European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 1, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse Why 52 pubs in tiny Dingle its a matter of getting lifes priorities and proportions in the pubs of tobacconist Micheal gluing by Ichill Mulligan associated of the thing about besides being the Western must town in Europe As they say around next Parish to is its staggering profusion of pubs Flahive bar sheeny James Long Flaherty inn lounge along Dingles Cobblestone they lean against each other for like garrulous old drinking companions locked in song at the end of a Long thirsty the bark streets Are even thicker with lurking As they do inside shoe Butcher shops and the likes of John Oconnor tobacco who has a sign in his window atop the Pyramid of whiskey hollies pasteurized milk sold Here has 52 which is one for every 27 inhabitants not counting the acc ones or the womenfolk who dont frequent such places in the conservative West of one for every nine or 10 eligible male Dingle probably is a Only place in the civilized world where a Man can walk up and Down testing out a new pair of shoes and not have his hand a the licensed to sell alcoholic spirits this is where the Spanish Armada splintered on the rocks in As Many thousands have ominously observed Miclele knocking Back a dark velvety pint of Stout in Micheal o lumps ask Mccarthy or any of his mates Why Uliey have so Many pubs in town being answer with a Why do they have so few wherever in is youre from your Dingleman sees it As a matter of getting lifes priorities and proportions Howe after a few More pints have left their rings on the hell confide that go years or so ago licenses were easy to obtain and now no one wants to give them up for fear of devaluing the Dingle is the Only town on the Dingle a 30 mile spit f mountains and bogs jutting into the wild at shopping in Dingle can mean going into a place where a bar lurks among groceries and Manlic on urn outer fringes of that Mountain where the sheep Are hanging on for dear is Brandon named for St Bren said old Tom sitting on a Limestone with his Back to the buffeting he lit out for America five or six Hundred years before and be Treyve been leaving Here in droves Ever since old turn laughed at his own but in truth to and almost everyone else around there have More relatives m Chicago or than in Dublin from the time of the great potato famine in the Kerry lost More of its population to emigration than any Oiler county in ire in where the Irish language still is spoken with melodic the past is never far they speak of the Spanish Armada Asil its first wave of 60 ships foundered on those awesome rocks off Sulca head Only yesterday they still blame the English troops for slaughtering the Spanish who stumbled Al though the chronicles in the National Library relate the bragging of one Meaghin who claims to have dispatched 80 spaniards with his Gall Glass no such name As that around insisted a lob Ste faced lobster Man just in from the storm look it up for yourself in the phone and if its he just moved in Tow cloth Cap next to him in James Longs bar was raised Over the right Eye in Arent we famous for our hospitality Here want a House made ready in the town for Marie Antoinette so she could escape the Only she leave her children and the King some suy Dingle needs All 52 of its pubs to dam up the glorious flow of conversation that washes the town like the High Atlantic Mav 1977 a few years because of the unspoiled loveliness of this movie Crews arrived to make a film called Only being they built a Plumy Irish Iown up on the Mountain instead of using the real one with its 52 pubs the natives were disappointed at not meeting Star Hubert known to be a Handy Man with a we never saw the froth of his lamented Fisher Man de the lads were asked if Dingle had a and the very idea provoked a storm of malicious merriment now theres a grand said the drawing one for himself on the strength of we be bothered with a thing like that around allowed cloth Cap sure the county Council does Little enough without having someone with a Gold Chain to organize its from the Lack of a mayor of the Conversa Tion drop by drop led to americas new that Peanut fellow will make a Good Hes got no cronies to pay began lobster we All have no Man is an said the Ireland is an brooded cloth Cap an Island incomplete with the British occupying the North intoned a Fisherman at the far end of the Long All right ordained the noting that the old pendulum clock next to the picture of John Kennedy on the Wall already had outrun the lie easing ask not for whom the Bell cloth Cap downed his Glass it tolls for the wild Atlantic had ceased its roaring too much the stars and stripes Poge 9
