Tommy Tiernan

The joys of a mid-morning pint

Paul Durcan was talking to me recently about going for mid-morning pints with a friend of his in a bar in Dublin city. Now when I say ‘talking to me’, I really mean that I was reading it in a poem, but, as I was reading it, I heard his voice utter the words of what he’d written in me ear. Isn’t the thought of it fantastic, though — 10.30, maybe 11 o’clock, and into somewhere quiet. No TV, no radio, and no smoking ban, either. I like quiet pubs. Silent places; no noise, save the hiss of a tap and an emphysemic cough coming from a rattling man in the corner. A monastery of alcohol.

You don’t have to speak; you just give the nod to barman and a nice creamy pint of porter is gotten ready for you. It takes time and care to pull it, so you have a pint of Furstenburg while you’re waiting. You take a seat, and settle into yourself. The man in the snug beside you is a priest. He’s hearing his own confession, and gives himself as a penance: “Three G&Ts and a bottle of Stag”.

There’s a poet over there, and a headmaster, two former footballers, and a postman.

Out of the corner of your eye, you spy a smooth-faced fellow sipping on a pint of Prosecco. Your suspicions aroused, you follow the contours of the body. It’s a woman, alright. No harm. She seems to have the hang of the place, staring into the middle distance, not talking to anybody and smiling to herself every now and again. You realise that women are men, as well.

The first pint I ever had was a draught of Harp. I was 16 and got served eight or nine of them over the course of an evening in a kid-filled pub in Ballinasloe. We were the kids, mind you. No one was asked for ID. I was in boarding school at the time; it was the occasion of the first ‘vac’ of the new year. We’d be in school for six weeks and then get a weekend off, and many of us would stay on in the town on the Friday night, go drinking, and head home the following day.

Painkillers

That particular night, I slept standing up in a phone box outside the psychiatric hospital. The Navan bus left at 11 the following morning and I was feeling rough enough, so I called into the cop shop before it left and asked for some painkillers. A ban garda told me to phuck off…

My father and I both come from a long line of drinkers. The Tiernans is good with drink. Our family history is full of great men and women who loved going for pints and telling stories. No alcoholics, neither. Not one Tiernan ever died from boozing.

Now Uncle Donal did walk out in front of a galloping horse and he was drunk at the time, but strictly speaking, it wasn’t the drink that killed him. No. It would have been the succession of hooves to the head.

And Aunty Margaret died at her sewing machine. She sewed her hand onto a quilt, and yes, she was fluthered, but again it was more the loss of blood caused by the incessant stitching of her flesh to the fabric, rather than the alcohol, that did her in the end. Sure that’d kill anybody. Mind you, the blood left a wonderful stain on the quilt that some people say looks a bit like Padre Pio. It’s above in the church in Knock.

I went in to a bar one time in Roscommon and the punters were watching a GAA football match on the telly, but the sound was turned down because they were also listening to a hurling match on the radio at the same time. It took me 10 minutes of staring at the screen to realise that the words and the pictures weren’t matching up. I thought I was just tired.

I fell into a pub in Tipp many moons ago that also operated as a hardware store. Nothing wrong with the theory of that, but in practice it meant bottles of whiskey on one shelf and hacksaws and knives on the other. Sure what could possibly go wrong there? “Another double Jameson and an axe whenever you’re ready. I’m going to sort this shit out once and for all.”

I hung around pubs an awful lot when I was a teenager. My favourite was Fox’s at the bottom of Watergate Street, before it got turned into a road. There was a pool table in the front, as well as a grocery store, and a bar and undertakers out the back. I remember toothless Flippins Sharkey coming in after dancing with traffic and putting the cueball in his mouth and wandering out the door again.

But it’s not so much the eccentricities of bars that I miss, but the easyness. I’m keeping an eye out. I’m leaving the house this morning just trying to find a place where I can go in sit down and sigh and have just the one. Aye, just the one…