46A

Back in the day, the Burlington Hotel was a pretty fashionable address. But times have changed—several times—and now even a visiting academic with a small budget can afford to stay there. The hotel is still stylish and well-maintained, and for my money I could not have asked for more. And as for location, location, location . . . well, it was about a 12-minute walk to anywhere I wanted to go in the heart of Dublin—the National Library, the National Gallery, St. Stephen’s Green, Grafton Street—and also my old stomping grounds of Ranelagh and Rathmines. It’s also on the AirCoach bus line—a direct ride from and to the airport for just 8 Euros each way—and it’s on a couple of regular bus lines as well, the #11 that goes far into the northside and the 46A that goes south. . . .

I took the 46A last night out to meet my old friends Bairbre and Gerry (and their sons Oisín and Eoin) at my old “local” back in 1977-78, Byrne’s Galloping Green pub on the dual carriageway in Stillorgan. Bairbre was one of the first people I met when I came to Dublin as a student in 1977—we’ve almost fallen out of touch a couple of times, and I hadn’t seen her and Gerry since 1998 (in Galloping Green) and had never met their handsome young sons. But seeing them after a dozen years made no big difference—time collapses under the substance of old friendships and we spent a wonderful few hours together. Now if only I could do justice to Gerry’s stories—including several about a friend’s yellow Ford car! Gerry was insistent that his stories were not only “good” but also “true” . . . Hmmm.

Perhaps needless to say, seeing Bairbre and Gerry under the roof of the Galloping Green pub brought back many memories for me, some with literary associations. One of them is Galloping Green’s claim to literary fame as the only pub that barred legendary writer Brian O’Nolan/Flann O’Brien/Myles na Gopaleen from its premises . . . in writing. (Clearly, publican Jerry Byrne, who ran the establishment when I frequented it and who wrote the letter, took serious exception to something!) I believe that incident is recorded either in Anthony Cronin’s biography of his crony, No Laughing Matter, or in Peter Van de Kamp’s illustrated biography of the author of my favorite novel of all time, At Swim-Two-Birds. In fact, as I was riding the bus out to Galloping Green I had yet another memory . . . of my first-ever pint of Guinness, which I enjoyed at Kiely’s of Donnybrook, a well-known pub which happens to be on the 46A bus route. Not long after that experience, in September of 1977, I read for the first time this passage in At Swim-Two-Birds:

We sat in Grogan’s with our faded overcoats finely disarrayed on easy chairs in the mullioned snug. I gave a shilling and two pennies to a civil man who brought us in return two glasses of black porter, imperial pint measure. I adjusted the glasses to the front of each of us and reflected on the solemnity of the occasion. It was my first taste of porter.

The mind may be impaired by alcohol, I mused, but withal it may be pleasantly impaired. Personal experience appeared to me the only satisfactory means to the resolution of my doubts. Knowing it was my first one, I quietly fingered the butt of my glass before I raised it. Lightly I subjected myself to an inward interrogation.

Nature of interrogation: Who are my future cronies, where our mad carousals? . . .

Ah, what oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed . . .

Anyway, there’s a funny story about Kiely’s pub, told by author Benedict Kiely—no relation to the publican, though he lived almost directly across Morehampton Road from the pub for the last couple of decades of his life. Kiely told me this story in person back in 1998, but I think he may have written it somewhere as well. It’s about an American friend who grabbed a cab at the airport and told the driver—vaguely, he thought—“Kiely’s . . . Donnybrook”: when the driver headed off without further details, the American thought that Ben Kiely must have really made a name for himself if even a random cabbie at the airport knew exactly where he lived. The American was dropped off at the pub . . .