Reading, Massachusetts– A little earlier Saint Patrick’s Dayan Irish pub appeared one night under a basketball hoop in a suburban Massachusetts lane.
Neighbors crowded around the bar as the music pumped and a Guinness poured – inside a small bar that was towed for the night.
Instead of going out to celebrate the holiday, the bar came to them.
“The Wee Irish Pub” is delivered by Tiny Pubs, a small company run by brothers Matt and Craig Taylor, who build miniature Irish pubs on wheels for holidays, weddings and backyard parties throughout New England.
The pub is decorated with antique signs, church pews, an electric fireplace and a bar made from the front panel of an 1864 piano, recreating the feel of a traditional Irish pub – but small enough to fit in the aisle.
“It’s really just a time to forget about everything that’s going on in the world,” said Mark Cote, who hosted the bar in the driveway of his Andover home last Friday. “This is what bars are supposed to be about – for people getting together and having fun.”
About 20 people from five families — whose children grew up together — crowded into the space about 20 feet (6 meters) wide for Cote’s annual holiday party, creating what he said looked like a real neighborhood bar.
The idea began during the coronavirus lockdown, when the Taylor brothers – who are retired from corporate finance jobs – found themselves missing their favorite Irish pubs.
The first appeared in Matt Taylor’s driveway in Redding, 12 miles (19 kilometers) north of Boston.
“When we were building the bar in this neighborhood, the neighbors thought the bar would live here full time,” he said. “We had to calm them down a little.”
They worked until about 1 a.m. the night before their first rental. Matt said he was worried the windows might crack when they first towed it on the highway, but it went smoothly.
What started as a pandemic project has since evolved into a small business with four bars, including two Irish pubs, that are booked out most weekends throughout the year.
The brothers wanted the bistros to feel like real Irish pubs, not themed party paraphernalia.
“We have Irish friends who say to us, ‘You better not have fairies and stuff in there,'” Craig Taylor said. “So we said, ‘No, it’s going to be original.’
They visited Irish pubs throughout New England while designing the interiors, and settled on classic colors like jade green and Irish cream.
Almost every detail inside has a story, including a bar built from the front panel of an 1864 piano and church pews salvaged from a local church for seating.
A pair of horseshoes from a farm in Ipswich hung above the door for good luck: they point down as guests enter and up as they leave.
The chantry shelf holds a book of Irish surnames where visitors mark their family names, sometimes with a dollar bill on the page, sparking conversations about lineage.
There are packets of Scampi Fries — a popular snack imported from Ireland — and a corkboard with patches of police and fire departments, a common tradition at bars where first responders congregate.
One sign they’ve gotten it right, Craig Taylor said, is when guests start pointing to things inside — a scampi potato, a family name, a familiar song — moments when the experience goes from something new to something personal.
Guinness rented Taylors’ pubs for weeks at a time. They were also used by a state senator during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in South Boston. Bars were even rented for celebrations of life after funeral ceremonies.
Jared Guthrie of Swampscott said his family has rented the original for years now as part of their longtime annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration.
The party attracts about 125 people, with an Irish band playing inside the house while guests move between rooms, the bar and the waterfront courtyard overlooking the ocean, Guthrie said.
Guests gather inside to take turns playing bartender, telling stories, and singing songs — sometimes traditional Irish tunes or Gaelic lyrics that Guthrie said you rarely hear outside of family gatherings.
“People feel emboldened,” he added. “There’s a lot of singing that happens in that bar. It’s a place where people naturally come together.”
Before each event, the brothers personalize the space with custom posters often designed with a family crest naming the host as the bar’s temporary “owner.”
“It’s special for a lot of people to be able to come to an authentic Irish pub,” Matt Taylor said. “They may not be able to return to their old country, so it is meaningful to them.”
The parties continue despite the rain, heat or snow. Each pub is equipped with both heating and air conditioning for all seasons.
The Taylors wait until everything is ready — the lights are low, the music is on, the taps are flowing — before letting guests into the bistro.
When people walk inside for the first time, “it’s like Christmas morning,” Craig Taylor said.
That moment often feels like being transported to another place, he said, a place connected to memories of family, tradition and Ireland itself.
“People say you’re like Santa Claus,” Craig Taylor said. “You provide joy every day.”
When night falls, they are in no hurry to take the bar away.
“We never want to kick anyone out of an Irish pub,” Matt Taylor said.
So instead of picking them up late at night, they come back the next morning.
When he asked the hosts how long the party was, the answer was often the same: “Like, 3 a.m.,” Craig Taylor said.
When he and his brother come to take up the bar, he jokes: “Sometimes there are people sleeping on the wooden benches.”