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| Helping a man look on the bright side... |
It's a terrible moment, that moment when a man realises he's a jibber....*
"Lim-er-ick, you're a lay-dee..."
Portlaw, the late 80s. Scór na nÓg, County Championships, Eastern Division. It was the talent competition to separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys. All the fierce intensity of interparochial hatred was condensed into one small space for a short few hours; the pressure-cooker atmosphere alive with the hopes and expectations of a parish, the walls a-sweat from the exhalations and exhortations of participant and spectator alike. Dreams haunted the hallways, waiting to be crushed or realised.
"...your Shannon wahters, tears of joy that flow..."
Every year, we eyed the opposition, hoping for some weakness from which we might forge opportunity. Our set was handy, but bejaysus, whatever they were feeding them fellas from Dunhill, they could fairly drive sparks from the stage, so they could. Our ballad group had potential, but I never thought The Spinning Wheel was the song choice to get us over the line. Trevor was a savage man for the remembering the county colours in the Question Time, but our knowledge of hurlers from the 50s and 60s always let us down.
"the bew-tee that surrounds thee...."
But the male solo singing? Every year, only one entrant. One gangly, awkward streak of a youngfella from some God-forsaken parish on the wrong side of the Comeraghs, shuffling onto the stage. The voice would start from some unholy point deep within the cranium, a voice that sounded how a binbag might sound were it to be rammed into a person's sinus cavity, heated to plasticity and dragged slowly down that unfortunate's nostril with a crochet needle. And every year, the same song; the recriminating, nasal soundtrack of my youth. Every year, I thought, "This is my chance to make the County Finals - I could take this guy." All I had to do was get up there and sing. That was all. Every year I knew I could do it. Every year I bottled it. Jibber.
"...I'll take it with me love where e'er I go."
Well, if Limerick is a lady, the Railway Hotel is probably located someplace around the armpit region. I don't mean that to be unfair either to the city or the establishment - I think almost every bus station in the universe is thus located, and it was thanks to the bus station I found myself on Shannonside. The steep learning curve of owning a '94 Campervan (main lesson - don't own a '94 Campervan) meant that I found myself immobile, in low spirits, and starving of the hunger. The bus station would solve one problem, and I looked to the Railway Hotel across the road to salve the other two.
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| Photocopy sellotaped to tray - Mad Men be damned, this is advertising! |
The Railway Hotel is a stately building, its architectural heritage proudly displayed inside, when it presided over the coaches and carriages making their way down what was then George's Street. Traces of that faded grandeur are to be found here and there, from the graceful arches of the windows to the stained glass they so elegantly frame. But faded it has - there's now more a spit and sawdust feel rather than one of sophistication and poise. The pub section has that curious sense that all hotel bars share of its purpose being more transient than that of your local watering hole. The benches and chairs are of the type that will never achieve comfort, but with which the human posterior has reached some grim accord by dint of prolonged exposure. The carpet is of a variety only ever seen in hotel bars; a colour scheme that even Matisse on acid would have found lurid. But here, the surrounds have weathered in, have mellowed with age, and the Railway Hotel bar now fulfills the role of local to a cast of characters who clearly fall into the category of regulars.
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| Grim Accord |
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| Gentler flourishes remain |
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| Who exactly thinks - "hmm, that carpet's nice..."? |
The Sandwich:
I knew it was going to be good. The Railway Hotel is exactly the type of spot that knows what a good Toasted Special is all about. This is a sandwich designed to save lives and marriages. For a man in íseal brí, as the natives would have it, this was a welcome repast indeed. All the basics here are done well. Two good thick slices of white frame the contents within most pleasingly, the inside still moist, the outside reduced by the heat of the grill to a delicate, almost crumbly texture. There is loads of lovely ham inside, deli-bought or possibly cooked in-house - none of your plastic packet-o-ham here. The cheese was a little scarce, but the well-ripened tomatoes and chunky but mild white onion had sweated together in sweet alchemy, releasing that lovely silky liquid feel that a only a properly good toastie can achieve. The chips pictured were ordered as a side (the chap was hungry) and though a tad underdone, were manna to a man thus deserted by his campervan, and very few remained by the end of the meal. No frills, no messing, no trivia to hide behind - this sandwich knew it had a job to do and, by dad, the job was done!
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| Getting the job done! |
On Tap:
You won't find anything out of the ordinary here, but like with the food, you'll get the staples done well. It felt like a Tuborg evening for me, and I wasn't disappointed - cold, crisp and exactly the stuff to blow a fair wind into my flagging spirits. If the fellas at the counter had any problems with the Guinness, it didn't seem to be affecting their plans to have about seven more.
On the Stereo:
Two separate soundtracks set the tone; the louder more peripheral, the quieter more subtly but deeply ingrained into the pub's fabric. The pub radio was set to a local station, the name of which I couldn't quite catch, and the DJ was playing out of her skin: Basement Jaxx, Dub be Good to me, (Never gonna be) Respectable, and I was pretending to only ironically love it. Meanwhile, humming in the background, but ultimately more pervasive and persuasive, was the real soundtrack of Sky at the Races. There, the 7.40 was being broadcast from Tipperary, Lady O'Malley romping home at a good price of 8-1, and she with plenty in the locker. And here, the gentle hand placed at the small of the back - a gesture and touch that can only appropriately be traded among men when money has been lost on a horse.
The Verdict:
The Railway Hotel achieves a status that eludes many pubs and is as rare as hen's teeth in a hotel bar - it's a good, honest drinking man's pub. The shadows cast by its former more illustrious self grant the space a depth and faded nobility that helps to transcend some of the more anodyne furnishings (if the carpet can, indeed, be described as such). We're I again in the position of having two hours to kill before a departure from the station, I would happily retrace my steps, newspaper under my okster and a smile on my face. I could not say that The Railway Hotel is a destination, but as a port in a storm, with a feed and a pint for under a tenner, a man could weather it well here.
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| And money left in the fist! |
*Local dialect term, referring to one of a cowardly disposition. May also be used as a verb - "to jib out", for example.
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