MARY BRIDGET Collins doesn't like going to pubs because she never knows whether she will be served. To avoid the shame of being turned away, she sticks to the one pub near her Finglas home where she is certain to be served.
Mary Bridget says it is because she is a traveller that she is refused service in most pubs. "They seem to know before you even get in the door there's a traveller."
"The barman's expression changes as if he was waiting for another five or six of you to come through the door. Even before they get to know you, they expect that you would be rowdy."
Travellers' organisations insist that discrimination against their members in pubs and hotels is rife. Under current law, hoteliers and publicans can refuse to serve customers without giving a reason. The Government's Equal Status Bill, due for publication this year, will prohibit discriminating against people on the grounds that they are members of the travelling community.
To put Mary Bridget's fears of refusal to the test, she and two other travellers, Paddy McDonagh and Mary McDonnell, visited a number of Dublin public houses, chosen at random.
The group assembled in The Flowing Tide in Lower Abbey Street, which they knew was traveller friendly. The plan was that I would go into the pubs alone, order a drink and then wait near the bar to watch what happened when they arrived.
The first stop was the lounge in the Clifton Court Hotel at Eden Quay near O'Connell Bridge. The women sat down while Paddy ordered and was served without fuss.
Paddy was surprised. "I was expecting her to put us out. Maybe she didn't see you two coming in and sitting down," he said to Mary and Mary Bridget. They were also served in the Daniel O'Connell pub on Aston's Quay and the Parnell Mooney on Parnell Street.
We then tried Conway's public house a few doors down, where a scene from Roddy Doyle's film, The Snapper, was shot. The bar man took Paddy's order and picked up glasses as if to begin serving. He then went off to serve a toasted sandwich to another customer.
Returning to Paddy, he said in a low key manner "Sorry, I'm not serving you."
When Paddy asked him why, he replied "I don't have to give you a reason. I'm not serving you." The group left quietly. The manager, Mr Paul McGrath, who was not present during the incident, later defended his staff member's right to decide on his "instincts" not to serve them.
"We don't discriminate against traveller people here but he must have had a very good reason to turn them away," he said, adding that maintenance of safety was the main ground for refusing service.
The group was served in McSweeney's and the Shakespeare Bar further along Parnell Street.
Over the road in the Thornbush, however, they were refused service again. The manager, Mr Tom Bohan, later explained that while it was not pub policy to refuse service to travellers, the trio "didn't look impressive to me".
"The policy here is that anyone who doesn't look any way right gets the door," he said.
In O'Shea's Hotel on Talbot Street, the bar man hesitated after taking Paddy's order. The phone behind the bar rang and he answered it. He told Paddy couldn't serve him because his boss upstairs had seen them enter on a TV monitor.
Contacted by phone later, the hotel manager who had refused service, Mr Peadar O'Neill, said Paddy had been part of a group served a St Patrick's Day lunch by the hotel in 1993. As the group had agreed on that occasion that they would not be served any drink, he thought Paddy would understand not to order drinks there.
"Normally we only serve guests in our hotel or regulars", he said. Asked why he then had served me Mr O'Neill said he thought he knew my face. He said it was not hotel policy to turn away travellers.
Mary Bridget's husband, Michael, joined the group over a drink in the next pub, the Rambler on Talbot Street. They were also served in Molloy's a few doors down.
Settled around a table in Molloy's, they were perplexed that they had been served in seven out of the 10 pubs, against their expectations. They put it down to the fact that as it was afternoon, the bars were not filled with regulars and that as a mixed sex group, they may have appeared less threatening.
"We have got to the stage that we expect to be put out now," said Mary. "You know that when you come through the door they are looking at you and you are looking at yourself. It shouldn't be like that."