There is a well known saying that nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. I’d like to add to that, the presence of an ‘Irish’ bar in any given major city is a certainty too.
But what makes a bar Irish? Serving Guinness on tap? Having a shamrock painted above the entrance? Green walls?
I have experienced great Irish bars abroad, and I have experienced horrible ones. I want to speak about what makes a bar Irish, habits of the Irish abroad, and the fun part; I’ll compare and contrast my experiences in Irish bars below (both good and bad).
My first experience in an Irish bar away from home goes back to beach holidays with my family in South Spain/the Balearic Islands when I was in my childhood. Dad would always scope one out to watch GAA games in (GAA stands for Gaelic Athletic Association, the governing body of Gaelic football and hurling). We’d go, and watch our county, Armagh, play and then return to the hotel. It was a nice experience to break the monotony of laying by a pool – and it helped that Armagh had a competitive team at this stage. These bars tended to be authentic as they were ran by Irish expats who have left rainy Ireland for sunnier surroundings.
Emigrating is an Irish pastime, we’ve done it en masse since the Famine, and continue to do so today (which makes an Irish racist an oxymoron, but that’s a different story). It’s only natural that aspects of our culture travel with those of us who leave Ireland’s green shores for new pastures – and then proceed to birth these Irish pubs everywhere.
But somewhere along the line Irish bars became a method of ‘differentiating’ your bar from another. It’s a marketing ploy for grabbing a quick buck. There are far too many bars with a generic Irish surname above their door and a shamrock/harp logo, pretending to be Irish with nothing Irish about them. Take your pick of the surname they’ll have used too, it’ll likely be Murphy, Malone, O’Connor, O’Shea, Malone or Flanagan. I passed one in Paris near Notre Dame that literally made up an Irish sounding surname: O’Jasons, though I commend their innovation.
When I lived in Walsall in England’s West Midlands I wanted to watch the 2016 hurling final. I was feeling a bit homesick and wanted a taste of home, I was ecstatic to see there was an Irish bar in town. I enquired in Flan O’Brien’s if they’d be playing the hurling to receive the response “what’s hurling?” My heart sank, I was seething afterwards and continue to get irrationally angry when I think about it. Trying to watch the hurling final in England is a bit of a recurring theme, though I had better fortune the following year.
When we were in Prague walking to our apartment we decided that we’d stop for a drink at the next bar we came across to escape the heat, it happened to be an ‘Irish’ bar, it had green walls and a few flags hung up on the walls, that was it. Green walls don’t equate to Irishness. There were good Irish bars in Prague which we visited during our stay; McCaffreys and Irish News both near/on the main square. But this one close to Hlavní Nádraží was a pathetic imitation of the real deal.
My most recent experience in a trash Irish bar was Molly Malone’s in Warsaw. The place was a binfire of an establishment. The embodiment of Bocsa Bruscar. Everything was green, and in addition of being able to buy Guinness and Murphy’s on tap, they had green beer on tap, and worse than that, they also offered green steak. Apparently ingesting copious amounts of green food dye is an Irish tradition akin to the ceilí. The only thing this place was missing was potatoes dyed green. I wish my negative experience ended here, but the toilets were closed “due to refurbishment”. Give this green themed trope a wide berth if you’re ever in Poland’s capital
Now at the other end of the scale, it’s time to get talking about some of the good Irish bars that Europe has to offer.
Uisce Bheatha in Bratislava was perfect. It has hit the nail on the head of what an Irish bar should be. It’s named “whiskey” in Irish, there were no notions of shamrocks galore painted all over the walls, the barman was Irish and has created a hub for the Irish community in Slovakia with a Slovakian GAA club advertised within. Groups inside the bar were craicing away with one another and it felt like the pubs at home.
I was in Manchester visiting a friend in 2017, and wanted to watch the hurling final. He suggested the The Shamrock bar nearby his apartment would be our best bet at catching the game, and it was. The Shamrock was a delightful premises serving Irish roasts and drinks. A few pints of stout with a roast dinner and baileys afterwards was divine. If it wasn’t for the other accents in the bar I’d have thought I was back home. In the time since my visit I have been saddened to discover it has closed.
Before visiting Eindhoven I reached out to a fellow travel blogger for advice about bars to visit/things to do in Eindhoven and she recommended O’Shea’s Irish Pub. I was instantly sold. There was a band playing Irish songs, we got speaking to 2 older Irish expats outside, and any locals we got chatting to told us O’Shea’s was one of the most popular bars in all of Eindhoven. It sells itself as just being good craic without the bullshit and it lives up to it. The band playing when we visited Eindhoven announced that “this next song is an Irish traditional song” and then proceeded to play U2, I got a good chuckle, but we did experience a traditional song when they played Whiskey in the Jar.
It is possible to create a great Irish bar without using tropes, or Irish stereotypes and I have seen these in action in the aforementioned pubs, as well as pubs in Milan, Berlin and Düsseldorf.
This has ended up being more of a rant than nuanced think piece. Bastardised paddywhackery is just cultural appropriation, but there is easily fulfilled criteria for being an appealing Irish pub.
To put it simply, you should:
•Have some Irish staff, or at the very least, have staff that are well versed in Irish culture
•Show Irish sport
•Play Irish music
•Sell Irish products
•Offer something to the local Irish community
•Avoid offensive tropes (such as the Irish car bomb shot)
Sin é.
