He’s played in an Irish band for more than 30 years, has taught Irish history, owned an Irish pub, and is oh, so proud to be Irish.
Celebrating this St. Patrick’s Day is Pat McDunn, a man who could be considered one of the most Irish Irish men in Clarkston.
One hundred percent Irish, the 69-year-old, who will be 70 on April 8, holds a day job as a senior English teacher at Brother Rice High School in Birmingham.
But every Friday night you can hear McDunn and his band The Gaels, who first formed in 1972 and still feature original members, play at a small Irish pub inside the Great Oaks Mall in Rochester.
McDunn grew up in a Slovak neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents were both second generation Irish, but 100 percent Irish. And in his neighborhood polka music was very popular. In fact, he had never heard traditional Irish music until he visited O’Halleran’s Irish Pub in Detroit, after coming here to teach in 1967 at U of D High School.
He loved the music he would hear at O’Halleran’s and would often return to listen. Around the same time, McDunn attended a school play where he saw three of his students on stage — one playing the guitar, another the accordion, and yet another on the violin.
“Those are perfect instruments for an Irish band,” McDunn said, though two of the men are Polish and the other German.
“We’re the most ecumenical Irish band.”
With McDunn behind the microphone — “I don’t play any instrument except the kazoo” — his gregarious Irish background came in handy. He loves to have fun with the audience, and said the best part of playing in the band is the wonderful people he meets along the way, which has included his wife, Rosemary, who came with a girlfriend to hear The Gaels play in 1977. (The couple, who have been married for 23 years and lived in Clarkston since 1984, have two sons, Kevin, 20, and Michael, 18.)
The band’s first gig was at Kennedy’s Irish Pub in Pontiac, what McDunn considers the “most Irish place around.”
And it didn’t take long until their popularity grew, because McDunn said there was a market for traditional Irish music at the time.
Soon, they were playing welcoming parties for Jim Blanchard at the governor’s mansion in Lansing, entertaining the largest St. Patrick’s Day party in Michigan with 5,000-6,000 people in attendance, making St. Patrick’s Day appearances on Channel 7’s Kelly & Company for seven years, and much more.
“Irish music has a quality to it I think is intellectually and emotionally provocative,” McDunn said, who owned Four Green Fields, an Irish pub, for 16 years at 13 Mile and Woodward in Royal Oak, which was named after a classic Irish tune.
On top of his musical side, for much of the 1980’s, McDunn taught Irish history at The University of Michigan. His knowledge on the subject led him to St. Patrick’s Day discussions on WJR’s J.P. McCarthy show.
“In teaching Irish history, I realized Ireland has never been a major political or economical center of the world…but it is considered the land of poets. The Irish are people oriented people.” And McDunn said he is definitely that.
Of course, that comes in handy when you are teaching, McDunn’s greatest love. He’s done so for 38 years and has found it to be very rewarding.
“I want to keep doing it for as long as I can. I never want to retire. I don’t feel old and I don’t act old.”