A fleet of festive pubs on wheels bring a taste of Ireland to New England

READING, Mass. (AP) — Just before St. Patrick’s Day, an Irish pub appeared one night beneath a basketball hoop in a suburban Massachusetts driveway.

Neighbors packed around the bar as music played and Guinness flowed — inside a tiny pub that had been towed in for the night.

Instead of heading out to celebrate the holiday, the bar had come to them.

"The Wee Irish Pub” was delivered by Tiny Pubs, a small business run by brothers Matt and Craig Taylor, who build miniature Irish pubs on wheels for holidays, weddings and backyard parties across New England.

Decorated with antique signs, church pews, an electric fireplace and a bar crafted from the front panel of an 1864 piano, the pubs recreate the feel of a traditional Irish pub — but are just small enough to fit in a driveway.

“It’s really just a time to forget about whatever’s going on in the world,” said Mark Cote, who hosted the pub in his Andover driveway last Friday. “That’s what pubs are supposed to be — for people coming together and having fun.”

Around 20 people from five families — whose children grew up together — squeezed into the roughly 20-foot-long (6-meter) space for Cote’s annual holiday party, creating what he said felt like a real neighborhood bar.

The idea began during the COVID-19 lockdown, when the Taylor brothers — retired from careers in corporate finance — found themselves missing their favorite Irish pubs.

The first version went up in Matt Taylor’s driveway in Reading, 12 miles (19km) north of Boston.

“When we were building the pub in this neighborhood, neighbors thought a pub was going to be living here full time,” he said. “We had to kind of settle them down a little bit.”

They worked until about 1 a.m. the night before their first rental. Matt said he worried the windows might crack when they first towed it down the highway, but it went smoothly.

What began as a pandemic project has since grown into a small business with four bars, including two Irish pubs, booked most weekends throughout the year.

The brothers wanted the tiny bars to feel like real Irish pubs — not themed party props.

“We have Irish friends who told us, ‘You better not have leprechauns and stuff in there,’” Craig Taylor said. “So we said, ‘No — it’s going to be authentic.’”

They visited Irish pubs around New England while designing the interior, settling on classic colors like jasper green and Irish cream.

Nearly every detail inside has a story, including the bar built from the front panel of an 1864 piano and church pews salvaged from a local church for seating.

A pair of horseshoes from a farm in Ipswich hang above the door for luck: pointed down when guests enter and up when they leave.

A hymn rack holds a book of Irish surnames where visitors mark their family names, sometimes with a dollar bill on the page, sparking conversations about ancestry.

There are packages of Scampi Fries — a popular pub snack imported from Ireland — and a corkboard with patches from police and fire departments, a tradition common in pubs where first responders gather.

Craig Taylor said one sign they got it right is when guests begin pointing things out inside — the Scampi Fries, a family name, a familiar song — moments when the experience shifts from something novel to something personal.

Guinness has rented the Taylors’ pubs for weeks at a time. They've also been used by a state senator during South Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. The pubs have even been rented for celebrations of life after funeral services.

Jarred Guthrie of Swampscott said his family has rented the original version for years now as part of a longtime annual St. Patrick’s celebration.

The party draws about 125 people, Guthrie said, with an Irish band playing inside the house while guests move between rooms, the pub and the waterfront yard overlooking the ocean.

Guests crowd inside to take turns playing bartender, telling stories and breaking into songs — sometimes traditional Irish tunes or Gaelic lyrics that Guthrie said you rarely hear outside family gatherings.

“People feel emboldened,” he said. “There’s a lot of singing that happens in that pub. It’s a place where people naturally come together.”

Before each event, the brothers personalize the space with custom posters often designed with a family crest naming the host as the pub’s temporary “proprietor.”

“It’s a special thing for a lot of people to be able to come into an authentic Irish pub,” Matt Taylor said. “Maybe they’re not able to get back to the old country, so it’s meaningful to them.”

The parties go on, despite rain, heat or snow. Each pub is equipped with both heat and air conditioning for all seasons.

The Taylors wait until everything is ready — lights low, music on, taps flowing — before letting guests into a mini pub.

Craig Taylor said when people step inside for the first time, “it's like Christmas morning.”

He said that moment often feels like stepping into another place, one tied to memories of family, tradition and Ireland itself.

“People say you’re like Santa Claus,” Craig Taylor said. “You’re delivering joy every day.”

And when the night winds down, they aren’t in a hurry to take the pub away.

“We never want to kick anybody out of an Irish pub,” Matt Taylor said.

So instead of picking it up late at night, they return the next morning.

Craig Taylor said when he asks hosts how long the party lasted, the answer is often the same: "Like, three in the morning.”

When he and his brother show up to take the pub away, "there’s sometimes people sleeping on the pew,” he joked.

