He should have left the mobile on the default Nokia ringtone. Waking up to ‘The Ride of the Valkaries’ thumping furiously in his ear added nothing to the ambiance afforded by his normal Saturday morning “headache”. Rhys Morgan loved lazy Dublin Saturday mornings; as soon as he heard his friend Gerry roar down the phone lazy, like Slim, had just left town.
‘Rhys, listen, I’ve managed to get a couple of tickets for the Welsh game, are you and Moira on for going.’ Gerry always shouted down the phone, he mistrusted the technology and believed that he could overcome its deficiencies by the sheer force of his natural bass tenor voice.
‘You must be bloody well joking me; of course I’m on for it. Where shall we meet? What about Doheny’s, they have a private bus going over to the Northside.’
‘Nah, last time I did that I missed the start of the game. That mortgage broker guy, Paul FitzGerald, is giving me a lift over. We’ll see you both at that pub at the arse end of Ballybough Road; at least the Guinness is drinkable there.’
The high falsetto voices of The Bachelors boomed, “Smile for me my Diane” out of the radio. Moira was making their Saturday morning fry: rashers, black and white puddings, sausages, well the Irish version anyway, tomatoes, eggs and fried bread. He squinted his eyes at the sun light streaming in through the kitchen window, dappling the far wall with slight smoky wavy shadows. Rhys had cut the weeping willow at the back of the garden last year. Moira reckoned that the tree was now a member of The Whalers as it resembled Bob Marley’s Rastafarian hairdo. Said tree, effectively jamming the sun’s partial refraction on the back kitchen wall. He stretched around Moira, gave her a peck on the cheek, got himself a cuppa and said
‘Gerry has just been on, he has a couple of tickets for us. You want to go’
‘Is it Corporate?’ She liked her creature comforts.
‘No it’s just the tickets and a couple of scoops before and after’
‘No, you go on; I’ll come into town after and meet up with you in the Shelbourne. We’ll get an early bird after the match. This lot should keep you going till then’.
He’d decided to get the 15A into town and then walk on up to Croke Park. Like a big kid he took one of the front seats upstairs, he could look out and eyeball any commotion on the streets. The Welsh supporters were always good craic and colourful when they come over. Girls with Daffodil faces, middle aged men done up as multi sequined latter day Elvises, capes akimbo. The Abercynffig Fifteen, for some reason, dressed as sailors, Dragons, daffs, huge leaks. “Bread of Heaven”, “Hymns and Aras” already being sung. Men dressed as big busted women shouting out ‘One, two, three, four listen to the Glynka roar – Ee Aww, Ee Aww’. Falling over laughing or just wide eyed and legless, no one cared, it was carnival. The Welsh had already lost two games, loosing against the Irish would almost be a pleasure, “sure the Irish are just Welshmen who could swim”.
Lowry’s is the last pub on Ballybough Road, a tough dour Dublin Northside pub. Thin Lizzy loudly greets everyone entering the pub:
“As I was going over the Cork and Kerry mountains I met with Captain Farrell and his money he was counting.”
A long dark bar: locals to the right, Welsh in the middle, Southside rugby supporters nervously to the left. The Welsh are happy and in full voice, oblivious to any tensions in the room, the locals are sullen, sunken eyed, and speak in that monosyllabic flat Dublin accent. They are unhappy that their mythic “hallowed ground of Hill 16” had been desecrated by the “Southside fannies”. The Southside fannies, male and female, speak self consciously with light West-Brit D4 accents, or Received Pronunciation in this part of the world. The room is decked out in light and dark blue shades, the Dublin G.A.A. colours; an Irish flag is draped over the unused pool table. The bar smells of stale beer, chips, urine, and cigarettes; the smoking ban doesn’t stretch to this part of town.
Rhys enters the bar in a jaunty mood ‘Pint of plain and a bag of your finest salted nuts please.’ The barman has that slack jaw look of the truly disinterested; he couldn’t even be bothered to grunt. He puts the glass, morosely, under the tap, fills it up three quarters, places it to one side of the tap. The Guinness ritual has started; couple of minutes later, the barman “tops” the pint and hands it over along with Rhys’s change and peanuts. Rhys checks his change and just cannot believe that the same round on the Southside would be another couple of yoyos. He then waits the regulatory five minutes for the pint to settle, takes a mouthful, perfect. He finally looks around and spots Gerry talking with some guy wearing a Leinster rugby shirt. Rhys assumes that the guy must FitzGerald.
‘Tricco will take those fucking Welsh pansies apart.’ Dublin was a village, people’s reputations get around quickly, Rhys had heard about Paul “Fitz”.
‘God’s gift to the Rugby intelligencia of Ireland, I presume” Rhys replied.
‘Yeah you thought yous was brilliant in the seventies well you watch us now , this is going to be our golden age, Shaggy, Rodge, The Bull Hayes are going to be massive. Gerry tells me that you come originally from the Taffy Mountains.’
Rhys decided to ignore this buffoon and get on with the serious matter at hand, pre match drinking. The three of them had managed to commandeer a small corner of the tricoloured covered table. A couple of lads in Celtic shirts, locals, nudge past to get to the toilets. Paul decided that this was fair game and bellowed out,
‘Rhys, you’ve lived here twenty odd years. You know what’s wrong with the Northside, it’s full of: soulless muddy shite coloured badly built corpo houses. Smack heads shouting at their methadone addled bitches. Discarded syringes sticking out amongst the dog shit and crisp packets. Kids in dark hoodies who have pieces. Ex PIRA men, ex CIRA men, Sein Fein men, druggies, knackers, skankers, cultchies and multchies. Oh yea that fucker Ronan Keating as well’.
