Irish bars in Chicago: Unlikely characters write the book

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Trust me, you meet a lot of quirky folks in a newsroom.

That’s where political blogger Allison Hantschel first got to know curmudgeonly scribe Mike Danahey a dozen years ago at the Elgin Courier-News.

The co-authors of Chicago’s Historic Irish Pubs (Arcadia, $21.99) are a journalistic odd couple.

Danahey, of the Dundee area, still writes for the Courier-News. He’s the dry-witted, curmudgeonly uncle who goes drinking with opera stars and bowls with fellas from the Moose Lodge. And for extra cash, Danahey once wrote porn scripts for a local Brazilian guy who ran a video store that doubled as an aerobics studio.

Hantschel, of Oak Park, is a liberal political blogger, notorious book hoarder, oral historian and recovering teenage emo poet with a soft spot for pet ferrets. During her days covering religion for the Daily Southtown, she helped expose pedophile priests in Joliet.

Over pints at Cork and Kerry in Beverly, Hantschel’s jaw drops as Danahey meanders into a tale of his foray as a porn screenwriter business — which he later tells me also included a Christmas-themed G-rated script for the would-be pornographer’s daughter’s school play.

“We’ve been friends a long time and just wrote a book together. How did I not know that? I guess we really are an odd couple,” she said to Danahey. “I am a good girl. . . . I have never written any porn.”

The pub book was Danahey’s idea. And after a passionate speech from her grumpy reporter pal, Hantschel — a Wisconsin native who jokes that she’s Irish by marriage on her husband’s mother’s side — agreed to help.

“We do different things. But we still love stories,” Hantschel said. “But I did tell him, ‘If we do this we’ll either still be friends or never speak to each other again.”

Danahey’s original plan was to scour the Chicago Irish bar scene, score a few free drinks, hear boozy barroom lore and write.

“The idea was to go into bars and say, “Tell me a story and we’d take the best stories,” Danahey says. “Stories and beer. That’s pretty good, I thought.”

Instead, the project turned into a charming picture book that feels like you’re thumbing through an old family album — more than 120 photos — accompany an oral history of the Irish Pub culture’s place in Chicago history.

“It’s very visual storytelling. So it was tell us a story and drag down your grandma’s photo album and your grandfather’s dusty box of war memorabilia,” Hantschel said.

It wasn’t always easy and “surprisingly there wasn’t very much beer drinking going on,” Danahey said.

At one Irish bar in Bridgeport, a joint where you have to get buzzed in to have a cold one, a big guy with “Phil Donahue hair” offered them a South Side lesson — if the door doesn’t open, we don’t want you in.

“He said, ‘I don’t want to be in that book. What do you know about Irish bars in Bridgeport? I suggest you stop asking questions about Irish bars in Bridgeport,” Danahey said.

“He kicked us out and followed us to our car and waited behind it until we left,” Hantschel said.

Despite the not-so-friendly warning, they kept hunting for the Irish pub history, even in Bridgeport. At Schinnick’s Pub at 38th and Union, they scored the book’s cover photo.

It took Hantschel and Danahey about a year working weekends and days off to finish. They’re still friends, but “there were moments” — odd couple moments — Hantschel joked.

And just then Danahey’s trails off on another of his infamous tangents.

“I want [the pub book] to be a Broadway musical. That’s my next goal,” Danahey said. “I already have one of the songs picked out: ‘Button Your Shirt Michael Flatley.’ ”

“I will have no part in that, whatsoever,” Hantschel interrupted, deadpan. “My tolerance for weirdness is high . . . My work is done.”