The "Wee Irish Pub", a fully functioning mobile Irish pub built by two Massachusetts' brothers, is towed during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade through the South Boston neighborhood, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Mark Cote, left, toasts Matt Taylor after receiving delivery of a rented tiny pub for an early St. Patrick's Day party, Friday, March 13, 2026, in Andover, Mass. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Revelers gather for an early St. Patrick's Day party in a rented tiny pub, Friday, March 13, 2026, in Andover, Mass. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Dena Taylor and Tony DiDonato, right, toss candy to spectators while riding in a truck hauling the "Wee Irish Pub", a fully functioning mobile Irish pub built by two Massachusetts' brothers, during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade through the South Boston neighborhood, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Brothers Matt Taylor, left, and Craig Taylor talk with a visitor in one of their tiny pubs Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in Reading, Mass. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship for new voters has become a rallying cry for President Donald Trump, who claims that passage of the bill will “guarantee the midterms” for his Republican Party in November.

The bill, which the Senate will take up as early as Tuesday, would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register and to present approved identification when they go to the polls, among other new rules that Trump and his most loyal supporters are pushing as part of an effort to assert more federal control over elections.

Federal law already requires that voters in national elections be U.S. citizens. But the legislation would lay out strict new requirements for voters to prove their status.

Democrats are uniformly opposed to the legislation and expected to block its passage through the Senate. They say the legislation would disenfranchise millions of American voters who don’t have birth certificates or other documents readily available — both Republicans and Democrats who would be newly registering to vote.

Despite the long odds of success, Trump has been pushing Senate Majority Leader John Thune to move ahead with the bill and suggested Republicans eliminate the filibuster or find another workaround to pass it. Thune has repeatedly said there isn’t enough support in the Senate to do that.

Instead, Republicans plan to hold an extended debate on the bill for a week or more, an effort to try and appease Trump and make Democrats defend their position.

The bill would “require Americans to demonstrate that they’re eligible to vote,” Thune said last week. “And that they are who they say they are.”

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act, would force Americans to prove they are citizens when they register to vote, mostly through a valid U.S. passport or birth certificate.

Driver's licenses in many states would not be enough. The legislation says that the identification must be compliant with new REAL ID rules and also indicate that the applicant is a citizen of the United States — which few state licenses do.

A person registering to vote could also present a passport or a birth certificate. U.S. military members could present a military ID along with a record of service that shows where they were born.

Most people registering to vote would have to present the documents in person at an elections office, including people who vote by mail. Advocacy groups that oppose the legislation say that the bill would crush voter registration efforts ahead of this year's elections.

The bill would create new penalties for election officials who register applicants who have not presented documentary proof of citizenship. Opponents say that provision could potentially scare workers into turning away valid applicants while also discouraging people from working or volunteering at polling locations. It would also allow private individuals to sue election officials in some circumstances.

While federal law requires that voters are U.S. citizens, there is not currently a nationwide requirement that voters must show identification when they go to vote. Currently, 36 states have voter identification laws in place, some stricter than others, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The bill would require voters in all states to present valid identification, and those voting by mail would have to send a photocopy. Overseas military and some qualified disabled individuals would be exempt from those rules.

Republican supporters most frequently highlight this section of the bill when pushing for its passage. Thune said last week that if you have to show an ID to get a library card, “it’s not too much to ask voters to show ID to vote in federal elections.”

The legislation would require states to share voters' information with the Department of Homeland Security as a way to verify the citizenship of the names on the voter rolls — giving the federal government unprecedented access to state voter data. Many states are already embroiled in legal fights with the Trump administration over demands that they provide voter information.

Supporters of the state-federal sharing say that it would enable DHS to compare the state information with their own databases that are used to verify immigration status.

But Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer predicted that handing over names to the federal government would allow DHS to ”purge tens of millions of people from the voter rolls.”

Senate Republicans are expected to offer amendments on the floor as part of their talkathon in support of the bill. Trump has said he wants more provisions added, including a ban on mail-in ballots, which are used by many states.

Trump has long criticized mail-in ballots and used it as a central argument in his false claims of fraud in the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. But voting groups — and many lawmakers in both parties — have long championed the practice as helping to make it easier for Americans to vote.

The president also wants to add two unrelated provisions around transgender rights issues — one that would ban those born as men from playing in women’s sports and another to block sex reassignment surgeries on some minors.

If the SAVE America Act were enacted, the new rules for voter registration and voter identification at the polls would take effect immediately. Trump says it’s necessary for Republicans to win in the midterm elections — even though they won both chambers of Congress and the White House without the law in 2024.

With primary elections getting underway next month, critics say it would be difficult and costly for state election officials to implement, and could confuse voters.

Marc Elias, a Democratic elections attorney, said he isn’t ”aware of any state that currently requires what this would require.”

“If it’s passed tomorrow, the day after states would need to implement this,” Elias said.

Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters after a weekly Republican policy luncheon, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)