The Hawthorn Bar

Glengariff, West Cork

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here

What is it to be Irish?  Answers to that question are many, with many of them more closely reasoned, more nuanced and flexible in their approach, showing more academic rigour and dedication to the search for an essential truth than you might expect from a toasted special reviewer.  And you'd be right.  But how's this for a workable definition?

The Irish are the mad hoors that kept heading west.  

Kept heading that way until they ran out of west to head in to.  Fecked off out of Ancient Anatolia declaring whatever is the Sanscrit for "I'm just going over here for a look."  When their travelling brethren put down roots in the verdant plains of France, wondered what lay over that next hill towards the setting sun.  Loosing more of their number to the gentle hills of Southern England, settlers becoming house-bound and husbands, deciding "Yerra, lads, we might as well keep going."  Until they arrived here, the whole mad shower of them*.  Incidentally, this theory operates independent of race, ethnicity, language or culture - if you're mad enough to have gotten this far over, you're welcome aboard!

Are ye alright there lads in the back?

But even the wilds of West Cork and Kerry wouldn't be enough for some of them boyos.  Ireland has a curious tradition of something called 'White Martyrdom', a faith-funneled expression of that westward impulse.  You see, for a medieval type who'd love a good hierarchy in all things, martyrs occupied a tier of heaven just below that of saints - a highly desirable station, even if the journey there tended to be a bit ropey (or stoney, or firey).  But opportunities to be martyred for your faith in Ireland were practically non-existent - when these big noises from Europe arrived in and told the Irish to cop on to themselves with their aul' pagan gods and change their whole worldview quick-smart, the Irish just meekly rolled over and swallowed their medicine (sound depressingly familiar?).  So instead, the Irish zealotry would test their little lives against the waves, heading west when there was hardly any west left to find, from the barren outcrop of the Skelligs on to the voyage of Brendan the Navigator.

Room for one more?

Of course there's every possibility they were running, not towards the arms of an Almighty Creator, but away from some God-forsaken pit of a place on the mainland.   There have been times I've felt like hitching a lift....

The Hawthorn Bar is situated in the preposterously beautiful town of Glengariff in West Cork.  On the approach to the town, Bantry Bay, Brendan's launching point, glistens like beaten silver under a swollen sky, the Beara Peninsula bounding it beyond, the vaulting buttresses of Hungry Hill's bulk protruding from the earth like the ribs of some great slain behemoth.  'Twould be a view to give a man an appetite, after he got done with his mouthful of words.

The warning signs were there from the start, though we had reasons enough to miss them.  Casey's up the road had been heaving, so we journeyed farther.  The Hawthorn, by contrast, was empty - not a sinner - at half one on a Bank Holiday Monday.  Ordinarily, that would be your cue to beat a hasty retreat, but the child's arse had just exploded in spectacular fashion, and it was to be a close run race between Social Services and the UN's weapon inspectors as to who would reach us first if the nappy wasn't changed in a hurry.  By the time that situation was resolved, one partner had been so long sitting in the bar and the other had unleashed such atrocities in the bathroom that we both felt a moral obligation to stay on for lunch.  A stance we both came to regret.

Only one surreptitious snap - I was being closely watched at all times...

The Hawthorn is a mess.  Don't get me wrong - it's not messy, it's scrupulously clean - but it's as if someone had tried to explain the concept and function of a pub to a Japanese macaque through an interpreter who'd just had three teeth removed and was still high on the Novocaine.  The laminated menus (always a worry) were labelled for the Rainbow Restaurant, and had a right old mess of food advertised.  There was a shocking mess of traditional Oirish music aimed at the American deaf community on the stereo and the wall clutter seems to have been designed by Jackson Pollock during his little known 'Irish Charity Shop Bric-a-Brac' phase.  Design by consensus had brutally hacked the space into its perceived different functions and the general decor was an atrocity of pine and varnish.  You'd need to take two paracetamol before you went in there at all.

It's a local pub, for local people...

The customer service was of an equally high standard, having its basis in the League of Gentlemen Local Shop Customer Care Charter.  People arriving in (for some poor souls did venture in after us, and I'm afraid we must bear part of the blame for their ensnarement, having taken the bare look off the place by sitting down) were more accosted than welcomed, less served than hounded, herded then corralled towards the rear of the pub from where they could be intercepted should they dare to attempt an escape.  The bar staff's attempted patter resembled more an interview for a position at the Spanish Inquisition than a pastiche of niceties, weather and social convention, and the addition of thumbscrews and a bright shining light would rather have made things more comfortable.  And God forbid I try to take a few notes for a review - the waiter actually literally tried to look over my shoulder any time I put pen to paper to jot down a few thoughts.  One felt like a wounded impala on the Serengeti, anxiously awaiting the inevitable...

The Sandwich:

Chips were an extra, the pint was the business.

