This Delco Irishman made a mobile Irish pub you can rent. Sláinte!

I wasn’t in John Chambers’ mobile Irish pub for more than five minutes last week before I was offered a draft of Guinness and met an unexpected Irishman who engaged me in conversation.

“Guinness is medicine, that’s why we drink it,” Pat Dowdall told me, as we sat in the pub in Chambers’ backyard.

Turns out Dowdall came to fix the pub’s electricity, which was on the fritz, but while he was there, he decided to have a few pints of Guinness — for his health, of course.

Not only did this look like a real Irish pub, it was starting to act like one too.

Chambers, 59, a native of Ireland and a longtime Broomall resident, is on this earth, and living in Delaware County, because of pubs.

His parents met at Brannens Pub in Ireland’s County Mayo, where his mother was a bartender. Chambers first walked into a pub when he was a toddler (”Everybody goes to the pub in Ireland when they’re able to walk”), and he had his first pint in one when he was 15.

“My father bought it for me,” Chambers recalled. “He said, ‘If you make a fool of yourself, I’ll never buy you another one.’”

Later, Chambers met his wife, Maureen, 57, a native of Folcroft, at the Welcome Inn pub in County Mayo while she was visiting her Irish grandparents there. The two fell in love, he moved here in 1987, and they married the following year.

“I was one of 10 in Ireland, so there wasn’t much room in our house, and there wasn’t a lot of work either,” Chambers said. “So I said, you know what, I’ll try America, but I’m still here.”

Last year, Chambers, a carpenter by trade, decided to bring a bit of his homeland to Delco by designing and building Park A Pub, his own mobile Irish pub. It has all the charm, character, and conveniences of a real Irish pub wrapped up in a cozy, transportable package. It’s available to rent and seats 12 to 15 people (though up to 25 have crammed in).

Chambers designed the four-ton, 18-foot-long-by-8.6-foot-wide pub to look like an Irish cottage on the outside, but a proper Irish pub within.

“I stop at Wawas and people come over and say ‘Can I come see the inside?’ and they get blown away,” Chambers said. “I got three or four renters from just getting gas at Wawa.”

The pub has a wooden bar with three stools and two taps, including one for Guinness; a snug, the small nook at Irish pubs where women used to drink; a TV that can play scenic YouTube videos of Ireland (or sports); and an electric fireplace.

The pub’s benches are repurposed pews from the shuttered St. Laurentius Church in Fishtown; the wood trim came from the now-closed Archbishop Prendergast High School; and the wooden back bar is a repurposed china cabinet from Craigslist.

Even smaller details bring the pub life, like a woven straw St. Brigid’s Cross, to keep away fire and evil; a “céad míle fáilte” sign, which means “one hundred thousand welcomes” in Gaelic; a shillelagh walking stick; and a photograph of Burrishoole Abbey, where Chambers’ father and grandfather are buried in County Mayo.

Chambers, who was inspired to create the pub after seeing similar ones in Ireland online, built it in six months last year. Running the pub is a family affair for Chambers, his wife, and their children, Caitlin, 32, a speech therapist who handles the marketing and communications, and Sean, 29, a carpenter who helps with the heavy lifting.

The pub was first rented Thanksgiving eve last year and has steadily been on the road since through word of mouth and social media. It’s been used for everything from weddings to birthdays and even a funeral.

“His dad had died of cancer and he saw the pub and said ‘My dad would have loved it,’” Maureen Chambers said.

The Chamberses transport the pub on their modified tiny home trailer, drop it off, decorate it, and provide the glassware, but customers have to buy their own kegs and alcohol.

“The best part is when you go back the next day to pick it up, everyone is happy and tells you the story of the night before,” Maureen Chambers said. “It makes it worthwhile.”

Some people keep the pub jumping with Irish sing-a-longs until 4 a.m., and once, a father and his young son loved it so much they slept on the benches.

Dowdall, the electrician from Dublin who stopped in while I was visiting the pub, said unlike American bars, which can be so spread out you may never talk to another soul, Park A Pub has the feel of a real, rural Irish pub, one that inspires conversations between the people in it.

“If you’re shoulder to shoulder with somebody, you’re going to end up talking to them,” he said.

Chambers has already been hit up by people who want him to make a pub for them, but right now he’s focusing on his next project — making a mobile Philly sports bar.

“The people that rent this are Irish or of Irish descent or they’ve been in Ireland and they love Ireland, but I think there’s a market for some people that maybe have nothing to do with Ireland,” he said.

Sharing a lot of stories and even more laughs with the delightfully warm Chambers family and their cheeky friend Dowdall over a pint of Guinness at the pub transported me back to Ireland for a while, and reminded me that a good pub — and a good pint — is all about who you share it with.

Rental prices for Park A Pub range from $750 to $1,150. More information can be found at parkapub.com.