news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

And.

Our connection this hour was made thousands of miles from here, across the ocean and throughout history on the Emerald Isle.

Rochester has a sizable Irish accent.

it has a sizable Irish-American population and a big Irish accent, a big one.

you're going to read a lot more in this month's issue of City Magazine.

The city is steeped in Irish culture and leading up to Saint Patrick's Day.

The city team is talking to us this hour, exploring the Ma tradition.

It's called Irish Heart.

From a look at some of the area's coziest Irish pubs to the sport of hurling to Irish music.

Our guests take us on a little tour of Rochester's Irish culture.

And speaking of music, you were hearing Morrison's jig from The Dady Brothers.

John Daly was recently on this program.

He is featured in an outstanding piece by Patrick Haskin in this month's issue.

And let me welcome our guests.

Patrick is one of them.

He's an arts reporter for City Magazine.

Welcome back.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Why am I welcoming you?

Because.

Because.

Because you're kind of a host of this program.

That's something I wanted to host.

Mode.

Yeah.

Do you want to.

I'll come back in 15 minutes and tell you.

Buddy list.

Leah, the editor of City magazine.

Hi.

Hello.

Great to have you.

And Roberto Lugares Berto is a multimedia reporter for city.

Hello.

That's, wrong month.

yeah.

You're right, you're right.

That's on me.

That's on me.

I should know is that every month for you?

Every month for me?

Yeah.

Yeah.

so we're going to go in a lot of different directions here, but this is, when I was talking to to John Daly, I read Patrick's piece.

I had read the advance of it, and was talking to John and really kind of going back through the book and the story of the Data brothers.

This is a city that's had a really vibrant Irish culture forever, it seems like.

And, if you're in it, you know it.

And if you're kind of, or if it's tangential, you might miss it.

But, what are you hoping to accomplish with this issue here?

Leah.

Stacy.

Oh, I think that had just been on my radar exactly what you said.

We have deep Irish roots, which was the working title of this issue for a little bit.

And then we were like, that doesn't feel right.

but we.

Yeah, there's everything from the Erie Canal, which I touch on and is the theme of this year's parade.

to the parade itself.

I mean, how many cities have such a large Saint Patrick's Day parade?

of course, we're adjacent to Buffalo, which also has a large Irish-American culture, heritage.

And there were just stories that were piling up that I really wanted to tell.

And even now we've gone to print and we found a couple more stories and we're like, oh, maybe we'll do it again.

Maybe we'll get this stuff in web or video.

But there's a lot here.

So, this had been on the docket since last year or maybe the year before, and this was the right time to make it happen.

the city visited seven of the area's coziest Irish pub.

I mean, how many Irish pubs are there?

It's a lot of pubs.

Yeah.

And I think we would hear from some folks who would argue that there may be a few more.

and we really we didn't even tap all the suburbs.

And of course, we know there are some more out in the suburbs.

and even extending to the Finger Lakes.

So that's a roundup of, you know, what we have in this issue.

It is not exclusive.

It is not us claiming that's all there is.

But we kind of we all went into it.

There's a bunch of different writers on that piece, and we all went into it with sort of, our old standards or places that we felt really reflected.

Irish or Irish that we're creating new words, pubs in Ireland.

for those of us who had been there and worked on that piece.

So I'm just popping through here.

Timothy Patrick's teepees, Irish restaurant and sports pub.

That's on Panorama Trail.

And, Phil, I've not been there.

That was your review.

Yeah.

Yes.

I went there with our friend Tara Clark.

Oh.

And Tara has some strong opinions on Irish pubs, and we've both been to Ireland.

And, you know, we're looking for a place with a fireplace.

Check.

good.

Good.

Guinness pour.

Check.

A very strong Irish coffee.

I think that powered me through for the next two days.

Check.

yes.

yeah.

And the.

Some of the others were pitched.

Some of them were assigned.

we there's it's funny, there's a lot of, like, crossover Irish.

I identifying bars that are more like dive bars, and that could be a whole show.

And we would get calls and I might get canceled.

but, we were.

We're looking for this.

You know, there's this certain it's almost crossover into, like, a diner or a restaurant, and, you know, the berries are going to be on the second half of the show and the their pub, when it was opened in Webster, was always a place that I would go and be like, oh, man, this is, this is Ireland.

Like we you took it and you dropped it.

You copy paste.

Well, good news, just in case you did say something.

I'm out of bounds.

It's 2025.

You.

Nobody's getting canceled anymore.

You can't get canceled.

Actually, against the law to cancel.

I've heard that.

Yeah, I have heard, though.

Yeah.

We're supposed to keep the show like that.

That was like I was a little happy.

Okay, that was a little heavy.

Berto, you went to McAleese and Spencer?

It.

I did.

How was it?

It's great.

It's great.

It's, It's kind of misleading, but in a good way.

Like when you first walk in and it just seems like extremely tiny and like.

Which is, you know, pub.

That's a pub feel, but, I, I kind of go into, like, the magic hat feel that it has where you, you have a full dining space in the back.

So you want to have some, you know, elbow room and, and, enjoy the food.

You can there's a darts room and then you keep going and there's a second, basically like a second pub, but they use is like, event space, live music night, that kind of stuff.

Or in the summer, they open up to the back alley.

I mean, it just it just keeps going.

It's it's really incredible.

Those are good assignments, by the way, which Patrick didn't even get an assignment to a pub.

That is true.

I mean, I don't think I know how far down, how far down the flight for that, but you literally didn't even get assigned to a pub, everybody.

That's true.

I mean, we we've been calling him Saint Patrick, though, because as I was typing something in the team's my phone like, or maybe it's Google Docs, my phone autocorrect it because we were working on this issue for so long and I went to write something about him and it autocorrect it to Saint Patrick.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.

Not lined up.

That's literally what Leah calls Patrick Hosking behind his back.

Saint Patrick, Saint Patrick just so much reverence for him.

You know what he calls Berto behind his back?

Berto.

