Grogans

Infiltrating the Dublin intelligentsia.

Grogans pub in Dublin has beautiful stained glass windows and smells of burnt toast. Their website suggests they are popular amongst the city’s artistic avant-garde, so it must have been a disappointment for them when I showed up. The barman offered to let me try some Beamish before ordering it. “I won’t charge you extra for that bit…” he says, cheekily. “This time.” 

It’s just past office hours so the place is full with the post-work-pint crowd. The old timers standing up at the bar, some students dotted around, maybe even a few members of Dublin's cultural elite. Tara arrives and we settle into some gossip. Like anyone our age, we mostly talk about work and how weird it is to have gotten old by accident. We are joined by two battleaxe women and their rather tired-looking male friend who want to share the table.

I’m halfway into telling some rambling story to my old pal when one of the women, the bigger one, interrupts me with a tap on the arm. “You don’t half talk a lot of fucking shite, don’t you?” I felt like Withnail in the scene where they are confronted by the Irishman in the pub. What could I have possibly done to offend this person? I was ready to tell her I had a heart condition just to weasel my way out of whatever was coming next.

“If you think that you are good at stories then I’ve got one for you.” She promptly embarks on some tale, the point of which I think was mainly to prove that she is better at talking than I am. I’m smiling so hard at her that I can’t actually pay attention to what she is saying, just nodding along and making interested noises. Whatever happens, don’t make her angry. 

“So what do you do with yourself for work?’ she asks when her yarn is over. I panic and tell her I’m a voice actor. “Not with that voice you’re not...” comes a sceptical reply. For some reason, even though I am actually a voice actor, I start lying and doing impressions of commercials which were not actually voiced by me. The woman is very impressed by this. Finally I've won her over. “Getta load of him!” she says to the male friend while gesturing at me. The man says nothing. 

Eventually, the women finish their drinks and shuffle out into the night with their roll ups. As he passes, the man touches me softly on the shoulder. With a fatigued yet appreciative look on his face he says “Thank you..” then adding “for taking some of the strain…”          

Grogans - 15 William St S, Dublin 2, D02 H336