The music fades away but the memories last
HAMILTON — The stage is empty today. 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.
“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.”
Some commented on the significance of yesterday’s date. June 16 is Bloomsday, a commemoration that celebrates the life of Irish writer James Joyce, whose landmark novel “Ulysses” focuses entirely on that day in 1904. Briggs held readings of Irish literature in years past.
So he figured he went to go with Sligo Annie to celebrate Bloomsday in Heaven,” O’Rourke said, referencing Briggs’ longtime bandmate and O’Rourke’s partner who passed away 10 years ago.
On the stage where Billy would sing Irish folk songs, every one memorized and some he wrote himself, a memorial tradition that Briggs started is in place. Originally, if a patron passed away, they would be remembered with their favorite drink poured next to a lit green candle at the end of the bar. For Billy it’s two drinks: a pint of Guinness and a shot of Jameson, along with a beloved cigar, which he was forced to give up when chemotherapy changed his taste buds.
“He owns the place,” Joe Connell said. “He can have whatever he wants.”
Thoughts went toward Billy’s wife, Margaret.
“She’s heartbroken, but strong,” O’Rourke said. “And she’s the only woman on the earth that would fit with Billy Briggs.”
O’Rourke, a nurse, helped deliver Briggs’ two girls when they were born six years ago. Waiting for the babies, she went outside with Briggs as he anxiously smoked a cigar.
“You think it’s gonna be soon, you think it’s going to be soon?” she remembered Briggs saying. “What do you think, what do you think?”
When he first saw his children, he put his hand on their heads, kissed them, and gave them an Irish blessing.
“He sang ‘em a song right in the delivery room,” O’Rourke said.
A CD of a concert from Hoboken 16 years ago brought thoughts of Billy back briefly. Music booming from the sound system flooded the bar, bringing tears to some eyes.
Briggs’ former schedule of playing for hours every Wednesday and Friday night abruptly halted when he began chemo. But the three-man banjo and guitar band was reunited and Billy took the stage one final time in March, delivering a rousing performance after being recognized as an “Irish patriot” by Pat Doherty, vice president of Sinn Fein, the Irish political party with ties to the IRA.
“It was almost like that last hurrah, and he knew it,” Connell said of that day.
Briggs’ involvement in the community may not have endeared him to every public official, but he always left an impression.
Mercer County Executive Brian M. Hughes said Briggs never had any trouble telling a politician, Hughes himself included, what he thought. But Hughes still admired Billy’s personality.
“Obviously, when you think of Billy, you think of his music, you think of the happiness in his heart,” Hughes said.
Mercer County Sheriff Kevin Larkin knew Briggs for 50 years.
“He grew up next to my uncle’s drug store in Bordentown,” Larkin said.
Larkin praised Briggs’ spirit of giving.
“Many people will never know all the families that he helped,” Larkin said.
No funeral arrangements have yet been announced, but Glenn Wolverton, chairman of the St. Patrick’s Day parade committee, said there will be scores of people who will want to show their love for Briggs.
“If it’s open to the public, Lord knows how many people would come out,” Wolverton said.
“Somebody like that you just can’t replace,” he added.
Tir Na Nog in Irish folklore is the land of eternal youth. Friends are sure that’s where Billy is now.
From their Tir Na Nog to his, they raise a glass to the life of a friend.