I mean, she really likes him.

I mean, as far as I know, she likes you, but I just it just doesn't have to come up with something.

Yeah, you have to be your ten year has to be a little more excited.

Yeah.

Or Google.

I has to assign it.

Yeah.

In my case, yeah.

It's true.

let me also say I love this quote in the piece on hurling, which is, it's from Rob Herbert.

And this is a quote from, Rock City Gaelic coach Scott Fry.

He says rugby is a hooligans game played by gentlemen.

Soccer is a gentlemen's game played by hooligans.

Hurling is a hooligans game played by hooligans.

That's good.

That's good stuff.

Hurling looks like a fake sport that someone took, like oversize kitchen spoons.

Probably had a few too many at the pub and then somehow invented a sport.

But I've done a little bit of it.

with my son years ago, and it was fun.

It's very hard.

Very hard, I want to say, but I really I enjoy this piece here.

and it also as a nice bonus, Gaelic Irish language has a lot of words that when you try to pronounce them, if you do it like phonetically, it's just not even close.

Makes no sense.

Some of the somebody who's Irish explained to me how the word is splitter.

Splitter, s l the splitter is spelled.

Oh, boy, I had it.

Now, this is a great radio.

I realized I had it right there.

Well, I've lost it.

sl I o t a r sl I o.

It looks like splitter, but it's a splitter, which is like, kind of understandable in in the realm of Gaelic, an Irish language, of which there's plenty that you just look at and go.

No, no, that makes, makes no sense.

And this is what I worry that people will now start asking me for my opinions on as Saint Patrick Hoskin and yeah, in my capacities, as are you, Irish and a little bit, but not enough to know anything you claim at heart.

Is that any lingo like can you do never.

Is there an actual doing?

Can you do Gaelic unto it?

Like you're literally the question now.

I keep going why?

That's a real question.

Sign me up for Duolingo.

we don't know the words.

We gotta.

We gotta figure them out.

So we're talking to the team from city about Irish Heart.

That is the name of the city magazine edition for this month of March around Saint Patrick's Day, looking at Irish culture all throughout our region.

And I have to say, Berto, here's a term I did not hear.

I've never heard before.

Saint Prat Saint practice day.

Yeah, not Saint Patrick's day.

Yeah.

Saint practice.

Saint practice day.

Get your reps in your reps. And you got to do.

Not on March 17th, but on February 17th, which is Saint practice day.

Yes.

No.

It's actually it's every every 17th at this specific location because Saint Practice Day is not, you like exclusive to to to February or Shamrock.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They didn't invent it.

Yeah.

but they, they do honor it.

Every month on the seventh, which is incredible.

That's great.

Yeah.

So.

But yeah, February being, you know, the Saint practice day, you know, the, the the time before the lights go on and you're ready to take the stage like, that's that's their, saint practice.

Say so.

Yeah.

No, it was it was incredible.

Absolutely incredible.

like.

And that was a late night for them.

They said so that we were both there.

It was the night after one of the huge snowstorms.

I mean, we there were so many.

And that did not stop people at all.

Yeah.

Didn't stop us, didn't stop anyone else.

they were going.

They were going and, the live music was amazing.

there was pints aplenty and, there was Guinness reps, calving into Guinness pints.

handing out Shamrock B, I mean, you basically basically could have just been Saint Patrick's, you know a it.

Yeah, that's a good time.

so that's birdhouse piece and I mean, one of one of birdhouse pieces, I should say.

there's a couple of pieces I want to mention before we get into our second half hour.

one's called the revolution was not televised, and it was about.

I think it's Eamon de Valera.

Yeah, that's an Irish activist who made, several journeys to Rochester and other parts of the country here to advocate for Irish independence.

That is not a story I knew of.

How does something like that get on?

The editor of Cities Radar, Leah Stacey.

so this was pitched by a young man named Sean O'Hare, who is from here, but he's in New York City and he's doing a dual degree in.

Oh, I'd have to look back at the exact wording is he's, I believe, doing a degree in English with a concentration in Irish studies, and he's done some work at NYU in Cambridge, I believe, and, I put something on Instagram.

We, we occasionally do that, all of us.

It's like when we have a theme coming up, we'll we'll put something up.

But this started months ago.

I must have posted something else, Irish, which sounds correct, and he replied to it.

I've never met this man.

We have some friends in common.

and he replied to it and he said, I have this great idea for a story.

And he pitched me this story and I was like, that is great.

And I love the historical connection because, Dave, Larry's mother lived here for a little while.

And so I said, well, this is perfect timing.

This was like last summer because we have an Irish issue coming up in March, and we just kept in touch, he remembered.

Call for pitches went out, he pitched it, we got it together.

We actually bought these photos from the the UCD archives at the James Joyce Library.

So these came from Trinity College.

which was really cool or sorry, College of Dublin, I believe it was.

And yeah, we were back and forth with them at the time, reference everything.

We're like, we need these.

And they're like, it might take a week or two to process.

And we're like, we're going to need them sooner than that.

And they got them to us in time.

And it's just so cool to see, all of this come together.

The handwritten letter is one of my favorite parts of the layout, and it was a story that was not on my radar at all.

So that's one of the pieces, by the way.

Tony in Rochester.

I'll take your phone call in just a second.

Let me just close the loop here.

The other one that was on my mind, was Veronica Vox piece, Gary Craig's book, which the world cannot get enough.

Gary Craig.

And it cannot get enough.

Never storytelling about this particular infamous Irish crime.

The piece in question is called A cop, A priest, a soldier for the IRA.

And, we've had a great time talking to Gary Craig throughout the years about the work he has done.

To tell this particular story is in your mind is like, if we're doing an issue on Irish culture, this has to be there.

I there's a literally what I said, okay.

Yeah.

And then we assigned these photos to one of our regular freelancers, Louis Russell.

And he recently recreated Gary's desk in his studio.

And I just love these photos so much.

It's like the hero portrait is so great.

