A Book on the History of Chicago's Irish Pubs? Cheers!

This week, you're likely to see all sorts of manifestations of faux-Irish culture: fake brogues, beards dyed red and beer dyed green. 

The Irish pub, of course, isn't about the "knuckleheads drinking the green beer and wearing the silly hats," said Mike Danahey, co-author of Chicago's Historic Irish Pubs. 

It's a place for family gatherings, a place for community. A place to talk politics and to talk with neighbors. A place to find a sweetheart and to find solace after funerals. 

In Chicago's Historic Irish Pubs, Danahey and Allison Hantschel examine the history of the area's Irish pubs, from the city's long gone Sauganash tavern (founded in 1831) to the newer spots in the suburbs, erected as Chicago's Irish-American families flock to and settle there. 

Hantschel, an Oak Park resident, blogger, author and staff volunteer at the Ernest Heningway Foundation of Oak Park, sat down with Patch recently at Healy's Westside, a Forest Park pub featured in the book. 

Where did this idea come from? 

Mike and I worked together at the old Courier in Elgin. We spent a lot of time hanging out in Irish bars. About a year and half ago, we started talking about doing something more with all of this pub knowledge we were amassing, to put it to good use and write off some of the tabs (laughs.) We heard so many great stories and we wanted to collect them. 

It's no surprise we like our corner taverns. If you grow up around here, you just kind of get used to them. So what are some the surprises you encountered while researching the book? 

One of the things that surprised me a lot was that the very very early Irish taverns weren't pubs as we'd think of them today. The didn't look like this (gesturing toward the clean and spacious Healy's.) They weren't places where you went with the family. They were these small, sort of dark saloons and taverns rather than pubs. 

Houses of ill repute? 

Not necessarily. A lot of times they'd be attached to the hotel or an inn. We're talking really early here, like mid 180os, so what you'd have is places primarily aimed at men who would come in after work or get a bucket of beer to take home and enjoy at their houses.

The other thing that really surprised me, for me, is that it was interesting to see how women had a role in these places, and not just because in a lot of the early tavern they weren't allowed to enter as customers, but a lot of times they were essentially the tavern keepers.

What neighborhoods were the first to get the taverns? 

What we found is wherever there was immigrant labor, wherever there were jobs, taverns would spring up. In the 1890s [in southeast Chicago] we found  something like 20 or 30 different taverns that bore recognizably Irish names.  

What happened is people came over for jobs at steel mills around the docks. They'll start out drinking in whatever happens to be there — which nine times out of 10 is a German tavern. And then, as they became more established, they want their own places. So they build these.

Really, they're all over the places. We found them on the North Side, South Side, east, west. Really everywhere. 

How did you do the research? 

People hear about the project and think 'Oh, that must've been fun.' But a lot of it really was convincing people to get out their family albums an their grandmothers pictures.

It was about 50-50 [percent research to talking with tavern owners and their families]. I started out doing the way-back historical research. Mike had the more recent contacts and basically called all of the tavern owners that he knew and asked 'Who is important here in the community? Who should we talk to? Who are we going to get phone calls about if we miss them?'

And I spent a lot of time at the Chicago Historical Society. And thank God for Google Books.  I'm going through the late 1700s city directory and looking for Irish name and the occupations "saloon" after them. But that's fun for me.

Are there any cultural differences you spotted? Do South Siders do things differently than the West Siders?

We found a lot more of the neighborhood-type taverns on the South Side, whereas you've got fancier places on the North Side and the suburbs, which tend to be what you or I would recognize as the Irish pub concept.  

What we found more often than not is that these places aren't really places you go to get wasted; they're not really places you go to do six shots and throw up in the gutter.

You go there with your family, you go with your friends. You go to have conversation. There are plenty of places you can go if want go to get drunk. This really isn't that. 

Chicago's Historic Irish Pubs is sold locally at Centuries & Sleuths bookstore, 7419 W. Madison St. in Forest Park and can also be purchased online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and from Arcadia Publishing.