Bar owner’s tales live on

Hubert O’Brien, father of Daily News ad exec, dies at age 93

Tavern owner Hubert O’Brien, who loved holding court with his customers and trading stories with scribes from the Daily News, where his son is an advertising executive, has died. He was 93.

The hard-working O’Brien, one of 11 children, was born and raised in Ireland during the Great Depression, and left home for his first job in Dublin right after World War II at the tender age of 15, “doing a man’s work for a child’s pay,” as his family tells the story.

After a few years there, he left for England in 1948 before emigrating to the United States and settling in Brooklyn in June of 1954.

In six short years, O’Brien (photo) went from immigrant to U.S. citizen and business owner as he opened and operated O’Brien’s Bar in Washington Heights with his younger brother Christopher.

Their partnership would grow to four taverns, including the Tower View in East Durham, N.Y.

There, O’Brien met and courted the love of his life Eileen McIntyre before their marriage in June of 1964.

The couple welcomed four children, including Kevin O’Brien, The News’ vice president of advertising, followed by 13 grandchildren, splitting time between Yonkers and Riverdale in the Bronx.

With a growing family, O’Brien needed more traditional hours, so he traded in ownership for a spot behind the bar at the John Barleycorn Pub in Manhattan, where he worked for more than 20 years.

When he wasn’t pouring drinks and entertaining customers with stories in his Irish lilt, he made extra money painting and renovating homes. But he’d also extend a hand to anyone in his orbit who needed a hand.

“He really liked people,” Kevin O’Brien said. “He was a great neighbor. If you lived next to him and he saw you needed help, he wouldn’t ask you. He would just help you.”

O’Brien excelled at telling stories, the son said.

“His stories were so vivid,” the son said. “I feel like I was there. He never lost the accent. I got to the point where I wasn’t aware of how much of an accent it was.

“As I got to high school and my friend group expanded, they would hear it and tell me he had an accent. But I didn’t find him hard to understand.”

O’Brien, a talented runner in his youth — he won the Birmingham England mile in 1950 with a time of 4:24, his son said — rediscovered running at the age of 55, after which he ran in five New York City marathons and finished one in under four hours at the age of 60.

“He had true grit and mental toughness,” Kevin O’Brien said.

But O’Brien was as giving as he was tough, especially when it came to family. He was fond of looking after a large number of nieces and nephews who would come to stay with him over the years.

“He truly believed that it was his Christian duty to extend himself to help to repay the kindness he had received in June of 1954” when he came to the U.S., Kevin O’Brien said.

In his later years, O’Brien suffered from dementia, and the son said he began mourning his father even before he died. O’Brien’s wife died in 2020.

“The last years, though filled with illness, did not diminish his memorable spirit,” his son said. “It was always present.”

A wake for O’Brien will be held from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday at Riverdale on Hudson Funeral Home in the Bronx.

O’Brien’s funeral will be held on Monday at St. Margaret of Cortona Church in the Bronx