The demon drink

Jean's Journal with Jean Farrell

2017 was the last year that public houses had to close, in Ireland, on a Good Friday. That is now eight years ago! How time flies!

1985 was the year that Athlone railway station moved across the bridge to the Leinster side of town.

I’m sure that many of you remember the old bar that was in the old station. It was a lovely building and I have reason to think of it now, in Holy Week.

This bar was one of the very few places in town where one could buy a drink on Good Friday. However, there was a snag. One had to be a ‘bone fide’ passenger in order to do so.

A reader told me that some men used to walk to the railway station with a big empty suit-case. They’d buy a train ticket to Moate and then adjourn to the railway bar there, for the day.

As each train for Moate left the station, the ‘passenger’ would say to the barmaid, “Oh, I seemed to have missed my train again. Put on another pint there for me, girleen.”

Drink could also be bought in private clubs on Good Fridays. One of the best known, in Athlone, was Georges in Lloyds Lane. This was where members of the AOH met. The Ancient Order of Hibernians was a male-only Irish Catholic organisation. What exactly these males were supposed to be doing in this club was always a puzzle! One thing I know that did go on in Georges was much consumption of alcohol.

In John Broderick’s novel ‘The Field,’ he wrote the following, “On her way to The Friary she meets a man lying on the path, at the corner of Barnett Street, and runs to tell a friar. The friar replies, “’Oh, it’s one of the men out of that god-forsaken club.’” Ellen felt genuine fear at the mention of this drinking, card-playing, billiards and dice club, where fathers of families often disappeared for days on end. The women, who were not allowed cross its threshold, fretted and prayed, muttered and were helpless.’ He was referring to ‘Georges.’

The AOH also had a club in Abbey Lane, in the building where The Thai Restaurant now is. Another private men’s club was The Foresters. Their premises was where Pavarotti’s restaurant is today.

An old neighbour of ours was a member of The Foresters club. The aim of this club was ‘To spread knowledge of forestry and to improve professional standards in the Irish forestry industry.’ Our neighbour had zero interest in trees, his main interest in life was where he could get his next drink.

As young children, we were told by our parents, not to play outside any of these clubs. We knew why. Drunken men came out of them regularly, singing and laughing stupidly.

I’m certain sure that their wives weren’t singing or laughing when they arrived home!

Back to Good Friday. This was a joyless week for us, as children. The terrible suffering that Jesus endured during his crucifixion was described in gruesome detail to us, by the nuns. We heard about each thorn piercing his scalp, about each nail breaking the bones in his hands and feet, about each lash of the whip tearing the skin on his back. And, it was all our fault! I really took this on board as a very innocent child. I firmly believed that it was because I didn’t say my morning prayers, or was disobedient, that Jesus suffered so.

As teenagers Good Friday was also a joyless day for us, because we owned a bar. It was one of the only days of the year that it closed (the other being Christmas Day.) My father’s work force for the BIG cleaning job was his many children.

My sister Ursula and I had to clean the Venetian blinds on the windows in the lounge. The dirt was caked in and needed lots of boiling water to remove it. It was very hard work and we hated it. We swore we’d never ever have Venetians blinds in our houses when we grew up, and we never did!

Sheelagh remembers having to take every ornament, bottle and glass down from every shelf in the bar. She had to clean them all and they were filthy dirty. (Years later when her children asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she always replied, “Nothing I have to lift up and dust under!”)

My brother Greg remembers the following. “My abiding memory of Good Friday is that I got the job of cleaning the ceiling in the bar before painting it. It was covered in a thick layer of brown tar - a material substance of some interest to pharmacology research. I’ve no doubt it could have been a precursor for chemical weapons. This smoke-damage was so thick, and water insoluble, that you’d need many cloths to work your way through the area above the main bar.”

My father’s customers were what I considered to be ‘old’ men. They came in every day and sat for hours over their pints of Guinness, chain smoking. They weren’t the kind who thrived on drama or high emotions. Indeed a few of them spent their whole day between the bookies and the bar. Some were what could be referred to as ‘married bachelors.’

My father opened ‘Coyle’s Corner Bar’ in 1963 and sold it in 1989. It is directly opposite the guards barrack and now known as ‘The Bailey.’ Athlone man, Colin Harris, is running this lovely bar at present and I wish him well.