Mind you, the tunes being billed as popular Irish tunes were ones I’d never heard of (with the exception of I wish I was back home in Derry), and I was getting flashbacks to my own failed step-dancing career. The Blackbird ír sztepptánc show with Éiri ír tradiconális zenekar came on and I offered a silent prayer of thanks for the marked absence of embroidered costumes and ringletted wigs! The dancers looked like they were having a whale of a time and the lead vocal certainly had a feel for those fadás. But then people started to produce chairs from nowhere, lining the walls and sitting expectantly staring at the stage. I’d been dreading theatre seating but all the seats had been taken out. Once the main doors opened, we packed inside.
The crowd was a little long in the tooth and instead of being in Whelan’s, in my mind’s eye I was back in the Galtee Mór in Cricklewood, North London. People were perched on windowsills lining what looked remarkably like a school corridor. When we went in (and we were lucky to get tickets and lucky that HÉ and TZs insisted on coming early) there were more queues inside – for the stew and the Guinness and for the bar. When we got there, there was a queue forming outside. And I was really looking forward to having the craic. I thought the crowd would be youngish and mainly Irish or at least British (given that they’re an Irish Irish band, mar dhea). I imagined Whelan’s on Wexford St, perhaps, or some such venue in Dublin. In my head I imagined a smoke-filled room crammed with people sitting chatting and others milling around and more still propping up the bar. So I convinced a couple of Hungarian friends who have been talking about going on holiday to Ireland that they should come along for the experience.
#HAT ON HEAD UNPACKING FREE#
I had read something about Irish stew and free Guinness (neither of which particularly excited me) but somewhere deep in my subconsciousness I was missing Ireland terribly and wanted a taste of home, no matter if that taste amounted to two things I least like about Ireland – pottage and porter. And yes, I realised that Jamie Winchester was opening for them, but I didn’t realise he would be joining in their first set, not playing on his own.
Yes, I realised that it was being headlined by Firkin, an Irish rock band, but I didn’t realise they weren’t Irish. But I didn’t realise that it isn’t a pub… it’s a cultural centre. Yes, I realised it was in the sticks – the suburbs of Budaörs at the Jókai Mór Müvelődési Központ, affectionately known as JMMK. 1 was to think that my Hungarian was good enough to get the gist of what was in store from the website. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that it’s taken me this long to recover from my first Ír KocsmaSó (an odd assemblage of words that translates literally into Irish pub salt but really means Irish pub show – punning in a second language is oddity only outdone by the little bags of salt we were given as gifts on the night).Īnd a most peculiar night it was, too.
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