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....