We came to Greece, we had a thirst for Knowledge.
Our flat was near the Polytechnic college,
that’s where I ….bought a pint .

 “But abandoning themselves to idleness, and immersed in sloth, these people’s greatest delight is to be exempt from work, their richest possession, the enjoyment of liberty …whatever natural gifts they posses are excellent, in whatever requires industry, they are worthless”

No, not the musings of particularly grandiloquent EU technocrat, it is in fact the holiday proto-blog of a certain Giraldus Cambrensis, written in 1187, acting the bollix in order to portray the Irish as lazy bums so as to justify the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. Fast forward approximately 997 years later, the very same tactic was reused, this time at the Greek’s expense, fitting as it did with the political agenda in light of the 2015 Euro bailout and following years of austerity. Yet Greece has offered so much to society: The Greeks invented almost every major facet of Western civilisation we hold sacred; the concept of democracy, the theatre, competitive sporting events, frappes (see footnote 1), youghurty-sauce type things and of course, gayness. They did not however, invent the pub, so for that we are dependant on the other great culture of antiquity – The Irish. On this occasion, I travel with a European of Portuguese extraction and fellow PIIG as we come to see if Greece still is in fact, the word. How does an Irish pub go down in such a climate – politically, economically  and weather-y? Excelsior!!!

Athens has all your typical areas associated with any major metropolis: your shopping district, your rejuvenated meat-packing district, the old town and of course your Anarchist district – Exarchia.

In Exarchia, where we stay, politically they are located somewhere on the extreme left of the extreme left. They are so left wing they make Jeremy Corbyn seem like Benito Mussolini’s Fox news -watching, Daily Mail -reading, racist, misogynist uncle. The American Embassy advises tourists not to enter this neighbourhood due to what appears to be a seditious cocktail of lovely bookshops, small cafes and family run tavernas. On the periphery, riot police stand idle 24 hours a day as we sit and sip the local holiday beers. On one night, an unseen group of anarchists tip dumpsters on the road and start a small fire. The riot police start tooling up, ready to leap from their vans. Our hosts, Nic and Sveta, advise us to close the window of the car “if we start to smell teargas”. I have never smelt teargas, but I do remember surviving a particularly potent cocktail of Guinness farts and Lynx Africa co-mingling in the air of a pub in Tralee once, so I should be fine. Turns out the ‘anarchists’ are only rich kids from the Athens suburbs come in to lure the police into running street battles (No one knows what’s it’s like ….to be a dumpster…. in Exarchia.) This anti-social behaviour can almost certainly be explained by the lack of Irish pubs in the area, something which, given the rents (€150 a month!) I would love to remedy. We feel safe anyways. “Greeks never steal from each other” adds Sveta, “Only from the government”. One thing we note is that there are absolutely no chain stores in Exarchia. Maybe that’s why the American government don’t recommend it?

                                                           

                          Time is, time was, but time shall be no more

In Athens, everywhere you look there is history. Archaeological sites are as plentiful to Athens as Pret a Mangers are to London, ubiquitous but simultaneously majestic (the ruins, not the Prets). Athens itself takes it’s name from Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. Beat that, Hacksballscross, Co Louth!! Take that, Cockfosters!
Athens is also probably the only city where on certain days you’ll see more shamrocks than Ireland; the local club Panathinaikos decided they too liked the trusty Trifolium and adopted it as their logo, apparently after Irish Canadian William Sherring wore one at the 1904 Olympics in Athens and came second at the marathon. *(I cannot leave this aside without giving an honourable mention to the man who came third in the race – Spyridon Belokas who was eventually disqualified having the dubious honour of being the first athlete to use performance enhancing substances – in this case completing half the Marathon in a carriage). We enquire about going to the football to watch another of the citie’s teams, AEK, but no luck with tickets. Not because they are sold out; oh no, but because fans have been banned indefinitely due to rioting. You don’t get that at Fulham.

        

       When the Irishman is found outside of Ireland in another         environment, he very often becomes a respected man

The pub we plan to visit is located in Monasthraki, in the shade of the mighty Acropolis. The establishment is titled – take a guess…. Yes! “The James Joyce”. But how to explain the omnipresence of Joycean pub titles? I think it’s because James Joyce works as a logo. He’s the Colonel Sanders of the pub/literary world, instantly recognisable even in sketch form. Lord Byron was here in Greece too, but he has no pub in his honor – the only thing named after him is that right-wing English burger chain .

