Fighting Talk – Frank McNally on the perilous pubs and less-than-mean streets of Dublin

Out on the town in the early hours of Saturday – an increasingly rare experience at my age – I was expecting to witness mayhem on the streets, as regularly reported in the tabloids. Instead, Dublin was an oasis of calm.

My friends (of similar vintage) and I were disappointed to find that, even on a weekend night, everywhere closed at 3am, or soon after. The nightclubs were disgorging their customers, including us, on to footpaths. But everyone seemed fairly mellow, people sat or stood around chatting, smoking, queuing for taxis.

We discussed rumours of places still open in Harcourt Street and elsewhere, until these were gradually eliminated from our inquiries. As several bouncers assured us, everywhere was closed or closing. We wandered off to our various homes, marvelling at how peaceful Dublin in middle of the night seemed.

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Blood brothers – Frank McNally on the deaths of two young men, one Irish, in the Korean War

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Hard Border – Frank McNally on a visit to the Korean Demilitarised Zone

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Transmigration of Seoul – Frank McNally on a long-awaited trip to South Korea

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Son of the soil – Colm Keena on the occasional delights of getting our hands dirty

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Then, about 19 hours later, while I was having what I thought would be a quiet pint in a local pub, I nearly got into a fight. I was watching the rugby at the time. Or to be more exact, I was being distracted from it by an international WhatsApp discussion on my phone with a group of friends from different time zones.

Then I noticed that a drunken middle-aged man was giving out to a young American couple sitting nearby. He had been rude to staff earlier too. Now, as he got up to leave, he was telling the young pair that this was “my country” and that they should “f**k off back home to yours”.

They were taking this meekly, it seemed. Outraged on their behalf, I intervened to express the opinion that the man himself should go home and retire for the night, although I may not have put it in those exact words.

This had the desired effect that he instantly stopped abusing the young tourists. Instead, the entire weight of his anger with the world, and the considerable invective used to express it, descended on me.

It wasn’t so much his words I was worried about as the empty pint glass he still had in his hand. Happily, all the violence that ensued was verbal. Being in a pub, I also had safety in numbers.

Although we were in one of the establishment’s more remote corners, staff soon arrived to pull him away. And when he left, a couple of young Spaniards nearby assured me – laughing – that they would have had my back if necessary.

But the row wasn’t over yet. For no sooner had I resumed watching the rugby (where a controversial scrummaging incident was in progress) than the man was back, ostensibly on a peace mission.

Another time, in a city-centre newsagents, I witnessed an attempted hold-up by a stocking-headed man with a mystery weapon in a bag that turned out to be a hammer

He came over to shake my hand, whereupon I shook his and was about to say: “Don’t worry about it, pal – we all lose the head occasionally.”

Except that the apology he was attempting got caught in his throat. And even as he held my hand, he started verbally assaulting me anew. When he left this time, it was with a warning that if we met again, I should bring friends.

Going home later, I did feel vaguely paranoid lest he and his pals were waiting somewhere. But I needn’t have worried about leaving the pub. As usual, it was safer on the streets.

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Touch wood, in all my years in Dublin I have never yet been mugged or anything close. Only a few times have I even been in the vicinity of serious violence.

Once, in 1995, it was English football supporters. Another time, in a city-centre newsagents, I witnessed an attempted holdup by a stocking-headed man with a mystery weapon in a bag that turned out to be a hammer.

Unfortunately for him, a garda appeared from nowhere. And once the garda had safely grabbed the arm with the hammer, I grabbed the other one and we wrestled the would-be robber to the ground just as other guards arrived. It was such a pathetic attempt at a holdup, I nearly felt sorry for him.

No doubt being male and tall(ish) helps make Dublin seem safer to me than it may do to others.

A few years ago, as previously described in this space, I also cycled upon the scene of a mugging near Heuston Station, where a strung-out drug user with a kitchen knife was trying to wrestle a bag off a young woman.

She was fighting bravely to hold on. And between that and my arrival, the mugger thought better of his soft target and walked away, which I was happy to let him do.

His intended victim, who had been on the way to catching a train home, had a few superficial cuts. But the shock hit her belatedly. In the mayhem that followed, as a crowd gathered, I noticed that the thing she had risked her life for was lying on the footpath.

Finding my appropriate level of heroism, I held on to her handbag until the ambulance arrived.