A Traditional Irish Pub from an Irish-American Family

The O’Bryan’s: The Story of Nine Irish Brothers & Five Irish Sisters

The original O’Bryan clan sailed from Cork in 1891 bound for New York. Fleeing the famine, they braved North Atlantic storms, Ellis Island bureaucrats, corduroy roads, the Erie Canal and the uncertainties of Indiana farming to bring you this authentic Irish pub.

That first Irish-American O’Bryan family had two surviving children, but the fifth generation of that family, that of Sylvester and Julia, had 14. And what a brood they turned out to be: lawyers, military men, real sisters (as in nuns), mechanics, coaches, businessmen, scientists, farmers, builders, and true community volunteers. In the words of sister Judy, “Mom and Dad taught us to laugh, love, share, pray and live.”

Jerry O’Bryan, the founder, is the youngest of nine boys (Berton, Jim, Michael, Norman, Bobby, Tim, John, and Willie) and five girls (Julie, Colleen, Patricia, Muriel, and Karen). Jerry pays tribute to his brothers with each pub’s name, and honors his sisters with an inscription above each pub’s bar: & Five Irish Sisters.

Family is the core concept of a traditional Irish pub, and O’Bryan’s Nine Irish Brothers is no exception: Family members helped build each establishment, prepare for operations, and now run the day-to-day operations. It won’t be long before you too feel like part of the O’Bryan family.

“Bert”

Berton William Patrick is the first Irish brother born, and, in his own words, was “a strong, healthy, handsome, intelligent, adorable lad.” In fact, he claims that when he was born “mom and dad felt so blessed that they tried again and again, in fact 13 times, to replicate their first bundle of joy.”

In the 1950s, Bert juggled working on the family farm with getting his college education at Marian College until his country called. Drafted and shipped to Europe, he defended his country honorably. Returning to America, he courted and won the love of a young blonde Swedish beauty, Marlene, and added two sons and a daughter to the growing O’Bryan clan. Before passing in 2026, Bert practiced law in Indianapolis for the last 60 years, and much of the stained glass that adorns the doors and windows of this pub came out of his home.

“Buddy”

James Sylvester, the second Irish brother, left the family farm at the age of 16 for the seminary. His mother prayed for him to be a priest, but God had other plans, and by the mid-50s he was serving his country in the US Army in Japan. After military service, Jim married Mary Anne, earned his accounting degree from Marian College, became a CPA and a prominent Indianapolis businessman, and had three beautiful colleens.

Though he never became a priest, Buddy served God all through his life, and he left this life too soon. He loved a good beer and would have felt quite at home in this Irish pub. So let’s raise a glass and toast him with a slight paraphrase of how the Irish remember JFK, “Jimmie, we hardly knew ye.”

“Sister Patty”

Patricia was the first Irish sister – and a true sister she was. A Catholic nun, she was also the founder and director of Edelweiss House, a home for abused children. Sister Patty loved being the oldest O’Bryan girl and remembered how much fun all of her brothers and sisters were.

She loved the baseball games that Bert would organize where everyone played – even if they weren’t big enough to hold the bat. Her favorite childhood memory was of the vacuum cleaner salesman who was doing a demonstration for mom: All of a sudden all of the brothers and sisters burst through the front door and through the room. Amazed, the salesman asked mom: “Are they all yours?” When she said “yes,” he replied: “Oh my! Lady, the sweeper is yours. You deserve it.” Appropriately, Sister Patty was the first to bless this pub, and though she passed several years ago will always be our patron saint.

“Colleen”

Colleen, the second Irish sister, once asked her mother what it was like the day she was born and her mom said “HOT!” That was in the year . . . well, no one is ever getting the year out of her. Colleen remembers being seven years old, playing dolls with her sister beneath a tree when they both decided “they were going to take care of all the poor kids in the world.” Little did either of them know that Patty would start a home for unfortunate children and Colleen would be raising “a bunch of my own.”

On her first day of high school, Colleen’s Civics teacher asked for all the Catholics to raise their hands. “In my grade book ‘C’ stands for Catholic,” he said, which made Colleen so mad she got an ‘A’ despite him. No one could ever write a better Irish toast than this one by Colleen:

To my parents who gave me such a wonderful childhood. To my husband and children who opened so many doors for me to travel through. To my Nine Irish Brothers and Four Irish Sisters who taught me to have fun, to care, to share, and to stand up for myself. And lastly to God who made Ireland and to the Angels who found it and made the shamrocks grow.

