An authentic Irish pub to open in Savannah in June. Here's the story of how it came to be
This article is the first in a series about the new Wexford Irish Pub, slated to open in June in City Market, that will cover its historic and cultural underpinnings; its architecture, design and interiors; and ultimately, its food. In honor of the 200th anniversary of Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, we explore the story behind how the Wexford came to be.
At the Georgia Ports Authority’s Berth No. 4 on the Savannah River, the line of ship-to-shore cranes wait as patiently for the after-lunch whistle as members of the International Longshoremen’s Association, who are poised off stage to get back to work. The freighter, the Missouri Express, is piled six or seven stories high with colorful rectangles like a child’s Lego sculpture. The vessel dwarfs everything – everything – around it.
Tim Strickland, co-owner of River Street Sweets among other Savannah eateries, dons a hard hat and reflector vest. He searches the stacks above for a specific container. It’s impossible to pick out, but the anticipation builds.
A loud baritone horn blares and the cranes roar to life. The choreography of jockey trucks swinging into line, crisscrossing each other’s paths without colliding — Brilliant! — is reminiscent of the chorus of a Broadway musical, but with a rhythm composed by rubber on pavement and the whoosh-whir-clunk of machines grabbing metal containers and precisely placing them for the next step of their journeys, which is usually to a warehouse or a storage yard or a long stretch of highway.
One of those trucks drives over to where Tim waits. The orange container it carries is the first of many that will come through the Port of Savannah from Ireland over the next couple of months, ferrying the furniture, fixtures and filigree that comprise his next big (ad)venture with sister Jennifer Strickland and business partner Chris Swanson: The Wexford, Savannah’s Irish Pub.
When that container is finally opened weeks later, what a story it tells.
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The backstory
Story is central to creating an authentic Irish pub experience, explains Darren Fagan. He is the managing partner of U.S. operations for the Irish Pub Co., a Dublin-based, global design-build, interiors, and branding firm — at least that’s the business definition culled from the company’s website. Fagan’s work, however, is far more intentional, which is what drew Fagan to working with the Stricklands and they with him.
“The key for us,” said Fagan, “is to find and identify a backstory. We pride ourselves on every single one of our projects being different. Not just aesthetically, it has to have real value and meaning to a customer – a user reference, attention-holding architecture or design. The idea is when somebody walks in, they see something, it gets their attention, and there’s a valid story behind it.”
Tim Strickland remembers “kicking ideas around” with his sister and Swanson. “Kevin Barry’s had just basically closed at that time [in early 2020], and we knew there was a huge gap for Irish pubs or bars, in general. Savannah, you would think, that’s a no-brainer.”
It felt right to open an Irish pub, offered Tim, but not in the Kevin Barry’s space out of respect for the previous owners, Victor and Sherry Powers, who are long-time friends. They also didn’t want a generic Irish pub with a few old Guinness signs hanging on the wall. After all, the Stricklands’ own family roots stretch back to Kenmare in County Kerry.
So, it took a while for the right space to present itself, which it did in 2022, when the former Wild Wings space at the corner of City Market and Barnard Street across from Ellis Square became available. The two-story, 150-year-old brick building factored into Strickland family history, to boot. Tim and Jennifer’s father sandblasted the walls, built it out and opened a white tablecloth restaurant, 27 Market Square, in the mid-1980s. Tim even celebrated his junior prom there.
Meanwhile, Swanson, a former middle school science teacher with a penchant for travel and research, found the Irish Pub Co. The trio met with Fagan and learned how the firm approaches design and builds and sources all the furniture and furnishings in Ireland.
“It sounded too good to be true,” said Tim, “but we still didn’t have the name, and we didn’t have the feel of it.”
A history buff with a history degree, Tim came across Dr. Howard Keeley’s website for the Center of Irish Research and Teaching at Georgia Southern University, which has been mining and documenting the historic connections along the Wexford-Savannah Axis for more than a decade. Keeley and CIRT’s research have crafted a different narrative around Irish emigration to Savannah – one less steeped in debt and famine and more in opportunity.
More than 56% of Irish immigrants in this area came from County Wexford between 1848 and the mid-to-late-1850s, and many of them were driven to come here by trade partnerships between the plentiful timber in the Ogeechee River Basin in southeast Georgia and the iron production in southeast Ireland. One of CIRT’s students at GSU’s Wexford campus, Keeley explained, found a loading document for timber signed by Andrew Low in a box of uncatalogued archives. Other names that emerged through the research: Kehoe, Rossiter, and O’Connor.
