I went for a walk through Temple Bar to check out the price of pints, whiskey and wine – what I found will shock you
THE Only Way Is Up. Remember that ditty? Yazz And The Plastic Population.
A disco anthem that stormed the charts in 1988. Recall how it was later assimilated by Tony Blair in the 1997 UK General Election?
The song became a symbol for the end of 18 years of Tory rule and the birth of New Labour. How optimism faded on the vine of treachery. Sorry Tony. You started off on the front foot, bouncing along, and ended up on the wrong side of history (the second Iraq war, imaginary weapons of mass destruction, the birth of IS.
All your doing (and George W Bush’s, your cowboy boots buddy through it all).
I’ve had Yazz’s lyrics bouncing around my head all week (She’s a 62-year-old teacher living in Spain now). Not because I’m nostalgic for Big Ears Tony, no.
The hit song is now emblematic of the current cost-of-living crisis. Because, as you know, the Only Way Is Up for the price of things, especially pints.
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Ah, the heady days of 1988 when you could get three of them for less than a fiver. You’d even get a bag of crisps and still have arse pocket change. Not any more. Not by a long shot. I was ambling through Temple Bar (hell on earth) on a sodden evening this week.
Aside from the ubiquitous smell of urine that poisoned the senses from every alleyway, the place was awash with English hen and stag party groups come to drink Dublin dry.
Bemused tourists from around the globe in search of “Irish craic” (craic is dead, folks, it no longer exists) were left to sidestep the raucous drunks and the sandwich board hawkers advertising strip and gambling joints.
Culture is nowhere to be seen in that quarter of the capital, just an ugly excess.
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In the 1980s, former taoiseach Charlie Haughey stopped Temple Bar being turned into a transport hub, insisting it become the capital’s go-to area for art.
That vision is now a mirage. The great writer, Samuel Beckett left Ireland in 1931 with a famous parting shot: “Irish people couldn’t give a fart in its corduroys for art.”
He foresaw what Temple Bar would become — a swollen belly of overpriced mediocrity and the truly banal.
A Dub will only be seen in Temple Bar because it’s a shortcut from Parliament street to Westmoreland street.
If he or she is in a pub there, it’s only to take a leak, or gawp at the tawdriness of it all.
On my promenade this week I stopped outside one of the drinking dens to look at its booze menu, not because I was thirsty (I’d get my fill elsewhere, thank you very much) but because I was interested to see what effect the recent announcement by Guinness of a rise by as much as 50 cent a pint was having on local hospitality. And my jaw hit the floor.
PRICE LIST
A pint of Guinness, Smithwick’s or Murphy’s (you only drink that in Cork, for heaven’s sake) rings in at a stratospheric €8.95. Yep, no need to rub your eyes and do a double take. The guts of NINE EURO for a pint of stout.
Think that’s bad? Ha, if you enjoy the bubbles of a lager, you’ll receive five cents change from a TENNER.
Fancy a chaser with your pint? Well, you might think twice when confronted with a €9.55 price tag for a shot of Jameson or Paddy Irish whiskey.
In France, you can buy a 75cl BOTTLE of Jameson in the supermarket for €17.
And the rip-off prices didn’t end there. No, let’s say you’re on the wagon and fancy a small bottle of coke or Pepsi, you’ll be bled of €3.95 for the privilege. A glass of house wine? Get ready to fork out €10.50.
PARALLEL UNIVERSE
Yep, over a tenner for a glass of plonk. Mind-boggling.
Then there’s the Irish coffee, that nasty concoction that only gullible tourists would ever go near.
A shot of whiskey, a spoonful of granulated coffee and a dash of cream on top. That’s all it is. Have a guess how much? TWELVE EURO and 65 cent.
Yet, the pub that was charging those prices, and all of the other boozers in Temple Bar (who charge similar prices) were packed to the rafters.
Those inside must all be mad, either that or they are made of money.
Temple bar is a parallel universe. A few streets away you’ll get a pint of plain for around €6. Still pricey, of course, but a bargain compared to what’s on offer in Dublin’s equivalent to Sodom and Gomorrah. Begorrah.
