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The Dublin Paradox
by Seamus Martin
While the number of Irish pubs
worldwide increases, Dublin may very
well end up as the only European
capital without an Irish bar. Seamus
Martin frets for the few remaining
genuine Irish pubs in Dublin and
starts the campaign to bring
conversation back to the bar
In a strangely paradoxical
phenomenon, the number of Irish
Pubs is burgeoning elsewhere in the
world but falling sharply in Dublin.
Should the trend continue, and there
is little reason to predict a change,
Dublin could end up as the only
European capital without an Irish Bar.
And the decline in the number of
typically Irish pubs appears to be
linked directly to the decline in the
practice of religion.
Traditional bars have been gutted and
filled with furniture from redundant
churches. Gothic arches have replaced
doorways, creating an ecclesiastical
air which is dispelled only by the
billion-decibel rock music which
pervades the atmosphere from 8 p.m.
onwards.
Fortunately, a few real Dublin pubs
remain and they don't seem to have
lost trade due to their lack of
willingness to become alcoholic theme
parks or weekend vomitoria for
marauding stag-partygoers from an
island that calls itself "the
mainland".
If you want to get the Dublin
experience, you should watch out for
Dublin pubs. If you don't care about
where you drink then simply amble
(stagger) around the city and have
your pint in the premises nearest to
the place where your thirst takes
over.
For the more discriminating, a number
of true pubs should be listed. My own
favourites include the following:
Mulligan's of Poolbeg Street, Neary's
of Chatham Street, Doheny and
Nesbitt's of Baggot Street, Ryan's of
Parkgate Street and, as the crawl goes
on, many other pubs whose names I
can't remember.
The most important point about the
bars listed above is that in each one
of them, at most times of the day, an
element of conversation is possible.
In other words, you can hear yourself
speak, which, by extension means that
you can also hear the words of your
companions. This used to be the case
in all Dublin pubs but the advent of
extra-loud musak is beginning to kill
the one item that distinguished pubs
in Dublin from their counterparts
elsewhere. That item is known as
conversation.
In Dublin, as in the rest of Ireland,
people are prepared to talk to you if
their voices can be heard above the
din and if you show by nodding
occasionally that you are prepared to
listen. You may be drawn into esoteric
subjects, but you don't really have to
be an expert to express an opinion.
Recently, in the course of another
ritual in which Ireland excels itself,
I overheard a conversation about
druids. The ritual in question was a
funeral. In other places and other
cultures this event can turn out to be
sad, morbid and even morose. In
Ireland, funerals are not always sad
occasions and often turn out to be
celebrations of the life lived by the
deceased. In Ireland too, celebrations
usually involve drink, and while
biding my time for the church bell to
ring and the hallowed ritual to begin,
I sipped a pint in a pub overlooking
the Irish Sea and listened to a pair
of elderly men air their views.
"Do you think," said one pointing
eastward in the general direction of
Wales, "that our Druids and the Welsh
druids were the same crowd?" asked the
first man. "For God's sake," argued
the other, "would you cop yourself on?
Sure the Welsh druids were only
trotting after our crowd. Your Welsh
druid was a mere beginner."
"Our druids burned people at the stake
and nearly did it to St Patrick until
he won them over and talked them out
of it. Can you imagine the Welsh crowd
talking anyone out of anything" said
the second man. "I heard," said the
first man damningly, " that Saint
Patrick was Welsh."
In Mulligan's, the conversation is
more likely to centre on newspapers
and the decline of communism than on
the nature of the druidical tradition.
In Doheny and Nesbitt's, politicians
vie with economists in putting each
other down. In Neary's ,the bar
counter is of the smoothest marble and
the clientele occasionally thespians,
from the nearby Gaiety Theatre. If you
are there in the daytime when there is
an "r" in the month you could venture
a door or two away to Sawyers
fishmongers for a dozen of native
Irish oysters.
These are the best bivalves in the
business, known in the USA as
"european flats" and France as
"belons." In months without an "r" you
will have to be satisfied with the
farmed "Gigas" or "Pacific" or
"Portuguese" variety.
If your interest focuses on Rugby
rather than oysters, try The Swan on
Aungier Street. Mein Host here, Sean
Lynch, played for Ireland and he keeps
a find traditional pub which attracts
an international clientele of students
and professors from the nearby Royal
College of Surgeons and the Dublin
Institute of Technology.
On the other (North) side of the
Liffey, try Conways of Parnell Street,
a busy lunch-time local, Mulligans of
Stoneybatter, a local in an inner-city
village and the great Ryan's of
Parkgate Street, a splendid Victorian
hostelry on the edge of the city
centre frequented by the inward and
outward passengers at the nearby
Heuston railway station.
Unlike most other pubs in Dublin which
have been frequented by writers such
as Shaw, Synge, Swift, Steele, Joyce,
Beckett and, infrequently, Yeats,
Ryan's is noted for a completely
different style of famous client.
During the time he lived in Dublin the
philosopher, Ludwig von Wittgenstein
sorted out his thoughts in the public
bar at this venue.
recieved by mail from
maxman@ireland.com
source:
http://www.ireland.com
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