news-record.com

Denis Byrne was on the other end of a mop Wednesday morning, singing as he cleaned the floor behind the bar.

The day before, his customers listened to one harpist, heard three bands, drained at least eight kegs of Guinness and finished off 110 pounds of corned beef, 170 orders of fish ’n’ chips and at least 150 shepherd pies.

And Denis didn’t get out of there until after 4. In the morning.

A few hours later, he was back. Mop in hand. Song in his head.

“You got to be ready and go and clean it up, you know?’’ Denis says. “No rest for the wicked.”

Particularly on St. Patrick’s Day at The Claddagh, the only Irish pub and restaurant in High Point.

Denis and Mary, husband and wife, run the place. It’s off North Main, ensconced in a sea of asphalt and surrounded by an accounting office, a Japanese steak house and a Home Depot that looms large across the street.

But the location is not what gets you. It’s the accents. Or brogue, really.

Denis and Mary ain’t from the South.

“Oh, you’re from Ireland?’’ customers always ask.

Mary is. So is Denis. She came over in 1968; Denis, 1969. They married in August 1972 after their eyes met two years earlier in New York City, at an Irish dance hall.

Or did they?

“She was drinking,” Denis says with a wink. “She doesn’t remember.”

Denis has the gift of a storyteller and the timing of a comedian, always ready with a handshake and a first name at the tip of his lips.

He’s made a life tending bar. At age 22, he came over from Ireland to join three of his bartending brothers. He’s been at the bar game ever since.

“I heard there was money in the streets, and I wanted to pick it up,” the 61-year-old says. “Oh, I’m only kidding.”

Well, kinda.

Denis worked at The Olde Stand and Good Time Charlie’s in New York City before opening his own place 15 years ago in lower Manhattan. He called it T.J. Byrne’s.

His younger brother, Thomas, runs the place now. Six years ago, Denis and Mary moved to North Carolina from Long Island because of the weather and their son, their only child, Denis Simon, a former soccer player at Guilford College.

Two years later, they opened The Claddagh. Mary named it after the ring she always wears: her mother’s Claddagh ring, an Irish symbol of love with two hands clutching a heart.

“We are proud of our roots, and we don’t want to forget about where we come from,” says Mary, 59.

“We left for a reason because there wasn’t much employment, and we left to find a better life. That’s what it’s all about.”

The Claddagh is a family affair. Mary works the front. Denis works the crowd. Their son, a 33-year-old bank underwriter, works the bar on Friday nights. Their granddaughter, Ryan, 7, works for smiles during Sunday brunch.

On Wednesday morning, though, it was quiet except for the sound of Mary’s vacuum.

Soon, Denis will reset the St. Patrick’s Day clock near the front door. Right now, it shows lots of zeros. Soon, it’ll start counting down the days until the next time when Denis slips on his green St. Patrick’s Day tie and talks about home.

“You never want to lose that,” Denis says. “Everyone has some kind of tradition behind them, you know?”

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com