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The Myth of Craic in West Belfast

Somewhere off the Falls Road in Belfast stands an inconspicuous concrete building with thick walls and small barred windows. The door is behind a locked security cage. When patrons press the doorbell the barman checks the video monitor behind the bar to see who is at the door before pressing the buzzer to release the cage lock. Unless you are introduced by a local you would walk past the building without a second glance.

This is one of Ireland's abundant public houses; one of West Belfast's many mini-fortressed pits for the lonely alcoholic IRA men to huddle in abject loneliness together. These are not the jolly stereotypical Irish drinkers; those red-nosed carefree larrikins jigging away to Lannigan's Ball. Many tourists to Northern Ireland see drinking as the Irish craic; that the Irish know how to live it up. The inhabitants of this tormented land are cast as happy Irish jokers with their leprechauns and their top o the mornin' and their tiddledy dee'. Far from the jolly drinker, these men used alcohol to shield them from memory and it has become their master.

These West Belfast men sit, day after day, from 11 in the morning till lock-out at night; sculling Guinness and Harp; scared to be sober. Sobering means facing reality and departing the fragile, undefined world of drunken rapture. They sit wizened by atrocity, aged by fear and hardened by loss. They cling to each other because, to these men around them, they need give no explanation of their past or present actions. These men around them share a common history, a common battle, a common enemy and a common land.

Most of the men in this pub are either Ra members or Seinners. There are no Protestants, no foreigners and no children. The few women who occasionally add a flounce of colour to the drab throng are the crumpled wives of the men who have managed to hold on to them. A couple of groups of men sit around tables together and talk. It is usually the younger men who talk and smile; men with some hope and enthusiasm remaining. In this pub, rule of thumb is the older the man the more he has seen, the more introverted he is and the closer to the bar he leans.

Old Colm rests his mountainous head on his arms in front of his Guinness. His eyes lull weary of the world under heavy lids. Gone are the days he was called Zipper for his ability to run like lightening when the situation needed. Fra, who is not quite right in the head, swings on his barstool; a manic, stupid grin on

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