Blarney Stone door swings shut
ETNA -- Tom O'Donoghue is a tough old Irishman from County Kerry.
But the owner of the Blarney Stone says he's had enough, and is closing the Irish bar and restaurant that has been on Grant Avenue for 30 years. The Sept. 17 flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ivan knocked him out.
"I'm 70. The wife says, 'No more,'" O'Donoghue said Oct. 1 as he worked his way through two McDonald's hamburgers and cole slaw, courtesy of the Red Cross, in the flood relief center in the basement of the First Lutheran Church in Etna.
He didn't quit easily, relatives said.
Waters from the flooding Pine Creek caused more than $350,000 damage to the restaurant, which housed banquet rooms that had been the site of countless wedding receptions and other celebrations. The restaurant also sponsored Irish concerts and St. Patrick's Day events.
The flood left mud-soaked floors and naked metal studs that once held walls. The restaurant had come back from even more severe damage in a 1986 flood. But this time, O'Donoghue's family convinced him it was time to quit.
"He was kind of upset about it at first, but then he saw the wisdom in it and he's fine with it now," wife Peggy O'Donoghue said.
Jeff O'Donoghue, Tom and Peggy's son, said the restaurant could be turned into an office building. The property is assessed at $439,000, according to the Allegheny County real estate Web site.
Peggy O'Donoghue says the Blarney Stone started as a dream shared by Tom and his brother Dennis, a chef. They took over a Croatian club in 1974 and went to work. They had a hit on their hands almost immediately, with a menu featuring Irish brown bread, corned beef and cabbage, and Gaelic steak, a sirloin seared with Irish whiskey and garlic, parsley and cream.
"It was very, very busy," Peggy O'Donoghue said.
Five years after the opening, the O'Donoghues added a second story and began hosting wedding parties and other banquets. Peggy O'Donoghue said Tom used his contacts to bring musicians and singers from Ireland to Etna for weekly concerts. Among the performers were the Chieftains and the Wolfe Tones.
According to Peggy O'Donoghue, the brothers also were the first in Pittsburgh to offer draft Guinness Stout.
They also counted Art Rooney Sr., founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers, as a regular customer.
"He used to come every Wednesday for lunch," Peggy O'Donoghue said. "It was a great place to meet everybody that you knew."
Rose Kennedy, mother of President Kennedy, attended a political fund-raiser there in the 1980s, Jeff O'Donoghue said.
David Regan, general manager of Mullaney's Harp and Fiddle, an Irish pub that opened in 1992 in the Strip District, said the Blarney Stone might have been the first authentic Irish restaurant in the Pittsburgh area.
"They were the king of the hill in their heyday," he said. "They were selling the most Guinness and they had the best pint."
