OutTakes
by Edd Merritt

Boxers and Burdoks part
of Christmas in Ireland

OK, so why go to Ireland for the holidays?
To feel warm and cuddly all wrapped in soft woolens perhaps; maybe to sip spirits while contemplating surroundings carved from aged chunks of Christianity.
Or perhaps there’s a wee bit o’ ancestry in those verdant green fields that remind me of me grandma Margaret McLinn who used tae draw wirds un me back at night, lulling me tay sleep in that lilting whisperin’ Irish voice.
“Aye, rest yirself lad.”
Christmas horse racing in Leopardstown, though, sounds like something out of Hair.
And Burdoks? Didn’t they attack your stockings on the way into grandpa’s hunting camp?
Baileys were my relatives – but not exactly the ones you’d show off at Easter. They tippled a bit, ya know. While they talked the lord, it often came out in the devil’s breath. If they didn’t mind their ways, they’d find themselves off Grafton Street with an empty bottle a’ Jamiesons.
Well, my relatives be sniggered. This year we spent the holidays in Ireland for the fun of it. You know, Irish fun. And, despite what the tourist books say, all does not revolve around pubs and castles.
For example, there’s boxing. That’s as in fighting – the boxtys are a whole different animal – and very tasty. We’ll discuss them in the food issue.
My boxing arrived in the form of a live Irish legend on the airplane to Dublin. He introduced me to the native love for jabber, as well as fisticuffs. It began as we were readying to land in Shannon. Beth and I were in a pair of outside seats, a young family from the auld sod across the aisle. A fellow walking forward caught the mother’s attention. Other than being tall and solid under his plain blue hooded sweatshirt and woolen stocking cap, he appeared much like other young folk, simply attired, headed home for the holidays. She recognized him as someone special, however, and asked if she could take his picture. Shaking her husband awake, she told him to stand next to the guy. He did so. The fellow in the stocking cap put his arm around the husband’s shoulder and curled his other fist beneath hubby’s chin as though he were going to rearrange his lower jaw. Fortunately, he smiled as he posed. Mom snapped a couple of pictures, thanked him, and he moved on to his seat.
I didn’t think more about it until we reached Dublin, and I was standing outside the bathroom. An Irishman there, also waiting for his wife, said, “Do ye know who that fellow is?” pointing at the guy from my plane in the stocking cap.
“Is he a boxer by any chance?” I queried, explaining what I’d seen on the flight.
“Aye, that’s Kevin McBride. He beat up on yir Mike Tyson. Did ya see the fight?”
I admitted I hadn’t, but said I did recall reading something about the fact that jail, booze and drugs had left Tyson less than well prepared. McBride tko’d him to the joy of the Irish. Guinness sales skyrocketed, and every lush on the Liffey fancied himself the next Rocky O’Marciano.
I happened to meet McBride and his family as we were waiting for our luggage, and like “the dumb-American” I congratulated him on his victory, not realizing it happened three years ago. He said, “Thanks, I think,” and we chatted amiably for the next ten minutes – my introduction to that endearing Irish trait, the love and gift of gab. Little did I know how often it would repeat itself.
Burdoks, a fish-and-chips hole in the wall just a block from our apartment in Dublin, offered the next opportunity. Our airport cabbie recommended it highly – with a slight caveat. “Beware. Burdoks’ll lay ye oot flat,” I think were his exact words. “One bag a dinner and ye won’t move fir days.”
Accepting the challenge, three of us headed there Christmas Eve. Two twinkle-eyed, white-haired men were cooking and talking a mile-a-minute to each other, to customers, to the wall. Most clients looked as if they came straight from the surrounding neighborhood of modest row houses and frequented the place often – a good sign.
When asked how many dinners we wanted, my son said seven. The white hair gulped, his eyes bulged, and he said the last time he’d done up that many at once was for Saint Andrew in the sixth century. Could we “pick ‘em oop tomorrow?” All the regulars chuckled. We blushed.
I stepped outside to wait and read the note painted on the window that said the Vikings stopped here for food when they first arrived in Ireland millennia past.
A fellow strolled up to me, asked me if I’d placed my order yet. I replied I had, and he immediately asked where in the states I lived. “Vermont,” I said. “It’s sort of in . . .”
“Aye, ta be sure. It’s Moonlight in Vermont, right; I play it with my band.” Then, in one breath said, ”FrankSinatra sangitdidn’thesureIthinkhedidItgoessortoflikethis, eh?”
Still without skipping a beat, he started to hum and move his fingers around an imaginary keyboard.
Yes, I know it well. Evening summer breeze, sounds of the sycamore. So enjoy yir fish – aah, Moonlight in Vermont; what a luvely song.”
If the guys inside, still chuckling at our gonzo order, hadn’t bagged our fish and thrown in gut-bucketsful of fries, I could have stayed where I was and chatted up the line all night. People came in bunches; individuals, families, old and young, some in strollers, little girls in pink sweaters and rubber boots, bobbley wool hats on their heads, often skipping. Some gentlemen feeling the effects of their nightly Jamiesons, others feeling nothing at all, upright, but meandering down the sidewalk like the river bending below us, sought nourishment and an ear to lay into.
After all, Dublin is to storyville what Barre is to granite.
“Blarney in Killarney.” Next to Guinness, it’s life’s sustenance here.
I’ll leave my story of Baileys for breakfast for another time. However, imagine porridge with a twist.