got a photo for you.
posted by maryr at 11:01 AM on March 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


These items MUST be someplace on the wall of any proper Irish pub, 1. A copy of the Proclamation 2. Photos of the Martyrs of 1916. Bonus points for having photos or drawings of the people who died on hunger strike in the H- Blocks.
Further bonus points for having a map showing the geographic origins of Irish family names. Even better if the map is bilingual. If you have those things you can put any damn thing else you like as wall decor. I recommend rusty farm implements. Those have a certain charm.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 1:22 AM on March 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


My perfect Irish bar would have a signed Rubberbandits EP on the wall.
posted by zippy at 9:16 AM on March 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


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