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Stand Fast

Published September 24, 2007 in Stout, Archives, flags and emblems, Norn Iron, Ireland and From the ship. 0 Comments

A day in Larne, many moons ago.

Larne is in the North Eastern part of the Irish mainland, and depending on how you lean politically speaking it is in the North of Ireland or Northern Ireland. However regardless of how you lean the day that I was there you could be in no doubt as to the political allegience of the greater part of the population of Larne, the sheer volume of Union Jacks was overwhelming, nearly nauseating for me, every building had a flag, even the public toilets were decorated with the Union flag.
I said it was many moons ago, it was around 1995 some time, we were on a run to Ballylumford Power Station, bringing heavy fuel oil since then the plant has been converted to gas, but it is an eyesore of monumental proportions with the huge chimneys sticking up, now at least they don’t belch out black smoke. Ballylumford Power station provides electricity for half of Norn Iron, and it was here that the mainly unionist workforce joined the strike that helped collapse the Sunningdale agreement.
I had a few hours to spare between cargo watches so I asked the surveyor what the crack was like in Larne, he told me that it was a great place and that I should go up the road and have a few pints, great I thought and I got my jacket and myself and the motorman headed for the jetty. To get to Larne from Ballylumford you have to get a boat, so the agent had provided a service from a local company, the boats were bright orange hardly surprising I thought and I put my question about Larne to the boatman, his reply was a bit different…..”Keep your head as low as a Larne Catholic”, he recognised my Southern accent, I was a bit put off but we were already on the way.

The long walk home down the jetty……

Even if I had had a colour roll in my old fangled camera, it would have looked fairly much the same as it does in black and white, especially the top picture, the nearest I have come to an Orange Lodge excluding the one on Molesworth Street in Dublin, not a lot of people think about that one anyway….. The phrase below the name “Stand fast in the faith” put the shivers up my spine and the Olympus got pocketed quickly.
The main street was protected by security barriers at either end to prevent car bomb attacks, the gates were good old fashioned farmyard cattle gates, on heavy duty steel poles….they are probably long since gone…to a farm somewhere maybe.
My shore going compadre was from Liverpool and sensed no foul atmosphere and was gagging for a pint so we hit the first hostelry available and had a pint, the wall was full of Rangers memorabilia so I kept quiet drank my beer and then we went to the next available bar. It was hard to tell what kind of a place we were going into it was dark and smoky and full of people and my round……I went up to the bar and ordered 2 pints of the black stuff, the barman nodded and went away. There were 2 lads in flat caps beside me, and I thought their accent was out of place, so I tried to tune in to see if I could hear better, and the accent was very out of place, it was my own accent Wexford clear and broad. So I turned to the 2 and asked what they were doing in a bar in Larne, and they said we could ask you the same thing, so I explained my presence and it turns out that they were from Irish Lights, up to fix the Lighthouse at the Maidens, one of the peculiarities of Ireland all the aids to Navigation such as Lighthouses and Buoys are looked after by an all Ireland body the Commisioners of Irish Lights so even in the heart of Norn Iron you got 2 Wexford lads up servicing a lighthouse. Needless to say the crack was great and a few pints were consumed, then it was off back through the streets of Larne, head low….back to the ship.
On the boat painted brightly orange I noticed that the deck was green and the wheelhouse white! Someone keeping a head low with a sense of humour.

Bullring Wexford

Published July 22, 2007 in Stout and Wexford. 4 Comments

Back in Wexford for a few days, the first of which we went for a stroll along the narrow main street in the town. In the Bullring stands the Pike Man as a memorial to the failed 1798 rebellion of the United Irishmen, in Wexford there was some success at the time but in the end the whole rebellion was crushed. This statue was erected in 1905, in 1998 they redecorated the place, they weren’t finished in time, as one of the lads said at the time, “it’s not as if they didn’t know it was coming 200 years after the event should have been enough time” but hey it’s Ireland. These days the Bullring has a steady trade of alcoholics and is usually decorated with empty Dutch Gold cans until they get cleaned up. The punters in the Cape bar amuse themselves by superglueing a €2 coin on the footpath and watch passers by try and pick it up, eventually some one smart comes with a sharp instrument and removes it. But it is funny to watch some poor unfortunate bend down and try to pick up a coin that won’t come up, then the loud shouts from the bar and banging on the window, you’ve been framed and candid camera have nothing on this crack! The pub features in Lenny Henry’s documentary “Lenny’s Britain”, wrong country Lenny.

