Great Crawls Of Pubs Legendary days out with the CSMAU! Reviewd by Charlie McCarthy, the man to blame

Map The Barrack Street Mile 29th December 2002 It all began (like any other mad adventure) with a plan that was "just crazy enough to work". As is customary in and around the Christmas festivities, a pub crawl plan was conceived with the intention of visiting every single pub on Barrack Street. It was, in short, a paper-thin excuse for spending a whole day getting completely wasted. The starting participants were myself, Il Presidente Fin, Fionn and Steve. We were joined for the later stages of the route by Conor "the Bass" MacCarthy, Praic Casey, Eoghan "The Schmell" Kelly, Angeline Horgan and Brendan Townsend. I should briefly explain the two rules associated with this crawl. There was a 10 minute rule: as soon as someone finishes a drink the rest of the group have 10 mins to finish theirs and proceed to the next pub. Also we were equipped with notebooks, pencils and sharpeners. If someone called a "sharpener call", the last person to hold their sharpener up in the air had to be the first person to enter the next drinking establishment. Sounds like a silly rule but that can be really dodgy on Barrack Street!!! Pub 1: Annie Macs 1333 hours The plan all round was to have half pints in most of the bars so that we could last the day but on entering this bar one could not help but notice three distinct things: 1: Everyone (all over 50) was drinking pints with a wee drop on the side 2: All those pints were no doubt Beamish and all the drops Jameson 3: There were no women! On this basis alone we decided to abandon the order for glasses and proceed straight to pints. The official commencement prost was had at 13:33 to the satisfaction of all involved. All finished and moved onto the next pub. Pub 2: Cissy Youngs Had halves in this one as is seemed a more hospitable place. On inspection of our list of pubs, the barman informed us of other pubs along the crawl which were no longer open. He also solved the dispute about the spelling of pairor/pareor, the answer of course was s.h.a.r.p.e.n.e.r. He seemed all to willing to help us with all our little problems, however, if you have a problem and no-one else can help you, and if you can find them, then I suggest you call The A-Team. Pub 3: Moks A great pub, full of local banter and seasonal cheer. A few quotes of the day came from here: "Ill say nothing and keep saying it", courtesy of Noel the random punter in the corner. Also "Internet, what de feck is that?". A truer word was never said. Paraic and Conor joined us sober men in this pub, but proceeded to catch up with admirable speed. We enjoyed our pints and left to the idle chant of "You'll never make it past the traffic lights". Little did the barman know that we were musicians.......... Pub 4: The Sportsman Picture the wild wild west of the new frontier of America, circa 1800. Now picture tumbleweed blowing through it at a pace akin to a turtle wading flipper deep through a mile of peanut butter. This was similar to the scene as we walked in the door of this un-aptly named establishment. It would have been topped off perfectly had there been a pianist dressed in cowboy regale in the corner who stopped playing the piano as we entered. We had our drinks in silence, had trademark "stealth", prost, and left. Pub 5: Southside This was a textbook local boozer, all except for the mini red-light district in the back corner complete with jewel encrusted sparkly curtains and harem style cushions. Good banter was had all round with the barman and the few locals that were there. We had our drinks and compulsory taytos and proceeded onto the next establishment on our trail. Pub 6: The Gallows Bigger than it appears from the outside! A totally sports (soccer to be specific) orientated pub. Team kits worn by all and kids with a football outside reconstructing the goals of the day to top it all. The most notable feature of this pub (as sketched by Praic) had to be the ceiling mounted, surgically enhanced, tungsten powered, iron nippled, breast like lights. It was also discovered in this pub that "Cindy Crawford, she drinks murphy's y'know" as quoted by Praic. All we wanted to know was where!!! Pints (halves by most) were had again and we were off. Pub 7: D. Bradleys Firstly I should mention that there were no windows on this pub and that there were no ladies present, probably due to the fact that there were no ladies toilets either. Contrary to all the evidence at hand this was not a gay bar. With a price list which Êhas figures un-changed since the Euro, a beamish still costs 2.15. Twas in this pub that Conor spilt beamish on his trousers, but cunningly enough, spilt beamish is the same colour as his trousers. A prost was had as a result, immediately after which Brendan and Angeline arrived and Brendan called a prost WITHOUT a drink and was accordingly red carded on arrival. Also in this pub Conor defined what a straight line was exactly: "A straight line, a line without corners". Ê Pub 8: The Quinn Ryan What a find!! Not only did it outdo the last pub with its lack of windows and ladies but it also was severely lacking a till. The barman made do with a shelf of cash and Êa drawer of coins. Guinness was 2.30 a pint. They call this place the pound shop of Barrack Street. Conor ordered a glass of murphs and a glass of beamish, they were served back to him with straws in. A touch of class from the barman. At this stage we were well locked which might explain why we selotaped a sharpener to Fins head (see gallery for photo) and tried in vain to say the