Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette Miss Smiling Irish Eyes 2004 Colleen Coneely, right, was one of many who were crowned at the Blarney Stone in Etna. Here she is seen with former Miss Smiling Irish Eyes Renny Hess, at left. The landmark Irish pub, heavily damaged in last September's flood, is for sale. Click photo for larger image.

After 30 years of establishing itself as not just a dining and drinking spot, but as a touchstone of Irish culture in Pittsburgh, the Blarney Stone in Etna is looking for a new owner.

The landmark tavern and restaurant is synonymous with its owner, Irish immigrant Tom O'Donoghue, who opened his business and his home to Irish musicians, entertainers, actors and politicians.

But all the luck of the Irish couldn't save the Blarney Stone last year when Hurricane Ivan's flood waters reached a height of 7 feet, and sat for 16 hours, saturating the entire first floor.

The flood marked the end of a story that began in June 1974, when Mr. O'Donoghue showed his wife Peggy a small one-story building on Grant Avenue. She was not impressed with the property, nor with her husband's plans to open an Irish bar in what was then a largely Croatian neighborhood.

"I said, 'Definitely not.' It didn't look promising to me," she said. "But Tom saw it as a finished product."

They bought the property and with the help of Mr. O'Donoghue's brother, Dennis, who was an executive chef, The Blarney Stone was up and running in short order. As the Pittsburgh area's first and sole tavern to import Irish beers -- Guinness and Harp -- and with a gift shop that specialized in Irish arts and crafts, the Blarney Stone drew crowds early on.

"The wonderful thing of an Irish family is that if [Mr. O'Donoghue] worked, everybody worked," said son Jack O'Donoghue. Now a commercial real estate broker, he said that he and all of his six siblings grew up working at the Blarney Stone, doing everything from parking cars to tending bar.

The restaurant turned a profit in its first year. By its fifth year, the O'Donoghues decided to expand, adding a second floor that functioned as a banquet hall, and doubled the available space.

Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Owner Tom O'Donoghue is selling the Blarney Stone, which was a regular stop for Irish musicians and entertainers.

The Blarney Stone became a regular stop for Irish musicians and entertainers, such as the Wolftones, a folk quartet, and singer Tommy Makem. Mr. O'Donoghue, 70, made a side business of acting as a stateside agent, booking their appearances across the country.

Jack O'Donoghue said that the O'Donoghue home became an impromptu boarding house for many visitors from the Emerald Isle, from entertainers to unemployed immigrants.

"We'd wake up Sunday morning and there'd be an Irish guy at the table," he said.

In the 1980s, the Blarney Stone's cultural repertoire expanded to include drama, and the Irish Repertory Theater premiered there in 1992 with a performance of Sean O'Casey's one-act play, "Bedtime Story." The theater company lasted only "four or five seasons," said Jack O'Donoghue, but the Blarney Stone continued as a dinner theater venue.

As befits an Irish pub, the highest of holidays at the Blarney Stone was not Christmas, but Saint Patrick's Day. The Blarney Stone became a staple feature for local television stations, as each March 17 cameras crews descended to shoot footage of patrons enjoying green beer.

But St. Patrick's at the Blarney Stone was not a one-day affair. Colin Cannon, 38, who now lives in an Ohio suburb near Toledo, was in high school when he worked St. Patrick's Day weekend in 1985.

"I remember going to work there as a valet and working at the Blarney Stone from 3:30 on Friday afternoon and working to the wee hours of Saturday morning. Then I was back there by 9 or 10 the next morning," he said, "working all that day and all that night ... never making it back home that night. Back there at 9 o'clock the next morning and working until 3:30 that afternoon and falling asleep in my dinner."

Regulars at the Blarney Stone included the late Steelers founder Art Rooney and State Sen. Robert D. Fleming. Ethel Kennedy stopped by in 1980 when she was in town for a Democratic fund-raiser. In 1981 Sean Dolan, who was the Irish ambassador to the United States, named Mr. O'Donoghue "Irish ambassador without portfolio."

When Etna's business district flooded in 1986, the Blarney Stone took on 4 feet of water. But the water subsided within six hours or so, and the damage, while substantial, was not fatal to the business.

"We just said, 'We'll clean up and start again,' " Mrs. O'Donoghue, 68, said.

But after Hurricane Ivan last September, "We said, 'We're just too old to do this again,' " Mrs. O'Donoghue said. Mr. O'Donoghue was not available for comment due to failing health.

The couple's seven children are all well-established in their own careers, so passing it on as a family business was deemed impractical.

Thus the Blarney Stone is for sale, a 15,000-square-foot shell, along with three other buildings that share a one-acre parcel of land -- a cottage, a small apartment building and a storefront, all priced at $965,000.

Terry Sokoloff, co-owner of Specialty Bar and Restaurant Brokers, said that while the property may find a new life, it is unlikely to be as an Irish bar. With the advent of franchises such as Molly Brannigans in Mt. Lebanon that offer "the Disney World-type of approach to an Irish pub," she said, the Blarney Stone's time has passed.

With it passes a period of Etna's history, as well.

"It was a landmark," said borough manager Mary Ellen Ramage. "As soon as somebody from wherever said 'Blarney Stone,' they knew that was Etna."