A couple nights ago, a rainy night at that, we went to a town about twenty or so minutes from Ballymaloe. The town is so small Rory said it wasn’t even a town, but it has one thing…a pub. Not a surprise, is it? We arrived around 9pm and packed ourselves into the tiny room of Powers Pub.
Everyone ordered a drink as Rory Allen, owner of Ballymaloe, set up to play his guitar alongside his friend Jimmy on mandolin and an American woman on harp. The entire night they played Irish folk songs that everyone in the pub would sing along with, except us “Yanks” as they call us.
All three took turns singing and there were plenty of guest singers for different songs. They even played hits like Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”, Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”, Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” and Janice Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee”.
The pub was packed with about 35 of us—ranging from 20s to 80s it seemed. And all sung along, danced along and had a great time. One very drunk man in his seventies seemed to ask every single female in the pub for a dance, even the bartender, another seventy-ish woman.
A young guy, maybe 25, was just as drunk, singing songs louder than the real musicians, and even gave a hilarious failed attempt at strumming the harp.
Yes, we have this all on video!
Music didn’t stop until 2:30am! When Rory drove us home to Ballymaloe, he summed it up, saying, “This is Irish tradition at its best. Sure, people were drunk, but there were no malicious intentions whatsoever. Everyone comes to have a good time with each other.” (Yes I paraphrased because the Irish like to use funny phrases to describe everything)
All in all, it was a fun but tiring night, and it was surely an amazing display of the Irish pub tradition.
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