Yeah, it's a it's a great story there.

So it feels it makes it feel a little bit more complete there.

Now, on the subject of, what's happening around town, Tony in Rochester wants to jump in.

Hey, Tony, go ahead.

Hey, Kevin, can you hear me?

Yep.

Go ahead.

Hey.

Yes.

Thank you for having me as a guest.

So.

Yeah.

So, I am not Irish.

I am Puerto Rican, but I. I married an Irish woman, and, And and I think get, you know, so I'm immersed in it, but, my favorite is, Murphy Stout.

I know you mentioned, you know, the other competitor, but, my question basically is, I know Rochester, has a great Irish community, and Jimmy Fallon keeps showing up here, and I want to meet him, at the airport pub, some kind of Fairport pub.

And I'm just curious.

Yeah, I think it's.

It.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, I, I'm not going to mention the name because you might cut me off, but, Yeah, I'm looking forward to meeting, Jimmy Fallon one of these days, but but certainly, I love the Irish community.

I love, you know, I, I'm Catholic.

We we do a lot of hymns and and church.

So just, curious if you are in touch with, like, you know, celebrities like Jimmy Fallon or anybody else who's kind of, you know, promoting Irish heritage in Rochester.

In there.

Thank.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Tony.

Leah said that we could have Berto or Jimmy Fallon for the show today.

And I was like, give me Berto.

Thank you.

Give me bird and we'll save Jimmy for the city social tomorrow night.

Yeah.

Oh, will he be that I genuinely don't.

That is a good time.

I mean, actually I would not be surprised, like literally at all if we were.

We were kidding around that we summoned him with this issue because, you know, he comes around this time of the year to visit Damien and because they're old friends from New York City.

So Damien McEnery, who is the owner of McCann, reason and Fairport, right on the canal, right in Fairport.

Yeah.

so they go back to New York City.

Yeah.

That's the whole.

The story I've always heard is that Damien worked in an Irish bar around the corner from where Jimmy was working, and they just struck up a friendship.

I have not confirmed this with Damien.

so if that's wrong, I hope he calls it.

But that's the story I've always been told.

And and he comes around this time every year, and, yeah, he was spotted at Patron Saint and the wood cliff and where else did he go?

I don't know, but hopefully the city social.

Yeah, well, I think I think he's probably back in New York by now, but I think that's just kind of a cool like it's been happening.

This is kind of like a if, you know, you know, Rochester thing, personally, not something that I would see as blowing up because also, like, maybe he wants to come here, just be a person in the world, just be Jimmy.

Can he just do that?

I mean, we just can we just let him have, like, a weekend out of New York City?

I love that, yeah, I love that about you.

That your your first instinct is like, I don't need clicks from Jimmy.

Let's have it.

Would take something special to you.

Just write a piece about that.

Yeah.

Or he'd want have to really want to do this, like a cheeky, fun way because otherwise.

Yeah.

Like let him let him go to just let him live his life.

Yeah.

There you go.

But but that's a, But Tony's right, though.

It's a cool little thing that if, you know, you know about Rochester, that Jimmy Fallon does have a habit of popping up.

in the Irish pubs here.

And a couple of your colleagues have now mentioned tomorrow night.

So I'm going to start with you.

What's going on tomorrow night?

We're having a little city social.

we got to test the cocktails that Jack's extra fancy is going to customize for tomorrow night.

what do they do?

like a shamrock shake twist?

frozen Irish coffee?

Yes.

Never say no to that.

And a Lucky Charms vodka drink.

And you can get a mocktail version of all these, probably.

I'm not going to speak for Dan, but he is.

I'm a magician, and I bet he could do it.

Yeah, and they're all.

They all look amazing.

Taste great.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's gonna be fun.

And Jack's whole thing is like a little disco, a little Irish or something.

yes, a little fancy.

we love working with them also.

They just.

They go all in, like, they let us come in at noon on Friday and shoot a fun video, which you can find on our Instagram, and it's going to be a good time.

We're going to be there from 6 to 8 tomorrow, Wednesday, March 5th.

We hear it's going to be warm out, maybe a little rainy, come out and hang.

There might be bagpipes.

I know a vibe.

It's going to be a whole vibe, even if they're just on the Spotify.

You know, it's interesting you say that tomorrow.

It's like supposed to be like 52 and rain all day.

Super Irish vibe.

Very Irish really is.

Yeah.

Weird.

I didn't even think about that.

That's great.

Perfect.

Perfect Irish.

I'd see a rainbow.

So.

Okay, one more time.

Where and when?

Liz.

Stacey jacks extra fancy, which is on Atlantic AV.

Does anyone know the exact.

I think it's like 820.

It's around there.

Atlantic Avenue was Jack Ryan's, I believe, before Jack's extra fancy.

And, 825 is what I'm told.

825 thank you.

That's the.

That's not me.

Just knowing everything, I was close.

I can back I was so close.

who doesn't see their from 6 to 8?

They will have snacks there.

Chef Kelly is fantastic.

So I'm sure we'll be delicious.

And then, custom cocktails will be there.

The issue will be there, which is a story.

Yeah Patrick will be there.

I will be there as a as a fake Irish person.

What are you looking forward to most?

Oh, people saying, oh, Saint Patrick's Day is coming up in assuming that I will have plans because I do not at the moment.

So yeah, people ask or maybe they'll ask like what's going on?

Or like, what should we know?

And I don't know or like, is it is my feast day right.

But I don't know.

Yeah.

I'm just along for the ride as we all are.

Right.

Well, technically Mondays, your feast day.

Is that true?

Oh, sorry, I'm thinking gray Day, but you are talking about the actual events.

Yeah, I was talking about the 17th.

But, yeah, it doesn't always fall on the the parade friendly.

You know, the weekend.

Yeah.

So the city social, which they do, by the way.

Everybody should go to the city socials.

Yes.

They're great times.

They're fun.

Yeah.

Come say hi.

They're great time.

What's really neat for me is seeing it always feels like like a cross-section of the community.

