Eoin Butler: writer, journalist and Mayoman of the Year
Tripping Along The Ledge
evening herald
Published: Evening Herald, December 2007THE HORSESHOE BAR
Baaam! Didn’t see that one coming, did you? It’s Friday night and I’m chilling in Ireland’s most exclusive bar. Finally, it somehow feels like I’m amongst my own kind. Before I order a drink though, I’ve got a few old scores to settle. I press the mobile phone to my ear. It’s ringing. Read the rest of this entry »
The International Bar
Perusing the Sunday papers in the International Bar, something suddenly strikes me. I hate the Sunday papers. The first six days of the week, newspaper articles tend to begin with sentences like ‘The government has announced…’, ‘Sources in Timbuktu report…’ or ‘Grave robbers in Ballyjamesduff have stolen…’
But come Sunday, all that goes out the window. Suddenly, it’s all ‘Is Bebo turning our children into zombies?’ or ‘Can worrying about my bum give me swine flu?’ The answer, invariably, is ‘Almost certainly not… But here’s 2,000 words and a photograph of Jennifer Aniston (for some reason) just for the hell of it’. Read the rest of this entry »
Published: Evening Herald, December 2009Anseo
Anseo on Lower Camden Street: Not the kinda place you return to after a long absence and think – Wow, I love what they’ve done! There are yellowed concert posters on the walls, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry on the sound system and a pervasive stench of incense.
If it’s 1980s Student Union charm you’re looking for, well, you’re in the right place.
I pay a fiver for a pint of Miller (no Budweiser unfortunately) and stand by the back wall. I immediately get that shitty feeling you get when you’re in a crowded bar on your own. Then there’s a tap on my shoulder and I get that shitty feeling you get when you run into an old friend unexpectedly.
“Butsey!” he says.
Christ, I hate that.
Last I heard of Fergus he was jetting off saving the world somewhere with Amnesty International. But that was then. This is now. “Fuck human rights, dude,” he says. “There’s a recession on. It’s every man for himself!”
He tells me he found love in Thailand. With a woman? “Of course with a fucking woman,” he snaps. “Why does everyone have to ask?” The way he tells it, it was a deep, spiritual connection. “I left my heart in Koh Samui,” he says. “I really did.”
His brother Derek tells it a little differently. “Fergie brought a little bit of Koh Samui home with and all,” he sniggers. Oh really? “Fuckin’ right,” says Derek. “He came home with a cock on him like a Lion Bar.”
For the love of Christ.
Fergus isn’t having this. “For all youse know,” he protests. “I coulda got that in Dublin.” “Yeah right,” says Derek. “Last Irish box you saw the inside of had a number 5 on the lid.”
We both crease ourselves laughing.
Went through the Magic Door, did he?
“Special offer at Saver’s Supermarket, wha?”
I tell Daniel he’s giving his brother a very bad press. “You don’t know the half of it, Butsy,” he says. As it transpires, a week after his return from Thailand, Fergus received a long-distance telephone call.
“It’s his mott in Thailand, right? Tells him she’s up the duff! Tells him she needs some money to sort it out!” Fergus grumbles, but doesn’t actually contradict what his brother says. “So Fergus tells me Da. And me Da says were ya using johnnies, son? And me brother says, yeah. I definitely used johnnies with this one Da…”
What a family.
“So me Da gets the girl’s number and he rings back. He says he’s delighted. Says himself and me Ma can’t wait to welcome their first grandchild. Says they’ll have to fly over to Thailand for the birth.”
What did she say to that?
“She calls back two days later. Says she isn’t up the duff at all. Never was. It was all a, whaddiyacall, a phantom pregnancy.”
I laugh, but I get the feeling I laugh a little too heartily. “I’m going back there in a couple of month,” Fergus shrugs. “Got to sort out the bank loan first.” She sounds like quite a character, I offer. “She is,” says Fergus proudly. “She certainly is.”