SORT OUT LIMERICK PROBLEM
THERE is something seriously wrong at Limerick University Hospital.
The disaster that crippled the entire hospital system over the winter thanks to the perfect storm of Covid, flu and RSV outbreaks has passed, yet Limerick remains overwhelmed by patients.
Photographs taken inside this week showed medics trying to squeeze past dozens of sick patients on trolleys in A&E.
On Wednesday, when the pictures were taken, there were 86 unfortunates on trolleys there.
The hospital said that “it remains in a state of high risk in terms of the potential for presentations through the Emergency Department to exceed our capacity for optimal care.”
Limerick is a particular pinch point in the country because it caters for patients not just in the local area but in the nearby counties of Clare, north Kerry and Tipperary as well.
The HSE and the Minister For Health Stephen Donnelly have not managed to solve the problems at Limerick. Maybe if they reopened the hospitals in Ennis and Nenagh, UHL might be able to manage.
But, for some reason or other, Donnelly is sitting on his hands.
DOUBTER SPACE
THE aliens are here. Well, they’re not, but if you live in the land of Facebook and TikTok, you’ve been bombarded with the belief the objects recently shot down by the Americans are from outer space.
Until it was brought down by a US F22 fighter jet last week, the Chinese spy balloon had travelled across America at 60,000 feet from Idaho to South Carolina.
The thing was huge, about the size of three buses. The Americans say it was being used to collect data on US military installations. It could even retrieve phone data.
Late last week the US shot down three more UFOs, over Alaska, Canada and Michigan.
They were smaller than the spy balloon and have still to be recovered, so what they truly are remains a mystery. In the absence of fact, we invent.
U2 RESIDENCY IN LAS VEGAS
BONO’S haircut aside, I cannot for the life of me get my head around U2 playing a residency in Las Vegas. It’s not for the money, surely?
The lads are multi-multi-millionaires. They could end world hunger on their own. It can’t be for the love of music.
U2 without Larry Mullen (he’s not the drummer in the new venture, some lad from the Netherlands no one has ever heard of is) is like a saucer of milk without a cat (or a wig).
So, I’m stumped. Vegas is not the Vegas of old.
It’s no longer a playground, it’s a horror show where cheap tat has replaced elegant style.
Maybe that’s the reason. Who knows.
TOLL SO VLAD FOR MOSCOW
RUSSIA’S much vaunted spring offensive to capture the Donbas in Eastern Ukraine is under way. But just a week in, Russian troops have already suffered some of the heaviest casualties so far in the almost year-long war.
Bakhmut has been the focus of much of Russia’s effort throughout the winter. The pummeled city in the Donbas has been surrounded by Russian forces on three sides for many weeks now and has become the symbol of Ukrainian resistance and Russian belligerence.
Try as they might, Russia cannot break through there.
Deprived of a victory, Russia has sought to advance this week elsewhere along the more than 200km front in Eastern Ukraine.
Vuhledar, a city 80km south of Bakhmut became the first target of Russia’s spring offensive.
Moscow is desperate to take Vuhledar because it sits at the intersection of the eastern front and the southern front in the Zaporizhzhya region.
Two of Russia’s most elite brigades – the 155th and 40th Naval Infantry Brigades divisions – were sent in to capture the city.
But Ukrainian forces were ready for them. The Russians were less prepared. Over several days during the last week they advanced over open fields littered with anti-tank mines.
The British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Wednesday that Russia lost more than 1,000 men in just two days of fighting.
Mr Wallace said the attrition rate showed “a president (Vladimir Putin) and a Russian general staff that defies reality or ignores reality and simply doesn’t care how many people they are killing of their own, let alone of the people they are trying to oppress.”
MIRACLE MOMENTS
THERE is truly no worse nightmare than to be buried alive. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria has claimed the lives of as many as 50,000 people, it’s feared.
Yet, there are miracles amid the devastation. On Thursday, rescue workers pulled a 17-year-old girl alive from the rubble of her home TEN DAYS after the quake struck.
It takes some fortitude to stay alive for so long, knowing that your chances of being rescued are practically zero.