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Tim Strickland had his name. “It was a Sunday morning, and I don’t know why, but we were all texting each other, throwing around names. And I went quiet for a second… and that’s when all the Georgia Southern stuff just came out.”
The business partners were all in at that point. Tim and Jennifer hosted delegates from the Wexford City Council during last year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, then traveled to Wexford to immerse themselves in all things Irish pub. “We really had that human connection,” said Jennifer. “They took us backstage to look at what their business operations were like.
“We just had a real familiarity and a kindred spirit.”
It was just the kind of backstory Fagan was looking for.
'They want to be heard'
Keeley’s work has become central to the burgeoning trade relationship between southeast Georgia and southeast Ireland, which has grown stronger since the inception of World Trade Center Savannah’s Trade Bridge in 2017. Because Savannah is not a large metropolitan area, Keeley helps make those important emotional connections.
A walk through the Catholic Cemetery on Wheaton/Gwinnett streets on Savannah’s eastside reveals the threads that tether the two areas. Many historical headstones read “born in Wexford.”
“You can almost viscerally sense that the people from southeast Ireland, there’s a degree of trust and belief in a way that happens,” said Keeley.
He recounts visiting the cemetery with Patricia Harty, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Irish American magazine. As they strolled, she said she felt like the recent trade and academic successes were “because the people who are in the ground here, they want to be heard.”
Fagan agrees. “It doesn’t matter what the [pub] concept is, it has to have soul. Its core value is that it’s a community hub, right? And that can never be lost.”
In a warehouse on Savannah’s east side, Fagan is checking his list against the unloaded contents of the containers.
“I had a broad vision in my head in the direction that this was going to go, and it was crystal clear to me how it should look,” he said. “But once we got [Keeley] involved – and I love the micro details, I love getting into the weeds – he provided us all the fodder to do that. We took it to an intense level with Wexford.”
He points to details in the carved mahogany bar as an example, then opens his computer to pictures of mirrors and glass backed with maps, images and words that tell the story of Irish immigration to Savannah and the rippling impacts of Irish culture across Georgia.
“See, if I were leaving Ireland from Wexford, that’s the last lighthouse I would see,” says Fagan, pointing to an image of the Hook Lighthouse on one of the mirrors. “You’re passing this lighthouse, and you see it in the sequence and then you end up in Savannah.”
It is surprising how the stories of Irish women rise within the context of the Wexford’s interiors, which are now being fit into place according to the specifications of Brian Felder and Associates, the lead architect. According to Keeley, it’s no accident. More women than men immigrated from Ireland during the mid-1880s, whether through Boston or New York or Charleston and making their way here.
One of those women, Rosanna McGuire, was the first Irish woman to obtain a liquor license and own a pub in Savannah. She and her husband ran a boarding house in the Yamacraw area, but after he died during the early years of the Civil War, McGuire was forced to find other ways of supporting her four children.
Woodwork that will be incorporated into the second floor is painted with the names of the 32 women — one for each county in Ireland — who were the first to walk in a Savannah St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
All throughout the Wexford, the stories of the Irish will be told.
'A place between work and home'
But it won’t be a place that feels dated and touristy. Fagan maintains the Wexford will affirm the role of the true Irish pub as a place to go between work and home, whether your live in Savannah or are visiting from someplace else.
Even with a sense of elevated design and service, Tim says the Wexford will be for people of all walks of life, ages and tastes. “This is how it's gonna work. From 11 a.m. until 1 or 1:30 is gonna be lunch. It's gonna be families and grandparents. Then you're gonna get to the happy hour, and that’s when the young people are going to come in from 4 to 5:30 or 6, sitting around the pub and the bar. And then you get into dinner. From at 6 to 8:30 p.m., it's all dinner. And then when you get past 8:30 to 12, that's when the pub kind of kicks back in. There’s gonna be a lot of Irish influence in the music there, too. So, we're gonna have some real access because of [Keeley] to some Irish bands that Savannah has never seen.”
It’s a grand vision, one that Savannah has not seen, well, in a long time.
“Even though this is a serious business, the core value has to be bringing people in and allowing them to feel comfortable and always want to come back, right?” said Fagan. “So, it can’t be a function of sit down, there’s your meal, now you have to go. The real value is how do I make you stay? That’s the difference.”
Amy Paige Condon is a content coach and editor with the Savannah Morning News. You can reach her at ACondon@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: The Wexford Irish Pub to open in Savannah's City Market in June
