OKAY, so it’s not perfect. Far from it in fact. As if we weren’t well enough acquainted with the great outdoors having walked the legs off ourselves in the name of something to do, we now have to drink there.
No stool by the bar. No ‘want me to stick another one in there?’ No ‘what crisps have you back there actually don’t even worry about answering I’ll take one of each, and the same again next time please’.
No dirtbirds dropping one from less than the recommended social distance away before heading off, leaving you and your company choking on sulphur. None of any of that.
Oh, and see those dishes strewn across the table in front of you and the other 13 people who apparently share two households, the plates with the flies climbing over the top of half gnawed chicken bones from the wings inhaled earlier?
Yeah, they’ll be staying right where they are in case the Five-0 drop by. But hey, enjoy your pints! By the way you have seven minutes left, so drink up.
Here it is folks, welcome to the new normal, part deux.
Last summer we ate out to help out before being told to watch the door doesn’t skelp our arses on the way out, but today marks a glorious return as bars – well, beer gardens (this is Ireland, what could possibly go wrong?) - finally reopen for business following an arid five months.
And it got me thinking about how many of our sporting memories are wrapped up in these public houses; how that shared union with either a couple of other stragglers or a room crammed full of strangers is somehow able to elevate an occasion and hold it there, a moment forever frozen in time.
It’s a powerful thing, and something so easily lost sight of after a year sat in the same spot, looking at the same screen, surrounded by the same four walls. Sport, work, life - everything bleeds into one when the outside world is withdrawn.
Ask me about pretty much any sporting event I’ve watched through that time and I’d struggle for detail. Chances are I nodded off 20 minutes before the end, that middle-aged man shaped groove in the sofa beckoning me into its arms.
But mention, for example, the Republic of Ireland’s momentous 1-0 win over the Netherlands in 2001 and we’re instantly transported back to Dungloe.
The same journey from Belfast now would take you less than three hours. Maybe it should have taken the same then too, but it didn’t. I’d conservatively guess at five-and-half, the blind leading the blind all the way to west Donegal.
The previous summer a similar expedition to Wexford took in excess of seven hours, the combination of an M50-less route and the chaos caused by a Robbie Williams concert in Dublin leaving poor passengers running out of CDs to fill the time as traffic ground to a halt in Drogheda (ask your parents - it’s a place that used to exist before the new road).
For an hour and a half we sat baking in the car outside the garage on the way into town, Kid A on its fourth rotation, eyes drawn to a solitary scrawl on the side of the building.
Drogheda is shit
This was deep. It felt hard to argue.
Anyway, where were we? Ah, of course, Dungloe, long before the Daniel O’Donnell visitor centre opened its doors “in a fanfare of publicity” (source: RTE).
The anticipated pilgrimage of grannies bearing cakes and jumpers did not materialise as the driving rain drove people from the streets and into the bars for Ireland’s make-or-break World Cup qualifier against the Dutch.
Our plan was to be there a few hours before kick-off. We landed 20 minutes after it. The pub we wandered into in haste had, as it turned out, no roof. Well, there were a couple of slates here and there, but nothing like enough to offer any protection against the heavens opening from above.
The punters inside cared not though, entranced as the drama unfolded on the 21 inch wide, 47 inch deep television in the corner. Coats on, hoods up, making sure to avoid the puddles en route to bar or bog, a round was ordered and we were on our way.
When Jason McAteer fired home the 67th minute winner, what remained of the roof almost came off. You don’t forget moments like that.
The Ascot bar in Carryduff is another. Any time Manchester United’s treble-winning 1999 season comes up, I’m right back there.
The Wednesday night of the FA Cup semi-final replay win over Arsenal, arriving at half-time after finishing a back breaking four hour fruit and veg shift at the local SuperValu store, the hum of over-ripe bananas guaranteeing no shortage of elbow room.
Keane’s second yellow, Schmeichel’s save from Bergkamp’s penalty, unnamed Premier League footballer picking up the ball on the halfway line before slaloming through and rifling beyond Seaman, the sound of the fire crackling over to the side, £1.90 a pint, the guy who would randomly shout ‘who’s the daddy?’ to weary groans. Magic memories one and all.
Then there were the Juventus games, the final against Bayern, bodies everywhere as the place went mental, the Liverpool fans flooding out of the same venue at half-time six years later – “I’m not watching any more of that shite” – before skulking back in as Stevie G pulled them back by the bootstraps against AC Milan.
We’ve watched World Cup games in a dungeon in Bruges, the Revierderby inside a packed beer hall in Cologne, followed the Republic’s fortunes at the Euros from an Amsterdam greenhouse (in every respect), seen a native joyously disrobe and mount a pool table in Dundrum when Tyson Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko in Dusseldorf.
One sorry afternoon was even spent roaring on – gulp - Tyrone on the Ramblas. That was a dark time.
The Banner was raised and Clare’s 2013 success toasted well into the night outside Dan Murphy’s at the top of the Leidseplein while the heady aroma of spilt Bulmers and stale sick has warmed the air in Clones pub courtyards on many an Ulster final day.
They say nothing beats being there but, after a year spent stuck to the sofa, the chance to share those sporting occasions with others once again is something to be savoured – even if it is outside.
Sure who needs a roof anyway.
