Ed Galvin is great for coming up with little trips, something off the beaten track, yet accessible. He spots something somewhere and throws out the possibility of a visit, a boy’s day out, even if it’s only for a couple of hours. If circumstances were different, we’d go further than a short trip, as we did last year, taking the train from Killarney to Carrigtohil/ Cobh and back again. Usually the trip will involve tasting a beer along the way, indeed tasting a beer somewhere is usually the focal point of his trips but not the sole reason. A change of circumstance is good for the soul, no matter how content you may feel. The benefit usually isn’t all that obvious till you actually do make the change of scenery, something wise Ed knew but I didn’t.
So it was with the Shanty Bar in Ballyfinnane. Ed and his long-suffering wife Pam, had passed it on numerous occasions on their way to Currans, a village outside the town of Castleisland, where they had friends. You’d only pass it if you took the back route, which of course appealed to Ed. The look of the bar appealed to him too and when I eventually got to see it, I could see why. This February, when he arrived over from Maine for his Spring stay, he suggested we pay a visit. Seemed like a good idea to me, I’d no idea of where he was talking about but such a trip into the unknown could only be fun. Old bars appeal to me, the Guinness always seems to taste better and usually they tend to be quieter spots, good for a chat. After a couple of weeks of talking about it, we settled on a Sunday in early April, why it took us so long I’m not sure, but it had to be a Sunday as its my only full day off. This particular Sunday used to be known as Low Sunday, as it’s the first one after Easter but I was on a bit of a high setting off on my adventure with Ed that evening.
Being the intricate planner Ed had phoned ahead asking about opening times. Not so long ago in Ireland opening times weren’t a consideration, just closing time. Nearly all bars opened at the same time, 10am Monday to Saturday and at Noon on Sundays. The trick was to find a late bar, one that stayed open beyond legal closing at 11pm, so your drinking time wouldn’t be curtailed. Those lovely sounds, the front door being closed while you were still inside, the curtains being pulled, lights turned off, voices lowered and of course, the clink of the pint glass being taken off the shelf, all treats lost with the extended opening hours of today. Because of a downturn in trade most bars don’t open early anymore, at least it’s not guaranteed and so its good practice to call ahead. With the assurance of Sunday opening at 4pm, we arranged to meet there at 5pm that evening. 5pm would give me the chance of getting my family day things done, dog walked, blog written, Freddie cuddled and I even made my dinner so it would be ready for when I got back.
Now Ed had only ever actually spoken of a bar outside of Castlemaine in a place called Ballyfinnane, on a road I’d never taken, but I did know where the road began. Ireland is quite a small place and Castlemaine is a town of only four streets so knowing were the road began is half the battle. Added to that I’m quite good at finding places once I know where to begin. That Sunday afternoon I set off along the road from Tralee to Castlemaine, giving myself plenty of time, not wanting to be late for the man. Arriving in Castlemaine I took the turning off to the left as told and started my lookout for this Shanty Bar. As Ed has written before, every bar in Ireland has at least two names, its actual name over the door and its nickname. My expectation was that maybe the original family name would still be over the door and the Shanty known only to locals. As a result I wasn’t too sure exactly what I was looking for except for the town land of Ballyfinnane. After driving along the road for a couple of miles, I was beginning to doubt my legendary sense of direction. Why hadn’t I looked this place up on Google Maps, maybe gotten directions from Ed, or even gotten the correct name? No bar, no nothing really except the usual Kerry farmland scenery and a few bungalows. There was a lovely looking Church of Ireland chapel on my left, which I made a mental note to visit some day, especially as it had the name of St Carthage, one I had never heard of. Then after maybe five or six miles I came to a cross-roads, a lovely old style one with straight defined roads crisscrossing and no white junction lines saying who had right of way or if you should stop at all. Neither was there a roundabout in the middle of the road nor rounded corners for a better view. No, a good old-fashioned crossroads with buildings on the four corners and one of those old finger signposts telling you where to go. Stopping, to check for traffic, I saw Ed on the other side, parked up in his little silver caar He got out, smiling at me as I crossed over, happy to see me and enthusiastic to get our little visit under way.