Whenever you, you get a chance to see it.

And it is the city is just bringing the city and the region together.

It's just really cool.

So that's tomorrow night.

here's an email from Mark.

He says, back in the day, I used to write bar and nightlife reviews for City Newspaper.

I also wrote a Saint Patrick's Day article.

One of the best Irish pubs in Rochester is Carols.

When writing the article, I got to speak with Carol herself, who was a wonderful woman and a force to be reckoned with.

It wasn't so much that I was interviewing her as she was telling me what to write.

Irish has a great Irish.

Rochester has a great Irish tradition and a culture to be proud of.

That is an email from Mark.

Thank you.

Mark.

Yeah.

awesome.

There in our pub round up.

Yep.

Carol says in the carol since iconic.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

but Mark, you know, you're the journalist.

They can't tell you what to write.

Although if you meet, if you meet some homeowners strong will.

There's some very strong willed types.

Maybe I'm just because I'm thinking of May from Ted Lasso.

I'm rewatching Ted Lasso with my son, and I'm just thinking of May, who's British but not Irish, but has that that tough, grizzled bar owner type.

we're talking to the team from city.

Before we go to our second half hour, we're going to we're going to meet the team from the Barry brand and Barry's Irish cream liqueur, who have a story of their own.

And Justin Murphy is going to join us.

He's doing some freelance writing for you.

Yeah, good for you.

Love to have him on board.

Justin Murphy, not just for the Irish issue.

You know who is funny?

When we were doing the run now there's like a lot of Murphy's.

And I was like, okay, all right, I got to get this straight.

But Berto, before you go, do you want to talk about the video that you shot with them?

And yeah.

Oh, there's a couple things I want to hit with Berto here.

So go ahead.

Yeah.

yeah.

So the video, we got to go into the Genesee Brewhouse and this is all pre their launch.

and we were able to see the whole process.

Dean.

The man, the myth, the legend.

He, he walked us through it.

he was nice enough to be on camera for it.

yeah.

I mean, that video is great if you haven't seen it go check it out.

It's on our, socials, and, it's just cool to just see the whole process and see all the, the care that they, they put into it.

And, also got to try it an early batch pre carbonation.

and delicious.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Spoiler alert.

It's it's good.

It's great.

Yeah.

It's it's good crack Craig.

Crowd I was like wait a minute.

They see crack I think I think I think it depends on the crack.

And I don't think it's crack.

It's more like crack.

Yes.

I mean, that was the worst.

Yeah.

Attempted Irish Lila, but it's all right.

We're here.

It's so bad.

We're here for you once again.

Something that I cannot settle as.

Patrick.

I just want to.

I just want that to be clear.

Oh, you can't settle how crack is pronounced.

You can't be that good.

You know, people.

People will look to me.

They'll say, Patrick Ewing.

I was like, I can't, I can't.

This is just not my bro.

no, that was a fun PSA.

Berto.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I loved it.

Good.

You had some really hard assignments this month.

I'm sorry, man, tough February.

Yeah.

leading up to it.

Yeah.

I hope the next six months you're covering, like.

Like recycling facilities.

Oh.

That's brutal.

It's kind of like even it out for, like, How did he know?

Oh, yeah.

That's funny you say that six month, a six month investigation.

That's incredible.

Berta, and Patrick, we mentioned his piece on John Daly.

Well, I mean, who what a lovely human being.

Super lovely.

Welcomed Berto and I into his home with his wife, Carol.

We spent the day there.

We spend about half a day there.

But, I mean, of the to 2.5 hours, we were there.

I think you played every or almost every instrument in his home for us.

Not as like, just just in a way of like, oh, yeah.

Do you want to hear what this sounds like kind of thing?

Sharing stories about where they came from, sharing stories about, you know, probably a lot of what he talked about.

I know he told the Pete Seeger story when he was on this, which I heard as well.

He told that to me, too.

Great story.

When if I had that story, I would I would tell every single person I know multiple times.

So and that's just one of them, which was the crazy part.

Yeah.

And so Patrick and Berto have this piece on John Daly and I talk about the Daly brothers as if everybody listening would know.

And I hope you do.

But if you don't.

John and Joe, two of, I think six kids in that room in that family, grown up here and really appreciating their Irish roots and became outstanding musicians, both of them, and could play a ton of different stuff, including Joe.

We used to go to Ireland and study the hardest, like authentic Irish instruments to play, and then would come back to Rochester.

They were huge.

And not just the Irish bar scene, but really the regional music scene.

But they never chose to leave.

They probably could have done different things if they chose to, but they wanted to be here.

we lost Joe six years ago, 2019 and and John not only still here playing great music, leading Irish tours, doing all kinds of cool stuff and just a great soul.

Just wonderful.

Do I mean, like, you probably spent ten minutes to the guy you're like, it's amazing.

Like, yeah, bar none.

Nicest person.

Yes.

Yeah, it was electric.

And I mean, he really like takes you into the stories like it's there is no shortage.

Everything that is on the wall has some something behind it.

It's it's incredible.

and so the piece by the way is really lovely.

It really I think deserving I think John and that family deserve to have their story continue to be appreciate it.

So Patrick and Berto did a great job with that.

I also want to say I love when I meet somebody with that much talent.

And it was had that much kind of run who's just genuinely ego free.

Oh yeah.

Because it's yeah, there's not a lot of that in the world and it's all free.

You just a dude.

And he just he just wanted to play some music, you know, which was and tell some really great stories.

He was almost reluctant to take Berto and I upstairs on his stairwell and show us all of the, you know, the press clippings over the years, the keys to the different cities, like, you know, the the awards and the accolades.

He was he almost did that reluctant Lee.

but he did it because they do mean a lot.

And then, of course, like, they're extremely important.

But he, he sort of did it with a, I don't know with a whiff of like, yeah, I guess I probably should show you this, but then I'd rather just talk about my injury.

Yeah.

So yeah.

So you have to respect that.

