New York City / Irish Trad
Irish Trad Music NYC:
18 Verified Sessions
Eighteen verified sessions, the three bars where a deal and a session land on the same night, and the closures the big lists are still printing.
Sessions run five nights a week — Sunday is the biggest, and most happy hours have already ended by then.
- 18 verified sessions
- 3 with a same-night deal
- music on 5 nights
- 7 live happy hours
The best Irish trad music in NYC is played at Hartley’s in Clinton Hill (Mondays, 8pm), Paddy Reilly’s in Kips Bay (Mondays 8–11pm, no cover), An Beal Bocht in Riverdale (Sundays 3:30–6:30pm) and The Dead Rabbit in FiDi (Sundays 6–10pm). None of them charges at the door. Now the part no other list will tell you: we checked the happy hour at all eighteen, did the arithmetic, and only three bars in New York City let you drink on a deal and stay for the session the same night. Everywhere else the window shuts before the first tune — usually by exactly one hour. Sessions are grouped below by whether a deal is attached, then by night. The venues we could not verify are in their own section with phone numbers, and the closures other guides are still publishing are at the bottom.
The short version
- Best all roundHartley’s — happy hour 4–7pm, session at 8pm, same room, Clinton Hill.
- Longest windowPaddy Reilly’s — happy hour 11am–7pm, then a Monday dance jam with no cover.
- Best playedThe Dead Rabbit — four hours of trad on Sunday, no cover, and no deal running.
- Best for beginnersNew York Irish Center — free Saturday slow session, sheet music allowed.
- The honest answerAlmost no NYC happy hour is still running when the tunes start. Go early, drink on the deal, stay for the session.
At a glance
Sorted by whether there is a deal attached. Tap a venue’s number on the map to place it.
| Venue | The deal | Session | Happy hour | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hartley’s | Happy hour 4–7pm, then trad at 8pm | Mon 8pm | Mon–Fri 4–7pm | $$$ |
| Paddy Reilly’s Music Bar | Happy hour 11am–7pm, trad + dance jam Mon 8pm | Mon 8–11pm | Mon–Sat 11am–7pm | $$$ |
| The Canary | HH 4–8pm; late HH 11pm–2am; trad Sun 8–11pm | Sun 8–11pm | 4–8pm + late 11pm–2am | $$$ |
| An Beal Bocht Cafe | Sunday session 3:30–6:30pm, no verified HH | Sun 3:30–6:30pm | None found | $$$ |
| The Dead Rabbit | $2 oysters, $8 Guinness — but Mon–Fri only | Sun 6–10pm | Mon–Fri 3–6pm | $$$ |
| Fraunces Tavern | $7 draft, $12 Malbec, $1.50 oysters | Sun 4–7pm | Mon–Fri 4–7pm | $$$ |
| The 11th St. Bar | $2 off beer, draft wine, house liquor | Sun from 9pm | Mon–Fri 2–7pm | $$$ |
| The Laurels | 6 oysters $10; half-price wine Mon; spritz 2-for-1 | Sun, time TBC | Mon–Fri, ends 7pm | $$$ |
| Landmark Tavern | No happy hour — Monday session 8–11pm | Mon 8–11pm | None | $$$ |
| Sláinte | No happy hour — Tuesday session from 8pm | Tue from 8pm | None | $$$ |
| Swift Hibernian Lounge | No happy hour — Tuesday seisiún 8–11pm | Tue 8–11pm | None | $$$ |
| Grace’s | No happy hour — Wednesday session from 8pm | Wed from 8pm | None | $$$ |
| New York Irish Center | Free slow session, all levels, sheet music allowed | Sat 1:30–4pm | Free entry | $$$ |
| Downey’s Bar & Grill | Open session, all musicians welcome | Sat from 6pm | None found | $$$ |
| The Wheeltapper Pub | Session exists, night unconfirmed. No happy hour. | Call first | None | $$$ |
| The Wicked Monk | Sunday session, start time disputed | Sun ~5pm | Unknown | $$$ |
| The Rambling House | Five sources, four different answers | Unconfirmed | None | $$$ |
| The Wolfhound | Informal Saturday sessions; annual Trad Week in Feb | Sat, informal | None | $$$ |
Map: where these 18 sessions are
From Bay Ridge to Riverdale. The Manhattan cluster is walkable; the Bronx and Brooklyn rooms are worth the train, and the 1 train alone gets you to two of them.
