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CORMAC MACCONNELL

Connemara moonshiners: The poitin patriots

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Cormac MacConnell

Published Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 9:55 AM
Updated Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 9:55 AM

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Photo by Caty Bartholomew

A different era in a different and much more blandified Ireland, yet a few of the old roads still have to be followed faithfully.

I picked up the phone yesterday and called a certain number in Connemara, like I do every early November, and I put in my order for Christmas. I don't yet know how or where I will collect my order come December, but I know my crystal consignment will be there somewhere, and I don't think it will cost me much more than €60 in my money and whatever that is nowadays in yours.

I must be careful hereabouts because this is an illegal transaction involving illegal acts both on my part and on the part of the seller who, to the best of my knowledge, is also the producer and distributor.

Like the cigarette ship that sailed into a Louth port with nearly 200 million smuggled cigarettes, we too are denying revenue to an impoverished state. We could land up in Mountjoy Jail if either of us are caught.

Therefore I will state here that my consignment of poitin from Connemara is intended solely for external application to the stiffening hind end of our terrier Penny, is for medicinal purposes only, and there is no intent at all at this stage to pour any of the moonshine into a little shot glass during Christmas, surrounded by friends and family, and to say "Slainte" and then empty the glass.

No, my friends, there is no intent there at all.

Now, the multi-million import of smuggled cigarettes to fund gangsters is a totally different matter altogether. My little technical illegality in relation to the bottle or two of poitin is at another end of the scale.

Both the moonshiner and I, many of you would agree, are actually to be praised for keeping a fiery element of our culture alive at no little risk to ourselves. Am I a patriot in this affair? You could argue easily that I am.

If I am captured by the excise men in possession of the moonshine on my way back to Clare the legalities could land me in Mountjoy for weeks if not months!  That is the letter of the existing law.

I have to say that I relish the Irish reality that those laws exist on the books, coupled with heavy fines. I have yet to hear of a Connemara moonshiner being incarcerated for his work. It may have happened but I am not aware of it. 

Some of them (not many) have been caught red-handed at their remote stills in the mountains, but somehow their subsequent day in court does not end in a Dublin cell. Somewhere there is a kind of Irish solution to a unique Irish situation.

We have become so proper and so tamed and so civilized in this New Ireland that I say without fear or favor that here is one citizen who is delighted you can still place a Christmas order for the real old Mountain Dew.

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Connemara moonshiners: The poitin patriots | Irish News | IrishCentral


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Most recent comments - See all comments

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Posted by irishman6 on Nov 17, 2009, 12:40 PM EST
Once again Cormac has delivered a grand story. His talent to bring people and places alive continues to be the best in the business. May you live long and continue to share your stories.
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Posted by jacersisityourself on Nov 11, 2009, 03:36 PM EST
Great little story by Cormac and of course we believe the Christmas order is for Penny’s annual backside treatment. An uncle of mine from Galway was never short of a few bottles in his Dublin home. He’d have regular ‘Hooleys’ over them with his colleagues from, wait for it – the Prison Service. As Cormac relates, poitin can be very dangerous: after one hooley, my Uncle once told me his stomach was in such a bad state next morning that he had to make a run for the WC bowl; when he got there, he was so bad he couldn’t make up his mind which end to put in first!
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Posted by OldBull on Nov 11, 2009, 12:52 PM EST
One might make the same argument about Cannabis. How's the Irish climate for outdoor growing, anyway?
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Posted by kentuohy on Nov 11, 2009, 10:36 AM EST
My Father used to pore a little drop into a saucer and set it alight to check the colour. I can't remember which colour meant it was good or bad.






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