Well the John and Carol and, and really the whole extended family, just love you guys and what a what a cool story.

That's just part of city's issue.

It's called Irish Heart.

You'll find it wherever city is sold.

Now every time Willie is like, that's a good joke.

Leo loves that joke so much because she's like, oh, people think there's a paywall yet that recycle joke will do really well for our climate issue.

We love it.

Still.

No, it's good.

Here it is.

City's issue is out now.

Yeah.

And you're going to find it now.

And when we come back from this break we let in Vertigo.

Are you are you taken off?

You're going back to work or something?

I believe so oh, okay.

I believe back impact.

You get down here.

Oh, yeah.

So long and get out of here.

Berto.

Lugares, great to talk to you.

Reporter for City magazine.

Great work here, as always.

I was good being here.

Nice talking to you and Saint Patrick.

Been.

Give us your best Irish brogue, as you I know.

Don't insult.

Don't do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't do.

Thank you anyway.

Oh, there it is.

Wow.

There it is.

You can see him going, like, do I even want to try the intrusive thoughts.

And then it's like yeah let's do it.

And then the second it started to come out it was like, pull it back into it.

What's not it's look at me, don't look at me.

That's the story of my life.

There we go.

All right.

Great work here.

Thank you.

Nice talking to you.

It.

You're going to stay, Aunt Julia?

Stacy?

yeah.

Unless someone else wants to know.

I got so much to do.

All right, well, we're talking about you from city.

We got a lot more to cover.

You do the outstanding issue here.

They're going to keep talking.

We're going to break.

We're coming right back.

I'm connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Wednesday on the next connections, a former congressional press secretary for a Democratic congressman says her party is not meeting the need when it comes to responding to the new white House.

We'll talk to Jalen Sparks about what she wants Democrats to start doing.

Then in our second hour, we talked to our colleague Steve Johnson from classical 91 five.

And in the new series in the key of Z, talking to high school students about music.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Carolla Center.

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I talk from the Academy Award winning writer director of parasite, Bong Joon ho, and based on the novel by Rochester's Edward Ashton, Mickey 17, starring Robert Pattinson, opens March 6th at The Little Showtimes at the little.org.

And.

All rise.

Good stuff, Rob Braden.

Good crack.

And we're going to find out in a moment if that's pronounced correctly there.

Are you betting on me?

Are you betting on Patrick?

Asking on how we pronounce you?

Betting on somebody?

Irish needs to say that I have Irish friends.

I literally am seeing them this afternoon.

I think that they would take good crack.

Right?

Yeah.

No, he's a delight.

I think they're both a delight.

But I'm really only talked to him with his name.

well, to to Fergal and Natasha.

our friends there.

an email from Timothy.

Timothy says it is pronounced crack.

There you go.

Okay.

and that is that our colleague Sarah, by the way.

So our colleague Sarah.

Abby Monty says you can learn Irish on Duolingo.

Leah.

Stacey.

But she says it's awful.

Take an actual language class.

Good to know.

I'm not going to do either, but because that now I'm going to Tokyo, we'll talk about that off the air.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Well, but if you really want to get serious about, Irish language, I guess you can try Duolingo because there's a duo for everything.

But yes, Sarah saying take an actual class.

I want to welcome, some guests in studio here.

We've got a packed house.

Now, Justin Murphy is freelancing for City magazine.

That's cool.

It is cool.

Especially with a name like Murphy on Saint Patrick's Day.

That's exactly right.

Are you Irish?

I am Irish, of course.

Of course you are.

Is that why you're writing for this?

Are you going to do a lot of other stuff?

I'm going to do everything good.

It's not like one and done.

No, no, no, no, this wasn't his first.

This wasn't my first.

Also not your call is Lee.

Is call correct?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Nice to see you, by the way.

You too.

And with us in studio.

Hello, Danny and Jessica.

Barry.

Hey, guys.

Hi.

I'm happy to be great to have them co-presidents of the Barry Brand and Barry's Irish cream liqueur.

we're going to get that full story in just a second here, but, well, I mean, I guess I'll have Justin Murphy set us up a little bit here.

First of all, do you say good crack?

What do you say?

You know what?

before I saw the article, somebody told me, like, oh, I saw your, article in city about bottling the crack.

And I said, that wasn't my story.

I have no idea what you're talking.

Oh, okay.

What do you say?

No, it has your name on it.

Do you see it?

I don't I'm not familiar with that term.

I don't even know.

I still to this moment don't know what's a good time.

It's a good one.

So you're familiar with the article but not the headline is.

That's right.

Yeah.

Okay.

I usually write the headlines and what's good crack.

do you guys say crack?

What do you say?

Yeah.

basically, it means a great time, but.

But say it.

I want you to say the crack is ten.

The crack?

Yeah, the crack is ten.

The crack is 90.

The crack is nine.

John.

Daddy said crack.

And John Daddy would know it.

John.

John.

Daddy was it.

Yeah.

The crack is 90.

The crack.

Yeah, yeah.

There it is.

You have to stop doing that.

There it is.

I'm just trying to be accurate.

Yeah.

Okay.

but what does it mean when we say the crack is 90, the crack is ten.

Whatever.

That's the best it can get.

So if you are about to go into a pub and someone came out and you'd say, so what's going on?

Any good crack in there?

And they'd say, oh, loads of it.

And that's a pub you need to go into, and you might not leave until the wee hours of the morning.

And that means good time.

Good people.

Yeah.

Good drinks.

Yep.

Doesn't mean just one thing.

Put your mind out of the gutter, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Crazy good codec.

All right.

Yeah.

Lee is going to kill me if I do that again.

no, I'll probably just leave Lee and Justin, do you want to introduce Danny and Jessica before we dive into their story a little bit here?

Oh, well, I think we're going to have different introductions because I go way back with these two.

I like the first year you were open, right?

Yeah.

And I was freelancing for the DNC, and they sent me to do a video.