We stood on the side of the road looking around at our new surroundings. Even though he’d driven through a few times before, Ed had never stopped to take in the crossroads in full. On our corner was a lovely set of old buildings, looking unoccupied. A long white house with a corrugated iron roof which would once have been a private dwelling, the windows had been boarded up but curtains and flowers had been painted on the boards, in an effort to make it more appealing. Next to this and a further down the road was a taller, green building, constructed entirely of corrugated iron. It looked unoccupied too and may once have been an old forge, grain store or farm supply depot. Across on our left was another corrugated iron building, long, single storied with sash windows, unoccupied and again painted green. Diagonally across was a modern dwelling, bungalow style, off the road with a well-kept front garden, obviously occupied.
Facing us straight across the road and on the opposite corner of the crossroads was the building we’d come to see, The Shanty Bar. With no name over the door either! A narrow building, cottage style, single storied, no more than twenty feet long and with a corrugated roof. The corners were cladded to give a cut stone finish effect and the cladding was painted brown so as to stand out from the off-white painted, plastered walls. The same effect was used around the doorway, to make it seem as if you were going into a stone cottage. No doubt underneath the plasterwork was stone, probably the sandstone used throughout the west ofIreland. The entrance was facing us. We crossed over and Ed opened the little double door to let me in, he’d already been in to take some photos and so wanted me to have a clear first view.
The phrase, “you’re stepping back in time” is used so often when describing older Irish establishments, that it’s become almost meaningless, one to attract tourists. However, for me it really did ring true here, but not 100 years back, just thirty or so. A genuine working bar just like the ones I visited in my youth. As I didn’t want to appear like a tourist visiting a museum, gawking at the locals, I headed straight for an empty seat the bar. Ed took the one beside me. Tall, cushioned, with four metal legs, no back and a footrest, were the bar stools of my youth. However, these ones were of pine, curved tall backs, cushioned seats, clean even, they looked a bit out of place and must have been a newish addition. As I said some regulars were already in. This was their bar, not my little Sunday afternoon curiosity trip so I didn’t really take them in, just nodded hello as we took our seats and left them to their chat.
The bar counter itself was of old greenish Formica over a length of thick pine. The wood was easily seen through the cracks in the Formica and where bits of it had chipped off. A narrow bar, running three quarters the length of our part of the building, fitting neatly into a corner next to the fireplace. There was an armrest running just under the counter and a footrest fitted just above the floor. These extra bits were added by someone who wanted comfortable drinking, someone who knew what they were doing. A two tap Guinness, a single tap harp and a single tap Heineken dispensed the beers. The wall behind was had the optics for the shorts, a grand total of two, one for Jameson and one for Paddy. So it was whiskey or whiskey…
On the shelves that lined the back wall were all the treasures. Old glasses imprinted with different brand names, some long gone, others would have a totally new font by now. Lining the middle shelves were little promotional knickknacks from down the years, pens, old beer mats, and still unopened bottles of older beers. The topmost shelves had clocks, lanterns, jugs, riding tack and old ornaments. There was a poster, which looked the genuine part, advertising JFK’s final rally in Dallas, Texas. An advertising board for Smithwicks from a very old campaign was pinned to one of the shelves, stained from old cigarette smoke and faded from sunlight. The lower shelf had what was in use, bottles of lemonade, or minerals as we used to call them and the mixers, all clean and dust free. Beside all this was a pricelist, I couldn’t read it from where we were sitting but it was probably up-to-date. On the thin pillar where our end of the bar met the wall was an old phone, the type that used to be for extensions, as it had no dial; in its place was the P&T logo. Yellow from cigarette smoke it must have been there 30 years or more. I wondered if it still worked?
