Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Irish pub owner dies at 61

Mike Brennan's family wanted to bring him back from Ireland for his final days, but his death from cancer came much faster than anticipated.

By CAMILLE C. SPENCER
Published September 21, 2006

At a hospital in his native Ireland, Mike Brennan spent the last two years battling cancer that had spread from his colon to his bones and stomach.

Wanting to spend his last days with him, Brennan's four children, 4,000 miles away in Pasco County, hatched a plan to bring him home. They held a benefit in August at their father's pub, Brennan's Sports Pub & Grill in Holiday, and raised $10,000 toward an ambulatory charter flight.

But their father never made it back. He died Sept. 5 at age 61 at his family's home in Charlestown, County Mayo, Ireland. He spent his last days receiving around-the-clock care from nurses after he was diagnosed with a staph infection and released from a hospital in Galway, said Kurt Brennan, his son.

The money that had been raised for his trip home instead paid for his funeral.

His wife, Margaret, had been by his side in Ireland since his diagnosis. His children - Kurt, 37, Michelle, 24, Jennifer, 23, and Katie, 19 - flew to Ireland in August to visit him, not expecting they would be going to his funeral.

"I didn't go prepared. I didn't bring a suit with me," said Kurt Brennan. "I had to rent a suit to bury my dad there. It's something you don't want to have to believe."

It was a bittersweet reunion for Kurt, a married father of two who hadn't seen much of his father while the elder Brennan was receiving treatment in Ireland.

The two bonded watching New York Mets baseball games on TV while Mike Brennan was bedridden.

"We caught up on lost time," Kurt said. "He asked me for a hug, and I think he really knew he didn't have much time. My mother thinks he waited almost for us to be together. He told me everything was going to be okay, and he was apologizing.

"He never asked, 'Why me?' "

Mike Brennan opened his pub in 1988 on Alt. U.S. 19, just north of the Pasco-Pinellas county line. It was a Cheers-like place where regulars knew each other by name, the Brennan kids forged their childhood memories and Mike Brennan took pride in owning his own pub.

Business slowed two years ago, when Mike Brennan was diagnosed with cancer. Since then, family friend Jan Priest has run the pub.

To honor his father, Kurt Brennan says he'll do whatever it takes to keep the place going.

"That pub will be around for a long time," Kurt Brennan said. "I will make sure it stays there in memory of my dad."

Camille C. Spencer can be reached at cspencer@sptimes.com or 727 869-6229.

[Last modified September 20, 2006, 23:08:31]