A real live pike from 1798, the Bullring was used as an armaments factory for the rebels and this pike head lives in the vicinity still. I had the thing in my hand, a fair weapon but fairly useless against cannons and muskets. The Swiss Guard that swan around the Vatican have something similar, hopefully they have a plain clothes unit with more modern weaponry.

The pints of Guinness (€3.70)were good in the Cape bar too, if you feel poorly you’re in the right place, the Undertaker can come and measure you up for a coffin while you slake your thirst. Vertical Bones has a better discussion on Guinness than I can manage also a trek around pubs with prices in his previous posts.

In the Cape bar the problems of the day were being discussed in lively tone, the M50 roundabout residents were being debated, I reckon the boys in the pub could solve the whole problem with a few pints of stout and a large group of men with hurley sticks, not the most politically correct solution maybe, but politically correct is a bit of an oxymoron anyway. Fortunately for the M50 roundabout residents the drinkers don’t have much political clout or sense for that matter but it was fun to hear….

Exams over part 2

Published April 25, 2007 in Stout, coffee, Dublin, Exams and On the ship. 0 Comments

The Liberator above, Danny O’Connell in the middle of Dublin, I was feeling fairly liberated after the exam and would have proceeded to get inebriated only I had a plane to catch.

I have had time to reflect on the day that was in it also. I got the bus from my parents home at 6am on the 17th of April the news was full of the massacre in Virginia Tech, what a waste of life, I couldn’t take it in at the time, I had to get to my appointment. I was suited and tied, and feeling uncomfortable, trying to revise notes on the bus, my attention was hard to focus. In Dublin I got off at Busaras, and decided to walk across to Leeson Street to the Department of Trade my destination that day.

On Westmoreland St. I noticed the Bewleys was all boarded up and for sale, couldn’t spare too much time thinking about it, I was caught up in the morning melee of coffee mug holding Ipod listening office workers marching to work all trying to be different and aloof. I stopped at the Bewleys on Grafton St. and bought myself a mug of coffee and became a short term member of the legions of suited coffee mug carrying peoples marching about, I felt very self conscious walking around with a paper mug of coffee and a briefcase, but everyone was so interested in themselves that no one noticed. I took a bench in Stephens Green and sat down to drink my coffee, the sun was warm and the tulips blooming, I only remember now, interesting that I can recall now something that I only barely acknowledged at the time, my stress levels were so high I couldn’t breathe properly, the coffee was good but it probably sped up my heart rate making me more jumpy and sweaty.
I walked in to the reception of the Department of Trade at 10:00am, the next 3 hours were some of the longest and torturous hours I have lived through. It was all over at 12:55, bar the shouting, the ordeal was over, and I phoned home, then to my folks and then the list goes on….

I nearly got creamed by a bus crossing the street from the bottom of Leeson St. to the Green not the featured bus above which I took on Westmoreland St., I’m sure the driver jumped on the accelerator and not the brakes, still it would have taken more to dampen my spirits that day.
The buses are yellow and blue these days, they were green when I was in college in Dublin in the late 80’s, and orange before that and I think they were even Black and Beige in the CIE days before Dublin Bus…..and then there was the trams or LUAS as they call them in Dublin…you can make out the dome on the top of Gandon’s Custom House in the background.

Then there was time for a few pints of the black stuff, and by the Lord Jaysus they were extremely good, worth the abstinence during the study days, or relative abstinence at any rate, I didn’t get plastered every night, doesn’t help retaining the subjects studied. And the retention is bad when you are pushing 40, get all the exam shite out of the way before 25, don’t put yourself through the mangle later on, Carpe Diem as they say or it will be too late, or lots of hard work, or both.