Pins are numbered to match the table above – tap any pin for the session and directions.
The three bars where a deal and a session land on the same night
This is the whole list. Everywhere else in the city, the happy hour has ended before the first tune. For deals that run every day of the week, see our guide to the best Irish bars in NYC.
Hartley’s On now
This is the one. Weekday happy hour runs 4–7pm, Matt Stapleton’s session starts at 8, and it happens in the same small room on Putnam Ave — so you drink on the deal, eat, and still have your seat when the fiddles come out. The gap is exactly one hour: enough time for dinner, not enough time to lose the table. The catch is that Hartley’s publishes the window and not the prices, so you are walking in without a number. Ask at the bar. The local move: be there by 6, sit near the back, and don’t move. By 8:15 there is nowhere to stand.
Paddy Reilly’s Music Bar On now
An eight-hour happy hour and one of the last true dance sessions in the city. Niall O’Leary runs Monday nights 8–11pm and the pitch on his own site is “No cover charge…All Welcome,” with a standing note that dancers should bring their hardshoes. It is a session and a jam at once, which you will not find anywhere else in Manhattan. The bar’s happy hour ends at 7pm, an hour before the music. No prices published anywhere. The honest caveat: their contact page still advertises happy hour as “11AM – 7AM Daily.” That is a typo for 7PM, and it has been live for months.
The Canary On now
The only bar we found where the deal starts as the tunes stop. Sunday’s session runs 8–11pm; the late-night happy hour opens at 11pm and runs to 2am. So the move here is backwards from everywhere else — sit through the session at full price, then order once the last set finishes. The weekday window is generous too: 4–8pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 4–9pm on Wednesday. Worth it: Franklin Ave has no shortage of bars and exactly one with a Sunday session. The caveat: windows only, no prices — ask before you commit to a round.
thecanarybk.com · See our Brooklyn happy hours
Sunday is the big trad night — and the worst day for a deal
Six of our eighteen sessions run on a Sunday, and almost every happy hour in this city is Monday to Friday. That is not a coincidence, it is a scheduling problem. Two of them are in FiDi, three blocks from Continental Sports Lounge — no trad there, but it is the FiDi room to know if you would rather have the game on. More weekend options in our Saturday happy hour guide.
An Beal Bocht Cafe
The Bronx’s longest-running session, and they say so themselves. Lindsey Ceitinn and Michelle Bergin host every Sunday 3:30–6:30pm — an afternoon slot, which makes this the rare session you can go to and still be home at a sensible hour. Note the time: two of the big published lists have it at 4–7pm, and the venue’s own site says 3:30. We found no happy hour we could stand up, and at least one aggregator lists drink prices that appear nowhere on the venue’s own pages, so plan on paying full freight. The local move: the 1 train to 238th St puts you a block away. Kitchen runs till 10.
anbealbochtcafe.com · See our the Bronx Irish pubs of Woodlawn
The Dead Rabbit On now
Four hours of trad on a Sunday with a rotating house band, no cover, in the Taproom — and it is properly played, not hotel-lobby Irish. The problem is arithmetic. Shuck & Stout, the actual deal here ($2 oysters, $8 pints of Guinness), runs Monday to Friday 3–6pm. The session runs Sunday 6–10pm. They never meet, and even on a shared day the window would shut at the exact minute the music starts. Come anyway: this is the best-played session in Lower Manhattan and you are paying full price for it. The honest caveat: “Split the G” is a game, not a discount — nail the pour and the pint is free, miss and you pay.
