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	Mother Egan's Irish Pub 715 W. Sixth St. (512) 478-7747 The bar: Full bar, 16 beers on 20 taps

Mother Egan's Irish Pub

By Moira Muldoon
Special to the American-Statesman
Thursday, October 25, 2001

Ah, fog. Lovely mists that make fires a necessity, hot toddies a decadent luxury and big woolen sweaters a comfort. In small doses, fog is truly a glorious thing. And since Austin gets fog so rarely, you have to take full advantage of it the second it shows up. Which, as far as I'm concerned, means getting yourself down to a proper pub at the first hint of gray.

Moira Muldoon

Back in my student-gone-abroad days in Dublin, I used to finish up class about 2 p.m. and head over to the Globe on Georges Street or the Stag's Head, right off Dame Street. I'd get myself a pint, settle in with my books, and proceed to spend the afternoon close to a warm fire while the world was gray and chill outside. And because I moved to San Francisco shortly after my student visa expired and the Irish government refused to let me stay any longer, reading in bars on gray days was a habit I could keep. Hot whiskeys in Vesuvio, cold pints and toasted cheese sandwiches in any Inner Richmond pub -- it was a lovely way to stay warm and dry while watching the fog roll in.

So when the sky in Austin recently misted over for just a few moments, I grabbed my books, threw a woolly jumper over my shoulders (knowing it would soon be too warm to wear it) and raced to Mother Egan's Irish Pub. I had but one thing on my mind: get a pint of Guinness in me before the sun came out and made me feel guilty for spending a Saturday afternoon in a bar. It was close, that race between me, the sun and the full pint, but suffice to say I won: Just moments after I set my empty pint glass down, the sun came blazing forth, a half-second too late to make me feel guilty about that first pint. The second, however . . .

Mother Egan's hasn't been around very long (only since last November) but they seem to have the hang of pouring a proper pint of Guinness. Granted, the heads aren't quite as rich or thick as the ones you'll find in the Stag's Head, but they're pretty good nonetheless -- just like Mother Egan's curry chips. For those of you who haven't been to Dublin or read lots of Roddy Doyle books, curry chips are French fries with curry on them, usually eaten by Dubliners on the way home from the pub, normally while singing. If you're going to eat them sober, Mother Egan's are probably better than the greasy mess that appears so tasty at 1 in the morning.

Mother Egan's is a proper Irish pub -- pub food (though no toasted cheese sandwiches in cellophane), good Guinness, a handful of little kids hanging out with their parents during lunch time. It's different from Fado, which is a chain and feels like it; Fado's more of a Saturday-night-bar kind of pub. Mother Egan's is a neighborhood pub, the way most pubs in Ireland are, meaning the wood's dark, the snugs are cozy, and people stop in for a casual drink on Saturday (or Tuesday or Monday) afternoons. It has a community feel -- Mother Egan's sponsors three soccer teams (one women's and two men's), offers a weekly pub quiz, and local Notre Dame alums hang out there to watch ND games. Which is how I got over my guilt for being in a bar on a lovely sunny day -- I'm a Notre Dame alum, after all, so what could be more natural than sitting in a pub watching the second half of an ND game? Granted, I was reading almost the whole time, and I can't remember who Notre Dame was playing (some Virginia school, I think), but anything that assuages that old guilt of mine is an excellent thing. Now if I could just get Mother Egan's to import the odd Irish gray day in addition to the Guinness, I could sit with my pint and a stack of good books, wrap myself in my favorite jumper and be as happy as a 21-year-old American living abroad for the first time.

Contact Moira Muldoon at bargirl@covad.net

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