Veteran bar owner Bill Comerford has been planning his Irish goodbye for years.
Comerford has spent his lifetime in bars, and he's owned many of Oʻahu's Irish pubs in a career that stretches nearly three decades.
One of those mainstay bars will be changing hands, now that Comerford made the decision to sell.
Residents may remember Anna OʻBrien's — otherwise known as Anna Bannana's, or simply just Anna's — as the beloved local pub that was a hotspot for hot music.
HPR caught up with Comerford during a visit at his last remaining pub, The Irish Rose Saloon, and spoke with the local legend about his lifetime spent behind the bar.
“Often I was babysat in the bar with a roll of nickels, where you put half the roll into the pinball machine, half into the jukebox.”
For Comerford, the Irish pub is more than just a watering hole. It's an institution that provides friends with a place to be and local artists a place to perform.
“It's a gathering place for the neighborhood. In other words, it's a community center. It's all those other things,” he said.
“People always say Hawaiʻi and Ireland are often alike. Why? They're both islands. They're both tribal kingdoms. … Ireland has a great sense of welcoming. In Hawaiʻi, we have aloha. Over there, it's 100,000 welcomes. They always have a welcome on the map.”
While several rocky years during the COVID-19 lockdown left him and his businesses in the lurch, Comerford managed to stay on his feet well enough to finally be able to walk away.
After running some of the most beloved local pubs across Oʻahu, he's hoping to hang up his boots and bid farewell to the bar business.
“I have so much else I have to do, just in life. Once upon a time, I was 27 when I got here, now I'll be 74 in October,” he told HPR.
“You run out of time, Bill, to do the other things you want to do and have family elsewhere.”
With that said, if anyone's looking to tap into some of his industry knowledge post-retirement, his doors are always open.
“I'll charge you a $5,000 consultant fee to help you get a bar open and direct you in different ways,” Comerford joked.
“I want $1,000 cash, and I'm going to take that cash and I'm going to turn around to you and say, ‘Don't do it.’”
This story aired on The Conversation on July 20, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