Now, by this point you may have gathered that this is not to be an overly positive review.  But to give the Hawthorn its due, there was nothing terribly wrong with the sandwich served.  At €6.50, I think it was quite pricey for what arrived, but I have paid the same elsewhere.  The ham was of good quality, the bread was nicely toasted (though flat toasted, not Brevilled), the cheese almost though not quite at the optimum oozy temperature.  I was prepared to hate the salad, which looked far too heavily dressed, but the dressing was based on a nice sweet salad dressing and in fact wasn't at all unpleasant (though I remain unconvinced that parsley garnish is necessary on a green salad).  But it all looked a terrible fright:  the sandwich was halved rather than quartered, and looked a bit squished and sad, and the salad appeared to have been abandoned halfway through preparation due to lack of interest.  While I understand that all food must necessarily end up in the gullet, but I'm not sure it ought to look pre-masticated on the plate.

On Tap:
As I said, while the Hawthorn might be a mess, it's not at all messy - it's the type of place you can rely on to have the food cooked through properly and the pipes cleaned with the gas pressure up to scratch on the beer lines.  The pints of the standards (to include Murphy's down this neck of the woods) I saw served looked to be in very good order, and they had one very welcome addition on draught as well; a pint of Blarney Blonde from the Franciscan Well brewery in Cork City.  It's a smashing, clean blonde beer which I'd love to see more widely available, and managed to put some class of a silver lining on an otherwise grim-looking cloud.

On the Stereo:
What would Irish traditional music have to do to a person to make them want to do this to it in revenge?  Whatever muck was on the speakers when we came in was an insult to ears everywhere and an act of cultural vandalism.  The only positive to be drawn is that the bar staff forgot to turn it up as a few bodies filtered in, and it was mercifully drowned out.

The Verdict:
No less an intellectual authority than Dr. Eoin Barrett was once known to leaven some of his less creditable anecdotes with the phrase "with exaggeration, of course."  We all tell stories at times that would benefit from this caveat.  Not on this occasion.  The food was fine, but the experience was every bit as bad as described and worse.  The lyrics of Hotel California ran round and round our heads as we prepared to make an escape, and I ran the awful arithmetic of which organ I was prepared to barter for the freedom of my wife and child (kidney, by the way).  We lived to tell the tale, and to warn others.  If Casey's is full, wait for a table.



*I think this theory still holds in microcosm even within the island itself, with a definite increase in lunacy as one progresses from east to west across the isle.  That's why I always feel compelled to check in my sanity, my passport and my liver every time I cross the Shannon.  In fact, I think it should be in a different colour on the maps....

Pat Shortt's

Castlemartyr, Co. Cork

Yes, that Pat Shortt

The Brother used always struggle a bit when he'd arrive home from that England.  Prolonged exposure to a culture of supportive comments about the lovely restoration job you did on that antique sideboard you spotted at the auction at Little Wigglebottom thins the skin somewhat.  The sharks would circle, smelling blood in the water.  Satire, sarcasm, slagging - it's one of the cornerstones of Irish culture, if any trait so corrosive could be likened to a building material.  By the end of the week, he'd be back into the swing of it though, trading caustic comment for withering witticism like the old hand he truly was.

Satire can be a fickle beast.  It's a House of Mirrors, a series of warped reflections of ourselves.  In these distortions and refractions, we find our hidden faults magnified, our supposed virtues diminished.  These darkly comic likenesses subvert and suspend our own everyday self-image, and we often find in them some uncomfortable truth.  All too often the "prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and his own house" (Matthew 13:57!) - one thinks of RTE turning down Father Ted, Dermot Morgan's coruscating wit on Scrap Saturday having earned him many fans but some few powerful enemies.  But then at times, the gentler satirist finds his most loyal audience among the very community he lampoons.  The D4 set may find themselves the butt of Ross O'Carroll Kelly's joke, but it sends them snickering into their Chianti Reservas rather than into paroxysms of rage - he's in the Irish Times Magazine, for fock's sake!  Pat Shortt has long been our rural equivalent, and throughout his career, from d'Unbelievables to the Jumbo Breakfast Roll Man to Killinaskully, he has held up heightened versions of ourselves for inspection, to show us all how ridiculous it is that we take ourselves so seriously.  If the words "Ye'll know all about it next year when you're under six, lads" mean nothing to you, you've not played nearly enough Junior B Grade hurling.  Something for which to be grateful, perhaps....



Turns out that satire is not all the esteemed Mr. Shortt does well.

East Cork is a part of the world which, if it does blow its own trumpet, is thoroughly drowned out by the cacophony of brass sounded by the west of the county.  It is, in fact, replete with understated gems, from the hidden medieval architecture of Youghal Town to the gentle and fertile coastline from Shanagarry to Inch and on to Aghada and Fota beyond.  I've often ground to a halt in the village of Castlemartyr, one of the few remaining bottlenecks on the Waterford to Cork road, but not before stopped out of choice.  However, the Sprog awoke ravenous in the car-seat (we'd had no time for the fancy breakfasht), and as we had at least two more hours driving to do before giving an ear to the West Cork Coast Brass Band, we pulled in off the main street and made our way back towards the bridge and the traffic lights, and in with us to Pat Shortt's.

