As I sit and write this blog post, I am on a train hurtling towards Heathrow Airport, about to embark on a mini-break with my partner in crime, life and business – Linds.
The destination? Morocco, for a short stay in Marrakech before the tantalising prospect of a two-day trek out into the Sahara to camp under the stars. It’s a new country, a new continent, and a new culture for me, and to say I’m excited is a huge understatement. It’s only our second trip abroad together, and as such, we’re still getting used to what I’ll describe as each other’s “travelling habitus”. That’s to say, we’re still trying to strike a balance between kicking back and motoring around tourist destinations, figuring out who likes to carry the bag, who likes to read the maps and so on and so forth.
I mention it’s our second trip together, because this story starts with a short tale from our first trip. Back in May, Linds and I travelled to Finland and Estonia, a trip which will live long in my memory for the amazing scenery, (really cheap!) quality food, and the staggering quality of the local beer. Despite all of the amazing experiences we had there, from island hopping in the Finnish Baltic on kayaks to visiting Estonia’s leading microbrewery – one small, relatively insignificant moment has stuck with me.
On our first excursion into Helsinki from our AirBnB, we strolled past an Irish Pub. As if by second nature, my pub antennae went into overdrive, and with a smile, I turned to Linds with a smile and said, “we should go in, right?”.
This was my first, and crucial, mistake. Linds laughed and then with a familiar look of steely eyed determination, the smile dropped from her face: “You’re not actually serious, are you? An Irish pub? We’re on holiday, Josh. I want to explore, not just sit in a rough approximation of a pub eating chips and drinking warm beer.”
It was, admittedly, a gaudy looking place. It was emblazoned with neon shamrocks, as well as a flashing sign proclaiming the bar to have “the best pint of Guinness in Helsinki”, seeming to me to be truly damning with faint prize. As the hairy barkeep shuffled in and out of the swinging door to bring chairs onto the pavement, the still Baltic evening air was punctuated with organ vibrating blasts of Nicki Minaj emanating from the bowels of the pub.
I realised my race was run. I muttered something along the lines of “I was just pulling your leg”, and we continued on into the evening. I would be in the grips of an inward sulk for at least ten minutes afterwards.
The reason this episode has stuck with me isn’t due to a low-key, long-burning resentment that has built up over the ensuing four months. Rather, I find it very difficult to argue with Linds’ logic. The “pub” was indeed a rough approximation, the neon was off-putting, and simply put the most fundamentally brilliant things about going abroad is to experience and immerse yourself in the culture, and indeed the drinking culture – of another country. If I wanted to spend my weekend going to pubs, why were we in the Baltic rather than Cornwall or the Lake District?
To tell you the truth, though – and this does feel like somewhat of a dirty confession – I like going to Irish pubs whilst I’m away. I’m fully aware that this is a predilection which flies in the face of my desire to travel and experience different cultures to the fullest. There will be you intellectual snobs out there, who will automatically categorise me into the Benidorm + Full English camp.
Let’s go back to basics. Quite simply, where there’s tourists, there’s an Irish pub. You can find “Irish Pubs” in all corners of the globe, and they stand as institutions which spring up to provide a watering hole for Irish and British travellers, to sit back, have a pint and reconnect with their homeland. However, it isn’t this levelling of pub culture – the presentation of a homogenous experience – which I find so interesting and alluring about visiting Irish Pubs abroad, rather the absolute inverse is true. It’s true that Irish Pubs around the world fundamentally seek to represent institutions which share a fundamental DNA with each other. Many of them are indeed Irish owned, many of them do have a Disneyfied, beam-filled interior designed to replicate traditional pub aesthetic, and many of them do indeed, serve Guinness. However, if you peel back the layers, perhaps the only thing they actually have in common is that they are all inseparable from their localities.
I’ve been to Irish Pubs in several different countries, and though many have looked the same, the experiences I’ve had there have been deeply reflective of local customs. I drank Sangria whilst watching a La Liga match in an Irish Pub in Barcelona. I’ve drank cordial and lager in Poland at an Irish pub in Krakow and ended up spending the night talking to an Irish proprietor and his Polish wife about local customs and politics. I’ve been to an Irish pub in the heart of New York City, which despite its woody, low-ceilinged interior, boasted a slew of electronic screens, towering plates of Nachos and aggressively friendly table service – which told me far more about American consumer culture than Irish pubs. I was even lucky enough to go to an Irish Pub run by a beautiful family in Kyiv, around three years ago. My friends were the only customers on a Thursday night, and the barmaid was incredibly keen to let us try a host of local ales and spirits, giving a different toast each time. I think about her and her family often, given the tragic events unfolding in Ukraine by the day.
What I’m trying to say in a long-winded way is that pubs inherently reflect their local, natural environment. They are shaped by local attitudes to drink, local tipples, local sports, local music, local service custom, and of course, the physical geography of the places they reside. My desire to go into Irish Pubs in Helsinki isn’t about wanting to connect to home – but to use a cultural format I understand to better connect to different cultures I want to learn more about.
In truth, writing this blog post started as what was supposed to be a 300-word comedy story about two England natives and their snobbishness towards Irish Pubs abroad – and the conclusions I’ve come to whilst writing it over the previous few hours have surprised me. Insofar as this has helped me come to terms with my own love of Irish Pubs, I suppose it’s been a healthy thought experiment. My conclusion? Loving Irish Pubs abroad isn’t necessarily a sign that you’re a luddite, fated to be uninterested in the flourishing heritage landscape and culture surrounding you. Rather, visiting these institutions can help shape your understanding of different cultures, and how different nations, cities and communities interpret, interact with and adapt beloved elements of your own culture.
Or at least that’s going to be my locked and loaded justification when I ask our guides in the Sahara where the nearest Irish watering hole is…
Cheers!