By Sean O' Driscoll

A pub in the ancestral home town of Ronald Reagan has been bought by a Republican donor and is being moved to the Reagan Library in California.

Irish American businessman Frederick Ryan Junior confirmed that the bar, the Ronald Reagan Pub in Ballyporeen, Co. Tipperary, will be moved to a new building that houses Reagan’s presidential plane.

The bar is due to open on October 22 and President George W. Bush will open the entire building the next day.

The bar will look out onto the nose of the former Air Force One plane, according to Ryan, who made a snap purchase of the bar from its previous owners, John and Mary O’Farrell, during a visit to Ballyporeen the week after President Reagan died last year.

He had travelled to see the bar and discovered that it had shut down as the O’Farrells needed more room in the building for their family.

“They had planned to sell of the contents at auction but I told them that I wanted to keep everything together and ship it all to California,” Ryan said.

He described the O’Farrells’ asking price as “very considerate.”

While the exterior of the building will remain in Ballyporeen, all the pub contents will move to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, including the two bar counters, the wallpaper, furnishings, alcohol bottles and memorabilia of Reagan’s visit to Ballyporeen in 1984.

The exterior of the bar has been recreated at the new library building, which will also house a Reagan motorcade and helicopter.

John and Mary O’Farrell have agreed to be at the Reagan Library to pull the first pints on October 22.

Ryan, a former Reagan advisor and now the CEO of Allbritton Communications, said that he called Nancy Reagan from Ireland to tell her of the purchase.

“At first I think she thought I must have been drinking, but she is delighted with the idea. I don’t know how many times the president talked about his visit to Ireland and how much it meant to him,” he said.

O’Farrell’s bar changed its name to the Ronald Reagan before Reagan arrived in the Tipperary village to reclaim his roots in 1984. The O’Farrell family named their daughter Catherine Nancy in honour of the first lady, and the president wrote them four letters after he returned to the U.S., including one informing them that he had Alzheimer’s.

Ryan, whose family also originates in Tipperary, said that the hundreds of thousands of people who visit the Reagan Library every year would now be able to enjoy the Reagan bar.

“Many have already been to the bar in Ballyporeen and now they will be able to visit it again when they visit California,” he said.