Fraunces Tavern On now
The cruellest near-miss in the city. Happy hour is 4–7pm — $7 SingleCut drafts, $12 Malbec, $1.50 oysters — and it runs in the Independence Bar and Lafayette’s Hideout, which are the exact rooms the music plays in. The trad session is also 4–7pm. On Sunday. When the happy hour does not run. Same clock, wrong day. What does work on a Sunday: three PEI oysters and a pint of Wolfhound Oyster Stout for $15, an all-day deal with no time restriction — worth confirming it runs weekends. The caveat: we saw one Sunday session on their rolling calendar, not a standing weekly listing. Call ahead before you make the trip.
The 11th St. Bar On now
One of the longest-running seisiúns in New York, in a bar that is legally forbidden from charging you to hear it. Their own words: “As per our Liquor License, we are on a side street and therefore not allowed to have ticketed events, charge a cover, or have lines of people waiting outside our bar. Therefore, the tip bucket is our only option.” Tony DeMarco and Isaac Alderson run it; the tunes start at 9pm on Sunday and, in the bar’s phrasing, “go till late.” The Jack Smead happy hour — $2 off beer, draft wine and house liquor — is Monday to Friday, so it does nothing for you on a Sunday. The local move: bring cash for the bucket. The players are working for it.
The Laurels On now
Sunday night trad on Second Ave, in a room that is more café than pub. The session is real — the venue advertises it in its own copy — but they publish no start time anywhere on their site, which is an odd gap for a weekly event. Musicians’ listings put it around 7pm. The happy hour is generous on paper and vague in practice: windows Monday to Friday ending at 7pm, six oysters for $10 from 3pm, half-price bottles and 2-for-1 spritzes on Mondays, and almost no drink prices attached to any of it. None of it runs Sunday. The caveat: their site also lists Sunday hours as “10am – 2pm,” which would close the place before its own music night. Call first.
Weeknight sessions, no deal attached
Monday through Wednesday, and not one of these bars runs a happy hour worth the name. They are here on the music alone. See also our best live music bars in NYC.
Landmark Tavern
An 1868 bar on Eleventh Ave with Don Meade running the Monday session, 8–11pm, and an open invitation printed on the venue’s own site: if you can play an instrument, join in. That is the whole appeal — a session you can sit into, not a gig you watch. There is no happy hour. There has never been a happy hour. Wine by the glass starts at $11, the Irish coffee is $16, and nobody here is apologising for it. Worth it: the room is the draw — tin ceiling, long bar, far enough west that it never fills with people who drifted over from Times Square. The local move: eat first. The kitchen shuts at 10 and the session runs an hour past it.
Sláinte
The session that moved. It ran at Dempsey’s for years and now lives on the Bowery, Tuesdays from 8pm, run by John Nevin and David Sidman. The format is the reason to go: it opens round-robin so every player gets to lead a set, then loosens into a classic open session — which means beginners get a turn instead of being drowned out. No happy hour. Drafts run $8–9 and cocktails $16–18. The only special on the menu is a $10 martini with no day or time attached to it, so do not plan around it. The why: for a Tuesday, this is the friendliest room in Manhattan to walk into carrying a case.
Swift Hibernian Lounge
Tuesdays, 8–11pm, no cover, on a block that is mostly NYU. Swift publishes the seisiún on its own events page and publishes nothing whatsoever about drink prices — no happy hour, no menu numbers, nothing. That is not a deal being hidden. There isn’t one. Worth it anyway: the room is dark, deep and built for sitting still, which is more than you can say for most bars that host live music. The honest caveat: two Tuesday sessions run within four blocks of each other — this one and Sláinte on the Bowery. If you are playing rather than listening, ask which one the regulars are at this month. It moves.
Grace’s
Matt Stapleton’s Wednesday session, from 8pm, on 14th Street — the same host as Hartley’s Monday night, so if you like one you will like the other. Grace’s is open till 4am, which is the real feature here: the session does not get cut off by a midnight last call. No happy hour and no drink specials published anywhere on the site. The caveat: the venue lists a start time and no end time, and one directory claims 7:30pm instead of 8. Three sources including the bar itself say 8. The local move: it is five minutes from the 14th St stops on the 1/2/3, A/C/E and L, which makes it the easiest session in the city to get to — and the easiest to leave.
