FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
A funny thing happened during our Arts Festival gone by. Actually I don’t know if funny is the correct word but read on and you can decide for yourself. I am coming from a festival event, it’s maybe 11.20 pm and I’m thinking I might fancy a drink. It’s late in the night and what with closing time being 11.30 pm, more or less, I’m wondering if it’s worth my while popping in for a pint. Anyway, I am passing a bar in Irishtown, there’s a member of staff, a young man, maybe 19 (had to be o18, right?) sweeping the pavement outside.
“Excuse me.” I say, “do you work here could you tell me if there’s bar extension because of fhe festival?”
“A what?” says the young man. “A bar extension” I repeat, somewhat puzzled and perplexed by his reply. “What’s a bar extension?’ he asks me in all sincerity. I swear. Not a word of a lie. And that’s when I laughed. ‘You do work here?” I said. ‘I do.’ ‘And you don’t know what a bar extension is?”
’”No, what is it?”
And now I don’t know whether to laugh or cry as I looked at this kid in a state of total, and utter, disbelief. I also figured out, quite quickly (I can be very sharp at times), that there was no bar extension in this particular licensed premises that night). And this I’m thinking tops my encounter, some months back, with the ‘kid’ working in the supermarket (which I wrote about previously) who, when I asked him where I might find white pepper, replied: “What’s white pepper?’ He was only aware of black pepper! Wonder if he knows what a bar extension is?
Back to my young man sweeping up outside the pub, I quietly explained to him what a bar extension was and how he would know all about it in time to come and know all about the unofficial ‘bar extension’, the ‘late one’, the ‘lock in.’ And sauntered home.
Staying with drink here’s an interesting case. In the 13th Century in Norway it was possible for good, practicing Catholics to have their children baptised in beer! Why? Because of a water shortage. The Pope, however, was far from impressed, in fact he was not impressed at all. At all. In the Catholic Church baptism is the first sacrament and if it is not performed correctly (the priest must use water in the service) one cannot receive any other sacraments.
And so, Pope Gregory 1X (1227-41) dropped those concerned a line: “We have learned that it sometimes happens that, because of the scarcity of water from of your lands but in , evangelical doctrine it is necessary to be reborn from water and the Holy Spirit (John 3.5) They are not to be considered rightly baptised who are baptised in beer.”
It occurs to me that there’s a water shortage in Kilkenny at the moment – wonder if any of our clergy considered dousing an infant’s head in a drop of Smithwicks? Which reminds me – the monks of St Francis’s Abbey (the home of Smithwicks) had a daily allowance of, wait for it, six pints of beer, because the water was too dangerous to drink. Which would explain why the good monks got up at the crack of dawn – to pray, of course, but also to pee!
******
It was six in the morning when the phone rang in the reception desk of the hotel. The night porter picked it up to hear a slurred voice say: “Excoosh me, my fren, but…hic…what time dush the bar open?” The porter replied: “It doesn’t open till 10, sir, but by the sound of your condition you won’t be allowed in”.
“Allowed in”, roared the drunk, “I’ve been waiting all night to get out!”
