As you all know from my last post that all of you read, I am from a small town in Ireland called Clonmel. The main street in Clonmel is called O'Connell street and at the end of this street at 90 degrees there is a street called Gladstone street. The fun fact about our two main streets is that you cannot purchase a litre of milk on these two streets. The even funnier fact is that there is a total of 26 pubs. You can buy plenty Guinness but no milk.
Everyone in Clonmel has their local pub that they go to all the time. Some people go to a number of pubs but the local is where you go to the most. It is where you have the best laugh. Sometimes the local is handed down to you by your father. That is what happened to me. Today I want to talk to you about my local pub. Chawkes. Chawkes is a sporting pub and it is one my father has frequented since the 60's. I grew up in the place. I have grown to love all the people in there and the politics of the pub itself. There are many characters that I will tell you about in a bit. These are the people that make the pub great. Some of these are raving alchies but they are funny none the less.
Here is Chawkes in all it's glory.
Chawkes is owned by Gerry Chawkes. A big man from Limerick that loves his GAA (Gaelic Games) and his horse racing. He has won and lost a fortune throughout his lifetime and whenever he is in the pub (which is most of the time) the atmosphere is more alive and buzzing. Gerry sits at the bar with his "fanclub" that listen to his every word and they basically slag each other off all day. This can get very funny and many pranks are played. Here is a closer look at the inside of the pub.
Chawkes is pretty famous in the locality and it is a great pub for horse racing. Lots of people visiting Coolmore stud come in for a drink including Alex Ferguson & Eddie Jordan a few times.
I've had many a great day and night in this place. The pub is actually falling apart and the furniture is as old as the hills. There is one seat just under the Sunderland kit on the right (His brother was part owner of Sunderland during the Niall Quinn era.). It is know as the electric chair because most of the sockets for the pubs electrics is underneath this chair. Whenever anyone sits there lights flicker and some go off. There has been many instances where a football match was on the TV, someone sat on the electric chair and the TV went off. That person was promptly told to get his/her arse up off the seat and sit somewhere else so the TV would come on again.
The locals make the place. Most are well beyond 65 and are past the point of having a curfew or caring even if they do. Their kids are well grown up so they spend their time down in the pub having a laugh and backing horses because there is not much else to do. Now we are not talking down and outs either . These men have made their money and are enjoying life. One guy is the closest thing to an oil barron that you can get. There are a couple of them I want to talk about .But I will stick with one today. One is called Bernard. Owner of the most successful jewellers in the province. Bernard has his finger on the pulse. Bernard was one of the first to get Pandora into Ireland. Now this guy doesn't look it. He starts his shift in the jewellers at 7am every day and puts in the floats. He opens the store and then leaves the manager to it at around 11am. He goes for his breakfast at 11:30. Has a pint of Guinness to wash it down. Has another one and then leaves. He then proceeds up the road to the next pub and he has 3 more. He then hits Chawkes for 4p.m and he has 3 more and at 6pm sharp he is out the door. Rain wind or snow he does this 6 days a week. On Sunday he just stays in Chawkes the whole day but Bernard gets through 56 pints of Guinness every week. Now Bernard is an absolute character. He would rise the owner Gerry and get an argument going and Gerry would then play some prank on him which would have the whole pub in stitches. Bernard was also an old school man that would eat anything. One day in the pub he asked the barman for some bread as he was hungry. He got a tin of dogfood out from his grocery bag and emptied it on the bread and ate it. People ran but as Bernard put's it , its ONLY meat.
One Easter my mother and sister won a trip to Boston. My father was secretly delighted that the women were going off on holidays because there was plenty of sport to be watched in Chawkes so he had no curfew. He told me, a spritely 20 year old with him as he was "looking after me" and he could blame me for keeping him in the pub if there were any phonecalls from the states.
Bernard arrived in
Pint of Guinness Mr Chawke
Bernard had what looked like a trout in a plastic bag. He has just bought it in the fish mongers down the road and he was bringing it home at 6pm to cook for his dinner. He left it down beside him and sat up on the stool. Bernard went to the toilet and the owner Gerry took the singing " Take me to the River" Billy Bass fish that was on the wall and replaced the trout that was in the plastic bag. He then proceded to dropkick the real trout out the door of the pub. A car came by and knocked the fish into the air. Bye bye fish. Bernard came back and sat back on his stool while the whole pub watched on. It was nearly 6pm. Time to leave.
He took his bag and walked out of the pub. After the door closed behind him Chawke rang the big bell that is beside the bar. The bell is rang on regular occasions when a horse wins or a some team score or just when the craic is good. The whole pub waited for the reaction to Bernard going home finding a fish made of wood in his bag. Bernard is a hothead so we knew he would be back. Meanwhile Chawkes went around and asked us to buy tickets for the Easter Egg Hamper up at the bar. The hamper was huge worth a couple of hundred quid. The door slams open.
WHERE'S MY FUCKING FISH??
Wahey
The pub erupted. Fog steamed up Bernards glasses. He was not happy.
I WANT MY FUCKING FISH
Gerry was laughing and told him that he knew nothing about the fish.Bernard grapped the Easter Egg Hamper. Told out his lighter and took it as a hostage. Meanwhile Chawke was trying to calm him down.
GIVE ME MY FUCKING FISH
He started lighting the plastic around the Easter Egg Hamper.
WHHHOOOOOSSSSSSSSHHHHHH
The hamper lit up fast and the fake hay made the hamper into a fireball. Bernard left the hamper and it fell to the ground. The fireball quickly eased off as the hay burned away. He then started throwing easter eggs all over the pub at people giving out about his fish. Chawke was loving the banter even though his charity hamper was gone. We were all getting fed with chocolate goodness. Everyone fell around the place laughing. Fish puns were flying
YOU MUST BE CODDING
YOU BURNED THE EGG FOR THE HALLIBOT
Chawke sent one of his runners out for a fish and chip and sent Bernard on his way. He rang up the Easter egg company and paid them 200 quid. It was worth it.
A couple of weeks later Bernard brought in a fake dog poo and put it on the ground. Chawke had a little Jack Russell called Toby that would live in the pub. When Chawke saw the poo he thought Toby was the perpretrator and kicked him up the arse. Poor Toby scampered and the whole pub erupted when Chawke went to clean it up and it bounced off the dustpan.
I will talk about wham bam in my next post. An even funnier character.