Free, all levels, and early enough to get home
Two rooms where the point is playing rather than drinking — including the best beginner session in the city. Neither charges at the door.
New York Irish Center
Not a bar — and we should say so plainly. This is a nonprofit cultural centre in Long Island City, and its Saturday slow session, 1:30–4pm, is the best place in New York to start playing. Sheet music is allowed, the tempo is deliberately slow, tea and coffee are on, and it is free with a donation encouraged. If you have been learning tunes at home and cannot yet hold on in a pub session, this is the room. Worth knowing: their Friday programming is the Blarney Star series — a ticketed, seated concert, roughly monthly. It is not a session, and several published lists get that wrong. The caveat: confirm before travelling; their own events page does not always list it.
newyorkirishcenter.org · See our Queens happy hours
Downey’s Bar & Grill
A Saturday-evening session in a Riverdale bar with no website, no happy hour and no pretensions. Brian McCarthy hosts, and the standing invitation is that all musicians are welcome, always. The day is solid — three independent sources including the local paper agree it is Saturday, from around 6pm — but the end time comes from one listing only, so treat it as approximate. The why: this is what a neighbourhood session actually looks like, as opposed to a booking. The honest caveat: no website means no menu and no prices online. It is a Bronx bar on Mosholu Ave; the pints will not ruin you. Ring (718) 548-4939 if you are making the trip up.
See our Bronx Irish pubs
Real sessions, unverifiable details — call first
Four venues where we are confident the music happens and cannot confirm when. We have published the phone numbers instead of a guess.
The Wheeltapper Pub
Donie Carroll hosts a session here and we cannot tell you which night. One musician-maintained list says Saturday 7:30–10:30pm; that same list’s older event page says Friday 7–10pm; a Facebook post says Friday 7:30. The pub’s own site — homepage, events, menus — mentions no session at all, and the phrase “happy hour” appears only in the page’s meta keywords, which is not a deal, it is SEO. Skip it as a plan, keep it as a backup: it is inside the Fitzpatrick hotel on 44th, open till 12:30am daily, and two minutes from Grand Central. Call first: (212) 351-6800.
The Wicked Monk
Bay Ridge’s session, in a bar built out of a salvaged Irish church interior — which is either the best or the worst room in Brooklyn to hear tunes in, depending on how you feel about pews. The venue’s own Instagram says Sunday at 5:30pm. Everyone else says 5pm. Nobody publishes an end time, and the pub’s website carries no music schedule at all, only “Live Events weekly.” No happy hour data of any kind, in either direction. The caveat: that Instagram post is from 2024. Call first: 347-497-5152, and get the start time before you ride the R out to 95th St.
The Rambling House
Woodlawn is the most Irish square mile in New York and the Rambling House is its best-known room, so the absence of a verifiable session here is genuinely strange. Their own site advertises live music three nights a week and Thursday trivia, and names no session at all. Five outside sources give four different answers: weekly Sunday, weekly Tuesday, monthly, and monthly-on-a-Wednesday. The more recently updated ones say monthly. We are not going to guess, so we have published nothing. No happy hour listed either. Call first: (718) 798-4510. If you are on Katonah Ave anyway it is worth the walk in regardless.
The Wolfhound
Queens’ trad outpost, and the only venue on this page with a page on its own site dedicated to the music — which would be excellent if that page had been touched since 2024. What it describes is informal Saturday-evening sessions where, in their words, “anyone is welcome to bring their instruments and join in the fun around the table,” plus an annual Trad Week every February with a $20 cover for the weekend concerts. Whether the weekly session still runs in 2026 is unverified. No happy hour published. Why keep an eye on it: Trad Week is a real festival and the closest thing New York has to a proper trad weekend.
Closures, dead ends and one fake website
We checked more than thirty rooms to build this page. These are the ones that did not make it, and why — because knowing where not to go is half of what a guide is for. Everything below is still being published as current somewhere.
