About Paul Hurley

Paul Hurley left Ireland for the United States in the mid-1980s and now owns a portfolio of bars and restaurants in New York. The proud Dubliner spoke to Hogan Stand about GAA at home and abroad, business in the Big Apple and helping Irish emigrants.

Last month marked a rare anniversary in the life of Paul Hurley. It wasn’t a wedding anniversary, nor a milestone birthday. It was something more life-defining than all that – 25 years had passed since he took the decision to board a plane to New York, armed with hopes, dreams and a few hundred dollars in his back pocket.

From Finglas in north Dublin, where the Erins Isle club is the all-encompassing GAA presence, Hurley counts himself among the same vintage as famous former Isle and Dublin stars such as the Mick Deegan, Charlie Redmond, Kevin Barry and the Barr brothers, Keith and Johnny.

Whereas they would find their fame on the Croke Park stage, Hurley was making a name for himself in far off America. Not that it came without plenty of hard work and toil. “When I arrived, I started off mopping floors, as a busboy and a barman,” he recalls. “I was making a lot in tips and the dollar was great so I saved hard and bought my first bar in 1990.”

His initial foray into the business could hardly be described as a roaring success – six years later he sold the place and took another job behind the bar. What went wrong? “Nothing really,” he says. “I was very raw – I was only 23 or 24 years of age when I bought it. The money wasn’t in it, I was just working for a living. There were three of us involved but I think I was doing all the work, so when the opportunity came to sell up, I did. But it was a great learning experience – dealing with business people, liquor tradesmen, landlords, all that stuff.”

When the chance of making a second start in business arrived in 1999, Hurley grasped it with both hands, and the name PD O’Hurley’s, which would quickly become a staple of the New York restaurant and bar scene, was born.