Why New York’s Irish Built Their Second Home in This Corner of Queens

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Walk along Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside, Queens, on a Sunday afternoon and you might wonder if you’ve stepped out of New York entirely. The names above the doors — Flynn’s, Donovan’s, Mulcahy’s — tell you exactly where you are. Or rather, where you’ve come from.

A Neighborhood Built for the Long Journey Over

Irish immigrants began arriving in Queens in serious numbers in the 1920s and 1930s. Many had crossed the Atlantic, passed through Ellis Island, and spent years in Manhattan’s crowded tenements before making their way out to the boroughs. Woodside, with its rows of quiet brick homes and long commercial avenues, suited them perfectly.

The neighborhood offered something Manhattan couldn’t: space. Wide streets, modest houses, and the kind of breathing room that made settling in feel like something more permanent than just arriving.

By mid-century, Woodside and neighboring Sunnyside had become the beating heart of Irish New York. Not the tourist-facing version of midtown pubs and St. Patrick’s Day parades — the working version, where families put down roots and never quite left.

The Pubs That Kept a Culture Alive

The pubs of Woodside are not performing Irishness for tourists. They are Irishness — dim-lit rooms where accents from Cork, Galway, and Donegal still drift through the air on any given evening.

Donovan’s Pub on Roosevelt Avenue has been serving Woodside since the 1930s. It’s the kind of place where the same families have been coming for three generations. On weekend evenings, you’ll find hurling on the television, pints of Guinness on the bar, and conversations that slide between Irish news and New York life without missing a beat.

What makes these pubs remarkable isn’t the decor or the drinks. It’s the density of belonging they hold — the sense that every stool has a story attached to it. If you’re curious about New York’s most famous Irish bars, Woodside will give you a different answer than the guidebooks do.

The 1980s Wave That Gave Woodside a Second Life

Woodside’s Irish identity might have faded in the 1970s, when New York’s economic crisis emptied neighborhoods across the five boroughs. Instead, it was revived by a wave of immigration that nobody had planned for.

When Ireland’s economy collapsed in the 1980s, tens of thousands of young Irish men and women — many of them undocumented — crossed the Atlantic and landed in New York. A striking number made straight for Woodside. The neighborhood had a reputation as a lifeline: a place where new arrivals could find work through community connections, share apartments with other Irish immigrants, and navigate an unfamiliar city without losing themselves.

The undocumented Irish of the 1980s gave Woodside a second generation of Irish culture just as the first was beginning to age out. They revived the pubs, started new businesses, and sent money home to families who were struggling. Many of them, eventually, stayed.

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Gaelic Games and the Thread That Connects

On Sundays in summer, something unusual happens across Queens. Men and women in club jerseys board the 7 train or pile into cars heading for fields in Queens and the Bronx — to play hurling and Gaelic football.

The New York GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) is one of the oldest GAA units outside Ireland itself. Clubs representing counties like Roscommon, Galway, Tyrone, and Kerry compete not just for Queens bragging rights but for the prestige of carrying the county name in the diaspora.

For many Irish New Yorkers, the GAA is the clearest expression of where they’re from. It’s a reason to gather on weekends, a reason to teach your children Gaelic games even if they’ve never set foot in Ireland — and a thread that connects Woodside directly to specific townlands and parishes six thousand miles away.

What Woodside Looks Like Now

Walk through Woodside today and you’ll see a neighborhood that has, in the way of all New York neighborhoods, absorbed new communities. Filipino restaurants sit alongside Irish pubs. Korean grocery stores share blocks with long-established Irish businesses. The 7 train, known for generations as the International Express, carries commuters through one of the most diverse stretches of Queens.

But the Irish community endures. The cultural organizations — the United Irish Counties Association, community centers, the GAA clubs — continue to anchor the neighborhood. New waves of Irish immigrants still arrive, many of them professionals who find that Woodside makes New York feel a little more manageable.

There is a phrase the Irish diaspora uses for neighborhoods like this one: the 33rd county. Ireland has 32 counties. The diaspora, the argument goes, deserves to be counted as one more. Woodside, Queens, has a reasonable claim to be New York’s version of it. And like the millions who passed through Ellis Island before making this city their own, the Irish of Woodside found that you don’t have to forget where you’re from to belong somewhere new.

Frequently Asked Questions About Woodside, Queens

What is the best time to visit Woodside, Queens?

Any weekend works well, but visiting around St. Patrick’s Day (mid-March) or during the summer GAA season (May through August) gives you the best chance of seeing the neighborhood at its most vibrant. The pubs are busiest on Sunday afternoons, particularly after Gaelic games.

Where can you find authentic Irish food and culture in Woodside?

The stretch of Roosevelt Avenue between 58th Street and 65th Street is the heart of Woodside’s Irish community. Donovan’s Pub is the neighborhood’s most historic Irish bar, and the area has several traditional Irish bakeries and delis carrying imported Irish goods.

Why do so many Irish immigrants choose Woodside in particular?

Woodside built strong Irish community networks in the early 20th century, and those networks attracted every subsequent wave of Irish immigration. New arrivals could find housing and work through community connections, and the familiar culture — the pubs, the accents, the GAA clubs — made the transition to American life less daunting.

How do I get to Woodside, Queens from Midtown Manhattan?

The 7 train runs directly from Times Square to Woodside (61st Street-Woodside station) in about 20 minutes, making it one of the easiest neighborhoods in Queens to reach from central Manhattan.

Woodside won’t dazzle you the way Midtown does. It won’t overwhelm you with history the way Downtown does. What it will do — if you let it — is show you something true about New York.

This city was built, block by block, by people who left somewhere they loved and tried to carry it with them. In Woodside, the Irish did exactly that. They built something that has lasted over a century, survived economic collapses on two continents, and kept a door open for everyone who came after. That’s not a small thing. That’s New York.

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