McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland by Pete McCarthy

at the Eldon Hotel, a nineteenth-century inn on the narrow main street that was derelict for many years, but has now been vigorously refurbished in traditional modern Irish vernacular. Someone told me that this is where Michael Collins spent his last night before riding out to his death, but there’s no plaque or themed display cashing in on it, so maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. Next time I drive past the Geordie, I’ll ask him.
    As night falls, I adjourn across the road to a top-notch bar called Baby Hannah’s. Small and unadorned, with a solid fuel range in the corner, a tongue-and-groove ceiling, and sawdust on the floor, possibly left over from when they were fitting the tongue-and-groove ceiling, this is the perfect bridge between past and present. A pair of children, a boy and a girl, prowl the bar looking for mischief, but settle instead for staring at me like a pair of McZombies. At first I think they must have escaped from the Goggins and followed me here, until I realise they are in some way connected with the group of half a dozen adults who are talking and laughing boisterously—let’s face it they’re shouting—across to my right.
    Two of the company are larger-than-life Irish women who look as if they might be blues singers, or bouncers. The conversation is revolving around them, whether it wants to or not, and the air is turning blue, with approximately two fecks, three fucks, and a God Almighty to each sentence. Even for such vigorous turners of an everyday phrase as the Irish, this is an impressive strike rate.
    Once in a while when I was younger, my mother would deplore the pagan values of the English, adrift on a sea of sin with no moral compass to guide them. I now realise this must simply have been a subconscious expression of profound regret for having given up the incomparable natural beauty of West Cork for the chemically enhanced wasteland of south-west Lancashire. Ironic, really, that my mother—and many other Irish people of our acquaintance—should have chosen to live in Warrington, a town that has as its centrepiece a statue of Cromwell, the most hated man in the history of Ireland. Anyway, on this particular occasion, she had been outraged by the foul language she’d heard being used by a group of young people hanging out on a street corner, in particular an obnoxious ginger-haired kid with glasses.
    ‘Terrible language,’ she said. ‘You’d never hear swearing like that in Ireland.’
    Mum thought the Irish didn’t swear; and to be fair, I suppose the ones she knew didn’t, which is why they never made it into a Roddy Doyle book. But the vivid use of language that has put the Irish right up there among the greats of English-speaking literature has also made them world-class swearers.
    Of course the Australians, as well as being brilliant and colourful users of the English language, are also absolutely top-notch swearers, and I imagine that’s all down to the Irish. A large percentage of the first convict settlement of Australia was Irish; some say their deportation was another failed British attempt to solve the Irish Problem. Forced labour in unnaturally hot sunshine must have rapidly expanded the average Irishman’s vocabulary of profanities beyond its natural limit; with the result that today the Australian sportsmen descended from them are able to defeat English teams simply by swearing at them.
    The little boy in Baby Hannah’s has just crept closer, still staring, to try and see what I’m writing down. Fair enough.
    FECK OFF, SON
    That seems to have done the trick.
    I’ve been planning some kind of late-night snack back at the hotel, but as I leave the pub I pass a tiny and dimly lit Chinese restaurant that had escaped my attention earlier. One look in the window, and I’m in. ‘Singapore Noodles,’ says the menu, ‘£5.80.’ Bargain.
    It’s not till the bill comes that I realise that was the takeaway price. Inside, sitting down, they’re £8.50. Add tax,