Come Here To Me!

Bit busier than this these days.

A bit unlike any other pub I’ve visited over the course of this experiment, in that you’re normally out the door when you’re spotted with cans (not that Come Here To Me engage in that sort of carry-out carry on.) Here, they’re on sale, and students are lashing into the Bavaria like it’s going out of style. In this heat, I’m going for the Bulmers, so I’ll order a pint.

Steep enough. Our maybe it’s not, my own Student Union pub in Maynooth don’t sell cans, so the booze flows cheaply. I suppose they’re balancing the books here. Lesson learned, and I’ll transfer over to the cans with the masses of pretend TCD students from here on in.

The staff are friendly and have their wits about them, amazing owing to the mix of intense heat (by eh, ‘Irish standards’) and a line of students longer than any library will ever see.

Ernie O’ Malley wrote about Trinners in his excellent, highly entertaining ‘On Another Man’s Wound’

Trinity had been founded by Queen Elizabeth, and had been built and maintained mainly on confiscated Irish lands. Its tone had always been anti-Irish, arrogantly pro-British, and it had always linked itself to Dublin Castle. The students all wore their college ties, black and red, carried themselves with a swagger and seemed very pleased with life in general.

Harsh.

By pure chance, I end up in the company of a few friends on the green outside, and we sit in the sun, drinking away from the cricket pitch (Them’s the rules…) and discussing that very book.

There’s little you wouldn’t discuss out here, with the sun beating down on you and the booze cheap, it’s a perfect summer evening. Inside, ‘The Pav’ seems to have changed since my last visit, and it’s looking very well. The Sports Bar of the campus, the benches by the doors to the bar go quickly on a nice day. ‘The football’ was on the telly inside, fair enough with the whole Sports Bar thing really. The profits of the pub go back into the sports facilities apparently, meaning you really should buy your cans from the bar and not do a cheeky one. In fairness, it’s one of the only spots in Dublin you’ll get away with drinking cans.

Sit out in the sun , grab a can and watch The Topshop’s go by.

What would Ernie think of us?