Behind the bar of the Golden Ace Inn sits an unwitting symbol of the life of the oldest Irish pub in Indy: a Zenith wireless radio next to a Panasonic hi-fi.
The old and the new.
The past and the future coexist easily at the Golden Ace, which was opened in 1934 by John and Ann McGinley shortly after the repeal of Prohibition. It has remained open and owned by the McGinley clan ever since.
Tradition continues, but every generation a new generation helps take the reins of the warhorse watering hole. And one is emerging right now to take the Ace forward, on the eve of the pub's 75th year in operation.
On this night, Jim McGinley, 30, is working the taps. By 9 p.m. the Mickey Finns, an Irish band from New York City, have trundled in the door, ready for their first set of the night. And more than a dozen or so family members are spread throughout the joint, not to mention family friends, and friends who've become like family.
The neighborhood around 2533 E. Washington St. has changed since the Depression. The trolley no longer runs down the thoroughfare. The houses aren't as pretty, nor the businesses.
But the area still has that unassuming, working-class, even downtrodden feel. The bar is bordered by chain link fencing and gravel lots, and doesn't look like much, especially sitting next to an auto dealer and across from a Domino's.
"It's not that nice out there," said Jim. "Just warning you."
No matter. On this chilly Saturday night, a few weeks before St. Patrick's Day, the lights are still on and the beer still flowing at the Golden Ace. John and Ann had eight children -- Jack, Chuck, Mike, Dan, Jim, Joe, Rosie and Mary Ann -- who worked and caroused at the bar when they came of age. Now middle-aged, their children (and even children's children) have come out of youth and into the bar. Since 1980, more than 15 grandchildren and great-grandchildren have stepped behind the oak to pull pints. They're here tonight.
The extended network has always been essential to the Ace. The pub was never located in an Irish enclave.
Truth be told, before the gang bangers arrived, the surrounding community was more German Lutheran than anything else.
"But it was a constant flow of people, thanks to the family," said Daniel McGinley, one of the five brothers remaining of John and Ann's children. "We didn't need the neighborhood. Don't need it now."
Put to work early
The O'Haras, the O'Garas, the Whites, the Bransons and the McNultys (Ann was a McNulty) are among the clans who have kept the place alive over the years. Like most of them, Jim McGinley virtually grew up in the pub.
"On the Lord's day," to get out of his mother's hair, Jim would come to the Ace with his father and uncles to clean up after large Saturday nights. All the younger McGinleys have similar memories.
Colleen McGinley, 23 (daughter of Brian McGinley, the son of Joe McGinley, son of John), said working and playing at the pub is a rite of passage as much as a responsibility, as much as a privilege.
"Once you're 21, you're back behind the bar," she said. "End of story. You're pitching in."
Beth Skripsky, 28 (daughter of Mary Catherine Skripsky, daughter of Jack McGinley, son of John), said bringing friends into the bar is crucial in itself.
"I have tons of friends who will drive down from Chicago with me, to be here," Skripsky said. "Because this is so different from any other bar."
The Ace has a talent for making friends into something more.
"Being an in-law, you feel like family, and that's how they are with friends and friends of friends," said Allison McGinley, 30 (wife of Jim McGinley, grandson of John and Ann). "That's how they are."
"You're a stranger for about five seconds," said Colleen McGinley. "And then you grab a seat at the bar and you're sharing a story with one of my great-uncles, and they're sharing their story with you."
There is a story behind everything in the Golden Ace. From the trinity of pictures above an archway -- a portrait of JFK, a photo of the Celtic cross that sits across from the RCA Dome, and a picture of Irish revolutionary Michael Collins -- to the fluorescent "V" behind the bar, which has been there since V-Day.
There's even a framed essay by Jim McGinley from a descriptive writing class in college, titled "Where everybody knows your name," in which he lovingly describes walls stained yellowy green by nicotine, and the smell of beer -- musty old beer -- as a faithful friend of the establishment.
There are Notre Dame pictures, and an old scratched piano. On the piano sit tall Guinness cans and half-full glasses. (No need for coasters at the Ace.) And there are pictures of County Donegal on the wall. A picture of farming country in Ireland's northwest. Craggy coastline. Bucolic hills. Valleys lining the landscape like wrinkles of character, like the edges of smiling Irish eyes.
Change would be foolish
There is an authenticity to the Ace that could be altered -- would be -- by those wishing to tart the place up, to make a more commercially viable bar. How about Guinness on draft, for instance? The answer is that, simply, they never got around to it -- and some people believe it's better fresh from the can.
"A lot of people tell me -- visiting from Ireland -- that this is just like an Irish pub," said Chuck McGinley, who has himself been to the motherland nearly a dozen times. There is an honesty to the way the Ace presents itself, attested to by the fact that the bar has not been reinvented.
"We know not to change it," said Skripsky, "and that takes a lot of conviction, and a real appreciation."
"This really is a member of the family," added Allison McGinley. "The bar is. It draws you back. It's a physical thing."
The Ace is a vessel for "the elders" to pass on commonalities: laughter, closeness, tradition.
Dan Pleak, 31, a cousin within the clan, said everybody in the bar is related, even if they aren't, strictly speaking, "related."
"There's a strong Irish community in this town. And this," Pleak said, casting a hand around the room as the crowd clapped in unison to the band, "is the cornerstone."
Neither the old Zenith wireless nor the Panasonic would be needed on this night.
By 11 p.m., the fiddler having well and truly woven his magic, the singer almost hoarse, both pulling half the bar to their feet, Jim McGinley stood with his back against one of the yellowy green walls, sipping a beer, surrounded by people who know his name, and smiled.
"We all try to get people to come and keep it going," said Pleak, wrapping his arm around the shoulder of a friend. "If this place went down, we wouldn't have a place to ..... well ..... we would. But it wouldn't mean as much."