Paddy Reilly’s Music Bar
A lapsed domain at paddyreillysmusicbar.us has been taken over by something calling itself an “independent educational publication.” It publishes a complete, plausible weekly live-music schedule — Thursday Irish Culture Night at 10:30pm, Sunday bluegrass at 5:30pm, a Friday residency — and it ranks in search. Its own small print admits it is “not a bar, pub, venue, band… or official continuation of Paddy Reilly’s Music Bar.” None of that schedule is real. The actual pub is at paddyreillysmusicbar.com and the session is Monday, 8–11pm. If you have ever wondered how an AI answer about a bar can be confidently wrong, this is how.
Mary’s Bar
Greenpoint’s queer Irish pub at 134 Kingsland Ave shut at the end of November 2024 — confirmed by Greenpointers, the Brooklyn Eagle and The Infatuation. Its Wednesday session is still listed as current on at least one widely-cited NYC trad directory, twenty-one months later.
Jack Diamond’s
The E 27th St bar looks to have gone the same way. Its website returns 404 on every page, including still-indexed subpages, so the site was live and has been taken down. Yelp has flagged it closed since April 2026. And the musician billed as hosting its session no longer lists it among his residencies, on a page he maintains through October 2026.
Copper Kettle
Woodside. Its Yelp listing flipped to closed between July and August 2026, online ordering is unavailable, its own site has not been touched since about 2019, and a review from this month reads “sad to see this place go.” Against that, no closure notice and no news article. Unresolved — so we have left it off rather than send you across Queens on a maybe. Its Sunday session appears in exactly one musician-maintained list and nowhere else.
Moriarty’s → The Tavern on McLean
986 McLean Ave now trades as The Tavern on McLean. Both of Moriarty’s domains are dead and the new operator’s own posts say “NOW OPEN.” The Sunday 4–7pm session that circulates for this address is Moriarty’s-era — and the two biggest published session lists still print the old name, which tells you neither has been updated since the changeover. We found no evidence the session survived it.
The Heritage
960 McLean Ave. Its website has no DNS record at all — the domain resolves to nothing, so anyone linking to it is sending readers nowhere. Its Sunday session appears in a single directory, described as a booked gig rather than an open session, and the most actively maintained musicians’ list does not carry it. The pub itself appears to be trading.
Iona
The Monday session at Iona in Williamsburg turns up on Irish session lists regularly. It describes itself as “the only Scottish focused traditional music session that happens regularly in Brooklyn,” drawing on the pipe and fiddle repertoire of Scotland, Shetland, the Hebrides and Cape Breton. It is a good session and Irish tunes are welcome in it — but if you arrive expecting jigs and reels all night, that is not what it is. Tunes from 9pm.
Lillie’s Victorian Establishment
Still listed as hosting a Monday session on E 17th St. The musician credited with running it lists no Lillie’s session on her own site — she runs Sundays at The Laurels and Thursdays at Mary O’s, and the Sunday time matches the old Lillie’s listing exactly. The session appears to have moved. Worth knowing anyway: Lillie’s has one of the few properly priced happy hours in this whole guide — $12 cocktails, $10 wine, $6 beer, Mon–Thu 4–6pm and again 10pm–2am.
Sanger Hall
The Sunnyside room ran a Saturday session with Cillian Vallely and Dan Neely. Its own calendar carries no trad listing after May 2024. The happy hour is real and priced, though, and among the best on this page: $10 margaritas, $10 wine and $5 drafts, Thursday and Friday 4–7pm.
Mary O’s
The best-known Thursday session in the city, and we have left it off. The venue’s own site does not mention music anywhere. The session’s dedicated website has not been updated since 2019. And the sources that do list it disagree about whether there is a $15 suggested donation — one prints it, the session’s own site mentions money nowhere. We are not sending you to a room where the cover is a question mark. One phone call settles it and this page gets updated when it does.
Staten Island, Thursday and Friday
Staten Island has no regular Irish session that we could find in any source — not the community listings, not the directories, not the musicians’ own calendars. Thursday and Friday are nearly empty too, and the one strong Thursday candidate is the Mary O’s session above. We would rather print the hole than fill it with something we cannot stand up.
