In Praise of the Irish Pub

An Spailpín Fánach discovered a very beautiful coffee table book in Hodges Figgis' very beautiful bookshop on Dawson Street, Dublin, this afternoon. It’s called The Irish Pub, it’s written by the gloriously named Turtle Bunbury, the photographs are by James Fennell, and the book is a tripartite paean, homage and lament for the traditional Irish pub.

They once were everywhere, and now they’re slowly winking out one by one, as lifestyles change with the times. Gaughan's was the greatest I ever knew, and it's only a memory now for drinkers of the sweet, strong porter in the great town of Ballina.

However. An Spailpín notices something that Turtle and James have not. They have left out one vital feature of the Irish pub, a feature so vital that An Spailpín Fánach would even go so far as to suggest it disqualifies the pictures from being representative of an Irish pub at all.

The pictures are nearly all empty. There are no people in them. What earthly use is an empty pub?

The late, great folk singer Frank Harte contended that a song only exists in its singing. When it is written down or recorded it is a record of the song, but it is not the song itself. The song’s essence is missing.

So to with the pub. James Fennell’s photographs are beautiful and Turtle’s prose suits the style of the pictures but dear hearts, gentle people, these are just rooms. They could just as easily be photographs of the clean room at Intel or the statues at Easter Island. Beautiful rooms, beautifully photographed, but my God, you couldn’t associate them with anything we associate with actual pubs.

What is a pub without people? It’s just a room. It’s the combination of good people and strong booze and maybe a bit of music and that ineffable, inexplicable something called – hateful but expressive word! – craic that makes pubs.

A pub isn't architecture or Atlantic spray or celtic mists. Irish pubs are people. Without the people, there are no pubs. And that’s why the pubs are dying. Because people are not going to pubs as they did before, and that whole pub culture is dying out.

An Spailpín has stood at the counter of five of the pubs listed in Irish Pubs. The Long Hall or the Stag’s Head I can take or leave alone. Neither is a particular favourite.

An Spailpín was in Dick Mack’s in Dingle – opposite the church – only once, on the best organised stag night in the history of gentlemen on tour. I would gladly go back, and ever time I hear Philip King on the radio talking of the south wind blowing down there I feel the need to get in the car and follow the flight of the sun.

Galway Tigh Neachtain’s is a bar I was often in. The late Ronnie Drew bought a friend and me drinks in there, once, when all the world was young. I get teased about it but the teasers can bite me. A memory to take to the grave, to warm the cold clay. Tigh Neachtain’s is a great bar.

And Leonard’s of Laherdane is another. I don’t think I ever drank in it myself, but I remember being in there with an uncle once, experiencing a vignette of the Irish pub life that is now gone. As soon as we came in the door my uncle was hailed by another old man.

“Warrior with the thresher!” said the man at the bar, for my uncle was just that, and had a brother who lost a finger to the same thresher as they toured the roads of Mayo threshing for the neighbours. They sat at the bar, smoking woodbines and drinking whiskey. I salute them, and their memory, for their likes will not be here again.

FOCAL SCOIR: In the light of foregoing, people may have the impression that An Spailpín favours the opening of the bars in Limerick on Good Friday. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The bars opening in Limerick is a disgrace.

An Spailpín likes a drink, but he knows when to stay home too. This country is drowned in drink, and to have two days in the year when the bars are closed doesn’t seem a whole lot to ask. These publicans, in Limerick and elsewhere, who will be open on Good Friday sound like men that would park a chip van at the foot of the cross, and sell Hawaiian burgers to the Roman legion. They all ought to be ashamed of themselves.





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Football Debate in the County Mayo

An Spailpín is flattered to be once more in the pages of the Mayo News this week, the paper offering the best sports coverage in the county Mayo. And aren’t their pictures from the Connacht Final just marvellous? You have to hand it to them.

As the discussion rages and we tear over the evidence of the defeat to Galway, your sentimental Spailpín couldn’t help letting his mind drift back to four years ago come Friday, when a few of the boys were whooping it up in Eddie Gaughan’s saloon. We were discussing Mayo’s victory earlier that Sunday in Castlebar against Roscommon, whose sad decline had already begun at that stage.

It was a poor enough game, and memorable really only for a final minute pitch invasion that caused then selector George Golden to run out onto the pitch (at a much faster clip than you’d think a man that wintered as well as Georgie could manage, I might add) in fear that the match would be abandoned. In a practical effort to clear the pitch, Georgie set about boxing every head within swinging distance, a performance that put Horatius at the Bridge in the ha’penny place.

So it was a mellow gathering in Gaughan’s that night, as the summer stretched before us. Our thoughts turned to the vagaries of management, and how John Maughan had returned to lead his people once more to the Promised Land. Or at least, it was mellow at the start.

“It just goes to show you,” said An Sionnach Seang to the assembled company. “Maughan is the best manager we ever had.”

“He lost them on the line!” spat An Bata Damhsa.

“What are you on about?” queried An Sionnach.

