A green oasis soaked in history has become a Washington institution

If you walk into The Dubliner, an Irish bar within falling distance of Capitol Hill in Washington, and go to the far wall in the main bar, you will see a painting depicting the scene inside the GPO in Dublin during the Easter Rising.

The painting is a knock-off of the famous Birth of the Irish Republic by artist Walter Paget. Nothing unusual there – scenes from the 1916 Rising adorn the walls of many Irish pubs. But look more closely and instead of the image of rebel Thomas Clarke appearing over Pádraig Pearse's shoulder (where Paget painted him) you will see a modern-looking fellow – The Dubliner's owner, Danny Coleman.

In 1975, a year after he opened the pub, Coleman asked his secretary, who was also a talented artist, to draw the large replica for the pub. As a joke, the bar manager told her to put Coleman in the GPO.

“Emotionally I was there,” says Coleman, joking. “Nobody notices it unless I point it out.”

Next to The Dubliner, the 74-year-old publican also has the Phoenix Park Hotel. He runs the bar with his 35-year-old son Gavin, the third generation of this Irish-American family to work in the pub trade.

An institution
Danny Coleman is a character and The Dubliner an institution in this town. The pub is popular among Capitol Hill staffers who stop to refuel during or after a long day in the corridors of power or commuters on the way to their train across the road at Union Station, the main rail hub out of the city.

Originally from Syracuse in New York, Coleman moved to Washington in the 1970s. He noticed that many smart young Irish-Americans brought to Washington as twenty-somethings in John F Kennedy’s administration had stayed and established themselves in the city’s professional classes.

There was an Irish bar downtown, Matt Kane’s Bit O’Ireland, but it was a drinking haunt of off-duty marines rather than a place where up-and-coming lawyers socialised. Coleman saw an opportunity.

Friends bought an old hotel called The Commodore a few blocks from the US Capitol and needed a restaurant to maintain the hotel licence so they gave him the pub for virtually nothing, he says. Coleman ended up buying the hotel in 1980 and renamed it the Phoenix Park Hotel, creating a little oasis of Irish-American hospitality within the shadows of the America’s grand parliament.

The location of an Irish bar on the site was fitting for other reasons. An area a few blocks away was once an old Irish immigrant neighbourhood called Swampoodle, established in the 19th century. The district was apparently so named after a newspaper reporter's account of the ground-breaking for St Aloysius Catholic Church in 1857 when a nearby river overflowed creating swamps and puddles.

Coleman has enjoyed his own little glimpse of more recent Irish history. Various players in the Northern Ireland peace process have darkened the doors of The Dubliner. Shortly after the 1994 loyalist ceasefire, Coleman received a call from Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, a regular when he visited Washington. Adams told Coleman that Gusty Spence and other loyalist leaders would be dropping into the pub that night. "It is important that you make them feel welcome," Adams told him.

Spence later arrived with fellow loyalist Gary McMichael and others in a large group. Coleman told Spence that he had been instructed by Adams to buy him a pint of Guinness and make him feel at home. In return Spence shared stories about his time at Long Kesh. Coleman's singer, booked to play that night, wasn't too happy though. The Belfast man finished his set after just 20 minutes. "Do you expect me to sing The Man Behind the F**king Wire for Gusty Spence?" he told Coleman as he left.

Nowadays US politicians, including New York congressman Peter King and Maryland governor Martin O'Malley, are regulars at The Dubliner. Barack Obama dropped by for St Patrick's Day last year.

But the passing political trade isn’t like it used to be. Coleman blames lobbying rules dating from 1996 that ended lobbyist-paid lavish lunches and dinners, limiting spending on politicians to $10 a meal.

“We had to close our restaurant upstairs because you cannot serve a fancy meal on a linen tablecloth for less than $10,” says Coleman.

Lobbying crackdown
He believes the lobbying crackdown has also contributed to the gridlock among Democrats and Republicans jamming up Congress because they no longer socialise together as they did before.

“We get them in but they are all on their own dime,” he said. “There are not as many functions where they are all together. They don’t mix like they used to.”

As for mixing, Coleman says personality makes the Irish a natural fit in his business – hospitality – and the business of many of his customers – politics. “The Irish have the people skills for both,” he says.