Welcome to the Irish Pub-aissance: The New Irish Pubs Are Embracing Their Irish Roots

A new wave of bars is upending “the paddywhackery” of the genre in the U.S.

“I’m actually Irish, born and raised,” says Jen Murphy, owner-operator of the new Manhattan bar Banshee. “I learned a long time ago you actually have to specify that.”

Murphy, a veteran of the East Village bar scene, moved to the U.S. in 2014. It didn’t take long to notice that Irish American pride ran deep enough for people to comfortably declare themselves Irish, even many generations removed—but also that the manifestations of Irish culture in the States weren’t always aligned with her experience back home. Take the pub: Growing up in a small town in Ireland, she says, it was a place to bring the kids, to celebrate first communions and attend wakes, often with a grocer, gas station, or even funeral home attached. The ubiquitous American “Irish bars,” on the other hand, have “become their own beast… that kind of Disney-Irish Times Square thing.” 

With Banshee, she wanted to show New Yorkers something different. “We’re so good at adapting, immigrating and then just giving the people whatever they want,” Murphy says. “But I have more ‘notions,’ I think, as some Irish people would say.”