Low life
Bar for
the course
Jeffrey Bernard
went to see some coursing for the first time in Ireland last week. It took place at Balbriggan in north County Dublin. That is 20 miles from the city centre. What a bleak, damp day it was. The best thing that happened during that Sunday afternoon was drinking a mug of hot oxtail soup. The next best thing was being driven to a warm pub as the light began to fade. The coursing itself was something of a non- event for me. I watched seven courses and on every occasion the hare escaped. Not that I particularly want to see a hare torn in pieces, but I did want to get the flavour of coursing. Without a kill it seemed a little odd to say the least to go to Ireland to see seven pairs of greyhounds racing across a meadow just to stop short of a fence. It may have been intentional on the part of the organisers. The man who was slipping the dogs was slipping them so late that the hares had unassailable leads every time. I think I know just how those dogs must have felt.
Maybe the worst aspect of the day came when I had to answer an emergency call of nature. I found a ditch with such a high bank I had to climb up it and at the top I fell down into the ditch. I had my trousers down in a patch of stinging nettles, stung and miserable, and then two young women walked by and spotted me. They reddened and smiled and I cursed this lousy body that doesn't seem to work very well any more. Then I had to crawl out of the ditch dragging my overcoat in the mud and I swore and do swear that never again will I go anywhere where there isn't a bar and a public lavatory. I am still having night- mares about a similar but warmer experi- ence in the Valley of the Kings three years ago.
Well, apart from all that, it is always a pleasure to be in Ireland, especially Dub- lin. But I looked in at McDaid's for a drink and found it a little depressing. The place is haunted. Not only that but it is as though Young people go in there in search of ghosts. I drank there with Robert Colqu- houn, Robert McBryde, Paddy Kavanagh and Brendan Behan at one time or another. They are so very dead now that there isn't a whiff or trace of them. I meant to go to the Shelbourne in the hope of seeing another drinking partner, Charles Haughey, but I never made it. I got ravenous and went to a restaurant instead
where I had duck a l'orange. The l'orange part of it amused me a little, being no more than a spoonful of marmalade. I would expect that in Kerry but it surprised me in Dublin where food standards are pretty good.
It is certainly a shame that pubs in England serve up rubbish for lunch and they could learn a lot from the Irish. Food apart, they could learn something of hospi- tality. Before the coursing began we had a drink at a golf club. Not only were we not members, the place wasn't even open, but they sat us down and served us coffee and drinks. It seemed the natural thing all round. You would write home about that if it happened there.
So, home again, and I am looking at recipes for jugged hare and don't know that I can be bothered to go to all the trouble of sweating over a hot stove for five hours. It is probably best left to a res- taurant like L'Epicure. I wonder how we catch our hares in England. I suppose we shoot them. I have never, even at Wemb- ley, seen a dog here that could stay with a hare. Of course, they are very clever in Kerry. They use tortoises instead of dogs. A single course can take all day.
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