Straight away, we knew we were in good hands.  Many pubs are owned by people who don't really know their trade - maybe they inherited and perpetuated mistakes a generation old, not having worked somewhere it was done right.  Maybe they bought on a figary, a Celtic Tiger investment, and threw money at the walls hoping something would stick.  Maybe the owner just isn't talented, doesn't have the eye for it, doesn't think clearly about the functions his space should be designed to discharge.  None of these apply here - whoever set out this pub knows his trade and has a talent for it.

The Snug - a cordial area indeed

The interior of Pat Shortt's is divided into three main areas; a nice snug-like nook to the front, the main body off to one side, separated from the bar area by a partition wall, and additional seating to the rear.  It was at the back we found ourselves, all the other seating being occupied at half two of a Sunday afternoon - a sure sign of a good trade.  A dark and well-aged floorboard was mirrored onto a half-timbered wall up to about 4 feet, with a crisp, pale blue painted finish above.  The space is low-ceilinged and small windowed, but the light levels are very well judged to create an atmosphere that is somehow both cosy and airy rather than oppressive.  The walls are adorned with some superior pub-type bric-a-brac, but also some very pleasant and well curated artwork.  Here and there are nods to the career of the great man himself;  the quadruple platinum discs for the Jumbo Breakfast Roll, an old black-and-white from the early days of d'Unbelievables and (interestingly, the largest piece of memorabilia) the cinema poster from Garage - but these self-references are restrained, an acknowledgement rather than an assertion.  And astonishingly (honestly, I had to check twice), nestled unobtrusively around a corner is the rather unflattering portrait of a former Taoiseach that was once surreptitiously placed, to some considerable controversy, on the walls of the National Gallery.  Gracenotes abound, embellishments added by a master to adorn a well established theme - simple leather place settings, the quality brass plates and lettering on the toilet doors, even the quirky coathooks towards the front of the bar.  Elsewhere these might be dissipated efforts in a pub better advised to focus on the basics;  here they are final finishing flourishes on a well-ordered, fully considered and supremely functional space.  You may have gathered - I liked it.

The Way to Win any Argument

Biffo avec Bogroll

Gracenotes

The Sandwich:
The Toasted Special was not a listed item on the menu (assortment of sandwiches given), but when ordered as such was recognised at once and duly delivered (it was also heard to be ordered with confidence in a more local accent, so clearly is a staple of the kitchen).  For €4.80, somewhat pricey for a humble toastie, it arrived with pretty much a full packet of Hunky Dorys on the side.  Everything here was in good order without anything being outstanding - good bread, decent hint of onion, Ireland's ubiquitous under-ripe tomatoes,  nicely melted cheese and a superior, though still from a packet, I suspect, sliced ham.  If I were to be picky (and it's a review, so why wouldn't I be), the sandwich had spent about 30 seconds too long under the heat, with the result that the outer crust was a little too hard and crunchy.  It was an effective and workmanlike outing, but nothing stellar, the attentions of the kitchen staff being more focused on turning out some other very appetising looking pub-grub.  My eyes (and indeed fingers) were heretically drawn to the missus' plate, whereon lay some of the finest homemade chicken goujons a man ever thieved from his wife's dinner.  It was fare that would fare well under the eye of a critic, but we'll leave that task to some other reviewer with a broader and more prosaic mandate.

Bird Attempts Flight on Half Wing...

On the Stereo:
Superior quality diddlie-ie was the soundtrack to our sandwich on this occasion - not the swill trotted out for the tourists, the real stuff that we keep for ourselves to enjoy in dark spaces with the weather at the window and a fire in the grate.  A good trad female voice gave us a version of Rainy Night in Soho that made my day, despite the fact that I've never actually stepped out of a shower and fell into someone's arms.  Or been in Soho, for that matter.  The glowing hearth in the corner of the main space gave the impression that it wasn't only over the speakers that a man might hear a decent blast of the vernacular musical tradition.

On Tap:
Nothing out of the ordinary to report here.  Being as we were in the People's Republic, one could expect Murphy's to be available, and indeed a pleasant glass of the same was enjoyed with the sandwich.  A few bottles from the 8 Degrees brewery were spotted in the fridge, but otherwise it was the usual fare.  But this is a pub that knows its customers well, and knows its customers to be discerning in these basics, so you can bet that the standards were done to the highest of standards.  I certainly would be happy to return to more comprehensively access the pint were I to be afforded the opportunity to do so.

The Verdict:
It's hardly in doubt.  I was seriously impressed by Pat Shortt's - not the finest toastie reviewed to date, but one of the best pub experiences.  It would have been easy for the Great One to simply trade on his name and rest on his laurels.  But then again, in a small rural community such as Castlemartyr, that would have cut the ice for only so long before wearing thin.  Mr. Shortt knows that constituency well - he has been their dark mirror for decades.  And it would seem that comedy is not the only trade that Pat Shortt knows inside and out - pubs that understand and serve their function and custom as well as this one are rare indeed.  Further evidence, were it needed, was to be found in the simplest and most direct feedback:  the pub was full when we entered, and our seats had no chance to grow cold when we left.  When I say it is not the last time I'll stop in Castlemartyr, I'm not only referring to the traffic.