PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Pittsburgh’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade is one of the largest in the country, and this year it included one of the smallest Irish pubs.

Last summer, friends Des O’Connor and Tom Naughton transformed a 28-foot-long Sportsmen Travel Trailer into a mobile bar called The Wild Rover. 

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

The Pub on Wheels is a scaled-down slice of the Emerald Isle experience and is available to rent for private parties and corporate events. Although it doesn’t sell alcohol, clients can stock the shelves with their choice of booze and tap up to five kegs of beer. They can also rent high-top tables, glassware and tents from the business and arrange for bartending services and live music. This old-school yinzer thinks the pub should form a partnership with the Hills Snack Bar, a throwback food truck I wistfully wrote about last year.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

And if you doubt the authenticity of this rolling Irish pub, belly up to the bar and let jovial O’Connor pour you a perfect pint of Guinness. Hearing one word out of his mouth will convince you the concept is not a lot of blarney. He hails from Fethard, County Tipperary, Ireland and was born with the gift of gab. His niece, Dorothy Wall, plays flanker for the Irish Women’s Rugby Football Union. A jersey of Wall’s hangs on the wall of The Wild Rover. (Try to say that three times fast with an Irish accent.)

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

After graduating from college in Dublin, O’Connor moved stateside and lived in various spots throughout the country, including Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. In 1989 he took a weekend trip to Pittsburgh and never left. 

As luck would have it, his son plays lacrosse with Naughton’s son. The two dads formed a friendship on the sidelines. Naughton, a Pittsburgh native and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, convinced the Irishman to give the trailer a Celtic overhaul, complete with a bartop that is made from an old church pew. 

Now that’s what I call an Irish blessing.