It’s been said that tourists avoid the three B’s: Baghdad, Beirut and Belfast. Yet here Sandrine and I were driving to potentially volatile Belfast in pursuit of whiskey and flirtation. Even with “The Troubles” long passed, Belfast’s divisions are still very real – there’d actually been rioting the night before – but as it turned out, the city was calm on our arrival.
Visiting working-class west Belfast first, Sandrine and I saw the famous murals on both sides of the barricades that still separate the Irish Catholic Republican and Anglo-Protestant Loyalist neighborhoods. After signing the Peace Wall, appropriately enough on July 4th, we happened to cross paths with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams outside their headquarters on Falls Road. With his salt-and-pepper beard, easygoing demeanor and captivating smile, Adams is, frankly, a sexy guy. Sandrine was especially smitten even though, as she put it, “he’s maybe kind of a terrorist.”
In the stridently middle-to-upper class, religiously and politically integrated Belfast city center, Sandrine and I hit all the sights from the artsy Cathedral Quarter to the leafy University Quarter and got some afternoon drinking in too, though Guinness played a bigger role than whiskey during our stops at White’s Tavern (first licensed in 1630, it’s purported to be the oldest pub in the city) and the Crown Bar (a beautifully preserved Victorian-era pub with private wooden snugs perfect for a snog). I’d fancied at drink in the bar at the Europa Hotel, which claims to be the most bombed hotel in Europe, but Sandrine convinced me that it wasn’t the best idea given the recent rioting.
Staying in the city center at Benedict’s, a hotel known for its bar/nightclub and chosen by us for that reason, Sandrine and I became famous during our stay as “The American Girls.” That’s what happens when you befriend the house band, The Untouchables, by requesting Stacey Q’s “Two of Hearts” on a lark (they didn’t play it). After the band serenaded us with “New York, New York,” a swarm of patrons descended upon us, eager to converse with the girls from New York City, the first Americans most had ever met. There was Seamus, who’s been saving up for a trip to NYC for years; Sean, who was interestingly enough drinking Budweiser; and Bernadette, a teenage girl who promised to be our BFF if we danced with her to the band’s rendition of Katy Perry’s “California Gurls.” And then there were Paddy and Donny.
While others are getting false names, Paddy is keeping his real one because he embodied all the very best stereotypes associated with Irishmen. Cute as hell, charismatic and retaining his gift of gab though completely hammered, Paddy had stumbled up to us on behalf of his pal Donny with the opening line, “I agreh!” Sensing the boy behind those smiling Irish eyes could handle it, I responded with, “Oh so you agree that Hugh Grant is sexy.” Paddy didn’t disappoint. “Oh yah, Hugh Grahnt is sehxeh. Was just tellin’ Donneh. You know who’s sehxeh? That Hugh Grahnt.”
If Paddy was amusing, his friend Donny was sweet. Lanky, doe-eyed and probably not a day over 20, Donny had been working up the courage to talk to Sandrine all night. Touched by his earnestness, and relieved that he wasn’t of the Fat Fucker variety of the night before, Sandrine was happy to spend the rest of the evening talking with him.
As Donny explained to Sandrine the patriotic significance of his shamrock tattoo, I sipped my Old Bushmills and enjoyed Paddy’s opinions on topics as diverse as our U.S. Presidents (JFK was the only good one), the Anglo-Protestants of Belfast (not at all surprising) and his work ethic (“If I showed up in the mornin’ on time an’ sober the boss would sack meh!”).
Listening to Paddy prattle on with his charming accent, I couldn’t help feeling lots of love for this bar. We’d received such a warm welcome here. I’m sure our high-profile status thanks to the band, and the fact that we were attractive and talkative girls played a role (would anyone have been at all interested in us if we’d been two dowdy things with fanny packs, attitudes and saggy asses in khaki shorts?), but as I scanned the bar I noticed that the warmth wasn’t just directed at us. Everywhere locals who had been complete strangers up until this moment were acting like old friends. Unlike any given bar in NYC, where individuals keep to themselves and groups are closed to outsiders, Benedict’s was a massive party to which everyone was invited and everyone was a part. In spite of, or maybe because of, the long history of division and strife in their city, the people of Belfast clearly valued coming together for a pint, a dance, a laugh.
Interestingly enough, as much as the bar crowd had been mingling, flirting and dancing, people didn’t seem to be going home together. A moral choice brought on by the strict Catholic upbringing? I’d gone to Catholic school, and, well, we see how that turned out. It was probably economics. Donny and Paddy lived at home with their parents and younger siblings, without privacy enough for a pub-to-shag. We’d certainly said goodnight to the boys at the bar.
Returning to our room, Sandrine and I began to pack while discussing the men and dating rituals of Northern Ireland. Appealing as our Donny and Paddy were, they were much too young for us. Why in the course of our travels in Northern Ireland had we only encountered barely legals, an odd drunk divorcee and a Fat Fucker bachelor? It hit us like a shot of Black Bush at last call: the overwhelming majority of men our age were probably already married, home with their wives and several children, not at the pub.
With the dating scene more forgiving in NYC, I determined, tossing my strappy heels into my suitcase, that I’d take the spirit of Northern Ireland back home with me. While I’d still very much be looking for “The One,” I’d always remember the lessons of Benedict’s and Belfast: that the best times can be the ones left at the bar door, that dating needn’t always be so focused on the end goal, and that I can have fun even with an expiration date.
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