“Mo”

Muriel is the third Irish sister and, as her father called her, the first “blue-eyed blonde good-luck charm” to be born into the family. She idolized her two older brothers – that is, until the day they chased her around the barnyard with a live chicken. Though none of the brothers were ever allowed to attend she and her sisters’ elegant childhood tea parties, Muriel always welcomed them to walk down to the outhouse with her after dark to keep monsters away. “Guess they learned to be protectors way back then God bless ‘em.”

Muriel will never forget the two house fires that left the O’Bryan clan homeless for short periods while she was growing up, but the family always stuck together, moved into new houses, and life went on without skipping a beat. Muriel and her husband Joe had five children and 16 grandchildren, but she didn’t stop there. Nowadays she is a housemother for 80 girls in a sorority.

“Judy”

Julia Josephine Elizabeth was the sixth O’Bryan child and claims that she was “of such beauty that God caused only boys to be born in the family for the next six years.” A real tomboy (Who wouldn’t be with nine brothers?), Judy loved to climb trees, fight like the boys, and even once, at her brothers’ urging, climbed up for a ride on the back seat of the manure spreader. She never did that again.

Once when her uncle came over with a bottle of Irish whiskey to celebrate the purchase of his new car, she and one of her younger brothers (who didn’t know any better) drove it down the lane and into the fence; none were tall enough to drive, so Judy took the steering wheel and the brother pushed the pedals. Christmas was always Judy’s favorite time on the O’Bryan farm, and to this day she can still “smell my dad’s Dutch Masters cigars and taste my mother’s fine pastries.”

“Tiger Mike”

Michael Joseph is the third Irish brother, but was the seventh O’Bryan child, born after a string of four girls who doted on him. By the age of six he gained renown as the “little chef” who made his older brothers pancakes, bacon and eggs before they went out to milk the cows each morning.

Driving the tractor while his brothers “skied” behind across a wet farm field was the start of his fascination with cars. Not only could he race them, but he also could fix anything on them. Mike earned the nickname “Tiger” the hard way, but all of his brothers credit him for teaching them to stand up for themselves. Mike and his wife Mary Ann have three girls and a boy plus six grandchildren, and the Tiger is still flipping pancakes for all of them.

“Willie”

William Thomas is the fourth Irish brother and is absolutely certain that the teachers at Lebanon High “couldn’t wait to get me out of school!” He got his first job at age 15, making and icing donuts at Titus Bakery, then moved on to the IGA grocery store during high school. He worked 31 years at General Motors before retiring in 1998 and now devotes most of his time to volunteering at St. Joseph’s Church.

Be careful, though, especially if you catch Willie eyeing you as if he’s taking your measurements; he also worked part-time for 29 years at Myers Mortuary. In the future, this Irish pub will be the sight of many a joyful wake and the spirit of Willie will surely preside over them.

“Norm”

Norman is the fifth Irish brother, sandwiched, he claims, “between the wise older ones and the gullible younger ones.” Both he and brother Tim remember how they cooked up the Great O’Bryan Plan: The boys had to milk the cows in the morning and were always running behind, which meant missing the bus and walking four miles to school. Tired of the walk, the boys decided that as the bus would pull up at the end of the long farm lane, each member of the family, one by one, would walk slowly the length of the lane to the bus. The driver couldn’t leave if there was still a walking O’Bryan in sight in the lane.

Norman made a career in the development of and research in hardwood trees. Norman has three children, daughters Carrie and Kelly and son Sean. Much of the walnut woodwork from the pub comes from Norman’s trees.

“Tim”

Timothy Patrick is the sixth Irish brother and he loved Christmas on the family farm more than any other day, especially “the five gallon lard cans full of cookies, and the piles of oranges and apples and candy under the tree.” The best Christmas morning was when all the boys got BB-guns and proceeded to shoot all the windows out of the henhouse. The worst Christmas afternoon was when their dad lined them up and broke all the BB-guns over the cottonwood tree. To this day, Tim dresses up like Santa Claus every Christmas Eve and visits all of his friends’ and neighbors’ children.