alphabet backwards. We also came up with the theory (which made perfect sense at the time) that time is everywhere except Poland. Pub 9: Lynches From this point onwards my memory of events is somewhat cloudy, to say the least. All I can seem to recall (from my notes) is: Pint, football, kids, arse. Says it all I suppose. Pub 10: The Wolfhound Eoghan "The Schmell" Kelly arrived in this pub for a pint between panto's. Again very vague memories about the events which occurred in this pub. This most I can get out of the notebooks is the following: Cool place, dead on barman, nice bar stool, clinically clean bathroom, beers beers beers: Paraic Numbers taken for talking during Prost; Bren 01, Paraic 03, Ange 69: Fin My pencil is cool, I forgot what i was going to write but it was going to be good..............real good: Conor Fionn first in, we let him sweat out the 10 second rule. Bren drinking same Dutch Êshit as usual: Angeline Fin you'd make a terrible woman, a terrible woman: Charlie Pub 11: Nancy Spains I have a note personally signed from the barman in this pub. It reads (from left to right) "DONT COME BACK!!!". Ah well. I do remember looking for Fionn in this pub and getting as far as the telly and stopping for half an hour as the Simpsons was on. Eventually Fionn found us. Conor found out that if you scream loud enough youll get a gig in Nancys, in fact I think we are booked for some time in February??? It was also in this pub that we all came to realise what a monumental achievement Fionn was attempting to do. He was on pints from the beginning (apart from one glass in the second pub) and he also told us about the breakfast he had that day: 8 sausages, 8 puddings 6 rashers......... it goes on, basically he ate half a pig. Legend. Conor lost his sharpener in this pub. Note to self: check Fionns pockets for all the missing sharpeners! Pub 12: Barrys Ê Barrys must be a sneaky abbreviation of BARRED as we didnt even get in the door. In retrospect I think its because on crossing the road from Nancys we did find it necessary to "lark around" in a drunken manner on the road for a while. Pub 13: the Gateway Paraics description (picture and all in the notebook) best describes this place: Nice homely pub, warm, Donavan playing, female bar person in charge. No-one is really sure what happened here, but we have a picture of the group accompanied by a punter that nobody remembers. Apparently he was drinking with us for the whole time, chatting away with us. No clue at all. Pub 14: The Brown Derby By this stage I and, I strongly suspect, all the others were completely locked. Again memories are hazy of what exactly happened here but according to the notes this pub heralded the arrival of Daire, Sarah, Jean and Dave. We did have a man down in this bar. Steve got I.D'd, refused and barred and had to be taken home by his kind sister Jean. Apparently they were half way home and as soon as Steve realised where he was going he sped off into the distance leaving jean all on her own, so she had to come back to the bar. Fin duly dealt him a yellow card pending on his return. Other than that all I can piece together from the notes is that the bar woman was called Collette and was nice to Paraic. Pub 15: The Enterprise There are several references (and a few pictures) detailing the two big fish tanks at the rear of this pub. For some reason we were all (served!!) convinced that this place was a Chinese takeaway, and felt like being under water. Fin did comment on the "Good Fung Shui fish", and "Comfy stools, I feel like I'm on the Titanic, or the Inish Fallan". It would of course help if I could remember any of this, my only note to myself in my notebook is "21:48 Fionn the sleepy". Pub 16: Fordes We did it. Every pub in Barrack Street. Grace and Mervyn arrived in this pub (again working on pure speculation and notebook technology). Conor met some Iranian dude Jamel Salga and made him write out everybodys name in Arabic. Again Praic made friends with the barman, Frank Cassells, who judging by his autograph was either after 500 cups of coffee and had the shakes or was scared shitless of the lot of us. Two very random things happened in this bar. Firstly, El President Finbarro Townsend, at 1055pm. uttered the words "I dont want any more drink". Now, this statement must have had some influence on Fionn, who also did not want any more beer, but as not to offend us all by leaving he decided on a plan of escape out the back door and told nobody about it. If you know fords you will know how high the fence is around the car park out the back. Fionn was half way over this fence when he realised that any attempt to continue over this monumental obstruction would result in severe injuries and a bizarre storey for the parents of how it all came to be, so he chose to return to the bar and said nothing until the following day about his great escape. Ê There we have it. All the pubs on the street and only one casualty. Here is a list of the bars which were closed on the day: The Weigh House MacSweeneys The Coach House The Kosy Korner This would have made it 20 pubs. Just as well they were closed, I dont think we all would have made it. After we left Fordes, Conor, Eoghan, Sarah and Charlie went for a Hillbillies munch (nice) and then for lack of anything better to do, proceeded to the Old Oak for even more drink. Memories are hazy and notes are illegible so Ill leave it up to your imaginations how, at 5am, Charlie and Eoghan were still up drinking beer in the Kellys house when Steve came down the stairs for a "drink of water" Prost!! Charlie Mc Carthy 2003 Top       Map

