AN BODHRAN, OLIVER PLUNKET STREET, CORK CITY. IRELAND.

A pub proprietor who hires loony frothing-at-the-mouth barmaids

An Bodhran, Cork: Only

insane people need apply
for work in this
backward dive.

The proprietor of this Cork establishment sees fit to have an insanely demented bitch, who has the mental age of a 3-year-old, serving his customers.

Swivel-eyed loon doesn’t come near describing this lass, her eyes rush erratically in all directions and her lips and cheeks twist and turn as if there’s a live rodent struggling to get out of her mouth.

She initially viewed and treated me as if I were wearing a horned helmet and carrying a knife between my teeth. Her unstable staring, grunting and hillbilly-type buffoonery led me to believe she thought all strangers dangerous and liable to attack without warning.

As well as being madder than a March hare she’s extremely puffed-up with the stupendous authority that working behind a Cork bar gives her. Cork natives view serving in pubs as an extremely important role and expect would-be customers to bow-and-scrape and show appropriate subservience. This inbred nutter is just following a local tradition.

After the most stringent of inspections she spat out, to me, the immortal Cork words: ‘orr ewe alreeet’. In answer I reluctantly ordered a drink, which she served to me with the apprehension of a person poking a naked hand into a bee-hive. She then, true to form, continued to keep a watchful eye on me.

This staring continued until an unremarkable thud on the pub's first floor distracted her – I say distracted here euphemistically because she reacted to the sound of whatever fell on the upstairs floor as if a large comet had crashed through the premises' roof. Immediately upon hearing the upstairs disturbance her eye movements became even wilder and her face contorted into an indecipherable mask of madness. She then ran from behind the bar, sprinted full-throttle down the length of the pub and pounded up the stairs as if a naked Satan and some of his most vilest demons were in hot pursuit.  

The only thing traditional

about An Bodhran is the slackjawed staff and idiotic clientele.

I suppose this was in order to supervise the picking up of the beer crate or whatever it was that had toppled over. And to check if whoever had caused it needed medical assistance – a wild-eyed gombeen in emergency mode is a sight to behold.

You'd actually be afraid to stay in this lunatic's company, only God might know what might come into her head, or what type of allegation she might saddle you with. There's no doubt this lass costs her employer far more than she makes for him; perhaps her boss accepted the financial depredations she caused because she served some other need, maybe he has an untreatable urge to be in a demented and mentally slow female’s knickers?

I’ve had this type of experience in other Cork city establishments and it usually lasts until something bright, sparkly and colourful distracts them, or, as above, a dropped beer crate or bottle gets their attention.

You could make excuses for the Bodhrán’s barmaid by thinking she might have been attacked on numerous occasions but you’d be wrong. The missing marbles in correlation with a sense of self-importance is probably a more exact excuse.

Michael Healy Rae and son Michael, south-west Ireland’s
political dynasty. And a pair of arseholes who'd be
real at home in An Bodhran.

She ties in well with the numerous native imbeciles that can be seen throwing-their-weight around on the streets of south-west Ireland. An unbelievable number of natives spend their time veering across sidewalks in an attempt to get people to kowtow and step aside for them. This type of imbecilic behaviour is common place across all societal milieus in south-west Ireland; it's just as likely to be witnessed in bourgeoisie areas as in sink-estates and back-streets.

The employers and office staff on South Mall (a Cork city street which is home to mortgage and insurance brokers, solicitors and such like, and which is considered by Cork natives to be more important globally than New York’s Wall St) are just as likely to attempt push you off the footpath as a dribbling moron in a Council estate.

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Quay’s Restaurant, Galway

Quay’s Bar, Athlone

Dan Lowrey’s Tavern

Crane Bar, Galway

Charlies Bar, Cork

Darragh Wiseman

Anne O’Brien, Boots

Pamela O’Sullivan, Boots

Helen Ryan, Cork

Dr Jacinta Barry

I’ve experienced it regularly on this street and one incident sticks in my mind. It was a slack-jawed cheap suited native in his late teens or early twenties who, when he saw me approaching, gingerly stepped across and started to walk directly towards me.

He was being encouraged in his backward escapade by a slackjawed middle aged male who would in this part of Ireland be of a professional profession and be viewed as one of the upper classes. They both looked for-all-the-world like a troglodyte and his dim-witted son getting ready to face-down and dominate one of their neighbours.  

When this slack-jawed Cork youth realised I had no intention of making-way for him he panicked, let out a squeal and then fled out into the street – when he had gotten to within about 2 metres of me I had made a charge and would have missed him by only inches.

I’ve seen this moronism occurring so often – both males and females partake of it – that I can only assume that it's an obscure local custom that the rest of the country is unaware of and that the natives not only feel obliged to adhere to it but are instructed from an early age to practise it.

It seems the practitioners get some sort of kick (metaphorically speaking – albeit some of them do get actual physical kickings) when they succeed in getting people to jump aside for them. The Celtic Tiger induced influx of Eastern Europeans put a halt to it between about 2006 and 2010 – try forcing an ex-soldier from Russia or Georgia out of your way and you’ll most likely get kicked in a tender place. (There’s a good few slackjawed Paddies in Cork who ran away yelping like mongrel dogs after feeling the force of a Slavic boot.)  

Lately though, due to the majority of Eastern Europeans having left Cork because of the financial crash and ongoing penury, this egregious behaviour is making a comeback. The practitioners, puffed up with a sense of self-importance and fearlessness because most of the foreigners have left, can again be witnessed attempting to cow people to jump aside – the south-west Irish native is the most absolute incomparable prick that this planet has ever produced.

They didn't learn any lessons from the many beatings they brought upon themselves. That’s because these mongrels in Cork don’t like marrying too far outside their immediate family, which results in a community that’s highly inbred, a people who are probably 95-per-cent idiots and half-wits. A type of backward cunt who couldn’t wipe their own arses without getting the WC covered in shit.