Despite the abundance of outlanders, I was often reluctant to open my mouth and give away my otherness. I stepped into a convenience store for some necessary hydration and found myself in a curious scene. A handful of Irish lads were loudly carousing around a ladder that had been abandoned near a tall display of food. One boy climbed up and found, where someone had long-ago thrown it, a very expired package of meat that had inflated its plastic covering. It was now a balloon full of rotten ham, and as the boys loudly paraded their sickening discovery and exchanged with me smiles of victory, I realized they had no idea I was any different from them. But they were blocking the bathroom, so I had to break the camaraderie and reveal myself as an American, which they of course didn’t mind one bit, to get them to hoist their decaying meat prize elsewhere.
Earlier in the weekend, when finding a stool to sit on was still likely, my companions and I settled into Oliver St. John Gogarty’s to alternate between “Gemison” and Dublin’s other renowned export, that dark stout that doesn’t even need name-dropping. In Dublin — at the storehouse where it’s brewed, and everywhere else you can find it — that beverage is creamier and more delicious than what we get here on the other side of the Atlantic. On the subject of Irish exports, much of the city seems like it’s locked onto someone’s U2 playlist. But, surprisingly, after a classic ballad from Bono and some of Dublin’s other favorite sons, we were amazed to hear one of Oklahoma’s favorite sons: Garth Brooks. Even more unexpected, everyone in Gogarty’s seemed to know every word as they mouthed along with gusto. I’m an Okie native, but I didn’t recognize the song or even know who it was at first. It’s shocking to me that a city so far away, and seemingly so far removed from the cowboy ethos, is so familiar with perhaps the Sooner State’s proudest still-living Western icon. Another out-of-place artifact from home was Coors beer, which is inexplicably revered there. There are signs everywhere for the Colorado brew, often listed with the same fanfare as Guinness. One of my friends, a Navy pilot, had to order one for novelty’s sake, and it wound up costing him about 10 dollars (9 euro) after tip.
With the welcome cultural transplants came a couple of abrasive ones. Also at Gogarty’s, a lengthy conversation with a local and her friend from England ended abruptly when one of my fellow Americans, a professional magician and all-around kind person, innocently asked our new friends about our insensitively named alcoholic shot, the Irish Car Bomb. They recoiled in horror and suddenly “remembered” dinner reservations at another place. On the other hand, something that didn’t jibe well with us Americans was the questionably named Apache Pizza. The chain’s red neon signs feature the profile of a Native American and probably would not go over well here in the States.
St. Patty’s in Dublin is a perfect intersection of space and time. I can’t think of a more exciting weekend to experience the city, or a more fun place to celebrate the holiday. If you can strike at the right moment, you can get tickets from Dallas to Dublin for about $700. That’s about 700 McChickens if you’re thinking economically, and I would gladly trade 700 of anything on the McDonald’s extra value menu to have that experience again. Oh, and as for the green beer? I saw it served in only one place, and practically no one was drinking it.
