Goodbye, Luv, You're Going Home

By Brian Witt

I was going to report this week that Josie Nash was living in Kalamazoo, Mich., with her daughter, Nina Nash-Robertson. However, Josie died in her sleep on Aug. 24.

Josie and Kit Nash helped to set Irish music and culture on it's ear here in Milwaukee after their arrival from England in the mid 1950s. Dublin natives, (or as Josie would be happy to tell you, "Clontarf, Dear, not Dublin"), the Nashs opened the Irish Castle, located on 13th and Lincoln, in the mid-1970s after Kit retired from Jack Winter (a Milwaukee clothing manufacturer). Nash's quickly became the place of legends, with Ed Ward and Blarney setting up house in the basement, and many a character inhabiting the interior. When you walked into Nash's, even as a stranger, Josie would grab you and dance you around the floor to the music, astonishing many who walked in. Even with folks with two left feet, such as myself, it was easy to get involved in the culture of the bar. It was a real pub, and many people grew up in it.

The Nashes helped to foster the culture, through music, Irish language classes, Shamrock Club and Irish Fest board meetings, Irish Fest Theater play readings, and in many other ways for many other groups. A CD grew out of the weekly sessions, Northern Crossing. Set and ceili dancing were weekly events.

These two were colorful, and real characters without ever trying. Politics were argued, disagreements about bands were had. Josie had a relative in Ireland, usually someone famous, and she was there, or they gave her candy as a child. Sometimes, the stories were true, but you couldn't tell, because she delivered all of them with a straight face. 

There was Kit's signature statement at bar time, "Have ye no f....in' homes to go to?" At a benefit concert for Josie a few weeks back at the Irish Cultural and Heritage center, Blarney, which was the house band at Nash's for many years, held a reunion of past and current members. When asked about Kit's bar clearing comment, (which generally had the opposite effect, since people tried to get Kit to repeat it as often as possible), Josie uttered it, complete and full.

Kit first met Josie when he was 20, and she was 16. Kit died in February, 2000. Kit said it was love at first sight, and she had the best legs he had ever seen on a girl. One wonders if Josie heard Kit saying, "Ah Jaysus, Josie, why are you waiting"? the other night.

Josephine was born January 11, 1923, in Dublin, Ireland, the daughter of William and Josephine (Larkin) Byrne. She married Christopher John Nash on August 1, 1943 in Dublin. Together, they emigrated to the United States in 1956.

 Josie and Kit were original members of the Shamrock Club. Their daughter, Nina, founded the Shamrock Dancers, which has since grown into the Trinity Irish Dancers and Cashel Dennehy. Josie was Irish Rose in 1997. At her introduction, she looked at the sash, and said "No. I won't wear red. Red is the sign of the English." A silence engulfed the meeting. The result was that a new sash was made just for her. After Kit's death in 2000, the Kit and Josie Nash Irish Choral Music Collection was developed in order to house Irish music archives.

Josie is survived by her daughter, Nina Nash-Robertson (John Robertson) of Mt. Pleasant; her son, Kieran (Julie) Nash of Milwaukee; two grandchildren, Jennifer Robertson and Conor Nash; and two sisters, Anne (Jack) Goral of Milwaukee and Phyllis Wearen of Dublin.

Services were held Thursday, Aug. 29 at St. Patrick's Church in Milwaukee. Memorials can be sent to the John J. Ward Irish Music Archives.

Good bye, Josie. I guess you have a home to go to.

 (Brian Witt is past president of the Shamrock Club of Wisconsin. This obituary originally appeared in the Wisconsin Irish Week newsletter).

The following is courtesy of The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Josie Nash was born to William and Josephine Byrne Jan. 11, 1923, in Dublin. She was educated at Holy Faith Convent in Killester and met her husband, Christopher (Kit) Nash, when she was 16 and he was 20. He was a clothing designer, and, during World War II, she operated a heavy metal press in a British munitions factory. They came to Milwaukee in 1956, under the sponsorship of her sister, Anne, and brother-in-law Jack Goral.

Josie Nash was a floor coordinator for the Irish exhibit at the 1956 Folk Fair and helped coordinate the first St. Patrick's Day parade in Milwaukee in 1967. She was a founding member of the Shamrock Club and Shamrock Dancers.

The Nashes' pub was also the birthplace of the idea for Milwaukee's Irish Fest. Her family sold the bar in 2001, and Josie Nash later moved to Michigan to be near her daughter.