I don’t know when it started. I guess it was the first Friday after one of my regular sojourns through the Southern Hemisphere. I would have met up with a few friends for some of Dublin’s finest Guinness in the small snug in the Palace Bar.
Their objective would have been to prove to the Department of Health that it wasn’t only pubescent teens that binge drank, but 30ish bankers as well. My intentions would have been to bore them with tales of sailing under crimson Tasman skies.
I don’t know when it started, but on one of those nights I’m sure that the exit strategy was hatched. The seed of my desire to move to the Antipathies was planted and it germinated in the nourishing nectar of Arthur Guinness’ finest.
My mate Baz was in on the plan early. He also felt the gravitational pull south and he also knew we needed a plan. As all of our discussions were held in pubs, I guess it’s not unusual that our plans centred on those sort of establishments.
Despite the fact that neither of us knew the first thing about it, our plan was to open a pub, Irish in character and physically situated somewhere between Sydney and Santiago.
I guess we figured that a pub was our ticket to financial security and an easy life. The fact that it would mean working till 4am most nights and would provide all the temptation we needed to become fully blown alcoholics seemed inconsequential to us. In our missionary zeal we felt it was our destiny as Irishmen abroad to run pubs and considered it a challenge to our personal pride that it would be the best damned Irish pub in the Southern Hemisphere.
We had both travelled extensively over the years and one of the things that troubled us as roving Irish ambassadors was the appalling state of Irish pubs around the world. We gave the gift of sociability to the people of the earth and seem to have forgotten that some gifts need to keep on giving.
We handed over the upkeep of Irish pubs to the corporate multinationals and get rich quick merchants and they turned them into a homogenised blob of shallowness. We Irish have long figured out that Irish pubs abroad are a double bogey. They steal from you the pleasure of enjoying a foreign experience while not quite making you feel at home either.
So Baz and I decided that we would head South and create an Irish pub that would be true to the traditions and glory of our heritage. A pub that would be simple and austere. A pub that concentrates on product and not presentation. On ambiance and not piped Pogues music. In short we wanted to do something that had never been done before. Run an Irish pub abroad that was just like an Irish pub back home.
Baz and I had pure thoughts. Each week after a few pints had loosened our imagination, we would perfect our plan. We worked through menus, music, signage, staff and all the other things required to a make a perfect public house. After a year or so, we could picture the pub in our heads. It would be called “The Surly Dub” in honour of Baz’s lineage and his pessimistic demeanour. When we did the cash-flows, we realised we needed extra revenue. So we updated our plans to include a nightclub down the back. I got the naming rights and being a cheerful country boy, I thought “The Happy Culchie” was appropriate.
Music would be banned unless it was live and we wouldn’t do food apart from toasted sandwiches and specially imported Tayto crisps and pink snacks. No Guinness posters would adorn our walls. We would have pictures of the Dowdallshill under 16 championship team of 1981 and perhaps a set list from the Lisdoonvarna festival of 1975.
There would be no road signs saying that it was 2 miles to Killarney along an unapproved B road, if for no other reason than it patently isn’t (are there any signposts left in Kerry by the way?). No copper kettles hanging from the wooden beamed rafters. No dark and pokey corners lit only by a small candle upon an empty whiskey barrel.
Corporate fascism seems to think that Irish pubs should look like sheebeens in kitchens of 19th Century peasant houses. Except for the food of course. Garlic bread and chicken nuggets weren’t common in the famine ravished kitchens of 19th Century Irish houses.
In fact Irish pubs look like the front room of a middle class family in the 1950’s on an evening when they’ve invited the neighbours around for a few drinks. Pubs should be bright and designed for conversation and not shouting. They should have Formica topped tables and odd sized stools and you should look at the walls because they are novel and not because they are covered with colourful animals being chased by Guinness workmen.
In the end, I took the easy option of a safe job in Australia and Baz wimped out. But every now and again when the smell of porter is caressing the air, my mind will wander to thoughts of the “The Surly Dub” and how much we would have charged for a pint of Harp Export. Imagine my disappointment then when I stumbled upon “The Drunken Poet” in Melbourne. It was as though its owner Siobhan had been eavesdropping on Baz and me all those years ago. Because God Damn it, she’s gone and designed exactly the pub we’d imagined. Right down to the pink snacks.
She has stolen my dream but I’m not bitter. Because I’ve finally found an Irish pub here that I’d be happy to frequent. The Guinness isn’t too bad either, which is not something I thought I’d find myself saying in this country. And maybe she has some room out the back and might be interested in a joint venture. The Happy Culchie might have a future yet.
