The Shelbourne Hotel
Posted in Old blogger by Twenty Major on March 26th, 2005
Probably Dublin’s most famous hotel, The Shelbourne, on St Stephen’s Green is to close for 18 months for refurbishment. No doubt they’re flying in the best of stuff from Ikea and MFI in the UK.
It was never really my kind of place for drinking. Too expensive by half. I never understood the cunts in there drinking a pot of tea for €7 when you could go round to O’Donoghues and get it for €1.50 but then there’s a lot less sawdust and piss on the floors of the Horseshoe bar in the Shelbourne.
Jimmy the Bollix, being a rather big fan of Robert Ludlum, used to the call it ‘The Jason’ after Ludlum’s most favourite character, recently brought to life on the big screen by Matt ‘Strength of ten men’ Damon.
Anyway, the best story I have from that place is the night Jimmy and I were coming back from a football match at Lansdowne Road. Can’t remember who we were playing but it was around 6pm on a Saturday evening. For a laugh we decided to stop into the Jason for a pint and see who was toffing around inside trying to look more important than they really were.
Eamonn Dunphy was there and we had a bit of a laugh with him taking great delight in calling Jack Charlton a ‘big, thick, ugly cunt’. Eddie Jordan was there as well and a couple of no-mark politicians but when Jimmy saw celebrity gossip columnist Terry Keane I could see his eyes sparkle. Terry Keane was at that stage only rumoured to be the mistress of Charles Haughey - Ireland’s most famous politician, prime minister, gun runner and all round crook.
I could see Jimmy start to shuffle on his heels and I knew he was going to do something. Casually he went over to her and whispered something in her ear. Bedlam followed. She jumped up, threw her drink on him, called the bar manager and we were asked to leave. No big problem because we were going to Ron the barman’s anyway.
On the way out I asked him ‘What the fuck did you say to her, you mad cunt?’
Says he “I asked her ‘If, as we all know, you talk out of your arse, how do you whisper sweet nothings to Charlie when he’s got his cock up it?’”
“heh”, I said. “I love you, Jimmy” and we went off and got pissed.
Mosher says:
Likewise, I can’t figure out why people will pay a fortune to drink somewhere “posh”. I went to the university disco-thing a couple of years ago. When I was at uni it was heaving - pound a pint, crap music but you didn’t care.
Nowadays the staff outnumber the punters 2 to 1. All the bleeding heart “we have big student loans and we’re skint” lot are out paying £3/£4 a pint in the trendy joints in town. No wonder they’re fucking skint. I hope none of them are doing economics.
March 26th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
Bane says:
Damn, now that’s two Irishmen we’ll have to let live after we’ve conquered you. That was priceless.
March 26th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
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Mosher says:
Why the fuck would we want to conquer Ireland? They haven’t even got a decent footie team we can cherry-pick. OK, aside from Shay Given. And Stephen Carr. And Andy O’Brien.
I may be biased with those choices.
March 27th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
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Tommy says:
The yanks invade every year,but we still manage to send them home with empty pockets, unfortunatly they still insist on wearing green slax and yellow rain coats,and that’s just the soldiers.
March 27th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
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what scum says:
Conquer Ireland, I thought the Brits already did that? Always liked the Brits. The gutter is a good place for a fine Irish type to drink.
March 26th, 2006 at 11:47 am
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