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This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

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Jimmy Neri was an Irish immigrant who boarded a ship to America in the 1950s, And he went on to open a namesake restaurant in Manhattan

that has for more than a half century

been a famed canteen in the heart of New York City.

Here to tell his story is Jimmy's daughter, Una.

Let's take a listen.

Yeah. Jimmy's daughter, Una. Let's take a listen. My father was born in a small town called Tubbockhury County Sligo, which is in the west

part of Ireland, very rural country. He was one of six children. He was the second youngest.

His father passed away when he was quite young, so his mother was the one that raised the family on the farm.

However, my father was certainly not somebody who was interested in farming.

He loved people. He loved dealing with people.

So the thoughts of my father being out on a farm was nothing that ever appealed to him.

Obviously, he went to school, but he only went to sixth grade.

But I would always describe, and I always do describe my father as being one of the smartest men I know, and it wasn't from a classroom.

So my father, his love was people.

And anytime his mom would bring him into the town of Tubbockuri, which was a small little town at a bunch of little shops, and she would go into the local grocery store.

Part of the grocery store had a bar and a little lounge.

And dad would just watch the bartenders behind the bar and watch them engage

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