The founding father of Munich's Irish Pub scene
Legend has it that Irishman Paul Daly arrived in Bavaria with DM 50 in his pocket, his guitar and little else. But like all legends, the story has been greatly distorted. “Well, actually it was 250 marks,” the Munich publican explains. “I’d made the money selling vegetable curry at a big musical festival held in Ireland about four weeks before. Then a friend and I decided to set off for Germany and our fortune.”
Until then Daly had been pursuing a quiet banking career in Dublin, but music had been his first love. When the opportunity arose to become an itinerant musician hitting the nascent continental Irish pub circuit, Daly could hardly refuse — and he tackled it with a passion.
Now, some 20 years later, the soft-spoken Daly is known as a successful businessman and recognized as one of the public faces in Munich’s Irish community, who can still often be found performing on stage, in one of his pubs — the Shamrock and the recently opened Kilian’s Irish Bar. “I am lucky,” he observes. “I turned my hobby into my work, and turned my work back into my hobby. I find it is a great break from the pub business to get up on stage and sing. It’s really relaxing.”
The idea to open an Irish bar stemmed from his musical tour of the pub circuit. Although he had little experience, Daly watched and learned from others. He saw how successful it could be — and how badly they could falter. He also knew that Munich was a business opportunity going begging. The city had a sizeable Irish population, but the only Irish bar (the Irish Folk Bar) was run by an Austrian and did not quite have the authentic touch.
When he tried to open a bar in Munich, however, he ran against the obdurate attitudes of the local breweries, which refused to become involved in a bar that did not sell their products exclusively. “The problem with that attitude is that it is simply not an Irish bar without Guinness or another Irish beer. And of course I did not have the money to strike out as an independent — operating without the support of a brewery,” he said. Instead, Daly turned his attention to Regensburg. There, he opened a bar (The Old Dubliner) and was so overwhelmed by the result that he started another — also to great success.
Armed with experience and the support of a regional brewery, Daly returned to Munich and opened The Shamrock. This local favorite has been in operation for over 11 years. In that time he has owned six different Irish pubs in Munich, started a beverage import business and a small foreign goods shop in Dietersheim. “Munich,” he acknowledges, “has been very good to me.”
Daly has also played an important role in the Munich Irish community. He provided early sponsorship for the Irish Rovers, a soccer team of Irish nationals based here and has sponsored various Irish cultural events. Along with mates Mick Spillane, Alison Moffit and Frank McLynn, Daly also helped establish the annual Munich St. Patrick’s Day Parade. “We went to the Kreisverwaltungsreferat and asked for permission to march. We told them there would be about 300 people, so they OK’d it and said we could walk from Odeonsplatz to Münchner Freiheit along Leopoldstrasse — but had to go along the footpath,” Daly recalls. “The actual day was chaos. About 3,500 people turned up. The whole thing was far bigger than we had expected. It was clear that all these people couldn’t walk along the footpath — it would have taken hours. Fortunately the police were understanding and allowed us to block off half of the street. That was unheard of. And to this day the Irish are the only group allowed to block off Leopoldstrasse for their national day.”
Ironically, as the Munich parade has grown, the number of Irish living here has steadily declined. Four years ago there were more than 3,000 Irish registered in Munich — and that did not take into account the seasonal influx of students and workers. Daly estimates the present permanent resident number to be about 1,500 and still falling. The reason is simple. The economy in Ireland is booming and the young no longer have to leave to find employment. Indeed in 1999, for the first time in many decades, the number of those returning to Ireland exceeded those leaving it.
Daly would love to join the flow returning, but says it is unrealistic. “The temptation is to go back, but my wife is German, our four kids are in school and the business is here — and we are happy here. You know, Munich reminds me of Dublin a lot. They are similar in size, have the same Catholic attitudes and have a warm, provincial feel. They are like international villages and, as Dublin is gradually becoming more cosmopolitan in its outlook, the two are growing more and more similar. Living here is like Dublin-on-the-Isar,” Daly added. And although he laughed when he said it, there didn’t seem to be a touch of blarney about the statement.
