This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Could you introduce yourself? 

Sure. My name is Steve Basile. It's probably Basilé in the original Italian, but I'm one of the owners here at B.D. Riley’s — the managing partner, along with our founder, who is John Irwin. And his grandmother is B.D. Riley. So that's the person behind the pub.

Do you identify as Irish American and how many generations has it been since your ancestors left Ireland?

I do. I'm half Irish and half Italian and I feel like the Irish part takes precedence, partly because of what I do for a living. My grandmother was born in Ireland and her family came over around the turn of the 19th century, so 1895 through 1900. And I knew my grandmother, so it was a generation that I actually interacted with. She lived to be 80. Also on the Italian side, I knew grandparents and great-grandparents who came over from Italy. 

My Irish family name was Mahar like Bill Maher but with an a. Maher and Maher are variations of the same clan and they were from the Kilkenny region in Ireland and nobody is left there. They either died in the famine or came over after the famine so there's no one we can directly trace back. But in that area of Ireland, the name Mahar, it's on pubs and it's on trucking companies and it's doctor's offices. 

When your family migrated to the U.S. where did they first settle?

They settled in upstate New York and Albany. They all came in through Ellis Island and then there were riverboats that went up the Hudson River. So boat across the ocean, three weeks of not very much fun. These were not pleasure cruises. Think steerage and Titanic, that sort of thing. Except without the sinking. 

But then Albany had a port and it had a thriving brewing district with lots of breweries. And my grandfather, who I didn't know, but I know through stories, he was a Smith. My grandmother married him and he (became) a typewriter salesman. He sold Smith Corona manual typewriters, including to the newspaper. That was a big deal. If you sold typewriters to a newspaper, you've got to get a contract. So they all settled in Albany and that's where I was born. 

When did you make it over to Austin? 

I worked in telecommunications and technology around New England and New York, and I came to Austin in ‘93 to work for a software company so I've been here about 31 years. And I spent the first nine years with a tiny software company that got much bigger and then went public, and then got acquired by IBM, and then got much, much bigger. And then another little software company. Then I left the software business and took some time off and stumbled into the bar business. I have an unusual background for a bar owner, I guess. But I bartended in college, so maybe that's okay. That's full circle.

The next question is, how would you define Irishness?

That's as personal a question as can be and probably has many answers. 

We just finished St. Patrick's Day, which is that one day a year where everyone says they're Irish. And I, as someone who is of Irish descent and (B.D. Riley’s) is named after a child of Irish immigrants, it's not — you know, I wasn't born there. I have an Italian surname, from my dad. I've been there a few times — visited. I have great memories and admiration for the country, but I feel like to be Irish is a function of your heritage. It's what you take away from it. 

What I take away from it is, there's a sense of fun. There's a sense of family. There's a sense of pride in whatever you do. And literally whatever you do — if you're a street sweeper or a typewriter salesman or a grocer or a publican — being proud of that.

And I think there's a willingness to help others. And that's what I've taken from the Irish side of my family. And I feel like we all sort of mold that into a personal definition — sometimes the Irish use the word craic. 

Craic is the fun you have and conversation you have when you're with friends who you're comfortable with, out having a good time, and the fact that I need 20 words to describe the Irish word craic is an indication that it's one of those words that's more than just a word. It's a feeling. There's a number of words that refer to things like that. In German, there’s a word, gemütlichkeit. It is comfortable friendship, laughter, and spirit, often gathered around a fire or in a pub or in a comfy home. There's a Dutch word, gezellig, which means coziness. But again it's the implication is coziness with others that you are really comfortable with. I love these words that take many words to translate, but they're all sort of related to a good time with family and friends. They have that in common and craic is a great one. 

That’s what I think about Irishness: it's a combination of a lot of things that are hard to describe and that are very personal for each person.

What are the most important issues facing Irish society today in your eyes? 

I visited (Ireland) for work and for pleasure. I've never visited with a particular social mission in mind but like any big city, in Dublin and especially in Galway, you see a divide between haves and have nots. Income inequality is a fact of life everywhere and it's visible in Ireland. 

I think, as a formerly religious person, I'd also say that religion is a challenge, still, in the country. Even though it has made great strides toward legalizing abortion, legalizing same gender marriage, and they've overcome the troubles through peace accords and the Good Friday agreement, there is a religious divide that exists in the country, that literally divides the island, and I think informs a lot of policy. It's still a predominantly Catholic country with a predominantly separate Anglican segment in Northern Ireland. And as a non-colonialist, I would hope the island is reunited some time. But religious differences, I think, are a big issue. 

I also understand it's — like everywhere — getting increasingly expensive to live and that's, you know, as a traveler, staying in a nice hotel or a comfortable bed and breakfast, I don't see that as much, but I'm not having to go out and find a flat on a workmen's wage.

I’m Indian American but have spent most of my life in India. I often think of the remnants of colonialism and the scars that still heal to this day. Did you find anything specific during your time in Ireland that recalled the British occupation?

I visited with my parents when I was still working for a software company back in ‘99. It was just after the Good Friday accords. Borders were open and peace talks were done. The troubles were, more or less, a very recently closed chapter, but you could travel freely between the Republic and Northern Ireland. And I did. 

My thought as a first-time visitor to Northern Ireland was that I was entering a colonial occupied area. And I thought of Algeria and the French occupation, and of India and Pakistan, Kuwait, all of Africa, everywhere the British Empire had colonized, and America who had been colonized. I thought going into Northern Ireland, that I was going to meet people who were in a colony, and in some way, felt oppressed or occupied. Yet I didn't meet a single person in my short time there that felt that way. 

Instead, I met people who felt that they were British subjects, and not subjects in the negative sense, but that they were part of the British country. These were people that were born (in Northern Ireland). They didn't feel that they had been taken over or colonized. It was a perspective I never had, and I didn't expect it either. 

Now, I met many people in the Republic who viewed Northern Ireland as a British colony that had encroached on the island, and they longed for a unified republic. But the other perspective, I guess, is interesting, and I had to take it into account, and it was eye opening. I was kind of surprised. My thought was that everyone would be bristling to get out and break the bond, Algeria wanted to kick France out, and most colonies in America wanted to kick King George out. And most colonies, most occupations end badly, in my view, they often end violently, and (I) was there at a time when the violence had just barely subsided. And yet here I was talking to people that said, “no, I'm a Brit.” “I'm just a Brit that's not on the island of Great Britain.”

I also went to school in England at a very weird time. I was over there in the summer of 1979, which was the summer that Lord Mountbatten was assassinated by the Irish Republican Army. His boat was blown up and his nephew was killed going to school in London. There were no trash cans because they were places where you would put a bomb and post boxes were welded shut. I got the sternest talking to by a British constable that scared the hell out of me because I sat a bag down on a platform and walked away from it to get a candy bar — something I would never do today. But he tore me a new one because I had left a bag unattended, and they cleared the platform. They cleared a train platform. I was utterly unaware of the impact of terrorism. 

Now flash forward 20 years, my view of England was colored by the fact that they were the target of terrorists who were feeling occupied. So, I just assumed everyone felt that way. And then I find myself in Northern Ireland sitting in a pub in Derry, talking to someone who's lived there their whole life and just considered themselves an extension of the British Isles. It was different. Now we're here, again 20 years later, at a different time. (Brexit) has happened. You will probably see another perspective, but I wanted to share that one.

Thank you so much. 

You're welcome. It's always a pleasure.