Crack is not an Irish word. The spelling “craic” oddly enough
is a translation of the word for fun that emerged from some of
the mid-Atlantic slang that permeates Irish culture. It turned
full circle that a translated spelling of a Hiberno-English word is
being used to describe what happens in Irish pubs.
Where do you find the craic/crack? There are over 4,000
pubic houses, throughout every city, town and county,
where informal Irish music is served up alongside pints
and meaty sandwiches.
So where to start?
TEMPLE BAR: Irish people might sneer a bit at Temple
Bar but when they need to bring the cousin from Boston
out on the town, this is where they head: to the Left bank
of Dublin which is, appropriately, on the right bank, in a
series of small medieval streets between the River Liffey
and Dame Street, the 18th century artery of the city,
connecting the houses of parliament and Trinity College
with the ancient Liberties. The site was designated as
a bus station in the 1970s, which meant that a nest of
8
businesses with short leases, restaurants and alternative
music spots sprang up under the raised noses of the city
fathers, who had to listen to the city mothers and the city
children and establish a bohemian quarter there.
There are two dozen pubs hosting live music, depending
on which boundary you chose and they have a rotating
series of fiddlers and uileann pipers playing sessions of
two hours’ duration, with balladeers and fiddlers Dave
Houston, Christy Davy, Sharon Hussey, John Mulvihill,
harpist Amy McAllister and uileann piper Dan O’Sullivan
amongst them.
DOOLIN: You could not find it on the map, but the fame
of a tiny village street in west Clare, with three pubs and
a ferry departure point for Inisheer, spread so rapidly in
Germany in the 1970s that writer Cormac MacConnell