I’ll tell you a quick story while you’re here and I have the time to spare. I have a good friend who worked as a barman for the years he was seeing his way through his tertiary educational commitments. No-one who knows an honest day of work would ever challenge you in saying that tending a bar is a particularly testing professional endeavour. Nonetheless, it was one into which he threw himself with a great vigour and he honestly loved his work. The reliable flow of characters that walked through those double-doors of an evening kept him constantly entertained and it was for the curious things he saw that he couldn’t imagine himself fit for any other line of work. Never was he happier than when stood at a beer tap, waxing lyrical with the old boys and drunken sods about those topics they say you should never discuss in the company of drink. The regulars thought him an altogether sturdy young lad and even the publican’s cat, a particularly indifferent species of creature if ever there was one, seemed contented by his presence.

I was in at him one night for a quick pint, it was a far while back now, and he told me a story that even to consider all these years later is already after bringing a smile to my face. It was a Saturday night and the pub was rammed with bodies. The pipes were streaming with drink and the line to get in at the bar must have even 5 souls thick at a time. The craic was going mighty and flying at ninety. You will not match the atmosphere of an Irish pub at the weekend for anything in this world – or the next one for that matter. The Irish are a nation of drinkers and let nobody try to tell you there is any shame in that statement. Saint Paul himself tells us to take a little wine for the sake of our stomachs and frequent infirmities, and I’m in no position to argue with him on that.

There was one old buck of particular interest drinking in there that night. As is the custom for a lot of the older stock, he had arrived early and was quite clear in declaring the possession of a thirst that he wouldn’t sell for all the glass in Waterford. It was the drink occupying his mind and there was nothing to stand between inebriation and his own good self. The young barman obliged and the old boy got to tipping pints down his gullet as if trying put out a fire deep within himself. A Saturday night is never as long as you would want it to be and, sure enough, there comes a time for the bell to the ring and the last orders to be made. The drinks are finished and, one by one, the adequately sauced clientele file out the door.

“I’ll have one more before I set off home,” says our old compatriot.

“You will not. There’s plenty in that gut of yours already,” the young lad was stern in answering. “I’ll be out for a smoke and, when I get back, you’ll be out on your backside if that’s what it takes.”

“Fair enough, young man, there’ll be no drama from the likes of me.”

Out goes the young lad for his cigarette; some peace at the end of a busy session before the cleaning begins. It was just himself, the empty bottles and the night. A profound moment for relaxation and self reflection, no doubt. Well, no sooner did he have the cigarette sparked when out of the bar runs this old fella. I’ll tell you, he makes straight for the bottle bin. In goes his head and out pours his stomach. A wallet’s worth of drink and dinner streaming out in gallons.

What my friend heard next caught him altogether by surprise and, at first, he admitted some disbelief in what his ears were telling him. What he heard, he will tell you himself if ever you should meet him, was the desperate wailing of a cat’s meow. There’s no prize for guessing what the old man had just gotten sick all over.

Clinging onto any scrap of dignity he might have in him still, the drunk turns to the young barman with what could almost pass in church for a smile.

“Jesus,” he says. “I don’t remember eating that.”

And with a salute and a laugh, the old lad heads off into the night. Our young friend finished his cigarette and hopped back inside to start collecting glasses. He couldn’t say he was angry with this drunken old eejit. After all, the old sod had the good grace to have taken it outside. But the cat, he tells me, was never the same again.

Now, off with you. I’ve plenty to be getting on with and I’m sure you do too.