Their objective would have been to prove to the Department of Health that it wasn’t only pubescent teens that binge drank, but 30ish bankers as well. My intentions would have been to bore them with tales of sailing under crimson Tasman skies.
I don’t know when it started, but on one of those nights I’m sure that the exit strategy was hatched. The seed of my desire to move to the Antipathies was planted and it germinated in the nourishing nectar of Arthur Guinness’ finest.
My mate Baz was in on the plan early. He also felt the gravitational pull south and he also knew we needed a plan. As all of our discussions were held in pubs, I guess it’s not unusual that our plans centred on those sort of establishments.
Despite the fact that neither of us knew the first thing about it, our plan was to open a pub, Irish in character and physically situated somewhere between Sydney and Santiago.
I guess we figured that a pub was our ticket to financial security and an easy life. The fact that it would mean working till 4am most nights and would provide all the temptation we needed to become fully blown alcoholics seemed inconsequential to us. In our missionary zeal we felt it was our destiny as Irishmen abroad to run pubs and considered it a challenge to our personal pride that it would be the best damned Irish pub in the Southern Hemisphere.
We had both travelled extensively over the years and one of the things that troubled us as roving Irish ambassadors was the appalling state of Irish pubs around the world. We gave the gift of sociability to the people of the earth and seem to have forgotten that some gifts need to keep on giving.
We handed over the upkeep of Irish pubs to the corporate multinationals and get rich quick merchants and they turned them into a homogenised blob of shallowness. We Irish have long figured out that Irish pubs abroad are a double bogey. They steal from you the pleasure of enjoying a foreign experience while not quite making you feel at home either.
So Baz and I decided that we would head South and create an Irish pub that would be true to the traditions and glory of our heritage. A pub that would be simple and austere. A pub that concentrates on product and not presentation. On ambiance and not piped Pogues music. In short we wanted to do something that had never been done before. Run an Irish pub abroad that was just like an Irish pub back home.
Baz and I had pure thoughts. Each week after a few pints had loosened our imagination, we would perfect our plan. We worked through menus, music, signage, staff and all the other things required to a make a perfect public house. After a year or so, we could picture the pub in our heads. It would be called “The Surly Dub” in honour of Baz’s lineage and his pessimistic demeanour. When we did the cash-flows, we realised we needed extra revenue. So we updated our plans to include a nightclub down the back. I got the naming rights and being a cheerful country boy, I thought “The Happy Culchie” was appropriate.
Music would be banned unless it was live and we wouldn’t do food apart from toasted sandwiches and specially imported Tayto crisps and pink snacks. No Guinness posters would adorn our walls. We would have pictures of the Dowdallshill under 16 championship team of 1981 and perhaps a set list from the Lisdoonvarna festival of 1975.
There would be no road signs saying that it was 2 miles to Killarney along an unapproved B road, if for no other reason than it patently isn’t (are there any signposts left in Kerry by the way?). No copper kettles hanging from the wooden beamed rafters. No dark and pokey corners lit only by a small candle upon an empty whiskey barrel.
Corporate fascism seems to think that Irish pubs should look like sheebeens in kitchens of 19th Century peasant houses. Except for the food of course. Garlic bread and chicken nuggets weren’t common in the famine ravished kitchens of 19th Century Irish houses.
In fact Irish pubs look like the front room of a middle class family in the 1950’s on an evening when they’ve invited the neighbours around for a few drinks. Pubs should be bright and designed for conversation and not shouting. They should have Formica topped tables and odd sized stools and you should look at the walls because they are novel and not because they are covered with colourful animals being chased by Guinness workmen.
In the end, I took the easy option of a safe job in Australia and Baz wimped out. But every now and again when the smell of porter is caressing the air, my mind will wander to thoughts of the “The Surly Dub” and how much we would have charged for a pint of Harp Export. Imagine my disappointment then when I stumbled upon “The Drunken Poet” in Melbourne. It was as though its owner Siobhan had been eavesdropping on Baz and me all those years ago. Because God Damn it, she’s gone and designed exactly the pub we’d imagined. Right down to the pink snacks.
She has stolen my dream but I’m not bitter. Because I’ve finally found an Irish pub here that I’d be happy to frequent. The Guinness isn’t too bad either, which is not something I thought I’d find myself saying in this country. And maybe she has some room out the back and might be interested in a joint venture. The Happy Culchie might have a future yet.
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