I hosted a video where I just, like, walked through the pub and drank Guinness and did a shot of whiskey on camera with y'all.

I don't know if you remember, though.

You said, hey, is there a quiet time when we could have a conversation about your pub and everything you do?

And we said, oh yeah, we have a perfect time.

And we had her come in at the busiest time on a Wednesday for a trivia night, and it was right before Saint Patrick's Day, so you could not move in there, but it made for a really good video.

It did.

I remember we were like nervous about the mics and the receivers like, we're going to go with it.

Yeah, I'm just going to make it happen.

I was standing outside in the snow doing like the intro shot and then we went inside.

So that had to be 12, 13 years ago.

Yeah, something like that.

And it's our main video on our old website.

So yeah.

So I love that one.

Yeah, it's a blast.

So if you want to see baby Leah and Barry's Irish Pub two things that no longer exist.

but that was my first introduction to the two of you.

And then I became a Barry's regular and have just follow their career.

We've worked on media stuff and Rochester cocktail revival, and I just kind of been a follower of your story.

And we love you.

Oh, it's very clean, actually.

Yeah.

do you have a great sob story like that?

Yeah.

No, I met them for coffee with my story, and we had a great conversation.

So for anybody who hasn't read the article, the upshot is that they have an Irish empire in Rochester.

I think it is an empire.

It is.

My mom tell you that that sounds like something that that's the only way to describe it.

I don't disagree this extremely, popular, pub, which is on hiatus.

So you can talk about that.

And then the brand Irish Cream, which has an awesome backstory and the festival and probably some other things that we never got around to talking about.

But it was cool.

I'm, I'm an I'm a person of Irish descent.

My, folks came over around 1850 to Canandaigua, and I've got a whole line of, Canandaigua Irish Murphys.

So I was excited about it.

I suspect the reason you didn't get to all your questions is based on how you opened the piece.

That's right.

Yeah.

It wasn't my fault.

And which, you know, wasn't my in which you noted that, you know, Danny is has a lot of stories, and you've done a good job so far of keeping him in check, but I don't know if it's going to last.

The gift of gab, we call that.

Yeah, we've kept the Blarney Stone a couple times, so, listen, there are certain people I've interviewed on this program who have reputations for you.

Ask one question.

You may get the microphone back in 15 minutes, and you just have to learn how to control that.

When I do it, I you notice I haven't even made eye contact with Danny.

And since he said I'm worried about if I'm bored and I look at him, he's just going to go.

It's like a wild animal, right?

He's a good storyteller.

Is that what you're saying?

That's right.

Okay.

So I mean, that's also a lovely thing for a journalist when you've got a great storyteller, just means you get a lot of material that you want to work at.

Right?

so, what is the story now?

I'm going to have Justin tell, and then we're going to have our guest tell it.

But, you know, you sum it up here, they have an empire.

But what's the story now?

Like what's the crack now?

With what?

The berries.

Well, it's this Irish cream which got its start.

I shouldn't say guy to start, but got its, a big boost, from pandemic business, from, Conor McGregor making a very unexpected cameo.

And, they're just my understanding is it's bottling like crazy.

And people love him.

Fair enough.

Like, I'm not even looking at Danny.

I feel like.

So.

Yeah, I'm just.

Yeah.

No, he's 100% correct.

So we had an Irish pub when we opened.

I was 20 and Danny was 24, so she couldn't drink in her own pub for the first year.

That's awesome.

Yeah, this.

That's true.

And she would make up for later on.

Thank you.

We have three children.

and then, you know, it's it was kind of crazy.

We came up with our own Irish cream recipe that, you know, we would make as a mixed drink when someone would order it at the pub, and, you know, then the pandemic hit and you could sell liquor and mixed drinks out the door.

So we, you know, we're kind of that was my sole job was to go in for 12 hours a day and make Irish cream on the ready and sell it in mason jars, kind of a thing.

So.

And how many did you go through on the spot?

10,001 liter jars.

we took all the mason jars out of Monroe County and beyond.

Those is true.

Yeah.

I had to fight women at like, Walmart or Country Max because everyone took up canning that year too.

So it was like we were like, we need these jars.

It's for our livelihood.

Yeah.

That was really neat.

And then, you know, in the short of it, I mean, long story short, we end up at the Conor McGregor fight in Vegas in 2020 before the world shuts down.

And we met with his like, head of for 12 for, the US.

And I was just talking to him after, you know, we're on our way to the after party, which Danny and I go to after parties all the time.

So I don't feel cool enough to be in Las Vegas, let alone an after party.

Yeah, right.

So I just said him.

I was like, look, we have this Irish pub.

I said, we make our own Irish cream that, you know, we want to one day, share with the world, you know, that bottle bottle up, that love and warmth and coziness of the Irish pub that people go home instead of that guy waving out, waving her off and saying, I hear this all the time.

He took us serious, set us up in a, an appointment, an interview, if you will, in Tipperary, Ireland.

It went phenomenal.

And here we are today.

Yeah, we thought we were interviewing them, by the way, to make the cream.

No, it was the other way around.

Yeah.

So they liked us.

They got their wonderful wonderful people.

They have a lot of pride in what they do and in their community.

very similar to everyone here at this table.

So we knew we had the right people, to do this.

And they were able to match our recipe over the course of a year.

Very fun experiment.

because you had about 100 different samples to try to match yours.

And I think it was the hundredth sample that is now in the book, right on your microphone so we can hear you.

Yeah.

I don't want to miss the story here.

Yeah.

And what is it that makes a great cream?

Just, I would say I mean, the answer is just, Yeah.

no, I would say what makes a great Irish cream is the story behind it.

obviously the quality of what's going in there.

Like, it's true, the cream from Ireland, and their sister city, distillery makes really great whiskey, and they're really involved in their craft and really passionate about it.

So, you know, it's just the best of the best qualities and, you know, just really having something that you can sip and, you know, not be scared off.

Right.

Like I feel like if I was like, hey, Danny, right now, I don't know, what is it?