Published: Evening Herald, January 2010SOUTH WILLIAM
It’s Saturday night in South William and my almost-long-lost school friend Gerry the Bonnet is offering crash course reminder of why we drifted apart in the first place.
Suffering mother, how had I forgotten? He’s the most boring man in Ireland. Christ, you could drive a bus through some of the gaps in those sentences.
“I told the girlfriend… Tracy…. Tracy is the girlfriend,” he drones.
I know. Read the rest of this entry »
Published: Irish Times, March 6 2010I’m a bit surprised to be referred to as “you people”… Isn’t that kind of condescending?
MAT FRASER
Star of Channel 4’s Cast-Offs, his one man show From Freak to Clique comes to Dublin this month.
When you walk out in front of an audience for the first time, how do you break the ice?
Well, obviously, I was born with phocomelia. That’s glaringly obvious and people want to know about it. So I deal with that straight away. You can’t lampoon others if you’re not willing to lampoon yourself. Read the rest of this entry »
Wayne Coyne Battles the Bad Buzz Robots
[Introductory note: Electric Picnic 2005. I had only a couple of minutes notice I’d be talking to Wayne Coyne. No time to prepare questions. So I got to thinking, you know, the guy is always so insanely happy. Wouldn’t it be funny if I just tried to depress the shit out of him. So I tried. Did it work? Well…
I did everything I could think of to irritate, annoy, anger and/or depress him. In the end, I hung out with him for a couple of hours. And, sadly, he couldn’t have been nicer. Sufficed to say, he’s just a decent, happy guy… Bastard!] Read the rest of this entry »
Published: Evening Herald, January 2010The Liberty Belle
It’s a wet and freezing Thursday night and Thomas Street is teeming with pretty, young things raucously celebrating… something or other. When you’re pretty and young, I suppose, you don’t really need an excuse.
We duck down Francis Street and stick our heads in the door of the Liberty Belle. There are football scarves hanging from the ceiling and a load of old drunks codgering at the bar. Read the rest of this entry »
Published: Mongrel magazine, September 2005Two of these individuals participated in this interview… your guess as good as mine
[N.B. Minutes before or after (I can’t remember which) yesterday’s tête-à-tête with Flaming Lips’ mainman Wayne Coyne, I interviewed two unidentified members of the Arcade Fire. They weren’t very famous then. I assumed I was talking to Win and Regine. But when “Win” started referring to himself in the third person, it occurred to me that this wasn’t necessarily the case. For the published piece, I called them Will (Win’s brother) and Regine. But to be honest, for all I know, I could have been talking to anyone that day. I was pretty high on life back then. Like really, really high on life…] Read the rest of this entry »
“We’ve got a connection with this place called Ireland. But that country doesn’t exist anymore…”
DES DILLON
Scottish playwright
For those unfamiliar with the vocabulary of Scottish sectarian invective, you might first explain the title of the play: ‘I’m No a Billy, He’s a Tim.’
In Glasgow, a “Billy” refers to a fan of Rangers football team – 99 times out of 100, he will also be Protestant. And a Tim is a Celtic supporter who, 99 times out of 100, will be Catholic.
The ‘Billy’ presumably is named for William of Orange. What’s the derivation of ‘Tim’?
The Tim Malloys were an Irish Catholic street gang operating in Glasgow in the early 1900s. So a “Tim” is the generic nickname for a Catholic in Scotland. Read the rest of this entry »
The Old Stand
“No pint bottles of Bulmers?” The barman shakes his head. Tommy is shocked. I’d consider the Old Stand one of the city’s better bars: Clean. Quiet. Well run. But my old friend, in Dublin for a birthday tonight, knows better. “No pint bottles,” he declares. “No class.”
This is the same guy, incidentally, who, to the consternation of his wife, served Buckfast at their wedding reception. His opinions on these matters, then, aren’t necessarily definitive. Read the rest of this entry »