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C.B. Hannegan's in Print
We get around in the world of letters a bit more than in just restaurant reviews:
Wherever Green is Worn
by Tim Pat Coogan

Tim Pat Coogan is the award winning Irish journalist and author of biographies of Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera plus histories of the birth of the Irish Republic and the ongoing Troubles. He has been at C.B. Hannegan's many times in his travels and had this to say about us in his newest book which is about the Irish Diaspora:


"..a great number of Irish public representatives and visiting firemen have fetched up in one of the Silicon Valley area's
more important websites on the information superhighway - C.B. Hannegan's Bar in Los Gatos. The difference between Hannegan's and the electronic sites is that once enmeshed in Hannegan's web you're trapped,
a cyber liver is no use to you"

Copies of Tim Pat's book can be obtained through Amazon UK

A Ramble Round the Globe Revisited
by Malcolm Greewood

Malcolm Greenwood, former International Sales Manager for Glenfarclas single malt scotch whisky, has written an account of his journey retracing the world tour of Tommy Dewar (the Dewar of Dewar's scotch) a century before.
He has this to say about his stay in California:

"We drove to the gorgeous towns of Santa Cruz and Los Gatos. Los Gatos sports California's most famous whisky bar - C.B. Hannegan's which is managed by the legendary connoisseur (he said it, not us) Tom Ovens. His knowledge and enthusiasm for malt whisky is renowned and he made us most welcome. We enjoyed ribs in smokey barbecue sauce; enough to feed an army. Commenting to Tom on the generous helpings, he proceeded to explain the Celtic nature of the pub. St. Patrick's Day celebrations are taken very seriously indeed..."

He goes on to mention our St. Pat's stats which still amaze even us. We thank him for the kind words, although we're not so sure just what Tom served him to generate that description.
Copies of Malcolm's book can be obtained through
Amazon UK.

The Hacker and the Ants
by Rudy Rucker

On a slightly different level, we are mentioned in a thinly disguised form in local author Rudy Rucker's book, The Hacker and the Ants, a good part of which takes place in thinly disguised Los Gatos. Rudy, a professor of math at San Jose State is one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement in Science Fiction and has twice won the Philip K. Dick award.

"...I went around the corner to an Irish bar called D.T. Finnegan's, a publike space with green carpets, dark wood wainscoting, and antique stained glass windows. The bartender knew me, but I sat at a table with my back to him and with my billed cap pulled down so he wouldn't notice me. His name was Tommy. At this very moment he was, in fact, discussing my case with the men at the bar.
"A nice guy," he was telling them. The three TV screens over the bar were blank. I found the silence wonderful, but the men did not. They were sullen and bewildered. There was some kind of sports event they wanted to be watching. "He comes in here afternoons when he gets tired of hacking," Tommy was saying, "He's kind of an old hippie"...The waitress came to me and I ordered a beer and a barbecued pork sandwich. I was very hungry. While I waited for the food, I studied the newspaper..."

The Hacker and the Ants is currently out of print.

This is how the Metro described us in 2000:
:



In March of 1995, Bob Aldritch wrote in the Los Gatos Weekly:

"He may be unknown to younger folk, but those old enough to have read The Saturday Evening Post may remember the Colin Glencannon stories by Guy Gilpatric. The fictional Scotsman was chief engineer on the Inchcliffe Castle, a rusty Bristish tramp steamer. A large, heavyset man with a walrus moustache and a fiery temper, Glencannon's favorite expression when annoyed was 'Foosh!' His cherished beverage was a whisky called Duggan's Dew of Kirkintilloch.
Carl Nolte, the San Francisco Chronicle reporter who joined the crew of the Jeremiah O'Brien when the last Libert Ship sailed from San Francisco to Europe last year, wrote about an informal lierary group, the Glencannon Society, which held meetings aboard ship. The O'Brien's chief mate, Walter Jaffe, founded the society.
At C.B. Hannegan's, bartender Tom Ovens was inspired to offer customers 'Duggan's Dew Blended Scotch Whisky' ($3) during a week of commemoration of the O'Brien voyage. . . "
Note: the Jeremiah O'Brien, named for the American Revolutionary Hero who led American forces in the first naval battle of the Revolution and captured the first British ship of the war, is the last seagoing Liberty Ship. One of 2,742 Liberty Ships built during World War II, the O'Brien took part in the invasion of Normandy, making 11 trips to the beaches with supplies and troops. Refitted and manned by a crew of volunteer seamen (the average age of which was 63 years), she was the only ship to return to Normandy for the 1994 commemorations of D-Day.