Intelligent inebriation (Dublin)
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
Leaving the high street and stepping into a great period piece pub like the Palace Bar, there’s a sense of time stood still. Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Beehan and Flann O’Brien must have enjoyed the same sensation when they nursed their pints among the hacks in Fleet Street.
The tide of conversation ebbs and flows; groups come and go. Movement, yet rest. A laugh in one corner, a dispute in another. It’s all here: lovers; friends; colleagues; strangers; tolerated drunks. There’s stilted conversation with a visiting boss and the fizzy flirtation of the newly courting.
A television shows Man Utd v Inter Milan with the volume set low, while a fan revolves slowly far above, like a drone surveilling the friendly mob. Wars happen elsewhere and economic woes become abstract; any relationship problems recede as rounds arrive. The foetal familiarity of a welcoming pub keeps a bad world at bay; the only clue to any external environment is the TV’s gentle roar of a football crowd.
Old leather seats are ranged against the back walls, like a doctor’s surgery. A surprising amount of light makes its way to the back, silhouetting ornaments on the semi-partition: a horse and jockey are suspended over a hedge. The next obstacle for this frozen pair would be a hurling stick: not cod, for once.
Contrasting conversations swirl into one generic river of noise that lulls me into a pleasant lassitude. Then a raucous laugh cuts through the bar, jarring me wide awake – the crack of the craic. A gesticulating man on a mobile stands half-hidden by the partition’s opaque glass. His right side casts a large shadow on it, creating a bizarre mismatch with his exposed life-sized left.
Streams of chatter come from the islands of conversation spread across the lounge, pooling around me in a rich reservoir of dialogue. Two professors discuss the merits of a certain girl: presumably a pretty protégé. Fighting over teaching rights, perhaps? A serious tourist couple map out their mini-break over Lonely Planet. Endless variations of the same themes: X had a baby, Y passed away, Z’s stressed at work.
All the planet’s a stage, but tonight I’m an observer not a player. Alone in a crowd, the vignettes keep flowing, as I become one with the walls and fade into the Palace’s furniture.