Irish eyes are smiling ahead of pub's big event

Almost two years later, Sean Cummings Irish Pub, 7523 N May Ave., is alive and planning a St. Patrick's Day celebration that promises a river of food, drink and music without an ounce of green beer.

Cummings, who was owner/chef of the upscale Boca Boca for nearly a decade, had long seen his Irish heritage attached to local watering holes, but they were nothing like the pub his cousin owns in Ireland.

"I wanted to share the real experience," he said. "Pubs there are a living for the people that own them."

And the customers are not iPhone-wielding hipsters, hopping from one bar to another on a collision course with after-hours pancakes or tacos. Convincing anyone the pub had to not only serve Guinness and Jameson with bangers and mash but look and sound a specific way proved difficult until he talked to someone, as the luck of the Irish would have it, called Shannon O'Brien.

The only problem he had getting O'Brien on board was filching her from her previous employer, who happened to be Sean's wife, Cathy, owner of Vito's Italian Restaurant. Though she'd been at Vito's five years, O'Brien left to help bring Oklahoma City the same kind of pub Sean Cummings says you would experience in County Clare.

"This is a working man's pub," Cummings said. That means frills are few, but your patronage is far more than a nod to a nameless barkeep surrounded by complete strangers.

"We probably have 30 people a day who we all know by their first name," O'Brien said.

That's because patrons of the pub eat, drink and make merry as one. The food is inspired by Ireland, the drink is Guinness on draught, and music is the thread that binds the patrons.