Place: O'Shea's Easy Street Pub, 309 NE 45th Street
Time: 9:30 pm
There's no shortage of choices if you're in search of an Irish pub in the northern neighborhoods of Seattle. Fremont has the Dubliner, a sprawling space drenched in shamrock green and teeming with fresh-faced, over-indulgent college kids. The older Celtic crowd heads for Murphy's in Wallingford, a perennially popular joint warmed by a fake fireplace and considered by many to be the city's first Irish pub. Still, if I were chauffeuring Shane McGowan around for the weekend, I'd be more inclined to take him to O'Shea's on 45th Street. There's nothing fancy about the place, but it's certainly easier on the eyes than its competitors. An antique wood-burning stove glows in the room's center, rows of black-and-white photographs of Irish authors decorate the perimeter of the small bar, and the Guinness paraphernalia is kept to a minimum, save for the requisite digital clock counting down the minutes to the "Great Guinness Toast." A flannel-clad young man yowls along with the Pearl Jam song winding down on the house sound system, while a pair of musicians attempts to conduct a flute and banjo sound-check on the adjacent stage. I begin chatting with Sean, a gregarious regular who says he frequents O'Shea's "because of the good-looking staff--who obviously aren't working tonight." This last comment is directed dryly toward bartender and part-owner Mick Purdy, a smiling fellow with a thick Irish accent and an attentive gaze (our drinks never go dry). When I question Purdy about the bar's history, he explains that it used to be a biker joint, and also underwent a brief incarnation as a lesbian bar. "Yep," affirms a bawdy broad clad in a Tank Girl T-shirt sitting next to us, "I've been coming here for 10 years." HANNAH LEVIN
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