Pub Guide
Gaelic Girl Tessa
by Gaelic Girl TessaRSS 
Recent Posts
- A Merry Christmas in Cork and saying goodbye to my new home in Ireland
- A fairytale Irish ball - a dream come true for our American student in Cork
- Ireland's love of music discovered - from buskers on the street to Guinness Jazz Festival
- Reactions to an American in Ireland – the good, the bad, and the ugly
- Taking advantage of the ‘Savage’ party scene – having the ‘craic’ in Galway city
Archives
A Merry Christmas in Cork and saying goodbye to my new home in Ireland
Ireland's love of music discovered - from buskers on the street to Guinness Jazz Festival
Hailing from the music capital of the States, I really didn't expect to find the same sort of scene in Ireland. After all, at home, there's a concert every night of the week, whether it's at a big downtown hall that seats thousands, or a basement venue where there's standing room if you're lucky – and even then, only for a few dozen people, with a limited sense of personal space.
But Ireland's music scene is as robust as anything I've ever seen. It was one of the most surprising things about the country, for me, and also one of the most enchanting. I can't walk anywhere in Cork's downtown without coming across someone on a keyboard, or a guitar, or a set of pipes. They're singing for tips, I know – but also for the craic of open-air performance, and for the love which the Irish bear their music.
Don't believe me? Walk around the city some afternoon. You can't get away from the music, and I mean that in the best way. (Was anyone else around for the Cork Guinness Jazz Festival, by the way? The city was practically a New Orleans model of competing musicians, one stationed on every corner. It was gorgeous.)
Reactions to an American in Ireland – the good, the bad, and the ugly
I'm not sure what I expected when the waitress handed me an extra platter, but it wasn't this: a plate, sprinkled lavishly with parsley, and bearing a heart-shaped piece of white bread.
“The lads in the back are being silly,” the waitress says, rolling her eyes, as my friends and I look at each other in total bafflement and then back at the heart – and then at the door to the kitchens, where more than one dishwasher is peeking through and laughing uproariously. Apparently, they wanted to send some kind of token to our table: “the table of cute American girls.”
It’s hard to get to know a guy who just wants sex - Irish men really want no such thing as a first date
I recently went to Door 51 – a magnificent pub, by the way; their drinks menu is awesome – with a group of new Irish acquaintances. We were getting to know each other in the typical way, swapping stories and laughing, and I was describing one of my more nightmarish first dates when one of the girls caught me completely off guard.
“God, that’s hilarious,” she said, giggling. “You know. I don’t think I’ve ever had a ‘first date.’”
“What?”
Most Popular Roots Stories
