That first 'official' and 'unofficial' drop of Guinness

IT’S many moons ago since I first tasted a drop of Guinness, writes Tom Gillespie. It was all my grandmother Sarah Fahey's doing.

She enjoyed a bottle of stout in the afternoon but not straight from the bottle. As a youngster I was regularly dispatched to Eddie Cannon’s pub on Market Square to get her weekly supply.

She had a ritual that had to be followed because she preferred the Guinness mulled. To achieve this she put a poker in the Jubilee range we had in our house in Marian Row. It remained there until it was roasting, red hot.

Some of the Guinness was poured into a half-pint glass and the red hot poker was immersed in the liquid, heating it up and I suppose burning off some of the alcohol. She would often give us a sip of it and I remember it had a distinctive, lasting, unpleasant taste.

My father, Dick, also enjoyed a bottle of Guinness at home, particularly around Christmas time.

Eventually this resulted in an accumulation of stout bottles in our back shed.

But being a young entrepreneur, I found a novel way of disposing of them and earning a few bob in the process.

There was no recycling in those days but I discovered from my uncle, Denny Fahey, that Luke McHugh, who had just opened the Welcome Inn Hotel with his brother Tom, was paying a half-penny for every stout bottle returned to him which in turn were eventually returned to the Guinness Brewery in Dublin.

Prior to building the hotel the premises was run as a pub by Hobans and was known as Norrie's.

Denny, a blacksmith, lived up the road from the Welcome Inn Hotel. One day he brought me to meet Luke, a gentleman, who gave me a half a crown and agreed to take the bottles.

The bottles in the shed were mouldy and dust-ridden so they had to be cleaned before they were delivered to Luke. This was a messy job and usually ended with my clothes wet through.

Then the sparkling bottles were put in a sack and, with the help of a few neighbouring lads, carried to the Welcome Inn Hotel where Luke counted the bottles and paid us a few bob, which more often than not was used to enjoy the matinees in the old County Cinema on Spencer Street.

 

POPULAR

At Christmas time my parents always had a bottle of red and white wine on the dinner table on December 25. It was not a very popular drink in those days. Yet before wine became popular we were ahead of the posse.

We were always given a taste and I suppose this prevented us from experimenting with alcohol behind our parents' backs. I preferred the taste of the white wine over the red, though my preference today is the other way round.

It was important that we retained the wine corks. These would be used as floats for fishing and also for holding artificial flies.

It was important that when opening the wine you did not insert the opener all the way through the cork. It was a delicate job and with great care the cork was removed in one piece.

The wine bottles - two a year - again were not recycled. There was very little use for them but as youngsters we regularly constructed huts and the bottles were ideal candle-holders for when we occupied them after dark.

There was very little emphases then on health and safety and thankfully we escaped without burning ourselves or any of the huts down.

 

OFFICIAL

My first ‘official’ Guinness tasting in a pub took place on a Sunday afternoon in the old tap room in Johnny McHale’s pub on Lower Chapel Street.

After dinner, along with my father and Pat Jordan, the sacristan at the Church of the Holy Rosary, Castlebar, and his son, Liam, we went on a walk out Rathbawn returning to town via Sion Hill, which landed us right in front of McHale’s.

Then, sitting before a roasting fire, both Liam and I were rewarded with a glass of Guinness each. To this day I still frequent Johnny McHale’s on a Sunday. Though much has changed with the premises, the fireplace is still there blazing away.

Later, when we were old enough to attend the hops in the town hall, but not quite 18, we would have one or two pints of Smithwick’s in Frank McNamara’s pub on Linenhall Street, later to become Country Fresh.

Frank was a wise publican and insisted we paid for the pint before he pulled it. This in turn gave us false courage when we finally got to the town hall, though a call of nature often interrupted our ‘dancing’.

Later again, when I was of legal age to purchase alcohol, the Welcome Inn was a favourite and very popular haunt. By then Luke was doing a thriving business, and he had a very successful method of clearing the house at closing time.

In the depths of winter he would open all the doors and let the the cold air gush in, which quickly dispersed any lingering customers.

I remember Carlsberg Special was all the go in the late 1960s and it had some kick.

A group of us went to Castlerea one night and one bottle of that hoosh was enough for any of us. But we were young and fearless, or so we thought.