| Rathfrillan Northern Ireland 1998
The Mountains of Mourn are a range towards the border with Eire. There is an old Irish saying that if you can see the Mountains of Mourn it is about to rain, and if you cannot it is raining already. They tower in the distance behind the town of Rathfrillan where we were headed for no other reason other than the fact that the pub there supposedly served the best Guinness in the region, or so Richie claimed. So to the rolling of the eyes of his relatives we all set off on a drive through the Irish countryside to sample some stout.
As we approached Rathfrillan we could appreciate the real reason for our visit. The town is an over the top cliché of Britishness. The town is decked out in enough Union Jacks and red, white and blue streamers to make even Tim Brooke-Taylor wince. On the walls were painted murals full of the catch phrase propaganda, some new and some clearly dating back decades. The local proddies were clearly marking their territory here with streamers and flags rather than piss, but the intent to intimidate seemed the same.
As we entered the pub all conversation seemed to stop as eyes turned to us suspiciously. Until, that is, we opened our mouths to order a round, when suddenly the frowns turned to smiles. Apparently they don’t get many Aussie tourists through Rathfrillan and we were definitely a novelty as a steady stream of patrons paused for a chat as they ordered from the bar. I ended up being bailed up by an old drunk who seemed fascinated by grocery prices in Australia especially for meat.
“How much for a steak? How much for a pound of mince? How much for sausages? ….”
It went on and on until the barmaid mercifully intervened telling him politely to give it a rest. She whispered to me later that he was the town eccentric who was quite rich and owned a number of properties but spent most of his time on the grog. As we were leaving he told me proudly of his 20 acre farm out of town. I replied that I too was a farm boy having grown up on a 580 acre farm back in Oz, (actually quite small by Australian standards). He looked at me with wonder.
“Jee-zuss! How many cabbages could I grow on that?”
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