New website about the Titanic

Reading this entry from Keithblog I stumbled upon this fantastic new website dedicated to the Titanic. It is set up by the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. Chockablock with info, photos and newsreels it is an absolutely fantastic resource for the Titanic nut.

Sons of the Desert Convention in Dublin

If during the weekend of August 24-27 you encounter a large bunch of strangers in Dublin walking around wearing a Fez – or should I say fezes? - on their head giggling madly, then you will have met the attendees of the 8th European Sons of the Desert convention.

The Sons of the Desert are named after the eponymous comedy film starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. This society celebrates life and work of those two comic geniuses and now has a large number of international affiliates.

In the film Stan and Ollie manage to get a weekend away from the nagging wives and attend the “Sons of the Desert” Lodge convention. I hope you don’t need to resort to all those lies and deceptions that they’re up to if you want to join the society’s first European get-together in Ireland.

Start saving now as the costs are €419 per attendee…. though these cover the accomodation as well as all the dinners. More details can be found here.

Dawson’s Lounge

I spent the New Year’s Eve weekend as usual in Dublin with a brunch in the Westin and a bunch of cocktails in their Mint Bar.

The night before I finally made it to Dawson’s Lounge. Dawson’s Lounge is located on Dawson Street, just a step away from St Stephen’s Green and around the corner from Grafton Street. It is advertised as Dublin’s smallest pub and I was previously jinxed in always visiting Dublin the few days when they were closed for some private functions. So I was pretty excited to finally find it open.

It sure was worth the wait. I absolutely love pubs with an atmosphere, and this little bar sure was oozing with it. You enter through a very narrow set of stairs that lead down to a little room that is vaguely reminiscent of a private living room and can be considered chockablock once you have a dozen people or so inside. The atmosphere was great and we soon got talking to a bunch of people from all over the place and fell out the door a few hours later to wake up with a severe hangover afterwards.

I always enjoy exploring new pubs in Dublin. True, Temple Bar is overrated and only bearable on some quiet afternoons and needs to be avoided like the plague during the weekends or other busy nights. Nevertheless, Dublin still has a large share of old fashioned pubs that don’t seem to be majorly touched by new trends in bar design. That always comes as a pleasant surprise for me as here in Cork pretty much most of the city centre pubs over the last ten years have been remodelled, modernised and refurbished and often turned into super pubs that bear little resemblance to their older predecessors. Dublin on the other hand still has more than their fair share of relaxing hang outs where you still find time for a chat with the owners or other fellow drinkers.

As nicely developed as Dublin’s pub scene still is, a visit to one of the Porterhouse bars reconfirmed what I long suspected: The Irish brewery scene is pretty much dead. OK, we still have Irish beer, but all the major breweries now belong to foreign companies:

Guinness? Diageo!
Murphys? Heineken!
Beamish & Crawford? Scottish and Newcastle!

Little wonder so that the Porthouse Brewery can now claim to be “Ireland’s largest genuine brewery”.

But let’s not ponder too much on the implications of Globalisation.

Instead I would like to wish you all

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR AND A PROSPEROUS 2007!!!

My resolution for this year: To get this blog updated much more regularly.

Something to look forward to

Keith Barry is touring Ireland again and will perform in the Everyman Palace in Cork on January 21.

Can. Not. Wait.