‘Irish’ Billy Briggs Mourned
by Alex Zdan/The Times
Monday June 16, 2008, 10:05 PM
HAMILTON — The stage is empty now. There’s no music to make people dance and clap.
Billy Briggs’ banjo is sitting in a chair, propped against the “IRA Call the Shots” poster hanging on the wall of Tir Na Nog. But the bar on Hamilton Avenue grows louder as voices mingle and join in; as men and women gather, they fill the building but still feeling a void where the music should be.
Described as kind, generous, wild and passionate, a jokester, a great conversationalist, a tireless soldier for a free and united Ireland, a man with appetites for drinks and cigars and life, Tir Na Nog owner “Irish” Billy Briggs died Sunday just before 7:30 p.m. at his home in Lawrence.
He was 56. Briggs was diagnosed with colon and liver cancer in May 2007, and had undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
“We’re devastated, just the whole Irish community,” said Mary O’Rourke, joining friends sitting on barstools. Embracing as they entered, some swapped stories of times past, some smiled over past memories, some stared misty-eyed into their drinks.
Billy Briggs
Billy Briggs, in a Times file photo from July 2005.
“We had nothing when we came here, most of us had nothing,” said Maggie Connell, who came to the United States, and to Billy’s bar, from County Cavan in Ireland 20 years ago.
Briggs lent them furniture from his own house to help the immigrants from the land he loved get a start in a new home. Along the way, Tir Na Nog and Billy became a fixture in the neighborhood, a second home with a gregarious, big-hearted father figure. Many of the Irish community say they met their partners in the bar.
“I’m stuck with him because of Billy,” said Phil McCabe, gesturing to her husband Gabriel.
Jude Tracy, of Hamilton Square via Dublin, said Briggs made a genuine Irish pub in the heart of New Jersey, a place to visit not just for refreshment, but for fulfilling companionship.
“He made us feel like we were part of his family,” Tracy said. “He had that gift of just bringing people together.”
A viewing will be held Thursday at Tir Na Nog. Further funeral arrangements have yet to be announced.
