Low life
Fair city
Jeffrey Bernard Dublin The weather in Dublin was appalling but the welcomes as warm as always. Words, as usual, fail me when I try to finger just what it is I like so much about this city but I do know that £20,000 a year and a flat in or near St Stephen's Green would do very nicely thank you. Cynics amongst you may well jump to the mistaken conclusion that I've fallen in love with the Irish licensing laws, but that's nonsense. The bars, by the
way, have changed a bit since I was last here six years ago to see the Irish Derby. The wheels have fallen off Neary's and McDaid's is becoming a mite squalid. Davy Byrne's is holding its own but the best two pubs by far that I've found on this trip are Doheny & Nesbitt's in Bagghott Street and The Old Stand in Wicklow Street. The Shelbourne has long since been taken over by that variety of creeper called Forte but the grill room is still the place for beef. But I'm not a travel writer just a tippling eavesdropper in this damp and pleasant land.
Now, think of all those ghastly people in
all those ghastly pubs in England that I've probably written too much about already in this column, then imagine an evening in Doheny & Nesbitt's. A man walks in and he has a few drops of rain on his overcoat. Another man, seated at the bar, looks up at him, and asks, 'Is it raining?' I wouldn't know,' replies the newcomer, 'I don't come from around here.' That's Irish. Over here a taxi driver knows his Oscar Wilde. In London his counterpart knows Oscar Wilde is a hurdler trained by Fred Winter. At Navan races last week, I saw a farmer put £100 on a horse at 7-1. The bookmaker's sign on his stand proclaimed him to be a Mr Finnegan. When the horse obliged and your farmer had his 700-odd counted out into his gnarled palm he kept saying, 'Yes, you've heard of Finnegan's Wake, well this is your fock in' wake, Finnegan.'
A good man here and author of a good
book, In Guilt and in Glory, David Hanly says there's plenty of posturing in Dublin — he should know — but not having moved in academic or political circles in my four- day stay I haven't noticed it like I do in London. Mind you, there's nothing more serious in the world than a teetotal poet and we have one here. Years ago, he was a jolly chap who got pissed in Soho nearly every day. Now he's a guru. Perhaps a man can settle down in Dublin, or settle up. Another exile from London, a playwright, has a deservedly pretty miserable time here, being as he is so unpopular. In spite of Irish in- come tax concessions he has tremendous difficulty in locating his pocket at the bar.
And, talking of money, 1 get the strong
impression that although the Irish are wonderfully less socially toffee-nosed than we English, I think they may be money snobs. You really need bundles of readies here: sitting here in the lounge of the Shelbourne writing to you, I'm seriously frightened of facing the bar and bedroom service bills when I check out. Readers of `High life' and those who can afford it are advised to visit Dublin and the rest of Ireland as often as possible. The low life here makes me feel high. The Irish are civilised for me and to hell with the French. As Tom Baker once told me, an Irishman was asked by a foreigner, `Do you have a word in Irish that's the equivalent to mariana?"Well, yes we do,' said your man, `but it hasn't got quite the same sense of urgency.' Yesterday, when I apologised to the chambermaid for having spilt a glass of vodka and fresh orange juice on the bed drinking in bed and watching television is the pits — she said, 'It could be worse. You could have been working in bed.' I think these people have their priorities right.
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