Irish trad music in NYC: FAQ
Where can I hear traditional Irish music in NYC?
The most reliable weekly sessions are Hartley’s in Clinton Hill (Mondays 8pm), Paddy Reilly’s in Kips Bay (Mondays 8–11pm), Landmark Tavern in Hell’s Kitchen (Mondays 8–11pm), Sláinte and Swift in NoHo (Tuesdays 8pm), Grace’s in Chelsea (Wednesdays 8pm), and on Sundays An Beal Bocht in Riverdale (3:30–6:30pm), The Dead Rabbit in FiDi (6–10pm), The Canary in Crown Heights (8–11pm) and the 11th St. Bar in the East Village (from 9pm).
Is there a cover charge for Irish sessions in NYC?
Almost never. Paddy Reilly’s states “No cover charge…All Welcome,” and the 11th St. Bar is barred by its liquor licence from charging a cover at all, so it passes a tip bucket instead. The Dead Rabbit, Landmark Tavern, Sláinte, Swift and The Canary list no cover. The New York Irish Center’s Saturday slow session is free with a donation encouraged. The exceptions are concerts rather than sessions: the Blarney Star series at the New York Irish Center is ticketed, and The Wolfhound’s annual Trad Week carries a $20 cover.
Which NYC bars have a happy hour during the Irish session?
Effectively none — and this is the single most useful thing to know. Only three venues put a deal and a session on the same night: Hartley’s (happy hour 4–7pm, session 8pm), Paddy Reilly’s (happy hour 11am–7pm, session 8pm) and The Canary, where the late-night happy hour starts at 11pm as the session ends. Everywhere else the happy hour runs Monday to Friday while the session runs Sunday. Fraunces Tavern is the closest miss: happy hour 4–7pm Monday to Friday, trad session 4–7pm on Sunday.
What night is the Irish session in New York?
Sunday is the biggest night, with sessions at An Beal Bocht, The Dead Rabbit, Fraunces Tavern, the 11th St. Bar, The Laurels and The Canary. Monday brings Hartley’s, Paddy Reilly’s and Landmark Tavern; Tuesday has Sláinte and Swift; Wednesday has Grace’s; Saturday has the New York Irish Center slow session and Downey’s in Riverdale. Thursday and Friday are the thin nights — we could not verify a single regular session on either.
Can I bring my instrument to a session in NYC?
Yes, at most of them. Landmark Tavern invites players on its own site, Paddy Reilly’s welcomes musicians, singers and dancers, Downey’s says all musicians are always welcome, and Sláinte runs a round-robin so every player leads a set. If you are still learning, start at the New York Irish Center’s Saturday slow session in Long Island City, 1:30–4pm — the tempo is deliberately slow and sheet music is allowed, which is not true in a pub session.
Where are the Irish trad sessions in Brooklyn and Queens?
In Brooklyn: Hartley’s in Clinton Hill (Mondays 8pm), The Canary in Crown Heights (Sundays 8–11pm) and The Wicked Monk in Bay Ridge (Sundays, around 5pm — call to confirm). In Queens: the New York Irish Center’s free Saturday slow session in Long Island City, 1:30–4pm, and informal Saturday sessions at The Wolfhound in Astoria. Note that the Monday session at Iona in Williamsburg is a Scottish session, not an Irish one, despite appearing on Irish session lists.
What time do Irish sessions start in NYC?
Weeknight sessions almost all start at 8pm — Hartley’s, Paddy Reilly’s, Landmark Tavern, Sláinte, Swift and Grace’s. Sunday runs earlier and later at once: An Beal Bocht starts at 3:30pm and Fraunces Tavern at 4pm, while The Dead Rabbit goes 6–10pm, The Canary 8–11pm and the 11th St. Bar does not start until 9pm. The earliest of the lot is the New York Irish Center’s Saturday slow session at 1:30pm.
Last updated: August 2026. Session nights and happy hours change – confirm with the venue before you go. Spot something out of date? Let us know.