Tim and his wife Karen have three very Irish children, Timothy, Shannon, and Patrick, and five little Irish grandchildren. Tim served as the General Contractor for the building of the first two Nine Irish Brothers Traditional Irish Pubs, and his fingerprints are on every inch of it. A job well done, wouldn’t you say?

“Bobby”

Robert George is the seventh Irish brother and claims to have worked at different times for Michael, Norman and Jim but doesn’t remember ever getting paid by any of them. Educated at Ball State University, where he was a wrestler and soccer player, Bobby taught school for 33 years and coached every sport any kid in Indiana ever played (including chess). Now he is an EMT in his hometown of Brookville.

Like all of the brothers and sisters, he remembers the good times they had growing up on the family farm, “the corncob and duck egg fights, sic’ing Rags on the neighbor kids, egging the police car with Judy.” He still plays basketball and soccer with the young guys and justifies it by declaring: “If I have to die, I’d rather do it on a soccer field than in a hospital bed.” I wonder if he’d like to take up hurling?

“Karen”

Karen Gerard Patricia is the fifth Irish sister, whose parents were surprised when their long-awaited eighth bouncing boy turned out to be a her. She might as well have been a boy, though. In the sixth grade she hit a home run so far it busted out the stained glass window in the church at the very end of the schoolyard. The family “tomboy,” she could eat watermelon face-first, stall the bus driver at the end of the lane, build bon fires, and knock down hard hit ground balls with the best of her brothers.

She entered the convent out of high school, but by her own admission “the Mother Superior and I very quickly decided that being a nun was not my calling.” She turned to the business world where she found her niche training and bringing out the best in sales people in the insurance industry. Married and the mother of three, she just wants her brothers to know that “Girls (definitely) rule” and Five Irish Sisters is a great name for a pub.

“John”

John Anthony is the eighth Irish brother and claims he made “a grand entrance, rear-end first.” His years at Saint Joseph’s Elementary where the nuns presided as “judge, jury and executioner” prepared him for a military career. After graduating from Marian College, he joined the National Guard and four years as an enlisted man inspired him to become an officer. Twenty-two years later he retired as a major in the US Army Reserves. Simultaneously he forged a business career in insurance claims followed by mortgage financing and real estate sales.

One of his favorite memories was the Gillette Friday Night Fights: Dad had been a professional boxer under the name “Buster O’Bryan,” and being one of the youngest, John was always home on Friday nights to watch the fights with his dad. “What great evenings we had, ducking and weaving with every punch and dad analyzing the fight between every round.” But another sport, baseball, was the order of the day, and the O’Bryans could easily field their own team. “City kids would bicycle five miles to the farm to play us and we’d have to clear the field of cow pies and find anything for the bases before we could play.”

“Rags” (The Dog in the Picture)

Every Irish-American farm family has to have a loyal dog and Rags was a darn good one for the O’Bryan’s. When the O’Bryan farmhouse burned down the first time, it was rags who found little Tim still sitting in the potty chair where all his brothers had left him, and it was Rags who never stopped barking at the bus driver as the parade of O’Bryan’s down the lane every morning dragged interminably on. Norman swears that Rags could run down anything – squirrels, chipmunks, even rabbits – and would eat them on the spot.

“Baby Jer”

In direct rebuttal to his brother Bert’s notions of perfection, Jerry O’Bryan, the youngest of nine brothers and five sisters, claims that when his parents first gazed upon their last baby boy, they decided on the spot that they didn’t need any more children because they “had reached perfection.” An early memory of his father’s generosity left an indelible impression, Jerry recalls: “A man knocked on the door at dinner time. Hat in hand, he looked down at the floor and apologized for accidentally running over one of our ducks, then asked if he could keep it. Even though we didn’t have a penny to spare, Dad said ‘no, but you can have a fresh one.’ He realized that man needed the duck more than we did.”

Jerry attended the School of Management at Purdue University, where he met his wife, Jan, and played for the local semi-pro football team The Lafayette Generals. Jerry’s opened his popular salon “The Hairman,” which he operated for over thirty years, before he and Jan partnered with his daughter Maggie and son-in-law Matt to realize his dream and open Nine Irish Brothers Traditional Irish Pub.