Tralee in the 70s had 80-odd pubs. One would wonder how a town with 18,000 people could support so many pubs. Tallaght, on the outskirts of Dublin, with a population that would have made it the 4th largest city in Ireland, had two pubs. In Tallaght, if you wanted a cup of coffee early in the morning, forget it. In Tralee, coffee, sandwiches, and yes, even liquor were available from dawn til midnight and beyond.
In these early morning establishments, every corner was full of people planning the day. It was abuzz. People were cheerful, optimistic, and friendly. There was business to conduct, no matter what the weather or the official prognosis for business from on high. Tall tales abounded; there was no such thing as a small tale. Little stories were simply punctuation. Characters were there in plenty: The man who bought his way into a card game with a seagull wrapped in tinfoil (the grand prize, a chicken?).The man with the trap and mule who could find his way home in conditions that might defy the present satellite placement system was another character.
Everyone was greeted as an individual and this was a natural way of responding to an awareness that we are all of us equal, at least in our presence for this time in this magic place.
The countryside around the town, where smoke from many fires rose vertically in the still fall air and the curlew flying over the Blennervile bridge on its way to feast in Fenit with its cry that you just knew was heard in a parallel dimension were all reminders that you were a priviliged visitor in a zone between the town and heaven. In such a place ones sense of wonder and zest for living were simply a natural response to the deeply moving and haunting essense of the countryside. It's not something one could ever forget.
Sweeney