Historic Irish Pubs of Chicago: March 2011

Watch Mike and Allison on WGN-TV:

Danahey’s original plan was to scour the Chicago Irish bar scene, score a few free drinks, hear boozy barroom lore and write.

“The idea was to go into bars and say, “Tell me a story and we’d take the best stories,” Danahey says. “Stories and beer. That’s pretty good, I thought.”

Instead, the project turned into a charming picture book that feels like you’re thumbing through an old family album — more than 120 photos — accompany an oral history of the Irish Pub culture’s place in Chicago history.

The Chicago Tribune:

The book spends a lot of time at such well-known places as Butch McGuire's, Glascott's, and Cork & Kerry, and it takes readers to such surprisingly satisfying suburban joints as Gaelic Park in Oak Forest and Tommy Nevin's Pub in Evanston.

But back to Shinnick's. It opened in 1938 and is still run by relatives of founding father George Shinnick Sr., who voiced this timeless tavern wisdom: "He who drinks and drinks with grace/is always welcome in this place/He who drinks more than his share/is never welcome anywhere."

The Daily Southtown:

Allison Hantschel, a former Daily Southtown reporter, and Mike Danahey, of Sun-Times Media, wanted to use the taverns to talk about Chicago’s Irish history.

“We spent a lot of time in Irish bars,” Hantschel said. “We started talking about the stories we heard. We started digging into how these bars are connected into the city’s history.”

Their resulting 125-page book shows and tells how Irish immigrants made their way through the city, how the Irish won political power and how Irish musicians keep their traditions going.

On WBEZ Radio.

In the Libertyville Review.

In Allison's hometown paper, the Oak Park Wednesday Journal:

In the late 1960s, the first Healy's Westside settled in just up the street, and the original family-owned Irish pub, just known as Healy's, was established in Chicago in 1954, he says. It was a treasured and popular neighborhood place, Hosty says.

Healy's Westside, along with about 50 other family-run Irish pubs in Chicago and the near suburbs, are spotlighted in a new quick read, Images of America: Chicago's Historic Irish Pubs (2011, Arcadia Publishing) by Mike Danahey, a Chicago Sun-Times Media Group reporter, and Allison Hantschel, an Oak Park author.

In the Oak Park Patch.com:

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.

Listen to Mike and Allison on Rick Kogan's radio show.

Mike' story in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Annie Alleman's review in the Aurora Beacon News.

In the Chicago Reader, Suburban Life, Gaper's Block and Time Out Chicago.