Hard night in Cork. Hard station on Irish Rail.

Just returned from Cork, after travelling down for the launch of Denis Cotter’s book.

Woeful food on the train, of course, after all the ballyhoo a year or so ago about the Robbie Millar (Shanks) inspired menu on the Belfast run the will to improve matters seems to have been lost. High-priced stodge with the ultimate rip-off being the plastic cuppa and the even more plastic BLT for a fiver the pair. That’s if there’s a dining car actually on the train of course. With that very decent man Tom Mythen installed as el supremo in the Restaurants Association of Ireland you’d think the Great Train Robbers would get their act in gear!

It’s a long while since I socialised in The Rebel County and I’d forgotten the rules. Rule One is you’re expected to talk until your tongue shrivels up. Rule Two, you drink until your head falls off. So we kicked off at 6pm sharp… ish (this is Cork) in the bar at the Opera House. Bill Hogan, he of Gabriel cheese fame, delivered a fine homage a Denis and Denis riposted with a thirty minute speech full of his usual modesty and self-effacement (joking!). Favoured drink was the Italian sparkler, Prosecco, chosen by the fragrant Bridget who, as a hard-core New Zealand hippie of elephantine memory has never forgiven the French for blowing up Rainbow Warrior. Quite right too, mind. Trouble is I’m so weak-willed when faced with a magnum of Ch.Haut Brion ’82.

Some fun people there including a board, or whatever the collective noun is, of Irish craft cheese-makers; many from the groves of Academe – UCC heads who eat regularly at Café Paradiso; William and Ailish O’Callaghan from Longueville, good to see them again and Jim and Fran, the dedicated mushroom people from wildest Doneraille; also Gerry Barnes, Machiavellian genius behind the Opera House’s flourishing existence against the odds (dig deep Bertie if you’re reading this – European City of Culture Year is advancing at a rate of knots and Cork needs the dosh to put on a good show), my host for the night.

At some point we must have left The Opera House for we found ourselves in the beer garden of Tom Barry’s, drinking the most exemplary pint of Beamish. What a good stout this is, huge character, with its dry, whiff of woodsmoke and spice initial impression and its green apple, grape and juniper berry body underneath the malt’n’hops. It isn’t only me that thinks so. Beamish recently won a “Best Stout in The World” Award at a major beer expo. Of course the brewery didn’t rave on to the world like other players in the booze business would. No, as Gerry said, Beamish is promoted as “stout for pensioners” and probably always will be. Shame.

Much drink taken and much discourse. Much impressed by the beautiful, feisty Cork women with their dark eyes and capacity for argument. Like Cork a lot. The people there have a lot in common with Mancunians, folk from another “second city” where the inhabitants reckon they invented almost everything worth inventing and regard the denizens of the capital with a mixture of scorn, pity and, yes, envy.

Finished up in The Ivory Tower with that bad man Seamus O’Connell, drinking wine that was probably too good for our condition. Called a halt around 4.30, a ten and a half hour session.

Next day met Burvil Evans, a man who does things with ducks. Bones and par cooks them, brews up a tangy sauce then vac-packs everything and sells in one or two portion packs for you to crisp up at home. Free-range, no Es, no preservatives apart from a tinch of anti-oxidant in the fruit used to make the sauce. Tested it last night. Coming soon to a Super Valu, Superquinn and Dunnes near you, hopefully.

Then on to lunch at Les Gourmandises, a darling little bistro in Cook Street that turned out to be run by Pat and Soizic Kiely (ex-Guilbaud, ex-Kish) nice people worthy of your support my new-found Corconian friends. Lovely bread, big bowl of moules mariniere, wonderful home-made vanilla crème brulee and, thanks be, decent espresso; plus a glass of the house wine, an excellent SFrance Viognier (sorry Bridget!) for under euro20.

Next the English Market where Tom the fishmonger greeted me like a long lost brother. Couldn’t carry much but did manage some good Puglian olive oil, fresh tuna, Declan Ryan’s bread, Isobel’s pate and a few exotic jars from Mr Bells of which more anon.

And so, back to Dublin on the 5.30. Who designs those bloody train seats? As they say in that other second city, “the bugger wants hangin’”.