Sir, – One evening this past summer, I had journeyed long across the country to arrive at a rural pub adjacent to one of Mayo’s lakes.
Imagine my disappointment when I learned that cards were not accepted as payment for my much-needed refreshment. My petitions that I had been there two years previously and was known to the owner appeared to be getting nowhere as the proprietor could not be raised on the phone. It seemed as if either an hour’s diversion to an ATM or a glass of plain water was in my future.
Suddenly, from a couple of seats down at the bar, a voice chimed in, “I’ll buy you a drink!” My spirits lifted and then the gentleman beside me and, totally unbidden, discreetly pushed a €50 note across the counter and sotto voce let it be known that I may repay him when I could.
Needless to say, a great evening was had, and the next one too. – Yours, etc,
‘They think they’re no good and that they shouldn’t be in this world’
Jonathan Coe: ‘The morning after the election felt like waking up in a safe room, having been in an abusive relationship for 14 years’
Irish postpunk band Gurriers: ‘Everyone asks about the Dublin music scene. It’s not just Dublin any more, it’s everywhere’
Hugh Linehan: Cillian Murphy’s Small Things Like These has become a cause celebre of the Make Ireland Great Again brigade
TERENCE METCALFE.
Devonshire,
Bermuda.