The Mouth questions why we need so many Irish pubs

Has there been anything more detrimental for the reputation of Irish culture than the identikit Irish pub, writes The Mouth.

Short of being forced to read Ulysses in English class, has there been anything more detrimental for the reputation of Irish culture than the identikit Irish pub?

Anywhere you go around the world you’ll find these things.

A few years ago there was a huge ding-dong in Florence when McDonald’s wanted to set up shop in the same piazza as the Duomo; everybody lost their mind and the matter was only settled after a multimillion euro fight.

Yet no one noticed that in the exact same plaza was a local Tipsy McStagger’s aimed at tourists tired of tortellini al brodo who wanted to sink a few Guinnesses and watch the passing parade.

This column once spent a dismal nine hour layover in the “Irish” pub at Bangkok airport eating a mealy cheeseburger whose recipe had been run through Google Translate too many times and drinking impossibly flat pints of Tiger underneath shamrocks and leprechauns and every drunken Seamus stereotype you could imagine.

You will no doubt stumble across an “irish pub” anywhere you go in the world.

So big is the market for this crap that at least two companies specialise in shipping “authentic” Irish pub kits to restaurant groups around the world.

Thus around the world the entire Irish brand is now artificially yellowed posters in wooden frames, hurling sticks tacked to the wall, and mirrored stout ads.

Though perhaps this is an improvement from the genuinely Irish pub in Boston this column visited some years ago where the tin was passed for a certain Northern Irish charity and it was made fairly clear that a donation would be appreciated.

People dining at Tigin Irish Pub & Restaurant in the terminal of Dallas International Airport, Texas, USA.

This column was thinking about the whole question of authenticity on a recent Sunday when marinating its brain in preparation for a week that would turn out to be thoroughly cooked.

The venue was a Surry Hills bar called Surly’s, with a theme that was not Irish but decidedly American.

Which is harder, because there’s not some factory in Xinjiang just churning out old Mustang posters and framed Elvis photos like they do the: “Parking for Craic Lovers Only” signs you’ll find in the Irish joints.

Indeed, everyone agreed, they managed to hit the mark, with food (brisket, buffalo wings, lots of fried things) and bourbon (generously poured, and they’ll do you a pickleback, too).

So far so good, we agreed. The key, then, to any sort of theme bar was agreed to be the authenticity of the merchandise.

But we couldn’t quite decide just what it was that made it feel so properly American that we were expecting someone to start a “Let’s Go Brandon” chant.

Then, in the corner, we spotted something that could only have come straight from the good ol’ you-ess-of-aay and not whatever Chinese factory is sending “Craic-Lovers Parking Only” signs all over the world.

A genuine, vintage Saddam Hussein dartboard.

Bullseye.

Originally published as The Mouth questions why we need so many Irish pubs