TRAVELER newspaper, 2009

DINING HIGHLIGHTS: A real taste of Ireland at The Fastnet Pub

For a genuine taste of an authentic Irish pub, visit the popular Fastnet Pub at the foot of Broadway in Newport. This stylish gathering place gives you a taste of the city’s Irish heritage, surrounding you with memorabilia and travel posters harkening back to County Cork. The menu—both food and drink—punctuates that experience as guests at the Fastnet Pub relax over Guinness and an assortment of beer from near and far, burgers, a game of pool or darts, Irish football matches and friendly conversation.
The Fastnet Pub is the kind of place where you can enjoy a reasonably priced meal in a relaxed setting within walking distance of most of Newport’s attractions. It’s a pub in the true Irish tradition: a comfortable scene where you recognize familiar faces and can let your hair down.
The Fastnet Pub hosts increasingly popular Sunday night Irish music sessions with local musicians. They start the music at 5 p.m. and might go on until closing every Sunday. “It’s the best,” says pub owner Finbarr Murray, a native of Cork who is better known as Butch to his many friends. “There are a number of regulars who perform, but other great musicians show up from time to time. People love it.”
While the primary attractions at The Fastnet Pub are the entertainment and the relaxation, you can enjoy a meal of traditional Irish food, fish & chips, sandwiches, salads and the like. The Fastnet serves Bangers & Mash, Shepherd’s Pie, beer-battered fish and chips, chicken tenders, marinated steak tips and other dinner entrees. You can choose from several styles of burgers and wraps, and you can enjoy a variety of sandwiches including a Reuben, chicken parmesan, hot pastrami, cod fish with melted cheese and a hot pressed Cubano, among others. This is also a great place to enjoy appetizers with your beer including buffalo wings, calamari, pub fries, onion rings, potato skins and more.
A competitive sailor, Finbarr landed in Boston in 1987, and he owns two Irish pubs there, but he has an even longer history in Newport. “I’ve been coming here since 1984,” he says. “When I saw the opportunity to buy this business a few years ago, I couldn’t pass it up. I wanted Newport to have the same kind of place I’ve been running in Boston where people can have a good time, get a good burger or sandwich, enjoy Guinness and drinks with their friends.”
The Fastnet Pub has become a gathering place for fans of Irish football and rugby as Finbarr has arranged to have Irish sports matches televised there regularly.
The building that houses the pub dates to 1730 and has seen a long history of commercial businesses, from clothing shops to tattoo parlors and restaurants. Finbarr has fully renovated and restored the building, adding Fastnet to the list of Newport businesses that have contributed to maintaining the city’s historic structures.
The Fastnet Pub derives its name from the famous lighthouse off the southern coast of Cork, which is home to an equally famous bi-annual sail race dubbed the Fastnet. The pub certainly fulfills Finbarr’s desire to provide the atmosphere of an Irish pub back in Cork, with its dark wood and cozy seating. Along the walls you’ll see travel posters inviting you to Ireland and the Country Cork region as well as pictures of the Fastnet lighthouse. It has become a gathering place for fans of Irish football and rugby as Finbarr has arranged to have Irish sports matches televised there regularly. “It’s all designed to give you a flavor of my homeland,” he says.
The Fastnet Pub serves as good a pint of Guinness as you’ll find anywhere, and it has two dozen beers on tap ranging from Magners to Narragansett, Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA and Pabst Blue Ribbon. “People come to a pub to enjoy beer, and we want to have as many styles as the people want,” Finbarr says.
In true pub style, The Fastnet sponsors a dart team in the East Bay Dart League, which begins another season in September. Made up of teams from several regional bars and pubs, the league brings together some of the top dart players in the region. “
One thing’s for sure, whether you visit The Fastnet Pub for lunch or dinner or for beers with your friends, you’re guaranteed to have a good time.

The Fastnet Pub, 1 Broadway, Newport, R.I.; 401-845-9311. Open daily for lunch and dinner.

Newport Daily News

Irish Music Sessions Ring Nostalgic
In Some Ears

By James J. Gillis
Daily News staff

NEWPORT — For transplanted Dubliners like Seamus McConnell of Middletown, Sunday-afternoon Irish sessions at the Fastnet Pub are “like a slice of home.”

For the past two years, musicians have commandeered the center of the Broadway bar, playing fiddles, tin whistles and guitars for three-hour Sunday sessions. Officially, the shows last from 5-8 p.m. and 6-9 p.m. during the summer. “But in the summer, especially, we sometimes go until closing,” said Tim May of Newport, who organizes the sessions and is handy with a guitar and banjo. “It kind of just keeps going some nights.”

On Sunday, about 10 musicians held forth, including familiar faces like May, fiddlers Jack Wright and John “Fud” Benson, both of Jamestown, as well as Tim Moore from Seattle, who currently works at the Naval War College, and Tom Maguire, a veteran performer and playwright from South County. Others included Kristi Otterbach and Mark Bachand, currently performing the music in the Firehouse Theater’s “Carolan’s Song.”

The group worked through a variety of instrumental jigs and reels, while Benson stopped to play solo and sing a bit on “Lily Marlene.” May said the musicians sometimes have to compete with the crowd noise.

But perhaps the rains kept the noisier people home Sunday. When McConnell stood up, glass of Guinness in hand, to sing a cappella “The Boys of Barr Na Staide,” the bar turned church-like quiet for the nostalgic ballad.

“This is as good as any sessions you’d find back home,” said Fastnet owner Finbarr “Butch” Murray, a native of County Cork who bought the pub, formerly Aidan’s, from Aidan Graham in 2006. “These are great musicians and everyone has a good time. Everyone feels right at home. I know they had been doing some sessions here when it was Aidan’s. But Tim (May) approached me and it’s been a big hit ever since.”

There’s little protocol involved, no fussy announcements. If you can play or sing, you get a chance to play or sing. “Some people sit in every week,” said May, who teaches at Warwick Vets High School. “Others show up once in a while. I look forward to it.” So does Paul Kettle of Newport, who came in with his wife, Sonya Boggs. Kettle also is a transplanted Dubliner. “This is the only place around here where you’ll here this kind of music,” said Kettle, an electronics engineer. “It’s always a nice crowd. You see people sometimes bring their kids with them.” And? “And they have the best Guinness in town,” he said. “Don’t want to forget that.”

Murray said the sessions are good for business. The faces are familiar each Sunday, and the musicians quickly blend, as do Irish, Irish-Americans and Americans of all nationalities.
But the place is Irish-centric, from the rugby matches on TV to the painting of Brendan Behan on a wall. “Newport is full of Irish,” said Murray, who first visited the city in 1984. “Everyone is comfortable with each other.” The musical sessions easily could have bottomed out without Murray’s support, May said. “Butch is fantastic,” he said. “He enjoys it as much as we do. If you’re doing sessions and the pub owner doesn’t support you, it’s never going to work. In this case, Butch is right there and we get good crowds. Most of the people who come in come to hear the music.”

For guys like McConnell and his friend Mike Healy, a Cork man, it’s as if their culture followed them when they settled in America. “This shows you the reach of Irish music and culture,” Healy said. “All of these musicians are Americans.”

Send reporter James J. Gillis e-mail at Gillis@NewportRI.com.

Posted: Monday, March 30, 2009
 


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