![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I went to two different Irish pubs last weekend.
Toronto is lousy with pubs that claim to be Irish and English. Apparently the key to selling a lot of beer in this town is to hang a Guinness sign in front of your door and adopt a name like "The Pride of Cork" or the "The Ass and Sparrow". I have no idea why but places that market themselves as being fresh from the mothership see a lot of the pieces of coloured paper with pictures of the Queen on it. Maybe it's the connotation that they hail from places that know how to make decent beer, but I don't see a lot of pubs that claim to be German or Belgium in the city. So I dunno.
Anyway, the first one was one of the typical modern half-bar-half-restaurants that slaps an Irish name on themselves, makes the waitresses wear a green scarf, puts Guinness on the draught list and figure they're done. Here's a hint for you, if you think that Irish "poutine" is a dish made with potatoes, cheese and gravy you have no frickin' idea what you are talking about.
The second place was a completely different story. An actual Irish pub. As in a place full of Irish people, where Irish people go to hang out with other Irish people and listen to an Irish man singing Irish music written by other Irish people about stuff in Ireland. And where conversations take place about what part of a little tiny island they all come from.
And from the moment I walked in that door I was six years old.
See like a lot of newcomers my parents' first friends were people they met through the local immigrant community - pubs mostly. My dad's family lived in an area when he was young that was given the nickname Cabbagetown because of the Irish and Scottish immigrants, so most of his friends going to school were from the same background. When my family first arrived it's was those old buddies along with his family members that formed the initial ready-made social circle. Everybody in my little world had an accent. At parties they played music by bands that sang about the rebellion against British rule or made rude jokes in Gaelic. My mother would listen to the Irish programs on the multicultural radio station to get news and music from home.
After a few years of living here of course, they picked up new friends among neighbours and co-workers and their social circles became more mixed. Once I started school and making my own friends I started spending time around adults who came from different backgrounds. Because the change was so gradual and I was so young it never really occurred to me that a change had happened at all.
And then one day, 40-odd years later I walked into an Irish pub. And instantly I was six.
(Fortunately beer can cure that.)
Toronto is lousy with pubs that claim to be Irish and English. Apparently the key to selling a lot of beer in this town is to hang a Guinness sign in front of your door and adopt a name like "The Pride of Cork" or the "The Ass and Sparrow". I have no idea why but places that market themselves as being fresh from the mothership see a lot of the pieces of coloured paper with pictures of the Queen on it. Maybe it's the connotation that they hail from places that know how to make decent beer, but I don't see a lot of pubs that claim to be German or Belgium in the city. So I dunno.
Anyway, the first one was one of the typical modern half-bar-half-restaurants that slaps an Irish name on themselves, makes the waitresses wear a green scarf, puts Guinness on the draught list and figure they're done. Here's a hint for you, if you think that Irish "poutine" is a dish made with potatoes, cheese and gravy you have no frickin' idea what you are talking about.
The second place was a completely different story. An actual Irish pub. As in a place full of Irish people, where Irish people go to hang out with other Irish people and listen to an Irish man singing Irish music written by other Irish people about stuff in Ireland. And where conversations take place about what part of a little tiny island they all come from.
And from the moment I walked in that door I was six years old.
See like a lot of newcomers my parents' first friends were people they met through the local immigrant community - pubs mostly. My dad's family lived in an area when he was young that was given the nickname Cabbagetown because of the Irish and Scottish immigrants, so most of his friends going to school were from the same background. When my family first arrived it's was those old buddies along with his family members that formed the initial ready-made social circle. Everybody in my little world had an accent. At parties they played music by bands that sang about the rebellion against British rule or made rude jokes in Gaelic. My mother would listen to the Irish programs on the multicultural radio station to get news and music from home.
After a few years of living here of course, they picked up new friends among neighbours and co-workers and their social circles became more mixed. Once I started school and making my own friends I started spending time around adults who came from different backgrounds. Because the change was so gradual and I was so young it never really occurred to me that a change had happened at all.
And then one day, 40-odd years later I walked into an Irish pub. And instantly I was six.
(Fortunately beer can cure that.)