"GIVE me four sausages," the old lady hollered at the young butcher, "and make em pork".
On Moore Street yesterday Dublin's most famous butchers were a putting a brave face and a Tricolour sticker on everything as the mad cow disease scare turned more and more people off meat.
"Our Beef is Good For You" read the laminated posters Tom Buckley has got printed to reassure customers, and with mince at 85 pence a pound many agree with him.
His chain of butcher shops turn over some £4 million worth of beef every year. They can't afford too much bad press and he blames the media for "generalisations".
F.X. Buckley's have a 260 acre farm in Co Offaly where 300 cattle graze at any one time. What they don't rear themselves they get from local farmers. "Our cattle are green and Irish," he said, "but if this continues it is bound to affect us."
"Remember the salmonella, remember that joke?" said neighbouring butcher Hugh Tyrell. He has been in the business since he was aged just 14 and over the last four decades has seen health scares "come and go".
"It will all be forgotten about in a few weeks," he predicted confidently. "A few people have made wisecracks about it, but they still bought beef," he said.
Mary Brennan, a retired civil servant from Glasnevin, was buying bacon for the weekend. The BSE scare worries her. "I've eaten beef all my life, I was brought up on it. When we would come home in the evenings our mother would have a pan full of steak on for us. On Sunday's we'd have half a big leg ... of a bullock, I suppose. When we were sick we'd have beef tea."
"I remember the first time we had liver in a neighbour's house. Afterwards we demanded it at home and my mother was horrified. She wouldn't give offal to animals and that's where the problem is.
"I'm a great believer in beet, but when I heard three people in Ireland had the disease I was a bit worried about it", she said.
Mayo pensioner Pat Tonra "will do with the bacon" until he goes home to Balla at Easter. "There was mad cow disease in Cork a month ago and 25 per cent of cattle in Ireland are bred in Cork," he insisted.
Burger lover Kuldip Singh says he won't risk it. He has always eaten meat but says he will refrain for the moment. "It's better to avoid it until it's clear. If we get a good result from the scientists I might start eating burgers again. But for now I won't risk it," he said.
"Great value here today. Have a look at the window, traditional Irish roast beef. Lovely beef there now. Any weight you want cut," cried Christy Troy from Moore Street's oldest butcher shop. For four generations his family has sold red meat to Dubliners. Business, he insisted yesterday, was as good as ever. "People have confidence in Irish beef."