'The A-Z of Cork Pubs' Reviewed by Charlie McCarthy It all started at 11am in the Maylor. Fionn and myself sat down to a pre-crawl pint and (as is always the way) attached pens to notepads with string etc. Circa 12pm the two lads ordered the first round in Aoife Landers. Explained the mission at hand to the barman who wished us luck and who said 'Jayzus lads ye're pure mad. If ye make it, come back here and we'll give you all a round of drinks.' Satisfied with that Fionn and me proceeded to the Brog where similar events occurred, including the promise of more drinks if we completed the crawl. Fairly uneventful visit to the Cranog and a very hasty pint was had in the Doyles scumbaghole. Then onto Elroys (which was closed) so we sped on our way to the Exchange where we enjoyed a nice swift half and had a bit of a ring around to see where the rest of the party were. On to Fordes where we were joined by Eoghan and Frosty (who to make up for being late, started straight on the pints). Then we were four and sauntered off to the Goat broke loose where the barr staff were amazed to hear of our quest and promised us a bottle of champagne if we could complete the task. The gauntlet was laid down. (Personal note: In this pub I was in the process of drinking my Guinness when Fionn turned to me and said 'Charlie, Ive done a fierce stupid thing,' as he produced two BIG cocktails and also those shots that come in little shot glasses with a lid for later. Must come back. End note.) Pints and cocktails were consumed and the shots stored in left pocket for later. The Hairy Lemon was the next watering hole where again the barman was impressed with the quest we had set for ourselves and got us a round of drinks. Nice guy. Then in the following order we perambulated around the city in true alphabetical fashion visiting: the Hairy Lemon, the Iso Bar, Jumpin Jacks, Kennedys and Lebowskis. At this stage we were fairly drunk and numbered something in the region of ten or twelve. Our next port of call was to be the Morgue but as we knocked at the door we noticed that it had been closed for some time and was deep I the reconstruction process so we moved to the Mardyke instead (Which put off our plans a bit as the crawl was pretty much a circle of the city, avoiding all sorts of zigging and zagging about the place). Then off to Nancy Spains, the Office and the Parnell. Then we had Munch time for an hour with the arrangement to meet in the Quad in an hours time. Munch went down well and after the Quad we went to Rosies and then the Thirsty Scholar. The S was to be the Shelbourne but on accout of it being so far away and us being lazy abstards we chose the Thirsty Scholar to be the S designated pub. Then as we were talking to strangers telling them of our route they told us that the next stop UCC bar was closed so we adjourned to the substitute pub: barUmba. Merriment was a-plenty at this stage. It took a while but we then made it to the Vineyard, the Washington Inn, the eXchange (hehe) the Yummi Yukki Club and finished at Fred Zepplins. After a celebratory mosh with the death metal band upstairs, I had a hillbillys burger, Eoghan selotaped a stranger into a phone box and Frosty went back to the Goat and robbed our champagne AND went back to the Lemon to avail of the reward pints there too!! As I sat next to Fionn at just gone midnight, I congratulated us on a job well done, reached into my left pocket and had one final prost to end the night. Needless to say I was a wreck the following day, Conor Mac Carthy was dead to the world and was only capable of the excuse 'I had a dodgy sausage last night mom,' to explain his condition. All in all a thorough success all round. Prost Charlie Top       Map

Pub crawls to date:

Mission Possible: Christmas 1998    Review coming!!

Pub Golf: Christmas 1999     Review coming!!

No. 8 Bus Route: Christmas 2000     Review coming!!

Pub Monopoly:Christmas 2001     Review coming!!