Danny Boy

The scene downstairs in what was a sleepy tavern last night is something for central casting. It is 125am local time.  I got into watching a movie from 10-1230 in my room and was considering going to sleep, but I figured I would just go downstairs and have a pint on this my last day in Dublin.

Well, let me tell you, nothing sleepy about the hotel pub tonight.  The place was jammed in the way taverns become when you have to try and make yourself thin to negotiate the narrow pathways.  Tomorrow there is a football match that is the equivalent of the super bowl held not far from here. And the singing, boisterous, not shy about drinking regardless of how old you are, group are preparing for the day tomorrow.

In my experience crowded taverns are populated by young people, say 20 to 30 year olds with maybe a sprinkling of 40 or 50 year old folks.  The average age downstairs was between 50 and 60 with several feeling no pain having passed 60 years ago. And this was a family affair.  Husbands and wives, their childen--in their 30s-- were crooning with the singer, and to be sure, well on the other side of sober.  I could just imagine my dad taking me to a place like this. Not.

Yet this is not to disparage the revelers. They all seemed to be having a grand time. When the guitar player banged out Danny Boy, good lord, it was a Hollywood scene. The patrons got up, put their arms around each other, and started swaying from side to side, belting out the lyrics, drowning out the miked entertainer.

The guitar player took a break at 1, and this is way past my bedtime, so I went up to my room. But there was no shortage of clients who remained to challenge the sweating barkeepers.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the singers tomorrow morning to assess how well they weathered the party.  People fifteen years my senior were banging them back and wobbling around the tavern.  The quaffers' abilities to negotiate the terrain tomorrow ought to reveal skill and perhaps there should be some sort of competition to determine who is most mobile at 9 am.