As often at the start of the blog I take you back in time, normally to the night before, but today I need to take you back to 1996, to help jog the memory, The Spice Girls had just released their debut album, Nelson Mandela had just stepped down as President of South Africa, the 96th US Golf Amateur Championship was won by Tiger Woods, but more importantly that all that Mick & Pat Weston were the Landlord and Landlady of the Railway at Shenstone, my local pub !
The relevance of that last fact, is this is when my love affair with Ireland began..... It was late July / early August 1996, I called into the Railway for my usual lunchtime pint (wouldn't dream of drinking at lunchtime nowadays, but it was the norm back then).....Pat says "Hi Woz, how's things ?"....."not bad Pat, just a stressful week work-wise, could do with getting away for a few days"....."why don't you go and see Jodie (her daughter) in Ireland ???? you said you would go visit !"
Now, let's remember there was no internet like we have now, so I phoned my travel agent to see what he could do, an hour or so later I got a call back, flight to Dublin booked, £222 return..... now back then a pint was £1.60, if we compare how prices have gone 20 odd years later I can get a return flight to Dublin for £22, so surely a pint should now be 16p ?? I wish Michael O'Leary had gone into the pub game rather than aviation !!
Anyhow, off to Dublin I go, my plan was to hire a car when I got there, I was 22 now, you can hire a car in the UK once you are 21, so I've my driving licence and shinny new AMEX card.....I get to Dublin Airport, sorry you can't hire from us....why not...you have to be 23 in Ireland to hire a car....I was 2 weeks off my 23rd Birthday....aghhhhh....what should have been a simple 3 hours drive, turned into a bus & train journey which took well over 6 hours ! Eventually I got to Clonakilty, but when I got there WOW ! what a place.....it was about the size of the village I lived in, but "Clon" had 23 pubs ! everything in the village was based around live music & pubs.....
My first day there was a haze, but on day 2 I remember meeting "Chicken George"....so named as his name was George, and he worked in the Chicken factory just outside with village.....He worked nights....I walked into the bar where Jodie was working around mid-day, sat at the bar, a few bar stools down was a man asleep, head on the bar, with an old fashioned wind up alarm clock in front of him, after a few minutes a pint was put in front on him, then about a minute later the alarm clock went off, the man awoke, downed the pint, forwarded his alarm clock on 15 minutes, then promptly went back to sleep, (the process repeated it's self for several hours), this man was "Chicken George"...... he lived on the high street in a builders skip with a tarpaulin over it......fair to say, an interesting character....
I went back to "Clon" many times during my twenties, but today I set foot back in the town for the first time in about 15 years, so let me walk you round the town, lets see whats changed, and let's see if "Chicken George" is still around.....
Let me start you at the top of the high street, Mick Finns, being the start of the high street, this was always our first port of call on any pub crawl, always a good craic in here, the pub still looks exactly the same as it did 20 years ago !
Over the river now, to the Emmet Hotel, often our residence when we stayed in Clon, mainly due to the night club that was in the hotel !
Entrance to said nightclub......this place has been the cause of many a lost brain cell for the inhabitants of Shenstone over the years.....
Then it's back over the river to O'Donovan's Hotel, once again often a residence for the Shenstone Mob when in town, I had my 25th Birthday in here, I remember the singer did covers of Elvis, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra, when we got there around 11pm the place was just full of pensioners quietly watching the music, the 4 of us decided to liven things up, so we all asked one of the pensioners to dance, within 10 minutes the whole place was up, by 1am I had bribed the singer to do another hour and bunged the bar staff to stay open, when they tried to close the bar at 2am there was nearly a riot, not us 20 somethings, but the pensioners, they were not having their night bought to an early close !
Next on the road was De Barra, this place is world famous in music terms with the likes of Noel Redding (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) and Paddy Keenan (The Bothy Band) together with folk singers like Christy Moore & Roy Harper often playing.....
So far very little has changed, well almost nothing in fact, until I round the corner to "ConaMarras" where we always used to play pool, I thought to start the pub had closed and was now a tat shop, but in fact the pub is still there, they have just let out the side passage to a fella selling.....
Sadly the newspaper shop where we always went to get our Sunday papers whilst waiting for the pubs to open has closed down.....
I wake a little further down the main road, to where I think Jodie had her first Clon job, and it reminds me there is where I met "Chicken George" I'm meant to be trying to find the great man, but in my amaze at all the pubs it's slipped my mind.....I will head to "The Pub", it was a pub called "The Pub" people in there are bound to know!
Very sadly this is where I discover the biggest travesty of my visit to Clon, what used to be a real proper Irish Boozer, has turned into a funky coffee shop selling cappuccino's and falafal wraps !
I pop into Caseys, not all the Shenstone crew will remember this one, but it was the pub closest to Boyle Sports where we used to put our bets on.....I need to ask about Chicken George......I look round the pub, spot this fella, he is bound to know...
What an interesting bloke this guy turns out to be, he's 79 and just bought himself a new tractor, he's off to the Nottingham Agricultural show today to check it out ! Turns out he know's Chicken George, he's alive & well.....he retired from the Chicken factory at 65, set himself up a gardening round, he's 76 now and busier than ever, can't drive anymore so he carries his tools and mower around on a Honda 50.....(how that can be legal I don't know).....
I never managed to track down Chicken George, however it's great to know he's still going, but just as I was leaving the pub I heard a song that I've never heard before, and I think it was a sign..... you've got have a listen to this.....