145 be like, Danny, you want an Irish whiskey?

Right now I feel like, it's only, you know, it's not even two.

So let's, you know.

But a cream.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, we can put that in the coffee.

That's no big deal.

Exactly.

So it's easy.

You would say it's not even two for.

Are you sure you're.

Well?

It's not.

I say that, you know, it's not for all the reasons.

You know, I don't you know, it's almost Saint Patrick's Day.

I didn't even finish the sentence.

By the way, you all knew what I was thinking, which is a it's a condemnation of you laughing at that.

By the way, you are getting canceled.

Today's the day.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Today's the day.

so before we go, I want to talk to Justin about a couple of things that stand out from this piece here.

But I want to ask people were, well, listeners, listeners probably want to know where they can find if they haven't found Barry's yet, where do they find it?

Yeah.

So we're available throughout all of New York State right now.

other states coming soon.

but right now we actually have a collaboration with the Genesee Brewhouse.

Right now, they have a Barry's Irish Cream Stout on tap, which I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say this, but they've almost run out of.

Yep.

That's awesome.

There's only seven kegs left, so.

Wow.

Yeah.

And there's also an ice cream company out of New York City called Tipsy Scoop.

that is made it into an ice cream, a berries infused ice cream.

We do not work for them.

No.

We're plugging.

Yeah.

Plug.

Tipsy.

but yeah.

Barry's Irish cream, currently available.

Pubs, restaurants, liquor stores.

How much can you?

I mean, you can grow, I guess, as much as you can kind of handle the growth, but I guess that's what I'm wondering.

What's the right kind of curve for you?

What can you keep doing?

Yeah.

I mean, we've never done this part of it before.

so we had the pub for 12 years behind the bar.

so this is new to us, and lucky we luckily we have a lot of wonderful people in our corner that have kind of shown us the ropes, and we love to learn.

So we get to grow every day.

and like I said, the sky's the limit.

We are passionate about it because we think it is literally bottling up the love and warmth of a true Irish pub.

And we represent not just ourselves and our last name, but everyone who came in our pub and our entire community.

So when we're in New York City, you know, introducing the cream, it's not just a product, it's you're representing your community well.

And to add on to that, Danny.

Right.

Like every place in the world has an Irish pub right.

So like Leah, you're talking about going to Tokyo.

There's an Irish pub in Tokyo and I will find it.

Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, mean for us.

I mean this, you know, Barry's Irish Cream will be in there at some point, you know what I mean?

Like our world is your market.

Exactly.

Yep.

Yeah.

That's great.

That, Justin's piece takes you back to 1965 and Crescent Beach and, a bit of a lot of history there, actually, that I wouldn't have known there.

you might tell a little bit of the story there.

Yeah, this is great to me.

so there the grandfather, the patriarch of the Berry clan, has been working at Crescent Beach, and it's ready for a change of ownership.

And he wants to buy and can, because doesn't have the cash together, and he's sort of sitting at the bar stewing as an Irishman sometimes does.

And, somebody comes up and says, are you Joe Berry?

And you saved my life one day, from drowning.

And the money you need will be in your bank account tomorrow.

And that that starts him off in, decades and that amazing crescent beach.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Unbelievable.

You know, so I'll tell you what else is crazy.

We were just talking about this earlier.

So when they told me that.

So this would have happened in what, like the 30s or the 40s?

Like the drowning thing.

It was in the war.

But.

So I was looking in the newspaper archives to, to see if I could, you know, if that made the news or whatever.

And I did find, a story about a guy named Joe Berry who saved somebody from drowning, like, around the start of World War two.

And so I texted him, I was like, oh, cool.

I found the story about your grandfather.

And they said, no, that's not him.

That's another Joe Berry that saved a guy from drowning around 1940.

We'll take credit for him.

It sounds like a good one was nuts.

It was nuts.

Berries are incredible.

Lifeguards.

Yeah.

Saving lives one day at a time.

That's what we do.

so I like that you tried to fact check it, though, because the story could be apocryphal.

That's right.

But it's it's still could be apocryphal to be perfectly great story.

There's a great Irish saying, don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Yeah, this one.

That's a journalistic thing to consider all the time.

Hey.

Mel in Penfield wants to ask a question.

Are you guys.

Hey, Mel.

Go ahead.

Yeah, Mel.

Intro.

And all your regulars want to know when you're going to open up another on the calendar.

What's going on?

Oh, we love you guys.

so we are currently very, very much, deep in our search of finding our forever pub.

We actually have some, places to visit, the next week or so.

Yeah.

So with a little Irish luck on our side, we'll get that forever pub sooner than later.

This should be the last Saint Patrick's Day without a Barry's home.

We wanted to be able to announce it before Saint Patrick's Day.

So we're getting close.

We're getting close.

How's that?

Mel?

All right, make it work.

All right.

With you on our side, how can we go wrong?

We'll get it.

We actually.

We're coming to your house.

That's the new pub.

Yeah.

For it?

Yeah.

Until we open it, we're coming to your house.

Thank you.

Mel, thanks for the phone call.

I can put that fight fighting.

Mel Cowan.

We know Mel.

that's, you probably got to know a lot of customers who have asked you that.

And Justin writes in the piece that despite not having a physical location for a pub right now, what do you have 8000 people at in Webster last September?

Unbelievable.

so it's our fifth year, running the Barry's Irish Festival.

The first four years, we held it at our farmhouse in Hilton.

And that's how you say Hilton, by the way?

Hilton.

yeah.

And then, this past year, without having the pub in Webster, for the time, we said it would be kind of cool if we had the festival there.

and I usually at these things think it's just going to be some family that feels bad for us.

That shows up.

And we had, like, somewhere between 8 and 9000 people at it.

It was the most fun I've ever had in one day.

It was unbelievable.

It was so family friendly.

and Leah, your, you know, magazine, this edition covers a lot of this, but we are very, very lucky in our community.

We have such an amazing music scene.

Irish dancers, bagpipers in history.

