
Thank God the rugby season has kicked off again. Saturday was a particularly good match between Wasps and Leinster. I was out with Ms Rugger Hugger, chasing the tightly packed supporters in various D4 bars. Despite our best efforts to avoid the older married fans we were like Mecca with breasts for most of them. Luckily I got a text to get my ass over to McSorleys as the team were in residence.
I was a little surprised as my memories of McSorleys were of a nice local for ‘one’ during the week. It was always a stop-off and not a destination pub. Well things have changed. The pub was heaving with people and the music was cracking - a mixture of classic school disco songs and current hits. Chair dancing heaven!
The best way to describe the new incarnation of the bar is ‘Copper Face Jacks’ for South-Siders. At least two thirds of the crowd were Rock boys or Anville girls. Some of the guys looked very puzzled when they heard my “strange” accent and immediately opened a ‘Beyond the Pale’ phrase book and ‘storted’ giving me directions to Harcourt St.
The motto for the night by all present was:
It’s a Session - Not a Recession!
Although the Prozac fuelled bar staff did their best to dispel this myth with incredibly slow service and constant glass shortages. It was worse than the 80’s – at least then you could speed things up by serving your own mixer from a giant bottle of TK.
I did meet one nice, although a little drunk, boy who had the classic opening line of:
“Are you trying to chat me up – I can never tell”, before I had even said a word to him.
Less than 5 minutes later he was trying to convert with a particularly clumsy gob lob. I immediately pulled back and declared.
“It’s far too early”
“What do you mean it’s 2.40am – the night is getting on and so should we”
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly has a lot to answer for……..