‘Brian O'Donnell was as mad as a box of frogs, but we loved him for it’

Legendary publican Brian O’Donnell of the Hi-B bar was yesterday given a fitting send-off by his family and a large gathering of friends who came together on a cold and cloudless day to remember a man as warm and as wildly eccentric as the city itself.

Wife Nancy, daughter Rachel and family members drew comfort from the eclectic mix of novelists, poets, artists, lawyers, business people, and the occasional pauper who attended the requiem Mass at St Peter and Paul’s church in the city centre.