And so it's our honor to have a festival to showcase it for a day.

So fun.

Yeah, yeah, it's a great story.

and then there's this.

There's this little vignette from your past here.

I'm thinking about what I wanted to do in fifth grade with my life because, you know, my dad just turned 80.

I was back in Cleveland, and he had a bunch of old scrapbooks and yearbooks out, and it was like looking at, you know, this old time capsule of what my dad wanted to do, and he wanted to sing his way to Europe and this little band, this little quartet, when they were in middle school and high school, you in fifth grade told everybody, I'm going to be running a pub.

That's what most fifth graders want.

yeah.

Is that not normal?

I thought that was all.

yeah.

So I was drawing it in my notebook.

I had the layout of it through high school.

I was making a lot of the recipes that would, I hoped, would one day go in it, so I'd have my friends over and have them try it.

but, yeah, my my grandfather, he.

You talked about the Crescent Beach.

He had an amazing work ethic.

And because not most of not most people my age have a connection to that World War Two generation, he just happened to be my family's best friend, for all of us.

And he had a great work ethic.

He genuinely loved what he did, and he was able to help people.

So I wanted to be able to do something like that.

Step forward.

We always had a shamrock stamped on our forehead, like it just was part of our our life and upbringing.

And so grandpa and I would have these conversations of what a little Irish pub would look like and what would be important to it.

And he did get to come in the pub before he passed away, which meant the world to us.

because they don't make them like that anymore.

He's the man.

Well, I mean, it's an awesome story.

And Justin would have had it had a chance to get into more if you had an editor, you know, Danny, but, you mentioned this family has got roots in a lot of different places here.

Now, don't they like the berries there?

In what?

Is there a judge?

There's.

Oh that's right.

Yeah, absolutely.

They're all throughout Greece.

there's the judge.

there's a bunch of educators.

There's, your sister and, Fairport has a yoga.

Yoga studio.

Yeah.

She just open that up a couple months ago.

Yeah, there is yoga that can take care of all of your needs, of all kinds.

It's an empire.

That's right.

Yeah, it's definitely an empire.

Well, before I let you go here, it's really cool to see the growth here.

And, you know, when the pubs back open, we'll have to talk a little bit more wherever your next location is going to be, because Mel, she said get it done.

Yeah.

Get it done.

Well.

And that Mel our pub family, if you will, and our kids, we had, you know, when we opened it at 20 and 23 or 24, we didn't have any kids yet.

The kids, all they know is the pub.

This is where they would do their homework after school, so that we've promised them that we'll make that happen again.

And this time it will be one of those 100 year old Irish pubs.

Yep, that gets passed down.

Yeah.

It's, I didn't know what to say about the kids doing their homework in a pub after school, but, we all need third places.

We need places to feel connected to community.

That's a pretty common theme on this program.

Exactly.

You have, you know, whatever you're going through, it's nice to be able to have a sanctuary where you can go on a good day.

It's easy to celebrate, but it's nice to have a place where you can go when maybe things aren't going as well.

And I think that's what an Irish pub checks.

And frankly, we're more disconnected.

Not to get cliche, it's become so well discussed now, but we are definitely more disconnected because of all of the, you know, sort of the modern pressures of technology that are supposed to connect us.

But, you know, just a Murphy this is a they'll have a third place again here.

You probably got third places around town.

You've you've had haunts where you do some of your writing and thinking over the years.

Library a big third place from your library.

So definitely can't drink at the library.

But everything else, they got it there.

I mean, that's posted, but the library that's supposed to the library is another one of those things where, you know, if we're not careful in a decade or two, we're going to have a society without too many of those.

And yeah, yeah, a free warm well-lighted place where everybody's welcoming or the bathroom can't beat it except for except for a pub.

We're getting off topic.

You know, Shamrock will take care of it.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I think I think this is the topic and I think we'll close with this.

You know, the the issue is obviously not just about the pubs.

Although the pubs get their little their run here, the barriers get their run.

It's a, it's a little bit of history.

It's a lot of culture.

But those third places still really, really matter.

And in the Irish community here, that's it's pretty tight isn't it.

And it's important.

Yeah.

Well we were talking about this before we were technically on air.

It's our team talks about this a lot at city.

One of our jobs in this time in history, we very much see as presenting that sort of escape for everyone right now.

And so we do that in our way.

Pubs do that in their way.

Libraries.

so I almost see city as a third place of a kind.

I think reading is, is that escape or watching a video?

And so we're trying to do that.

Well, the issue is out now.

It's called Irish Heart and good luck to both of you.

Thank you.

We'll take it.

Yeah.

I don't know that you need it.

I think I honestly think that the hard work, that you've obviously been, I think just to mention, you were cranking at cream for 12 hours a day there.

That was crazy.

Trying to trying to figure out what to wear to an after party.

Yeah.

I love what a great problem to have.

What do I do at an after party here?

Just a Murphy.

You'd be hilarious at an after party.

I think you'd be very.

I have never been to an after party.

Maybe I'll get a call from Conor McGregor one day.

Your wife is telling you she would be very smooth.

She would.

She would be.

I would lean on her.

Yes, I thank you, Justin Murphy.

Nice to see you as I see you.

And it's nice to see Justin Murphy's headline on his byline, I should say, in City Magazine, which is just the best hour thanks to Berto and Patrick and the whole team and Leah.

Stacy, congratulations to the team.

It's outstanding here tomorrow night, where Jack's extra fancy.

6 to 8 p.m.. We'll be there.

It's the city social monthly event that should be on your calendar and Danny.

And just keep it going.

We'll do it.

You guys very much was awesome.

Where will people find you online?

Oh, you can't just Google us.

You'll find us.

Yeah, I wish I had a website.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's linked in our sites.

Bad PR.

Yeah.

You guys are like Gary Craig.

You don't even know to promote yourself.

Hey the Barry brand Barry brand.com.

Thank you guys.

Thank you from all of us.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for watching.

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