Erin go brawl.
Before she became one of WWE’s biggest superstars, Becky Lynch worked at an Irish pub in Manhattan — and lived above another one.
The native of Limerick, Ireland, spent the of summer of 2010 in the Big Apple during college in hopes of building connections — and pounded the pavement in search of work.
“I just walked around . . . [looking for] anything that had an Irish flag or had an Irish name or a little harp outside,” Lynch, now 37, told The Post ahead of the March 26 release of her memoir “Becky Lynch: The Man — Not Your Average Average Girl.”
Lynch, whose real name is Rebecca Quin, first stopped at Shades of Green in Gramercy Park.
They had no job openings, but the bartender, from Kerry, Ireland, suggested she rent the room upstairs for $500 a month.
“The room had a sink, twin bed and barely enough room to put a suitcase,” she writes. “There was a communal shower and toilet down the hall.”
She jumped at it. She arrived in New York with only $2,000 in her bank account, and spent $600 of that on her first day in the city.
“I don’t know on what,” said Lynch, who is now one of the highest paid female wrestlers in the world, earning an estimated $3.1 million annually.
“I was paying $35 in this hostel up at Columbus Circle. And I had to buy a phone. I have no idea where the money went.”
It took her about a week, but she finally landed a waitressing gig at Hibernia on West 50th Street in the historically Irish neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen.
“The place was like Cheers,” she recalled in the memoir. “The same people were there every day and the staff made a conscious effort to get to know them.
“I was their first experience in hiring a waitress. I wasn’t the best, but I could banter, so the customers liked me, tipped me and it meant I kept my job.”
Lynch, who now lives in Iowa and Los Angeles with her husband, WWE’s Seth Rollins, 37, and their 3-year-old daughter, Roux, gushed about the close-knit community at the gin mill.
“Everybody became like a friend. . . . The fact that people showed up every day or every weekend and you got to know them, it was just so nice.”
Lynch started training as a wrestler at age 15 and made her professional wrestling debut five months later, but eventually quit the sport because she thought she had no future in it.
However, she still wanted to entertain audiences, and thought by spending time in New York, she would be able to pursue an acting career.
“I figured, ‘Maybe I can get into the theater space somehow, maybe something will take off,'” she explained. “It didn’t, but I did make a lot of connections, and I did make memories that last a lifetime.”
In 2011, Lynch relocated to Chicago to attend Columbia College and continue to study acting — and had plans to move back to New York. Weeks before she was set to leave, she was hired as a stuntwoman on a TV show in Ireland, so returned to her friend’s wrestling gym to train for the role.
He encouraged her to try out for WWE, and in 2013, she signed a development deal with the company, and in 2019, she made history as the first woman to win the main event at WrestleMania.
This St. Patrick’s Day, Lynch won’t be wrestling or partying at any pubs — she’ll be at the White House, along with other notables from the Emerald Isle, such as Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
“I got invited to the White House, because I’m Ireland’s national treasure,” she quipped. “It’s a big Irish celebration, so I’ll be there.”
