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We know that many of you worry about the environmental impact of travel and are looking for ways of expanding horizons in ways that do minimal harm - and may even bring benefits. We are committed to go as far as possible in curating our trips with care for the planet. That is why all of our trips are flightless in destination, fully carbon offset - and we have ambitious plans to be net zero in the very near future. After all, in 1860, Lincoln reportedly went straight to McSorley’s to quench his thirst after giving a speech that later became known as the Cooper Union Address. That speech, in which Lincoln condemned the expansion of slavery, galvanized the city into a feverish excitement.
Irish Culture
Now consisting of courthouses, parks, and high-rise apartments, the Lower Eastside, rather than being the weak part of town it is now one of the most affluent parts of the city. The days of the immigrant having a beer at McSorley’s is long gone. The crowd today consists of many Irish who enjoy the traditions of McSorley’s as well as citizens of the neighborhood and tourists who come to see a bit of New York’s History. Only a few of the old men have enough interest in the present to read newspapers.
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Opened to women
In 1994, Teresa Maher de la Haba, daughter of current owner Matthew Maher, became the first woman to tend the battered wooden bar. The décor hasn’t changed much in the past 165 years—pieces are rarely added or removed and everything is perpetually dusty. That is, until the city’s health department came knocking in 2011 and demanded the bones be dusted.
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Sports memorabilia is also prevalent throughout the bar.
As it is one of New York City’s oldest bars, it draws a large crowd daily of patrons looking to be asked whether they want their ale light or dark. Originating as an Irish workingman’s saloon, McSorley’s has spread a lot of Irish tradition to New York City as well as patrons of the saloon. In my opinion, and being a patron myself in the past, I highly recommend McSorley’s Old Ale House to any individual looking for a historical saloon experience. It is quite near impossible to put into words the McSorley’s experience.
McSorley’s occupies the ground floor of a red brick tenement at 15 Seventh Street, just off Cooper Square, where the Bowery ends. In eighty-six years it has had four owners—an Irish immigrant, his son, a retired policeman, and his daughter—and all of them have been opposed to change. It is equipped with electricity, but the bar is stubbornly illuminated with a pair of gas lamps, which flicker fitfully and throw shadows on the low, cobwebby ceiling each time someone opens the street door. Coins are dropped in soup bowls—one for nickels, one for dimes, one for quarters, and one for halves—and bills are kept in a rosewood cashbox. It is a drowsy place; the bartenders never make a needless move, the customers nurse their mugs of ale, and the three clocks on the walls have not been in agreement for many years.
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Ireland Before You Die (IB4UD) is the biggest Irish travel and culture website. We highlight the most inspiring experiences Ireland has to offer. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many pubs in New York were men-only and didn’t allow women to drink in or even enter their premises. McSorley’s was one such place, with its former motto of “Good Ale, Raw Onions and No Ladies”. McSorley’s Old Ale House opened its doors on Manhattan’s East 7th Street back in 1854, making it New York’s oldest Irish bar.
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Plenty of famous people have walked through its doors, like Teddy Roosevelt, Woody Guthrie, John Lennon, Babe Ruth, Hunter S. Thompson, and Harry Houdini. President Abraham Lincoln is rumored to have paid McSorley's a visit, and E.E. Before his 1910 death, John passed the pub on to his son, Bill, who later sold it to patron and retired police officer, Daniel O’Connell. Upon his death, McSorley’s was managed by his daughter, Dorothy O’Connell Kirwan, and her husband Harry Kirwan. Perhaps the most famous artifacts are the wishbones dangling from a gas lamp above the bar. After finishing a free meal at the bar, soldiers departing to serve in WWI left their wishbones—from turkeys, chickens, and one duck—intending to collect them upon their safe return.
Turkey wishbones
These patrons sit up front, to get the light that comes through the grimy street windows. When they grow tired of reading, they stare for hours into the street. There is always something worth looking at on Seventh Street. It is one of those East Side streets completely under the domination of kids.
He gave the saloon a life-sized portrait of himself, which hangs over the mantel in the back room. It is a rather appropriate decoration, because, since the beginning of prohibition, McSorley’s has been the official saloon of Cooper Union students. Sometimes a sentimental student will stand beneath the portrait and drink a toast to Mr. Cooper. Today, McSorley’s gives individuals a window into changing New York City. As McSorley’s refuses to modernize, and instead encompasses hundreds of years of history, it stands to remind the community of how changed New York City has become.
He would count out the money four or five times and hand it to the driver in a paper bag. He understood ale; he knew how to draw it and how to keep it, and his bar pipes were always clean. In warm weather he made a practice of chilling the mugs in a tub of ice; even though a customer nursed an ale a long time, the chilled earthenware mug kept it cool. Except during prohibition, the rich, wax-colored ale sold in McSorley’s always has come from the Fidelio Brewery on First Avenue; the brewery was founded two years before the saloon.
It is the oldest Irish pub in New York – this one was founded in 1854 by John McSorley himself.There’s also a wooden chair above the bar that Abraham Lincoln is said to have sat on. The bar, which originated as a male-only establishment, was touched by the nation’s changing political and social climate in 1969 when they were sued to permit women to enter. McSorley’s continued operating throughout Prohibition when beer, ale, liquor and wine were illegal.
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