Conway’s (Long) Story
Conway’s Family Pub Founder, Darian Pierce, has known of Father Tommy since 1987. In 1999, Darian formally met a jovial Irishman named Father Tommy Conway at a friend’s house while watching NASCAR. The two men felt a true kinship of souls, and Father Tommy invited Darian and his family to go to Ireland. As parents of young kids, and sparse expendable income, Darian thanked Father Tommy and promised that one day they would go.
In 2016, Darian, Terri, their cousins, Alton and Julie Pierce, along with several others, finally shared that trip to Ireland with Father Tommy. The trip was a life changing experience. It taught them things a formal education could not.
Suddenly, they were in a country of high spirited, happy and family oriented folks. Just like Father Tommy! They shared a meal at their coach driver’s house, Tom Tynine. They found the same warm kindred spirit in Tom, as they did with Father Tommy. It’s just an Irish thing you must live to feel.
One day, they went for a hike through an Irish National Park to see the 15th century Ross Castle. It is located in Killarney, in the county of Kerry. The very “Kerry” in the lyrics to the Irish ballad “Whiskey in the Jar”, performed for over a century, and more recently redone by the group “Metallica”.
The castle was a 2 mile hike from their town, so the group decided to get brunch before they set off to explore the forest. They meandered in to a pub called Tattler Jacks. Their first impression of the pub was its cleanliness. Ireland had won a soccer match against Portugal, for the first time in 15 years, the night before and the entire town erupted in celebration. Yet first thing in the morning, the place was spotless. Their waitress was helpful and smiling.
They ate, and began the journey down the path through a medieval, story book forest. Later that evening after arriving back to Killarney, they looked for a place to have dinner and decided to go back to Tattler Jacks, because their first visit had been amazing.
As they walked in, they saw their same waitress (they thought) and said they came back because she treated them so nicely. She smiled and seated them, and they immediately realized she had a twin sister on the far side of the pub. She also had a younger cousin busing tables, her dad was keeping bar, and her mom managed the kitchen. Family.
As they enjoyed the ambiance of family, something occurred to the group. America’s version of an Irish Pub was decidedly different. American Irish pubs were noisy speakeasies of calamity.
A true Irish Pub has a joyful family environment where conversation, laughter and real human friendships are fostered, melded and tended. Courtesy and respect are also ingredients, but first and foremost, it is about a sense of family. It is about welcoming you in to their home, breaking bread and toasting a cheer if needed.
This was no longer a foreign, abstract understanding. The family at Tattler Jacks were so welcoming, it felt to the point of being one of them, not merely people in a pub. They were Irish related family of the pub.
This is what we hope to bring with our dream of Conway’s Family Pub. A joyful atmosphere where there’s not just employees and customers. There is family, where bread is broken and there are no strangers. A place to meet friends you haven’t met, and family you didn’t know before you shared time in our authentic Irish Pub. We hope you will call it yours! Yours and ours, together!