One of the highlights of staying in Dooey was Packies Bar. The pub at Corr Point where the locals mix with television stardom.
The road to Corr Point, where Packies Bar is the centre of attraction (some might say – the ONLY attraction,) is like the Guinness he serves there. Take it slowly and let it pleasure all the senses. For a start there’s the walk down the hairpin and then turn left past the rookery farm. Many years ago – someone decided to plant trees around the farm (or maybe let the trees that were growing there remain whilst the others were cut down.) Then the rooks came and colonised and made a noisy bickering of the place. The farm is solid, three storeys, looking out over the bay so away from Dooey. On the left the cowsheds, on the right fields laced with water from the wet February just gone … brackish and blunt manure smells give way to a salty sand-laced air that tells you the strand is near. And so as you walk along a narrow strip of a road, you can see out across the estuary and the houses beyond of Corr Point. They are mostly the self-build bungalows that have punctured the landscape. One of the few that isn’t is Packies Bar.
Distinguishing a bar in rural Ireland from any other domestic building is somewhat difficult. I walked into a least 3 people’s front rooms – and nearly walked into Packie’s living area (it is on the left) instead of the bar. Bar it is – just room for a couple of small tables at either end and the bar stools and a row of benches behind along the bar itself. There is a photo of a couple of fellas and a big cup next to the old foreign notes and beermats surrounding the back of the bar – which looks like it hasn’t been cleared for a decade or more. Not that there is anything wrong with that (in my eyes anyway.)
There are also the fantastic views from the back windows across Corr Point bay -but most of my visits were in the evening and in Ireland in March, then it is pitch black. But to get to my story …
I first arrived at Packie’s on my 2nd night at Dooey. I had been told by the owners of the cottage I was staying in about the three bars in the locality and that Packie’s was the nearest – they also said that is was the quirkiest and that; “they don’t make them like that any more.” Well I like quirky … and the message seemed clear – go to Packie’s.
On entering, I noticed that there seemed to be a split between the people in there – one group gathered at a table at the top end and most of the others sat along the bar. It was hard to pitch, but the group seemed a bit more up market, a bit “out of town” types compared to the majority – but then this was seeing things with virgin eyes.
This group were also mainly drinking wine – that is those who were drinking, who were mainly the women. As I have said ad nauseum – there is a reason for driver’s not to drink. Packie seemed to have quite a selection of small bottles of wine – the sort that can be drunk by one or two glass-fulls. I’m not sure if he got them for this particular group or not … I ordered my drink and took a seat at the bar and looked across. One of the women in the party, the eldest and most dominant one, didn’t half seem familiar to me, which was strange. Why would I know someone who was drinking in a pub in the rural fringe of Donegal, in March! But there being little else to do, it did play on my mind. She did vaguely remind me of someone Scottish, but then I heard her accent which was US and so ruled that out. As I can’t think of any US women that I know – I decided that she just must remind me of someone and moved on. I was pleased that I didn’t say “excuse me, but do I know you from somewhere,” which I might have done had she spoken with a Scottish accent. Very pleased, as later events would prove.
On the night – nothing much else happened. The group decided to go home before me and made an orderly exit. I went soon after leaving a few people at the bar. It was only in the next few weeks that I got the full story.
The next day I put something on Facebook that I had been to Packie’s bar – and later one of my friends posts back that it had just been named as one of the top 20 bars in Ireland by a UK national newspaper. At first I thought this must be wrong – MY Packies bar was one room in the small village in the back of beyond. But when I read the article, I saw that it was right. There was no picture of the place, but it had to be the Packies bar I’d been in. So, although I don’t usually go to bars two days running, (I like to pace myself,) I took off over there again the following evening and found I had Packie all to myself. After a few generalities – I brought up the subject of the article, which I guessed must be the talk of the village. Packie said he had something about it from his brother, but hadn’t read the piece itself – so I showed him on my phone. He was delighted with the article, though he couldn’t understand one comment. “Is the door open? Then I’m open…” He thought that was just common sense.
Later in the evening – three regulars came in (who I believe were known as the three musketeers,) and I passed around the phone with the newspaper article on. They were amused but not overly surprised. “We have the rich and famous coming in here already” one of them declared … “Isn’t your Christine a famous Hollywood star?”
They then went onto tell me that a woman called Christine came in on a semi-regular basis, when she wasn’t filming – as she just loved the place. Although they had called her a Hollywood star it was soon made clear to me, that she was mainly on TV and American TV at that. She stars in these Legalese dramas – and they named a couple that I had never heard of.
I have to say, I thought no more of it, as I don’t watch that much TV and certainly not US crime series – but I will still quite impressed that there was a connection between this small bar in Donegal and American TV.
Time moved on and I visited Packie’s Bar a few times (more in a future post) – but it was only on my final evening that he opened up a bit more about Christine.
“She’s living in the house that I grew up in!” He told me, “Isn’t it something that my house could be bought by a Hollywood movie star!” “It is the second largest house on Corr Point,” then as an aside he informed me, “The doctor lives in the biggest!” He then picked up the TV remote and started fiddling with it. Well I had grown used to the fact that Packie could end his conversations very abruptly and turn to do other things – so I thought nothing of it until he exclaimed … “here she is!” and there on the screen was the woman from the first evening I was in.
Well for one thing I was impressed that she seemed to have the lead role in this drama – and what a transformation, from someone who did not look that out of place in a Donegal bar – to an extremely sophisticated Chicago lawyer. But it was the same person and I still had that annoying feeling that “I know you from somewhere…” But then the thought went again as I got stuck into Packie’s excellent Guinness.
It was only some time later when I was leaving the cottage that the owner’s called over to say goodbye and they mentioned that it was a pity I had not met Christine … “Oh I think I might have done,” I replied “on my first night – I had a feeling I knew her from somewhere – but then I don’t view US dramas.” “Well that is mainly what she is known for,” they responded, “although she was in both Mama Mia movies.”
“I didn’t watch them either” I said, somewhat revealing my film negligence.
Then one evening – and don’t ask me why … but one evening – when I was far from Dooey and Donegal and Packies bar and everything, it was still mythering my brain – I thought (and why didn’t I think it earlier) “I know, I will look her up on google and see what she has been in.” And there it was in black and white.
You see, I do watch ONE US drama series – although I don’t think of it as drama – just as a bloody good comedy. I do watch “The Big Bang Theory” and she, Christine Baransky played one of my favourite characters, Leonard’s mother.
That I could have recognised her from that is weird to me – but then as I said I don’t watch that much TV so perhaps it is no surprise that my unconscious brain clicked it.
I am so glad I didn’t go up to her and say “do I know you from somewhere?” I would have felt such a fool and I would have felt that I was interrupting what was obviously a “hair down” moment for her and her friends.
But then who would have thought, that walking into a bar that could be someone’s front room in a tiny village in Donegal , I would come face to face with Leonard Hofstadter’s mother.