Perhaps Joyce’s visage lends an air of solemn dignity to the feckless pursuit of drinking, giving succour to countless dipsomaniacs that they are not mere alcoholics but central characters to some booze-soaked narrative greater than themselves, the daily drudgery of their lives some mini odyssey observed by an unseen narrator of questionable reliability but undoubted authenticity. Perhaps it’s fitting that they chose a literary title, given Greece’s predilection for classic epics, which like Joyce, all of us have tried to read but none have ever survived to finish. (It has been long claimed that the 13th task of Heracles was to finish Ulysses in one sitting, to which he said no, he said.) Anyways, I think he would nonetheless approve of his visage being used in foreign climes.

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery

We reach the pub after scaling the Acropolis, thus earning the right to have our own drinking marathon. This being Greece, even the Irish pub is chilled. And we visit at 7PM, which for Athenians is like going to the pub at 7AM – the time which most Athenians would actually be leaving the pub. Days are just longer here. No need to start so early.
(“I have to work tomorrow at nine, I better go home” says a random acquaintance we met the previous night. It was 6:30 AM.) Not particularly lazy then. The signs are good for the pub – it’s Irish for sure, there are no ceiling bicycles, no random road signs and no sexy leprechauns. The bar has a Mayo flag in the corner. “Does that have anything at all to do with Mayonnaise?” whispers the Portuguese jokingly. “IT DOESN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH MAYONNAISE!” shouts the Greek bar tender from the other end of the bar, overhearing us. They are well trained here, for sure. I struggle with the age-old conflict of wanting to try a Guinness for authenticity’s sake, or one of the local refreshing but underwhelming holiday beers. In a battle as old as time, I choose to go with ‘Mythos’ -the beer of Greek legends. Look, it’s 32 degrees, I’ve just scaled the Acropolis and I am resolutely smeared in ‘Baby in the Shade’ factor 50 sun lotion, leaving my skin looking like a freckled geisha. 2 pints of Mythos please. I order the two pints as the Portuguese goes to the toilet and they drop over to the table where I sit alone, street cats running about my feet and vines overhead.
“Are both these pints  for you?” enquires the barmaid.
“No, no, they aren’t” I stutter “I’m Irish …”
“But you’re not that bad” she finishes my sentence. Fair play.

As I am. As I am. All or not at all.

Now, at this point, I would like to make a note on the friendliness of the Grecian people; in a country hammered by economic hardship, they still find the time to give you free shit everywhere – jugs of water are provided, a few nibbles with your pints and most endearingly, free shots of the local firewater, raki are given to us on arrival at local tavernas. The waitress in the bar on the corner gives us a free jug of the stuff for getting through several pints. As a reward for drinking we get more drinks, in spirit form. What a country. She then proceeds to invite us to stay at her family home in Salonika (So right away Salonika, right away me soldier boys!!!) and gives us her Facebook details. Ireland is known for its welcomes, but in comparison, we are the most aloof Berliners. First we take Athens. You can keep Berlin. I don’t have any notes on what Grecians earn (BOOM!!), but the trying circumstances have not dampened their friendliness, their approach to life, their preservation of their culture and most importantly their capacity to drink literally all night. As our Ireland drifts further and further away from that of Joyce’s time, can we retain the characteristics that defined our country in light of the relentless progress of the capitalist machine? I begin to realise I may have been in Exarchia too long.

They have had their fair share of strife here. But the low rents, the long opening hours, the perfect weather, the gorgeous women all seduce and attract. As with the perceived dangers of Exarchia, the laziness tag doesn’t stick, and can only be best described, as a myth. Which, given the surroundings, is fairly apt. Why not quit it all and start again here, I muse? But as someone far more unreadable than I once said: Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.

• (1) The treatment of coffee provides an interesting contrast, as both Ireland and Greece have added their own contribution to the world’s favourite stimulant. Neither of these variations have a long and illustrious history, both were invented by industrious bartenders who got lucky in the 1950’s with a bit of messing.
  Now, in Ireland, the revolutionary idea was to throw in whisky and cream, two by products of the nation. Greece, on the other hand, perfected the frappé – throwing in a bit of ice and sugar and some mysterious science-type reaction that I didn’t really understand. The abomination found in Starbucks actually is served to perfection in Greece.