Dublin, Pt. 3: Punk Rockers in Ireland and the Shansky Family Pub Crawl

Night 3 in Dublin brought a split between kids and parents.  That day was spent on a bus tour tour around the city and a trip to the Old Jameson Distillery (where the old man was chosen as a whiskey judge and, uncoached, chose Jameson as the winner over Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker).  That evening, after another stop at O'Neill's pub, the senior citizens went to the theater while my sisters and I headed over to the Academy to see Alkaline Trio and a local band, Blood or Whiskey.  After downing a few Guinnesses at the show, Emma got chatted up by a couple of Swedish dudes who we happened to be standing by.  As the show wrapped up, Tommy and Odd (the Swedes in question) invited us for a post-show pitcher at Woolshed, a sportsbar nearby.  While it was, all in all, just a sportsbar, they did have some huge televisions and tiered tables that would make watching a game there fun, and they also offered pitchers of beer--not something we came across frequently.  We made loose plans to meet Tommy and Odd to watch the Ireland-Sweden World Cup qualifier when we came back through Dublin toward the end of our trip, then said our farewells and headed home.

The next night, our final in Dublin, the ladies did a little shopping while my dad and I set off to find the Rory Gallagher corner in Temple Bar and the accompanying bronzed guitar.

After accomplishing that mission (see above), we set off in search of a pint before meeting the ladies for dinner.  We wandered into Farrington's, a nice little place in Temple Bar, where my dad had a Guinness and I had a Smithwick's.  We started chatting up the bartender about a local spirt called potine (pronounced "potcheen").  It's essentially Irish moonshine, and illegal.  However, some enterprising souls had made a slightly watered-down version (to a legal alcohol level) and bottled it, and the bartender offered us a shot.  It was pretty solid stuff--sort of a stronger and (slightly) sweeter version of gin.  The bartender gave us some good chat about the city and his move from Sligo, and the place was generally pretty warm and cheerful.  They had some good beer selections apart from the standard Guinness, Smithwick's and Bulmers, and everyone was pretty friendly.  But the highlight of the place was definitely the potine.  After those and our beers, the old man and I had a good buzz going as we headed off to dinner.

Following a delicious dinner at Jaipur, an Indian restaurant, we began our family pub crawl in earnest at The Temple Bar in, of all places, Temple Bar.  After walking into what we initially thought was a tiny pub (filled to the doors with people), we discovered that the place was actually huge, with several different rooms, including a sort of patio.  We happened upon a table that another group was vacating and took a seat.  The very friendly waiter arrived shortly to take our drink order and inform us that the music was starting soon.  After a few minutes, a trio filed into the corner of the front room (which we could see through the doorway) and began to play.  A guitar, flute and accordion was all there was, but they played some fun, modern Irish folk music--some instrumentals, some with vocals--and the entire place was clapping and cheering in no time.  We had a blast, but decided to fmove on after one drink in the interest of hitting a few more locales.

Our next stop was Oliver St. John Gogarty Pub, just down the street from the Temple Bar.  Again, this place was jammed to the doors and the crowd was raucous.  It was an interesting mix of people--young, old, tourists, locals, and all different nationalities.  There was a guitarist singing Irish folk songs at the front of the bar--very unpretentious, and more interested in getting people singing and dancing than performing masterpieces of the genre.  The songs were funny and catchy, and he ended his set with a medley of international favorites like "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Hallelujah."  To be fair, this was more of a good-time pub than a place for serious folk music, but it was a blast and there were several funny moments--like when a 70-something man grabbed a 20-something girl and started twirling her around the dance floor, or when the group of Spanish girls at the front of the bar started losing their shit when the singer did "La Bamba."  Again limiting ourselves to one drink, we watched the end of his set and moved on to The Palace Bar, our final stop.

We didn't plan on the Palace being our final stop when we walked in, but Brendan had other plans.  Brendan was the 50-something guy sitting in the back room of this quiet, "talking pub" at the end of the street.  He saw us looking for a table and waved us over to join him and his friends.  Having had several great experiences chatting up the locals thus far, we were hopeful we'd met another friendly Irishman in the mood to socialize.  Little did we know.....

Shortly after joining Brendan, we realized he had a head start on us by several beers.  He asked us a few questions about where we were from before assailing us with the facts of his life--he had a house in Spain, a house in Wexford, a beautiful wife, two (very young) kids that he couldn't stand, he was a tour guide and driver for a living (which led to some doubt on our part about the two houses), etc.  and unfortunately, we couldn't shut him up.  About 10 minutes in, I noticed that he a completely ignoring the group he was with--two girls and a guy, all in their twenties.  At one point Brendan got worked up about some story he was telling, and I caught the eye of the guy he was sitting with.  The guy gave me a look that said, "we don't know who this guy is, either."  A few minutes later, they went out for a smoke and never came back, leaving us with Brendan.  Unfortunately, his presence kept us from taking in much about the pub, though it was generally cozy and social, with chairs arranged around the back all of the place facing in, so everyone was facing each other sort of.  It was apparently a literary pub, with pictures of authors who'd frequented it covering the walls.  And the baretender poured a good Guinness, which our main concern.  Eventually, we pried ourselves free of Brendan and headed home to prepare for the next day's drive to the countryside.