Mayo memories: Reflections on menthol cigarettes, pipe tobacco and Cuban cigars

By Tom Gillespie

I AM not a smoker, but that is not to say that I never tried the terrible weed - smoking a cigarette, cigar or the pipe.

As teenagers we all defied our parents advice and tried tobacco.

Back in the 1960s there was little or no restrictions on the sale of tobacco products.

The County Cinema on Spencer Street, Castlebar, was the ideal venue for a smoke. Back then you could buy loose cigarettes in Golden’s shop across from the cinema.

It was common practice then for shopkeepers to open a box of 10 or 20 cigarettes and sell one, two, three, four or five individual cigarettes to a customer, regardless of age.

I did not like the first smoke I tried. In fact, it was disgusting but peer pressure led me to try it.

However, I did ‘enjoy’ a menthol cigarette and I now wonder how we could even see the screen in the cinema with the cloud of smoke that engulfed the auditorium.

But there was no smoking ban back then and teenage curiosity led us on.

I know the main reason why I did not get hooked on the habit. At home in Marian Row I discovered a pack of Erinmore pipe tobacco in a press in our sitting room which I smuggled out.

Along with a friend we secured a pipe and retreated to a backyard shed with the tobacco and a box of matches to try our hand at pipe smoking.

A bad move, a very bad move.

The tobacco must have been left open in the press for months, which we soon found out.

We filled the pipe with the flaked Erinmore tobacco and lit it with great enthusiasm. We puffed away for a few minutes and then it hit us. Firstly we got as pale as ghosts and then we puked our guts out, thinking our end had come.

It took a few hours before we were anyway right and able to return home without revealing our tobacco fiasco. In my innocence I returned the Erinmore to the press, vowing never to try it again.

However, many years later I reneged on that. By then, in the early 1970s, I was a young reporter with The Connaught Telegraph and one of my duties was to cover proceedings of Castlebar Urban District Council which in those days were held in the district courtoom in the local courthouse.

The verbal exchanges among the nine councillors was intermingled with the clouds of smoke from the pipes, cigars and cigarettes they smoked during what were sometimes heated meetings.

My colleague, Christy Loftus, then with The Mayo News, smoked the pipe in the chamber and I was highly attracted to the whiff of his tobacco - a mix of Clan and Condor Plug. So I had to try it.

I purchased a Patterson pipe, the tobacco and a packet of pipe cleaners, a lighter and, of course, a pen knife for cutting the Condor Plug.

But, I was to be disappointed. With great care I prepared the tobacco mix and tried my first smoke. But I did not get the same pleasant tobacco smell I experienced in the council chamber. Thankfully, I did not inhale the smoke as I retried the experience for a few months.

One evening I lit up in the old newsroom of The Connaught Telegraph. I must not have cleaned the pipe properly that day and I inhaled a mouthful of dross. It was disgusting. I promptly went out onto Cavendish Lane and threw the pipe and all the paraphernalia associated with it over a wall beside the office and they now reside in the foundations of the Permanent TSB Bank. That was the end of my pipe smoking career.

In later years, before the smoking ban came in, I was always opposed to those smoking in the pub around me. The following morning your clothes smelt like an ash-tray and I pitied how the bar staff and hotel workers had to work in such smokey and unhealthy conditions.

Thankfully, that all changed when smoking in the workplace was banned on March 29, 2004, making Ireland the first country in the world to institute an outright ban on smoking in the workplace. Since that date, under the Public Health (Tobacco) Acts, it has been illegal to smoke in all enclosed workplaces. The ban is strictly enforced and includes bars, restaurants, clubs, offices, public buildings, company cars, trucks, taxis and vans.

A private residence is considered a workplace when tradespeople, such as plumbers or electricians, are working there. There is a €3,000 maximum fine on the spot, while a prison sentence can also be given at a later time for violators. The law exempts dwellings, prisons, nursing homes, psychiatric wards, hotel rooms, charitable accommodation and college dorm rooms. Certain buildings such as some hospitals forbid smoking anywhere in the grounds.

Before the 2004 law, smoking was already outlawed in public buildings, hospitals, schools, restaurant kitchens, cinemas, public pharmacies, public hairdressing premises, public banking halls, and on public transport aircraft and buses and some trains.

I was tempted a few years ago while on holiday in Havana to purchase a box of Cuban cigars, which I did - 10 Guantanamera Habanos, handmade, premium cigars containing only one ingredient - cigar tobacco. I have yet to try one, through I have given away seven to friends who smoke, with three (pictured) still remaining in my possession.

I doubt very much that I will ever smoke them but they are a memento of a spectacular yet unusual holiday in the Caribbean island.

Vaping is becoming popular but not with me. I detest the smell of them, particularly when they are used indoors, but that’s a story for another day.