“1997!” wailed An Bata, for whom the hurt was still real. “Maughan changed four lines to make one substitution! Madness – the softest All-Ireland ever! Johnno is the only man for that job – will he no’ come back again?”

“Johnno?” An tUbh Breac looked up from the stool in the corner. “Johnno is a traitor. No man did more damage to Mayo football than John O’Mahony. Galway were dead and gone and they’ve two All-Irelands now! And it’s all Johnno’s fault!”

An Bata Damhsa wasn’t taking that one lying down.

“Sure what else could he do when his own didn’t want him?” countered An Bata. “Didn’t the Board run him out of the county?”

“Don’t make me sick,” said an tUbh, seldom a man to back down. “He did nothing in his final two years in Mayo except lose to Galway and lose to Roscommon. No-one can compare to John Maughan’s achievements. Least of all Johnno.”

“Well I don’t know what you’re all talking about,” said An Tuiseal Tabharthach, coming back in from a refreshing smoke and scope up and down O’Rahilly Street. “You haven’t even mentioned the best manager we’ve had in over thirty years yet.”

“Who?” chorused we all.

“Pat Holmes,” said An Tuiseal, pulling on his pint of special.

“Pat Holmes!” Consternation in Gaughan’s.

“Yeah, Pat Holmes,” said An Tuiseal, wiping his mouth with that implement a thoughtful God gave him for that very purpose, the back of his hand. “Wasn’t Pat Holmes manager of the only Mayo senior team to win a national title in thirty years, the League in 2001?”

“Ah for Jesus’ sake a Thuisil!” said An Sionnach, getting more Rua by the minute. “For the love of God – Pat Holmes! Pat Holmes!” added An Bata, making common cause with his enemy of two minutes’ before. An Spailpín Fánach thought he spied an tUbh Breac coming dangerously to the boil, and decided it was time to step in. I slurped some strengthening stout, rose unsteadily, and addressed the congregation.

“Boys – isn’t this the story of Mayo football all over? We’ve just had a great win in the Connacht Final over an ancient and feared enemy, and here we are getting stuck into each other six hours later! For God’s sake, can we not enjoy it while it’s here?”

So we sat down to toast Mayo, with the long summer whose twists and turns, the high of the win over Tyrone and the miserable low of Bradygate, were still full and fertile before us. But that argument developed after Mayo won the Nestor Cup, their first Nestor Cup in five barren years as I recall. You can imagine how many wigs are on the green at home this week after Mayo lost one.





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Feartlaoi Tí Tábhairne

Thárla rud ait uaigneach liom i mBéal an Átha an deireadh seachtaine seo caite. Seo an scéal.

Bhíos ag siúl síos Sráid Uí Chonaile, ag dul lastall tí tábhairne Liam Mhic Éil, nuair a tháinig fear amach agus a shín a lámh amach dom. Bheannaigh sé dom, agus bheannaigh mé do arís, cé nach raibh fios agam cé hé. Tá sé sin ceart go leor - bíonn aithne ag cuid maith daoine ormsa i ngan fios dom féin, agus 'sé mo thuairim go bhfuil sé níos easca agus níos fearr cara nua a dhéanamh in ionad namhaid éigin. Mar sin, thógas a lámh agus croitheas é.

Ach bhíos trí chéile nuair a bhfuaireas amach nárbh fios do cé hé mise ach an oiread. Cén fáth go gcroitheadh duine lámh duine i ngan fios ceachtar acu cé hé an duine eile? Ach ansin tháinig an freagra, agus bhí gach rud soléir.

"Is cuimhim liom tusa ag ól i nGaughan's," a duirt sé, agus thuigeas gach rud anseo.

Tá teach tábhairne Gaughan's dúnta i mBéal an Átha le bliain nó mar sin - scríobhas céanna sa bhlaigín seo agama an cailleadh ab ea an dúnadh. Ach ó oíche Dé Sathairn tá sé soleir dom go bhfuil cuid mó a phobail á ghearradh dá bhrí a dhúnadh fós, agus iadsan i ngan fios cá rachadís anois. D'iarr an fear an ceist céanna ormsa - cá bhfuilim ag ól anois?

"Bhuel, nílim," a duirt mé leis, go fírinneach. "Táim im' dheoraí sa bhaile seo anois. Nílim ann anois mar a bhínn. Níl tógaim deoch sa bhaile ach ins na tithe ina dtógtar mé."

Sméidh sé a cheann ansin, go cnéasta, ach go brónach freisin, agus d'fhill sé ar ais ar a phíonta. Leann mé fein ar aghaidh, agus d'fhilleas go dtí Teach Mhic Éil arís tar eis leathuair a chlo. Ach ní raibh mo dhuine ansin. Bhí sé imithe ar thóir áit éigin eile, ina ngeobhadh sé beagán bhláis Gaughan's arís. Tá súil agam go ngeobhaidh, ach níl mórán dóchas agam. Agus níl fios agam freisin cathain a bhfillfidh mé ar áis go mBéal an Átha ach an oiread.





