Rememberance of Things Pabst.

Then was the War of the Rosie’s.

You see in the 1970’s and the 1980’s the Troubles were at their peak. The Irish were coming to work in New York and getting jobs in construction and the pubs and what not. But Bobby Sands was having his hunger strike and Sunday Bloody Sunday was fresh in everyone’s mind. There was always a jar at the end of the bar for donations to Noraid that was running guns to the North. Usually with a hard man keeping an eye on the jar as well. So if you dropped a double sawbuck in there you would get tons of free drinks after a nod from the guy at the end of the bar.

Now they would run fund raisers all the time for this or that about something in the North. Some of the girls came from Belfast and were very political. One in particular was Irish Rosie whose dad and uncles and brothers were all big in the movement. One of them did time with Sands and did the hunger strike thing. Now Rosie never did because she was a healthy size girl Very pretty but big and she could pack a wallop. They called her Irish Rosie as opposed to English Rosie who also worked there. Now you say how that could be. Well Eddie wouldn’t stand for most of the political crap and a lot of the girls didn’t care because they came to New York to get away from all that. So English Rosie came from an Irish Heritage but had a heavy English accent. And she was a Prod to boot. Normally that wasn’t a big deal.

Anyway one weekend Irish Rosie’s family was in town and they decide to have a fund raiser. Her Da an uncles were there drinking at the end of the bar. I was told to make an appearance and put a few bucks in the jar if I knew what was good for me and I did. Little did I know what was in store?

You see they told English Rosie to stay away. They didn’t want any trouble you know. But people who work in bars can never stay away from the joint when they are off. It’s the funniest thing you ever saw. They would complain and bitch and moan about the place and the owner and the customers. But on their day off that’s where they would be. I mean they would drink for free because their coworkers wouldn’t charge them and a lot of the customers would buy them drinks because they might be trying to pick them up and stuff. So they always end up back at the scene of the crime so to speak.

Anyway the Noraid fund raiser is going pretty good when who strolls in drunk as a Lord but English Rosie. She starts talking in her Yorkshire accent and the IRA guys ears perk up. Irish Rosie is working and her da calls her over and asks her if she is going to let some English sow be in the bar while good men are being murdered by the Brits. She tries to explain but he doesn’t want to hear it. He winds her up to the breaking point till she goes over and punches English Rosie right in the snoot. A brawl ensues with the two Rosie’s going at it tooth and nail. No this wasn’t you typical chick fight. No pillows. No hair tossing. Just biting and gouging and elbows and screaming and shit. The worst bar fight I ever saw. Eddie got his nose broke trying to break it up. The Irish guys wouldn’t let them stop it until some damage had been done. Then they just laughed. They really were hard guys.



Thank God all that stuff is more or less over. Although I heard there were some bombs let off recently. It was a bad time to be on the wrong end of an argument.

We called that the War of the Rosie’s.