Black Gold

An Englishman, Australian and Irishman walk in to a bar. They order three pints of Guinness. The barmen gives them the three pints. Just at that moment three flies land in each of the three glasses.

The Englishman pushes the glass away.

The Australian drinks the Guinness and leaves the fly.

The Irishman picks the fly out of his pint and thumps the fly on the bar yelling “spititout ya bastard, will ya spitit out.!”

It is well known that the Irish are religious and I am not only referring to their devotion to Christianity. It is the local black nectar that defines Ireland. We visited the Guinness factory in Dublin which pumps out 4 million pints per day. I reccon most of it must go to a bloke in Kilkenny who holds the world record for downing 4 pints of the stuff in 7 seconds. Many say that it is an acquired taste. I suppose it is like vegemite to us Ozis. It is either bloody awful or mothers milk and little in between. It also seems that my dad has been moonlighting as the head brewer at Guinness who is a Mr J.A. Carey. Now I know why I like drinking the stuff so much.

(a photo of their two strongest religious building - church and brewery)

Many say that Dublin isn’t a beautiful City and I would have to agree. There is not the great monuments, world class museums or great buildings. Although there is 3,545 pubs. We did walk past the Dublin Post Office which was the site of the Easter uprising in 1916. I did try to unravel the history of this place but it was more complicated than unpicking a knotted fishing line. As far back as 1366 it seems Catholic repression and rebellions was a yearly occurrence. I did discover a little known fact that as well as the Post Office they also took over a brewery, lunatic asylum and bakery. I guess they were planning for a good feed, drink and some rehab afterwards.

The week was over and it was time to return home. You would think that our defining memory of Oierland was rolling green hills, Guinness, pubs, or brightly painted towns – but actually it was housing development. Every town we drove into had large areas of new housing being built. Every road and town had some form of improvement going on. The €184 billion National Development Program is Irelands huge plan to transform the Country and judging by the growth it seems to be working.

But the lasting memory will always be the accent. Most of the time I bought anything that had a three in the cost just so I could hear the shop assistant say “that ill be tirty tree cents tanks”. As we got back on the plane the announcement came over the speaker: “How are youse? Thanks for joinin us and wes hope you enjoyedya stay in Oierland. Tis rainin in England but we alls hope yu enjoys yas flight”.