JP, Mono and Rasher were seated in garden chairs around massive electrical cable drums acting as tables in the back yard of Donleavy’s pub. Mid-afternoon June 7th. Three creamy pints settled in traditional fashion with a halo of white looking majestic against the black darkness of the body. They each licked their lips.
“Well – Sláinte.”
“Yeah – here’s to our first legal pint in God knows how long.”
“Hope it tastes alright – ya know what they say about forbidden fruit tastin’ sweeter.”
“Yeah – well this isn’t bleedin’ fruit and it’s not meant to taste sweet.”
“Touché.”
“Here’s to very many more legal pints.”
They synchronistically raised their glasses and drank equal volumes before returning their glasses to the cable drum. Months of covert, illegal drinking at Donleavy’s bar – under cover of darkness – secret knocks – sophisticated ingress and egress strategies – blacked out windows – hushed tones – had now all come into the light. Literally. The sun was shining and seemed to be in harmony with welcoming Donleavy to the fold of legal publicans once more. And it showed in his step. The man was like a slalom skier twisting and turning around electrical cable drums like a lithe teenager rather than a bulky barman.
“Bejaysus. Did ya ever think ya’d see the day where Donleavy’s bar would have a beer garden?”
“Never. And in fairness to Donleavy – he’s tried his best to make a backyard storage area into somewhere where a man could sup a pint.”
“Needs must.”
They went back for another communal drinking effort accompanied by satisfied sounds and the wiping of mouths with the back of hands. They did feel a little strange out here in the open. Pint drinking was better accommodated by dark bar counters where the light only struggled to enter. It was a more appropriate atmospheric accompaniment. Dark with dark. Maybe direct shafts of sunlight were OK for those lager or ale drinkers, but for real pint drinkers it only felt right when removed from natural light. Still – we are still in pandemic territory and sacrifices continually need to be made. Being in a triangle around this cable drum was equally odd. This wasn’t a natural layout for our three amigos. For eternity the drinking layout had been JP at the bar counter flanked by his two outriders. Years of this set-up had resulted in neck muscles developing in a certain way. Now here they were offset at sixty degrees to each other. It felt unnatural and for a long time they weren’t sure where to look. I mean – they were looking at each other. That’s what lovers did. But these were pint drinkers. And often they only looked at the reflection of the other in the bar counter mirror. This would take some getting used to. Hopefully this is temporary. Again, sacrifices were acceptable to the three lads.
JP probably had the most acclimatising to do. Those spirit bottles along the bar counter and that imperfection in the bar counter mirror were often a source of great conversational inspiration to him. In this back yard – some trailing plants on the cavity block wall, a few kegs in the corner and the sun umbrellas didn’t encourage him to the same degree. And definitely – looking across at his fellow conspirators did not put him at his ease. This was another example of virgin territory to be adsorbed as part of the pandemic. His thought processes seemed to be strangely woolly, muddled and confused as he looked around straining for conversational openers. As it happened – Mono took the lead.
“Funny this.”
“Wha’? Us in a beer garden?”
“Or more like a beer yard.”
“Naw – the whole thing. Like stuff that people have been tryin’ to get us to do for years and now the bleedin’ ‘Rona has suddenly turned it all on.”
They each took another aliquot of the black stuff culminating in a raised finger in the direction of Donleavy to ensure adequate supply and zero risk of temporary dehydration. With the levels topped up, each gave reign to their own musing.
“Cashless society.”
“Yep. Who would have bleedin’ thought that you’d go into a shop and swipe yer card for buyin’ something as small as a packet of Tayto?”
“True fer ya.”
More musing.
“…and of course, WFH. Before ‘Rona everybody who did WFH was a lazy bollocks stretched out on the sofa watchin’ old black and white films.”
“Yeah. Now there’s the on-site heroes and the WFH heroes.”
“Fair play. Everyone is a bloody hero. Fair play to us all.”
“I’ll drink to tha’.”
“You’d bleedin’ drink to anythin’.”
Donleavy returned with more incoming. They settled themselves in harmony with the pints settling. Like a ceremonial ritual they paused all further conversation until there was a very definite and discrete separation between black and white layers. Then with practised synchronisation, they raised the glasses, drank, confirmed their satisfaction, and relaxed back again.
“Not sure about the café society.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Maybe not. The substantial meal in the pub didn’t work for sure.”
They had a good laugh at that one.
“D’ya’member the lads who refused the food, gave the money and insisted it got diverted to charity?”
“Yep. Can’t beat the drinkin’ masses for makin’ up their own rules.”
They toasted that one.
“But in fairness. There’s been a lash of pedestrianisation.”
“And outsides tables.”
“That’s all good.”
“Yeah. Who’d believed it could happen in Ireland?”
JP couldn’t resist a chime in and diversion on this one.
“D’ya know what lads. The old word for Ireland – Hibernia. That came from the Latin word Hiber. D’ya know what ‘hiber’ means?”
Mono looked at Rasher. Rasher looked at Mono. There was a communal shrug of the shoulders. While our three amigos had made Donleavy’s famous for some of the great philosophical debates of our modern times – knowledge of the classics didn’t rank high in respect of chosen specialist subjects. JP took the shrug as permission to proceed.
“Winter, lads. That’s what the bleedin’ ancients thought of Ireland. Permanent shaggin’ winter. “
“Bit harsh. Weather’s cat malogen – but Jaysus – it’s not continuous winter.”
“Guess if ya were a Roman if felt like continuous winter.”
“Pity the Romans didn’t make it here – they might have left a few decent roads.
“True fer ya.”
Back to the pints. The atmosphere was thick with the sparks of neurons as each tried to think how this new liberation of society had brought with it some additional good stuff. Like intellectual athletes waiting to explode out of the blocks, each was waiting for their personal starting gun to be fired and to be the first to race ahead in the conversation.
“The geeks!”, Rasher almost shouted to the assembled masses.
The other two automatically looked to the sky.
“What geese?”
“Don’t see no geese.”
Rasher’s breath laboured a response.
“Geeks. Geeks. The bleedin’ scientists. Bloody immunologists. Statisticians with 80’s spectacles.”
“What about ‘em?”
“They’ve found a place in the sun like never before. Bleedin’ celebrities nearly. Nobody listened to them. Ever. Now everybody hangs on their every word. They must be shaggin’ delirious with excitement.”
“True fer ya.”
“They better bleedin’ enjoy it. Cause their moment in the sun will end soon in a permanent eclipse once the ol’ herd move in.”
“Herd? Wha’ ya witherin’ ‘bout.”
“The herd. The herd immunity. It’s out there grazin’ on the plains but its goin’ move in soon. And then we’ll all be back in paradise.”
The boys went back to their pints. It was time to bring it back to the important stuff that had changed.
“Ya know this beer garden, beer yard, ain’t bad. Ya could get used to it.”
“I’ll tell ya somethin’ else. I was savin’ it as a surprise. Donleavy gave me a sneaky heads up.”
The other lads were immediately on curiosity edge. Heads up like meercats looking for the new nugget of information.
“Wha’, wha’?”
“The Chippers puttin’ a van at the yard door from 8pm.”
“Ah, Jaysus. Magic.”
“Pints and batterburgers. The business.”
“Some good stuff has come out of this pandemic. I knew it would.”
They went back to their pints.
Just another night in Donleavy’s.
Well – maybe a slightly different night.
JP@Donleavy’s 