Ireland -- Dublin In Winter Isn't Just For Stout-Hearted

DUBLIN - Sitting at the bar at Neary's on Chatham Street, the middle-aged man wanted to know what the hell I was doing in Ireland at such a God-awful time of year.

It rains. It's cold. It's raw. There's only about eight hours of light each day.

"That," he declared, tapping the bar with a determined index finger, "is what's wrong with ye Americans . . ."

Yanks, he complained, have an outdated, romantic view of Ireland, one informed by old Clancy Brothers albums and coffeetable books. The whole shaggin' island, ye Yanks think, is nothing but rolling fields and sheep and pleasant natives and fun and frolic, 365 days a year.

"You don't understand," I said, interrupting. "I like coming now because there are no Americans here."

The Dubliner seemed stunned. He grabbed his chin with one hand, chagrined at the prospect of a perfectly good argument becoming moot.

"Ah, now," he said finally, wagging a finger at me, "don't you go slaggin' the Yanks. There's nothin wrong with the Yanks, God bless 'em."

True, there is nothing wrong with the Yanks. As long as they keep the tam o'shanters back home. But some Americans insist on dressing and talking so loudly that you'd have to be deaf and blind not to know their country of origin.

When I was a student at Trinity College in Dublin in 1979 and 1980, we had a scam.

Rather than buy air mail stamps for the outrageous fee of 25 pence, which at the time was the equivalent of half a pint, a few of us routinely approached middle-aged American tourists as they wandered around the Trinity campus, looking for the Book of Kells, and asked them to stamp and mail the letter when they got back to the States.

Picking out Americans was not especially difficult. Without overly generalizing, the men looked pregnant and the women shopped at Talbot's.

And if the guy didn't have a gut, he looked like an ex-jock. Plaid pants, fisherman's sweater, maybe a tweed jacket, freshly purchased.

Only once did someone refuse to mail a letter, and that's because I said "Sorry to hear that" when a guy I approached said he was from Iowa.

Dozens of other compatriots were accommodating, and the letters got to their destinations at no cost to me and much faster than had they gone through the Irish post.

This is a roundabout way of saying that, while I love my fellow Americans, I don't necessarily want to be in Ireland with them.

Do you really want to travel 3,000 miles and spend lots of money to listen to some guy slur through "Galway Bay" in the hotel lounge?

Ireland is a small country, and it can accommodate only so many loud, obnoxious American guys.

And so, to get to the point, while the vast majority of Americans, and other tourists, for that matter, flock to Ireland between May and August, this is an unabashed testimonial to the joys of Ireland, especially Dublin, during the dank, dark winter.

From an economic standpoint, you can't pick a better time to go. In January and February, and sometimes into March and April, air fares are rock bottom. Winter hotel rates are much cheaper, and finding a room, sometimes a nightmare in the summer, is easy. Restaurants aren't crowded.

And the atrocious weather and notoriously short days give you every excuse to hit the theater, museums, bookstores and, best of all, pubs.

A recent letter writer criticized some newspaper stories of mine from Northern Ireland as being nothing more than "pub commentary." And if I'm going to be criticized for it, I might as well engage in some pub commentary.

Is there any better place to be in Ireland, especially during the winter, than a pub?

You do not have to drink alcohol to enjoy the great Dublin pub. In fact, there is more alcohol abuse in the average American bar than in a Dublin pub. Part of that is explained by the Irish having far less disposable income than Americans, but the other part is cultural.

The Irish value conversation so much that, even in Dublin, few pubs have TVs. The Irish go to the pub to drink, yes, but more so to talk.

Dublin pubs should not be crawled as much as inhaled. They exude character of which their American counterparts can only dream.

McDaid's of Harry Street, where Brendan Behan thought great thoughts and, unfortunately, accelerated his death at far too early an age, is a great Dublin pub.

One of McDaid's hidden advantages is that you work off your pints climbing two sets of stairs to the jacks (slang for restroom).

In the nook, to the right of the bar and front door, there are paintings of McDaid's more famous patrons - Behan, Kavanagh, Joyce. Recently, I sat there nursing a couple of pints, reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." I looked at Behan's portrait and thought, for some reason, that Malcolm and Brendan would have hit it off.

Stepping into Mulligan's, on Poolbeg Street, is like stepping back 50 years.

The front door sticks, especially after rain. But regulars know enough to tug hard. If a good yank is enough to keep away a bad Yank - that is, a loud, obnoxious, camera-toting, plaid-pants-wearing American who wants to buy the house a round - well, then God bless.

If you're a teetotaler, you'd probably want to avoid Mulligan's. Its soul is immersed in stout, its character drawn like a good pint.

The first thing you'll see at John Mulligan's is the stencil on one of the ceiling beams, explaining that the bar was established in 1782.

The gaslights and the cheesy paint are part of its personality. Very, very Dub. It is easy to spot the newcomer to Mulligan's. They stare, either enthralled or appalled at the surroundings.

The Irish Press offices are right around the corner. "I gut a Press!" says an old newspaper hawker, his northside accent as deeply drawn as the lines on his face, selling afternoon papers as his predecessors have for much of the century.

If you want just to read, go to Toner's on Baggot Street after lunchtime and snag the snug just to the left of the front door.

If you want to argue, go across the street to the snug at the back of the bar at Doheny and Nesbitt's in the late afternoon. David Hanly, who has a show on Irish national radio, is invariably there, ready to disagree with you.

If you're a social climber and want to buy the most expensive pint in Ireland, go to the Shelbourne Hotel's Horseshoe Bar. Nice bar, but just what justifies the price is beyond this Yank.

If you'd like to mingle with Irish college students, go to the Pavillion, a fieldhouse pub that rests next to the impeccably manicured pitch inside the Trinity campus.

It was there, 14 years ago, I bought a pint for a teen-ager in a fledgling band that had just played a midday gig at the Junior Commons Room at Trinity.

His name is Bono, his group is U2, he's made about a zillion dollars since, he wouldn't know me from a hole in the head, and he still owes me, bigtime.

While some are partial to Dublin, there's no reason to avoid the countryside.

True, there's nothing quite like standing above the raging Atlantic at the tip of Donegal in June, when the light lasts until almost 11 p.m. But try standing there, or walk the Cliffs of Moher, or drive through the Burren, in the dead of winter. It is a totally different experience.

Walk into Matt Malloy's pub in Westport, in County Mayo, and the Chieftains flutist who owns the place will probably be there, with a lull in the group's touring.

Or drive down to Doolin in County Clare, stroll into Gus O'Connor's to find Micho Russell with his tin whistle and his mud-caked Wellies, and remember just how great a place this mecca of traditional music was before the tourists found it.

Stand before Michael Collins' grave in Glasnevin Cemetery, as the winter wind howls, and consider what Ireland would be like had he lived.

No matter where you go, the dreary weather and sparse daylight will force you to stop acting like an American and engage in Ireland's national pastime.

Conversation.