Roche's Bar

Duncannon, Co. Wexford

Hindsight, as my father is apt to say, is a pain in the arse.

The pitfalls, the wrong turns taken, all obscure when first treading the paths, are laid mercilessly bare in the rear view mirror.  And a fat lot of good it does us to see them in retrospect because, of course, the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

Asking the toughest boy on the yard to kind your lunch money is a great idea.  Right up to the point he realises that there's very little to prevent it becoming his lunch money.  School boy error?  Yet it's found repeated over and over down through history.  For example, the withdrawal of Roman power from Britain left a massive power vacuum.  The native Briton, fearing attack from the Scoti up North and us mad shower across the sea, invited in bands of Angles and Saxons, the playground bullies of the Northern continent, as protection.  Not a great idea, it turns out.  They liked it, they stayed, and the Celtic Britons didn't get much of a look in thereafter.

But why learn from history when we could just repeat it.  When Diarmuid Mac Murrough lost his Leinster kingship, he cast about for a mercenary military force that might be interested in retribution and a bit of recreational violence.  'Sure what harm?' he might have asked himself as he watched Richard Le Gros land his Norman troops in Bannow Bay.  'Sure what could go wrong?'

Hook Lighthouse - it's quite lovely, you know

The Hook Penisula, bounded by Bannow Bay on one side and the broad estuary of the River Suir on the other, has a history inextricably entwined with these invasions.  From Le Gros' march on Waterford from Bannow to Richard II's landing at Passage to the departures of a defeated James and the victorious William from Duncannon Fort following the Battle of the Boyne, Hook Lighthouse (the oldest operational lighthouse in the world) has looked down upon the comings and goings of conquest and beamed out its steady pulse of warning.  Its proximity to our nearest neighbour and the Suir's utility in accessing Waterford City as well as the Nore and Barrow river systems, made this prime real estate in the early years of Norman annexation.  In 1172, Henry II granted large tranches of the peninsula to the Knights Templar, they beloved of Dan Browne fans and Illuminati conspiracy theorists the world over and, not incidentally, founded on that basic flawed premise of asking the tough kid to mind your lunch money.  There remains little physical trace of their stewardship, a lichened gravestone in Templetown bearing their sigil of sword and Agnes Dei, but the whole peninsula remains suffused in a feeling of otherwhere, of not quite Ireland.  The area has a quiet beauty, a still timelessness than belies the ceaseless sweep of weather in the skies above from yonder to elsewhere.

We were making a day of it - the ferry from Passage elevating day-trip to adventure - ducking the weather to dig for treasure at Dollar Bay, finding shelter and scones at Hook Lighthouse, and were thoroughly famished by the time we were driving back through Duncannon.  Finding a parking spot right at the beach, we chanced up around the corner to see what grub might be on the go of a Sunday evening.

Duncannon Strand - looking out by Hook or by Crooke

Roche's Bar is not 50 paces from the strand, and with the weather closing in, we were delighted to get Sprog Mór and Sprog Óg before the heavens opened.  It's a sprawling complex, the bar stretching over four mini-levels as the building climbs to follow the contour of the road outside, with a dedicated restaurant , Sqigl, under the same ownership also attached.  Areas have clearly been knocked through and built on as the business extended.  Crucially, however, great intelligence and sympathy has been brought to those expansions,  and what could have been a vast, open-spaced superpub has been designed and divided to make small, intimate pockets of space allowing a range of proper pub functions to be discharged.  The lowest section, clearly the original bar, is a top quality local watering hole - concrete floor, well worn bar stools and a really fantastic set of old pub shelves behind the bar still being put to full use.  It was well populated this Sunday evening by a good crew of heads who'd watched the hurling (feckin' Cats again...) and were planning the excuses they'd tell their wives for staying out to watch McIlroy win the golf.  Beyond that, a small alcove with a big telly - much coveted for the rugby and soccer, I'd say - and above again, the space opened generously to give a more airy and welcoming feel for the healthy flow of customers coming in for a bite to eat.  Wander a bit more widely and you'll find a well laid-out smoking area if you're fond of the old death-sticks and a nicely contained games area with dartboard and pool table.  More unusually, and as it played out, more usefully, there's a baby changing unit in the Ladies' jax (oh, you may not care now....).  In a trade where all too often people throw money at the walls in the hope that something will stick, it's great to see thought and taste brought to bear in the design of a pub.

There are more questions than answers here....

The Sandwich:

It's fair to say that the staff started racking up the brownie points early doors.  Not every pub is accommodating of a harassed-looking couple dragging a two-year-old and a toddler out of the rain.  The staff at Roche's got us seated, Wi-fi password supplied to unleash Peppa Pig on the eldest and a glass of cordial in his facehole before ever he hit upon the idea of kicking off.  But they were only getting warmed up.  On perusing the menu, I noticed to my chagrin that the toasted special didn't feature, even though I'd copped it advertised outside.  "Oh, it's not on the Sunday menu," quoth the waitress, "but don't worry - I'm sure we can sort you out."  Well played, young lady, well played!

Behold the Ham!

A toasted special duly arrived, and I wasn't to be disappointed.  There were turns of phrase here that mark out the 'pure daycent' (as they'd say in Cork) from the 'quare bad' (as the locals below in the bar would have it).  The ham was real ham, thick slices, hand carved and I suspect cooked in house.  The tomatoes had been upgraded to plum tomatoes (sourced locally), pleasantly ripe and sweet, the onions a fine chop of red onion, a personal preference.  The toasting was very nicely pitched; nicely griddled exterior, good element of compression to the sandwich, the crunch of the exterior giving way to the silky liquid finish of the interior.  This is a well considered, well executed outing, ably supported by a nicely dressed salad and a big portion of very more-ish chips.

But I'm afraid there's a but.  The sandwich was priced at €8.50, which makes it the most expensive toasted special I've road-tested to date.  And we're not on Grafton St. here - this is a small, rural Irish village.  I just can't see the input costs that can justify that price-tag for a toasted sandwich.  Which is a pity:  were I to have paid €6 for this sandwich, I'd be raving about it.

On Tap:

Roche's have it well advertised that they're a member of beoir.org, so a good range of Irish craft beers was to be expected, and indeed there was a great selection of bottled beer to be had.  I was a little disappointed to find there was only one draught option, Whyte Gypsy Blonde Weiss Beer [sic], a very serviceable Hefeweissen from Tipperary, not overly gassy and with a very agreeable citrus finish.  All the regulars were here as well, and I'd be confident that a pub as professional as this will present them all in fairly good order.

On the Stereo:

We're talking middle-of-the-road indie jangliness here - Snow Patrol, Paolo Nuitini, et al.  It's like wearing clean Converse:  you're just about in with the cool gang, but you're not going offend anyone either.  To be fair, the music was only pitched as background noise as it was a pretty big sporting weekend, and that's what most of the punters were in for.

The Verdict:

There's a difference between passion and acumen.  Passion is rule of the heart, decisions made with strong feeling, flashes of genius walking the tightrope of catastrophe.  The results can be wonderful or awful.  Acumen is more cold-blooded and hard-headed.  It makes consistently good decisions, delivers consistently good results.  Acumen can often be excellent, but never inspiring.

Roche's is a very well run pub.  Its staff are friendly and efficient, the design is well thought out and well executed, the food is of a very high standard and very well presented.  There's nothing here to set the heart aflame, but there's a consistently well delivered product that caters very well to the markets it's serving.  And perhaps when you're escaping the rain with your famished family, it's best to let the head rule the heart.