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So. Farewell Then, Gaughan's Bar and Public House

One of the most evocative images of exile in An Spailpín Fánach’s fragile psyche, for whatever reason, is of Frank Ryan taking his last look at the Irish shoreline from the conning tower of German U-boat, on his way from Franco’s Spain to Hitler’s Germany, exile, and death.

An Spailpín resonated a little with how the incorrigible old Republican must have felt last night when a text message confirmed, once and for all, that Gaughan’s Bar, O’Rahilly St, Ballina, Co Mayo, is no more. The premises still stands, and the lunch trade of international renown continues, but from this moment on Gaughan’s is that most deconsecrated of churches, a pub with no beer. The license has been sold and from now on you can get nothing stronger across the counter than coffee, tea and porter cake. And a tremendous sadness settles on An Spailpín as he contemplates that thought.

When people talk about their locals, they try and pin down this ineffable thing that we refer to, with doubtful spelling, as “craic.” This is not the case to those that raised a glass in Gaughan’s, and left it down empty. One of the many delights of a Saturday night in Gaughan’s was watching the slow implosion of a visiting hen night in Ballina who made the mistake of visiting Gaughan’s instead of finding a hostelry that might have suited them better. They would arrive glammed to the nines, cackling happily around the big table just to the left of the door, their bottles of Smirnoff Ice clutched in scarlet talons. After half an hour, all hopes and dreams of the future would have left them. The chief bridesmaid would dream of nursing the poor in Mozambique or along the coast of Malabar, the bride-to-be’s sister would swear to dedicate her life to fighting injustice and inequality where-e’er she found them, while the inchoate blushing bride herself would think of taking the veil, and signing up with the Poor Clares first thing in the morning.

An Spailpín well remembers the night some broken hens left Gaughan’s in silence, trailing their wings out the door. One of their party had just come down from the ladies, and scurried out to rejoin her sisters. A knight of the back bar high stools put it best: “she took one look at us boys, she turned on her heel and she left.”

And fair weather after her – I hope she found better luck nursing beneath that Indian star. Her disappointment was only ever equalled by that of Gunther, Fritz and Johann who had bought Dubliners records by the dozen and had now come to Ireland to participate in this thing they call the “craic.” Porter ordered, smiles all around, one of that visiting tribe would push the chair back from the table, and launch into the Wild Rover or the Black Velvet Band. But before he could tell how he had spent all his money on whiskey and beer, or of a sad misfortune that caused him to stray from the land, the curate on duty would have materialised at his shoulder, and told him, gently but firmly, that if he wanted to sing he had better sing on the street, and not be disturbing the customers. Nonplussed is too weak a word to describe the typical reaction.

The singing ban was lifted for the Ballina Fleadhanna of 1997 and ’98, and An Spailpín is happy to remember that, as he drank what I now sadly realise was my last ever pint of stout in Gaughan’s, Mick Leonard was belting out that sad old ballad about the Boston Burglar, who went midnight rambling, breaking laws of God and man, and paid for it dearly. Why was Mick not shown the door now the Fleadhanna are eight years past? I guess we all get mellow towards the end.

Dreadful curmudgeon that he is, An Spailpín is not a fan of Christmas, but I will miss Christmas Eve in Gaughan’s dreadfully. The town is busy, and people go in and out, meeting, greeting, drinking and departing. There’s an excited hubbub at all times, and we exchange presents – almost invariably booze, as I recall, as if we hadn’t enough of the stuff as it was. Those Christmas Eves were all smoky as well, not just from that warm stove just inside the door, under the pipe racks, but from the fact that ever sinner in the joint was puffing gaspers. The smoking ban has been good for the people and the country, but for a bar that was famous as pipe-smokers’ corner, and that had pipes for sale worth hundreds of pounds, it was perhaps a premonition that the centre couldn’t hold.

And now it’s all gone, never to return. Is it allowable, I wonder, to think of those who have been and are also gone, or is it a sign of disrespect to their memory? It’s facile and juvenile to compare the closing of a bar with a death, but at the same time, it is the closing of another door, and presager of our own mortality, in its way. A way of life has ended, and while I mourn it, it seems unfair not to remember those with whom I shared happy times there, and on whom time was called early, in a manner that seemed neither fair nor just. And as such, in memory of those many nights together, I raise a final glass to Brendan and Bernie, one whom I knew a little, and one whom I knew a little better, and say that another little piece of the past has passed on with you. We that are left move on while those that are gone stroll the Elysian Fields, and while we’ll always have other bars there will never be another Eden, Camelot or Gaughan’s. We can only hope for that happy day when we’re all together again ar slí na fírinne, as that lovely expression goes, sharing a glass together. And even now An Spailpín can but smile as he foresees, just as the archangel takes a deep breath and raises the Last Trump to his lips, a man comes out from behind the bar and says “lookit, you can’t play that thing in here, disturbing my customers.” And so, until that happy, blissful day, farewell then, Gaughan’s; hail and farewell.

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