The group of Southsiders around Gerry and Paul tried to move away. One or two of the Welsh caught some of his rant, and assumed that he was part of the local colour. The two guys in the Celtic shirts knew that he was not part of any local colour, if he was it was pure black, no lightness, no soul. The taller of the two turned around to speak, his mate pulled at his arm, he thought better of it and just carried on to the toilet.
‘For Christ’s sake Paul will you shut the fuck up you’re not in the Horse Shoe Bar now.’ Gerry had finally woken up to the fact that Paul’s mouth was more dangerous than walking into this pub draped in a Union Jack, singing The Sash my Father Wore. After another round of pints Gerry and Rhys managed to steer the conversation onto safer ground, well religion anyway, when a young kid, nine or ten, rushed up to Paul and said
‘Mister, you own the SUV Merc outside.’
‘ Yeah the Silver SLK , what of it.’
‘ I think you better check it out yourself.’
Minutes later Paul was thundering back. ‘Right, which of you bastards did that to my car, come on which of yer.’
‘Paul, my man, what on earth is wrong.’ Rhys was nothing less than sincere.
‘Listen you, you Welsh jumped up nothing, keep your mouth shut while I find out who painted B.R.C. in red and green all over my car. What exactly does B.R.C. stand for anyway, Yer set of hoop loving Northside fookers.’
‘ Eh, Oh, that’s Byddin Rhyddid Cymru.’ Rhys replied sheepishly.
‘It’s Welsh ?’
‘Yes, it’s Welsh for Free Wales Army’
‘You have got to be joking me. You telling me that I’m in the heart of Dublin bandit territory and some Welsh taffy gobshite has painted me car. On match day, with “Free Wales”, you should all be locked up. You are the people who voted to stay with England aren’t you.’ The general hubbub of the bar had died down again. At the back of Welsh contingent a man stands up. He is six foot five or six, muscle bound, twenty stone, a twisted mop of black hair, a blacker beard. He was wearing a split green and red shirt, an old Welsh Irish combined rugby shirt, he was also sporting a black cap that stated “Brains is Good for You”.
‘Fe godwn ni eto. We will rise again. I painted your car. You got any problems with that.’ Paul Fitz’s Irish manhood had been besmirched; he stupidly decided that his only solution would be to have a go at the Welsh man mountain. Fortunately, for Paul, two Garda Siochana had entered the pub and had decided to stop the fun and games.
‘Right, who owns the multi coloured Merc’
‘I do, and it’s this Welsh cretin that painted it. What you gonna do about it’
‘Well Sir, it’s not the writing we’re interested in. Could we just have a few words. Outside Now!’
After the game: Hot dog and hamburger stalls decked with green bunting, women with prams selling chocolate bars “Five For A Euro” vying for trade on both sides of the street leading away from the ground. The carnival was happy but subdued. Rhys tried to put, a bad Welsh game, a bad Irish game, Oh Hell just a bad game behind him and into context. No one died, no one was injured, well only Welsh pride perhaps. Rhys realised that he was getting himself into a depression as black as Paul Fitz’s rant. Then the text came through. ‘At shela? Go now with Mn.‘ Rhys knew that it was from Gerry, yet another piece of technology that was beyond him – predictive texting. Rhys could just about work it out. Gerry was at the Shelbourne Bar, with Moira and would like to meet up, he smiled.
The Shelbourne Bar was the antithesis of Lowry’s. Crystal chandeliers, penguined smiling barmen, leather seats, high tables and bar stools, low tables and sofas, bills presented in leather bound pouches, complementary nuts in silver bowls. The premium tables were those with a view of Stephen’s Green, adjacent to the open turf fire. Moira had arrived early and secured such a table. The three friends were on their second drink when Moira asked,
‘Rhys, what exactly did happen to Paul Fitz?’
‘The two Guards got him, the huge Welsh guy and the two Celtic supporters outside. They persuaded the Welsh guy to pay for a car clean – the paint was only emulsion and looked worse than it really was. The coppers then made Paul apologise to the two Celtic supporters on threat of a drink driving charge. They then forced him to give his ticket to the Welsh guy as a gesture of international good will. Then for good measure they impounded the car and told him to walk home as he was over the limit.’
‘Why did they bother doing any of that, he must have been scarlet with rage’
‘Well, the two coppers were Northsiders, they had interviewed the Welsh guy just after he had emulsioned the Merc. He had told them what Paul Fitz had said about the Northside. He also told them where he was from’
‘Sorry I don’t get it I can understand the reaction of two Northside Guards but why did the Welshman bother painting the car in the first place’
‘He was from a depressed seaside area himself, Llareggub, and during the seventies Max Boyce had played the Workingmen’s Hall there. He, Max that is, had a long shaggy dog story about painting an arrogant Englishman’s car. When the Englishman comes back into the pub, livid, the reaction to the question “So what’s wrong with me painting your car” the timid Anglo response, to Welsh superiority, is supposed to be “No problem, it’s drying nicely”. The two coppers thought that this would be a fitting comedown for the likes of Paul Fitz. Unfortunately he didn’t supply the “pat” reply. The rest, as they say, is ….’
