#pub-culture

#pub-culture

We gravitated towards the Blue Ball as teenagers, not because they served underage drinkers. They didn't. And we could only afford to drink lime and soda anyway. No, we loved this place because it had (drumroll) two bars. So we were not only cool enough to go down the pub (never to the pub, strictly down the pub or, better still, down the Blue), but we even had our own bar.

Terry Jones was a Python, a historian, a bestselling children's author and a very naughty boy. He loved to play women in drag, started a magazine about countryside ecology (Vole), founded his own real-ale brewery and was even once a columnist for this newspaper, beginning one piece in 2011 like this: In the 14th century there were two pandemics. One was the Black Death, the other was the commercialisation of warfare.

After Guinness, and people, Ireland's greatest export is surely the Irish pub, which can be found in just about every corner of the world from Alaska to New Zealand. But nothing beats settling in for a pint in one of the best pubs in Dublin - the OG city for pub culture and the home of the most famous stout on the planet.

The Dying Cow near Tinahely, Co Wicklow, stands as a testament to the creative and sometimes eccentric naming traditions prevalent in Ireland's pub culture.