The lady behind the bar came over and we ordered two Guinness. She was happy to see us and made some chat whilst pouring our drinks. She took her time over them, leaving the pints settle fully before finishing them off, leaving the finished articles settle again before placing them in front of us. It had been a few months since I’d last had a pint in a bar but it had been even longer since I’d had pints handled with such care. It showed. They were gorgeous, creamy, cold but not freezing pints of heaven. Immediately I was transported back to JJ O’Mahoney’s O’Connell Street Cobh, circa 1984, they were that good. Maybe a bit of exaggeration there, given my time away but they were good. The bar lady stayed chatting for a while before an order from the other end of the counter called her away. Ed asked me if I’d spotted the Christmas decorations…
When I looked around again I suddenly saw the decorations were still up or maybe they never came down. There was a Santa climbing a ladder over the open turf fire, fairy lights were threaded in and around fittings on the walls. A solitary string of blue tinsel was framing a display case, a star was hanging from the middle of the ceiling and a smiling Santa beamed out from the fireplace wall. As the lighting wasn’t great I hadn’t spotted them first time but I imagine when the fire is full on a dark December night they must glitter like a traditional Christmas card.
A door led from behind the bar in a tiny little room
“God knows what goes on there”, Ed said, his eyes open in speculation.
I laughed.
The wall above us, part of a dividing one, had a glass case with a pair of pistols on display. Beside that was a framed two by four display glass case showing the Irish currency notes down the years. Was there a connection between the two I wondered? Two windows let light in from the road, between them was a framed “Our Lady of Fatima” print with an appropriate prayer. It looked old, again well stained from old cigarette and turf smoke was but it was in pride of place in the centre of the wall.
After a while I had to go to the toilet and walked towards the only obvious door in the building. Before I opened the door, a page from the Kerryman newspaper pinned to the wall caught my eye. Not framed but an old page and was about the reopening of the bar in its current form by the then new owners. Curiously enough, it was burnt at the top edges, as if someone had thrown it in the fire before quickly pulling it out upon realising its significance. As they had gone to the trouble of saving it from the fire, they must have decided to then stick it on the wall and there it stayed.
The door said toilets, handwritten in black marker. Inside was a little corridor, which led to three more doors. Two had handwritten signs on them, one read ‘Private’, the other ‘Ladies’, I went through the one without a sign, luckily my hunch was right. Inside the typical bare plastered walls was a sight never seen before in my forty-five years. There were two stalls as normal, but on the left was a bath, sticking out across the floor, with the tap end flush against the wall. The bath was divided in two by a sheet of green corrugated iron nailed to two wooden posts. A truly unique urinal and worth the visit alone. Back outside I told Ed he’d have to pay a visit, not telling him why but that he wouldn’t be disappointed. The look in his eyes when he came back out told it all.
Ed, on his way back from the bathroom, stopped to talk to some locals who had taken up residence at our end. They gave him a brief history of the bar, of how little had changed and how there had always been a bar on the spot. The buildings on the crossroads were old shops as we guessed but empty now for a while. Ed took a few more photos as the men with obvious pride showed him other corners and walls. As we were both driving, we couldn’t have more than one pint so we probably stayed no more than a half-hour. We both wished it could have been longer, I certainly could have sunk more of those creamy pints but I’m not that young a man anymore. We said our goodbyes, the bar turned to answer us and we left.
Outside I spotted what looked like the top of a rail track, level with the road. Ed, knowing his tracks, identified it as a piece of Bullhead rail but what it was doing hammered into the ground outside the Shanty Bar we’ll never know.
We crossed to our cars, delighted with the success of our trip. Ed put the camera in the back after taking a few more outside shots. From the look of the crossroads, I guessed that maybe I could take a different route home, the turning to the right; at least it was in the general direction of Tralee unlike the road I’d arrived on. We went our separate ways, Ed back to Minard, me to Tralee. As I turned to the right I saw on the road beside the corner of the bar an old oil barrel with a pair of upturned legs sticking out of it, in oilskins and old wellies…
The perfect decoration for the outside of our newfound local, no flower boxes here…