Read Online McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland by Pete McCarthy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Pete McCarthy
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way of consolation, ‘have a G and T.’
I check into a small hotel and bar on the edge of town, variously described as ‘family run’, ‘two star’, and, more worryingly, ‘Class B’. My room has a small TV, mounted on a metal bracket so far up the wall you’d have to sit on the wardrobe to watch it. Tea and coffee-making facilities, including those tiny sachets of UHT milk that have done so much to make the world a happier place, are there, as advertised. I have an unobstructed view of the roof of the disco. I wolf the complimentary custard creams, one of which is broken, and hit the street in search of Dominic.
Here’s my plan. I’ll wait until I see someone with dreadlocks, or any scruffy bastard with an English accent and a dog on a piece of string, and ask if he knows Dominic. I’m intrigued that of all the places they might have chosen, the new-wave émigré English have turned up here, in a backwater from my past. Walking back towards the square, I realise I’m passing Auntie Annie’s house; she was my grandmother’s sister. She lived here, always dressed, in my memory at least, entirely in black, in what seemed like medieval poverty: no running water, cooking range fired by turf, poor old invalid Uncle Willy under a blanket on the sofa.
We went to visit her one Sunday afternoon, straight after a massive lunch of chicken and ham and cabbage and potatoes back in Drimoleague. The moment we arrived there were bottles of stout for my dad and me, even though I was only fourteen, and hated it. There were soft drinks for my mum and sisters and little brother; then Annie served us a massive lunch, of chicken and ham and cabbage and potatoes. Pogged to the eyeballs from the lunch we’d just finished, and racked with guilt at being given enough food to keep her and Willy for a year, we forced it down with clenched fists and the backs of spoons, while Annie looked on, smiling, desperate to serve the trifle. There was just time for a quick pray, then it was back to Drimoleague, and a table groaning with cold meats and hot potatoes. Sandwiches were served at bedtime for anyone who was peckish.
After half an hour wandering round without spotting anyone remotely resembling a drug-crazed hippy, I give up, like many an intrepid explorer before me, and go to the pub. Anyone unfamiliar with south-west Ireland, and most Americans, will presume this indicates an alcohol problem; but I can’t see that a pint or two during the day is a sign of moral turpitude, especially far from home. It’s certainly better than going to some unique and exotic island, as so many eejits do these days, and playing golf. And instead of the depressingly corporate environment offered by pubs in the English countryside these days, where a retired estate agent or policeman presides over a muzak-polluted repro-furniture showroom in which furtive couples sit side by side eating microwaved baked potatoes, in Ireland you can still find idiosyncratic, family-owned hovels with no food, or decor, that remain temples to hospitality, conversation and drink. They’d be priceless institutions even if they only served coffee, but I can’t see that catching on.
I’m the only customer, so I sit at the bar and read the paper. The landlady adopts the unusual conversational gambit for this part of the world of letting me make the first move; but I doubt she’ll know Dominic. She’s of an older, more God-fearing generation, and seems unlikely to be intimate with a bunch of pagan English party animals. Mind you, she is selling snuff behind the bar, 69p a box, so you never know.
It’s a big day for alcohol-related stories, LONGER DAYS BRING THE PROSPECT OF LATE-NIGHT OPEN-AIR BOOZE PARTIES enthuses a front-page headline, though on closer examination it seems to be suggesting that this is a bad thing. There’s also a court case that sheds interesting light on official policy to late drinking. ‘A publican who allowed people to be on his premises after
I check into a small hotel and bar on the edge of town, variously described as ‘family run’, ‘two star’, and, more worryingly, ‘Class B’. My room has a small TV, mounted on a metal bracket so far up the wall you’d have to sit on the wardrobe to watch it. Tea and coffee-making facilities, including those tiny sachets of UHT milk that have done so much to make the world a happier place, are there, as advertised. I have an unobstructed view of the roof of the disco. I wolf the complimentary custard creams, one of which is broken, and hit the street in search of Dominic.
Here’s my plan. I’ll wait until I see someone with dreadlocks, or any scruffy bastard with an English accent and a dog on a piece of string, and ask if he knows Dominic. I’m intrigued that of all the places they might have chosen, the new-wave émigré English have turned up here, in a backwater from my past. Walking back towards the square, I realise I’m passing Auntie Annie’s house; she was my grandmother’s sister. She lived here, always dressed, in my memory at least, entirely in black, in what seemed like medieval poverty: no running water, cooking range fired by turf, poor old invalid Uncle Willy under a blanket on the sofa.
We went to visit her one Sunday afternoon, straight after a massive lunch of chicken and ham and cabbage and potatoes back in Drimoleague. The moment we arrived there were bottles of stout for my dad and me, even though I was only fourteen, and hated it. There were soft drinks for my mum and sisters and little brother; then Annie served us a massive lunch, of chicken and ham and cabbage and potatoes. Pogged to the eyeballs from the lunch we’d just finished, and racked with guilt at being given enough food to keep her and Willy for a year, we forced it down with clenched fists and the backs of spoons, while Annie looked on, smiling, desperate to serve the trifle. There was just time for a quick pray, then it was back to Drimoleague, and a table groaning with cold meats and hot potatoes. Sandwiches were served at bedtime for anyone who was peckish.
After half an hour wandering round without spotting anyone remotely resembling a drug-crazed hippy, I give up, like many an intrepid explorer before me, and go to the pub. Anyone unfamiliar with south-west Ireland, and most Americans, will presume this indicates an alcohol problem; but I can’t see that a pint or two during the day is a sign of moral turpitude, especially far from home. It’s certainly better than going to some unique and exotic island, as so many eejits do these days, and playing golf. And instead of the depressingly corporate environment offered by pubs in the English countryside these days, where a retired estate agent or policeman presides over a muzak-polluted repro-furniture showroom in which furtive couples sit side by side eating microwaved baked potatoes, in Ireland you can still find idiosyncratic, family-owned hovels with no food, or decor, that remain temples to hospitality, conversation and drink. They’d be priceless institutions even if they only served coffee, but I can’t see that catching on.
I’m the only customer, so I sit at the bar and read the paper. The landlady adopts the unusual conversational gambit for this part of the world of letting me make the first move; but I doubt she’ll know Dominic. She’s of an older, more God-fearing generation, and seems unlikely to be intimate with a bunch of pagan English party animals. Mind you, she is selling snuff behind the bar, 69p a box, so you never know.
It’s a big day for alcohol-related stories, LONGER DAYS BRING THE PROSPECT OF LATE-NIGHT OPEN-AIR BOOZE PARTIES enthuses a front-page headline, though on closer examination it seems to be suggesting that this is a bad thing. There’s also a court case that sheds interesting light on official policy to late drinking. ‘A publican who allowed people to be on his premises after
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