Cork.

Quinnryan’s Pub

Barrack St

Cork

Quinnryan’s pub. From the outside it looks like the loser in a bare-knuckle fight. It can barely hold itself up. Its windows have been pummelled out and replaced with wood, once the colour of fresh brown cardboard, now the colour of soot. It has been scratched and clawed and gouged with rusty nails and penknives, the initials of those who have taken a lump out of it scored onto walls and doors. The drainpipes are leaking in the lane next to it, and all around the sound is that of drips, splatters and splashes. Splashes of rain that is coming down in sheets. Splashes from the broken gutters. Splashes in the puddles on the pavement in front of the door. And if you stand there long enough and listen, splashes of the pints and splashes in the toilet at the back end of the bar. Quinnryan’s, let there be no doubt about it, is a bit of a dump.

A smoker emerges from the bar and you catch a glimpse of a fire burning in the hearth. The crimson red and orange provide the only bit of colour on the street and even from a distance, warms the blood on this ghastly night. We have to go in.

Stepping inside, there’s an odd smell. It’s like old rotting fruit. No, it’s like wee. Actually, it’s more like both, disguised by a vague scent of those marbled bleach tablets they throw into the bottom of urinals. Coats are amassed on the one hangar at the back of a door near the bar, creating what looks like a large nest that's set to burst at any moment. A group of men gather beside them, sporadically breaking into a bit of a song that peters out as the words are forgotten halfway through. They stop and stare at their pint glasses for a moment, pinning the blame on the stout, then have a go at something else.

Right. What are we all having? Do we dare drink from a pint glass? There’s only a sink with a cold tap and a warm sponge being squeezed in the hands of the barman. Have a straight whiskey, it’ll kill the germs on the rim of the glass and coat the mouth, then follow it with the pint.

The tables are rectangular and covered with a veneer of walnut. One is free by the fireplace. There’s a sound of a rubber ring smacking off a board. It’s a good board by the sounds of it – solid and dense. Made from decent wood, not any old plywood. They take the game of Rings seriously down here. Rings and Don. A card game that is played in various forms in Ireland and Britain, a descendant of an old game called 'All Fours'. Played on them probably. I’d never heard of it. But apparently in the nineteenth century a game existed called Dom Pedro, popular in Ireland and shortened to Don. And it's probable that it was from Ireland that it spread to England and Wales where they play the nine-card Don. The version, which is called the Irish Don, is where all the cards are dealt instead of nine and winning is based on tricks and points. The rules were explained to me this particular evening, but if my life depended on it I couldn't recall them.

Pubs and games go hand in hand. At least they did. Now you'd be lucky to find a card game in a pub. Or even a dart board, unless it’s electronic, the points of the darts magnetic to stop them from being used as weapons.  But a ring board?

A young boy, maybe fifteen years old, steps up and tosses the rings at the board. Most land in the net beneath. He shakes his head and gathers them up, stepping back and casting them in the air once more in a vague sort of arc. There’s a thwack and a swish as they hit the board and land in the net again. Eventually, a man, one of the singers at the nest of coats, breaks off and grabs the rings in his fist to show the kid how it’s done.

It’s not a throw, it’s more of a lob. It’s not a dart, it’s a ring. It doesn’t stick, it sits. On the hook. Like that one there in the centre. The movement is smooth, not jerky. You’ll get the hang of it. On the man goes and the boy resumes.

In the side room a triangle of pool balls is cracked with a sound like a gunshot. The boys move around the table and pass the cues. In the corner, opposite the bar, a local match is on the TV. A crowd watches eagerly. Each one clapping, cursing, swaying and cheering in unison.  A snug in the far corner holds the plaques won in Don and a group sit quietly and chat. There’s a whole life going on in here. A community all to itself.  

The barman comes over for a quick chat. He turns to the wall behind our table and points to a photo from the Evening Echo of a group of Belarussian children, sponsored by the pub to take part in a fishing trip with money raised by the owner and the punters. A respectable total of €1525,70. Liam Ryan, the present owner, celebrated 25 years as proprietor in 2004 he tells me, having bought out his previous partners, the Quinns. He opens at around eleven o’clock in the morning. But if someone’s passing at nine and knocks on the door….