The Coppers bouncers see the dodgy man early and eye him as he snakes his way up the queue to the main door of Ireland’s most famous nightclub.
Before the middle-aged man in the tan leather jacket has any real notion of what’s going on, the crash barriers part just wide enough for him to be ushered away from the entrance.
He sways gently in the warm Saturday night breeze, his momentary confusion quickly replaced by annoyance. His protestations of sobriety – a bit too loud and a bit too indignant – fall on deaf ears as disinterested bouncers turn away.
The scene is repeated occasionally outside Copper Face Jacks on a Saturday summer night but the security staff handle the odd drunk calmly and with little fuss. Once you’re gone, you’re gone – and protestations are stonewalled with a firm: “Sorry, it’s not happening.”
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As the man in the tan jacket weaves away, a group of laughing young women in Dublin GAA jerseys carrying a small silver cup rock up. They’re exuberant but sober(ish) and get to skip the queue when Cathal Jackson, the Coppers King, hears they’re All-Ireland winners.
Despite the fact that Coppers has made Jackson a millionaire many times over – it was nearly sold seven years ago for €40 million, andits cloakroom alone makes him a reported annual profit of more than €250,000 – the almost 70-year-old former garda from the midlands still stands at the door four nights a week watching folk file past his team of seasoned bouncers.
It’s far from all this he was reared. On a leave of absence from the guards, this son of a garda, took a punt on an unfashionable street in Dublin 2 in early 1996.
“It was quiet enough for the first six weeks or so but after that it took off and it never really stopped,” he says, as the bag of chips bought for his dinner goes cold.
There was a perception always that it was country people, guards and nurses who went to Coppers but its much more cosmopolitan now
— Aidan McCormack
The secret seems obvious now but it wasn’t then. Coppers focused as much on Mondays and Tuesdays as on weekends and became hugely popular with weekend workers including – famously – guards and nurses.
And it never got too hung up on being cool or exclusive. The music was always popular and familiar, and the craic was always 90. People went to Coppers to dance and to laugh and for the odd shift.
By 12.30am the queue is long and the dance floors heaving. A couple in their 40s mill the faces off each other at the bar but pretty much everyone else seems happy to dance. It’s not a place for heavy drinking, with the average spend per punter less than €20 or three pints of lager. Jackson’s happy with that. He doesn’t want messy drunks in his club; they cause more trouble than they’re worth.
Managing the staff is Aidan McCormack, a Coppers lifer who celebrates his 30th anniversary on the door next February. He likes working in what he says is the most famous nightclub in Ireland.
“It’s known all over the world. There was a perception always that it was country people, guards and nurses who went to Coppers but its much more cosmopolitan now,” he says.
What are the most important things to remember when working the door?
“We want people to say they had a good night,” he says. “But the first thing people have to be is the proper age and they can’t be intoxicated.”
As he speaks, five lads shuffle up a bit too sheepishly. Almost everyone going to Coppers has their ID checked and this group is no exception.
Of the five, one 18-year-old boy is refused. He looks heartbroken but his buddies rally round and they leave together, laughing.
When it’s pointed out to McCormack that most people going into a nightclub at midnight have drink taken, he acknowledges the point.
“We show common sense,” he says.
“You see those two steps at the doorway,” he adds, pointing downwards. “They’re very handy and if people can’t manage them it’s a sign, for sure.”
The bouncers don’t just rely on the two-steps, though.
“We’ve layers of security as people come through,” McCormack continues. “One looks at your face straight on and another watches as you walk past and then a third will cast an eye over you. You might get past one doorman, but you’re not going to get past three of us.
“But we’re not really here to refuse people. We’re just here to make sure that no one is too young or likely to cause trouble.”
Noel Holloway has been on the door for 18 years, while Michael Burke, standing beside him, has been here for 13 years. They’re smiley rather than stony-faced and laugh and joke through the night.
When Holloway is asked what the biggest challenges in his job are he doesn’t skip a beat.
“It’s working with these Muppets,” he says.
As he talks, his eyes never leave the queue.
“We know people come with fake IDs so we sometimes ask to see a bank card to confirm names match,” he says.
He pauses.
“But a lot of young people don’t carry bank cards so we ask to see their social media accounts to be sure. But even then a lot of young ones have fake social media accounts to match the names on their fake ID. It can be tricky,” he says.
Across from Coppers are two relaxed guards.
“This street is self-policing in some ways,” one says. “All the nightclubs, but particularly Coppers, are well run. There’s very little messing and the security staff know what they’re doing. They’ve been doing it long enough anyway.”
It’s 1am and the queue is long. When Jackson is asked what he looks for in a bouncer he says first what he doesn’t want – excessive physicality.
“It’s much more important that we can talk people down,” he says.
A young woman approaches and asks for paracetamol. She’s ushered to the on-site medical room to be seen by the paramedic. Minutes later somebody else comes out and says she has a headache. She too is taken care of.
Jackson shrugs when The Irish Times expresses amazement that people ask bouncers for painkillers and are looked after.
“It’s what we do anyway,” he says.
Minutes pass and a young woman wanders out lost and disorientated. Discreetly Jackson tells staff to make sure she isn’t alone.
“We’d never leave a young woman out here on her own,” he says.
The girl, it emerges, has pals to take care of her so the night goes on.
By 2am more than 1,000 people are inside; it has a capacity of between 1,400 and 1,700 depending on which areas are opened up – and the mood is exuberant.
The doors must close and the punters must be sent home by 2.30am. It infuriates Jackson who repeatedly expresses bafflement that the licensing laws in the State have yet to be updated to allow people if they so wish to dance later into the night.
[ From the archive: Just how did Ireland end up with such weird licensing laws?Opens in new window ]
“We are not the same as the late bars so it makes no sense to me that we have to work under the same rules,” he says.
“People certainly aren’t drinking as much as they used to,” he adds. “Some are using other stimulants. There’s a lot more cocaine around the city.”
But he says there is a very strict policy when it comes to cocaine in Coppers.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy on that,” he says as the craic-fuelled dancing goes on behind him, with Sunday morning probably feeling like a long, long way away for the Coppers clubbers.
Next in the “One Night in Dublin” series - a night at the museum; a noctural walkabout at IMMA - on Tuesday
