Fiddlers Elbow Andy Devane in Rome
The owner of Rome’s oldest pub has revealed how Irish priests and seminarians kept the place alive in the fledgling early days.
The famous in the shadows of the landmark basilica of St Mary Major, is celebrating 40 years as the eternal city’s ‘go to’ Irish pub.
Gino Bottigliero brought Guinness and ‘the craic’ to Rome long before mainland Europe embraced the now ubiquitous Irish pub.
He describes priests and seminarians from Ireland as amongst the bar’s “most important” clientele down the years.
Support
He reveals that there was enthusiastic support from the students of the Pontifical Irish College, as well as a handful from the Venerable English College, and the Benedictines at San Anselmo.
According to Mr Bottigliero, among the seminarian regulars were the nephew of Winston Churchill, the brother of a serving British Foreign Secretary, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, a man who gave up his string of night clubs to serve God, and the son of the inventor of the zip, who waived his royalties for a greater glory.
Until the advent of Fiddler’s Elbow, foreigners living in Rome had nowhere to go for a libation, let alone a pint of the ‘black stuff’.
“The notion of meeting for a drink in the evening, outside of a restaurant, was unheard of in Rome at the time,” says Mr Bottigliero.
The pub was the first in Rome to serve draft Guinness, in 1981, as well as the first to employ Irish staff, while the hordes of customers were vetted by bouncers, another first for the capital.
Fiddler’s hosts regular cultural events, with particular emphasis on Irish music and literature.
Prof. John McCourt of Università Roma Tre describes it as “one of Rome’s great Irish cultural institutions”, praising its important role in supporting conferences of Irish studies and organising “lively, entertaining celebrations of Irish writing”. It has also hosted countless meetings of the Irish Club of Rome during the organisation’s 25-year history.