You Can't Keep a Good Pub Down...Forever

 

Copyright © 2021

by Ralph F. Couey

"There is nothing so silent as a room 

where the walls once echoed with the sound of laughter."

--Ralph F. Couey

I went to a wake today.  Well, sort of.  A popular pub has closed for good, a victim of the ruthless rules of the COVID economy.

For decades, (the exact date remains fuzzy), O'Toole's Irish Pub occupied an ancient brick building on the south edge of Honolulu's China Town.  The building was originally erected in 1891, and retains every bit of it's character and personality.  So obvious was it's pedigree that it has been the site of scenes from both movies and television.  The pub itself was a gathering place for many, where conversations echoed from the walls and washed over those who were there like a crazy kind of wave.  No food was served here, just alcohol.  But it was so much more than a bar.

The owner, Bill Comerford, was also the proprietor of nearly all of Honolulu's Irish Pubs.  Along with O'Toole's, there was Anna O'Brien's, Kelly O'Neil's, and the Irish Rose Saloon, all popular, always comfortably populated with those who appreciated the ambiance of the traditional public houses of the Emerald Isle.

I don't drink, so my appearances there were more for the live music.  Several evenings a week, someone, or several someones would be standing on the small stage performing not only traditional Irish music, but a little bit of almost every popular genre.  In the back, was another room where I was able to gather with a group of skilled and joyful musicians who allowed me to join them in celebrating some of the world's best and most popular music.  

I was just learning the music, painfully working on my bodhran (Irish frame drum).  They were encouraging and supportive, and also direct when they needed to be.  O'Toole's was one of three places where we'd gather to play.  One, Kurt Jones' Violin shop, also fell victim to COVID.  We haven't gathered in awhile because the rules didn't allow groups that large to meet.  It's been over a year since the last time we met, and I have to tell you I really miss those sessions.  My father once told me, "Surround yourself with people who are better than you, and try hard to catch up."  These were skilled, professional musicians who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of Irish music, able to pull up from memory any one of the hundreds of tunes out there. Yes, there were standards, but what kept me coming back was the sheer joy with which the music was performed.  Irish music is happy music, even the sad tunes, and to play it with the elan it deserves takes a special kind of musician.  I considered myself so fortunate to be able to sit in.

The kind of crowd that gathered at O'Toole's were members of a community, the thing that best describes what being an Irish-American is all about.  It's an atmosphere that not only happened there, but anywhere a pub could be found.  That atmosphere of joyful conviviality exists, whether in Honolulu or Hiroshima (Molly Malone's in Naka Ward).  Rare is the city that doesn't have at least one.  I'm pretty sure they vastly outnumber French restaurants, which is a testament to the unbreakable Irish spirit.  

I did find out that the new owners will remake O'Toole's into a new Irish pub with some changes, like food and no smoking. Hopefully, they'll also make the restrooms a tiny bit bigger as well.  I also found out that if the Irish musicians want to gather in their back room to play again, we are very welcome to do so.  Great news, if the pandemic will just sit down, shut up, and go away.

This pandemic has been the death knell for a lot of small bars, pubs, and restaurants.  Here in Honolulu, it's estimated that as many as 40% of the small venues have vanished, never to return.  But the human spirit, which certainly carries a lot of Irish within, is in the end courageous and irrepressible.  Dreams may be interrupted, but they never really die. 

And there are still plenty of dreamers.