Mar. 10—Whenever Russell Foster drives by the old Brian Boru building on Center Street in Portland, he stops to take a picture.
A fan of Irish pubs, Foster, who moved to Maine in 2023, has wondered what it once was like and why it’s unoccupied. About a month ago, he decided to ask the hive mind.
“Whats the story behind this Pub? Been empty for years, are there any plans to revive it? its a really cool building,” he posted on the Portland, Maine Facebook page with a photo of the distinctive red structure, its side painted with a mural of the toucan from Guinness ads, two pints of the stout atop its beak.
Hundreds of people responded, reminiscing about meeting spouses and lifelong friends there, stopping by before a coencert or hockey game, enjoying cheap mimosas at brunch and, on some nights, imbibing more than they should have.
It was also a prime location to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, on a circuit of Irish pubs in the Old Port with an all-day lineup of live music, free-flowing Guinness and shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. RiRa is the only one that’s still open.
Many of the Facebook commenters lamented Brian Boru’s closure and some, more broadly, how Portland has changed. One of them said he avoids Center Street because it makes him too sad to see it empty. That’s the building’s double-edged sword. Unlike other beloved businesses that have turned into something different or been erased from sight by new development, it stands out: two stories tall, with its boldly painted brick, surrounded by empty lots — a reminder both of the good times had there and the fact that it’s gone.
Nearby insurance company MEMIC bought the building (which dates back to the 1800s) when the pub closed in 2019 after 26 years in business and had planned to demolish it to make way for an employee parking lot, but put that process on hold when, in 2021, someone came forward with a proposal to relocate it. That never came to fruition, and as of now, MEMIC — which owns the entire block surrounded by Spring, Center, Fore and Cotton streets — has no immediate plans for the building, but will “continue to explore opportunities for our employees and Portland,” a spokesperson said in an email last week.
One thing’s for sure: If the company does ever decide to tear down the building, it will be hearing from Portland residents.
We saw it with the Greyhound mural outside the former St. John Street bus station, when it was being replaced with an objectively more attractive work of art, and we’re watching it play out right now with the former children’s museum on Free Street. While a judge will decide if there’s a legitimate reason not to tear down that building, I hardly doubt everyone who has rallied behind it is that concerned with the particulars of historic preservation. My guess? Many of them just want the streetscape to stay the same.
I get it. The city has been whiplashed by change in the last decade or so, and it’s hard not to want to hold onto what’s left of the before times. Yes, there’s the real fear of the now-allegorical Union Station situation, where we don’t recognize the value of older structures or how quickly dated their replacements will become. And, as with the children’s museum, there’s the problem of setting precedent for future changes with fewer upsides than an expanded Portland Museum of Art. But neither applies to a standalone building, with no historic protections, on prime peninsula real estate.
Foster, for one, envisions a scenario like in the beginning of the movie “Up,” where a single house gets surrounded by skyscrapers.
“It would be really cool if they could sell off that building and reopen it. That would be my dream scenario,” he said, sounding a lot more like a longtime Mainer than someone who moved here recently.
Despite being a Massachusetts transplant (maybe considered by some as part of the problem), Foster says he can relate to residents who are frustrated by the city becoming more expensive and losing its less pretentious establishments. That’s what happened in his hometown of Newburyport, and why he and his wife bought a house in Lewiston.
They hope to move to Portland one day and to be able to go to places like Brian Boru. As much as I’d love another summer day out on that deck (with the window open to the bar, but without the dance club vibes that took over inside, thank you very much), I’m not as optimistic.
Maybe the guy who avoids Center Street has the right idea: that leaving those memories to the mind’s eye makes it easier to move on. Thinking back on St. Patrick’s Days past, I can easily picture the scene inside Brian Boru without looking at the building, and I’m guessing, some day, that will have to be enough.
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