“Indeed, it may be suggested that ‘traditions’ and pragmatic conventions or routines are inversely related.”

Eric J Hobsbawn , The Invention of Tradition (1983)

“No genuine Irishman could relax in comfort and feel at home in a pub unless he was sitting in deep gloom on a hard seat with a very sad expression on his face, listening to the drone of bluebottle squadrons carrying out a raid on the yellow cheese sandwich.”
― Flann O’Brien

Part II of this Summer’s journey sees my trusted squire Tom and I travel via autobus over the hills from Trieste to the capital of neighbouring country no.49 , the lesser spotted mountainous nation of Slovenia. Slovenia consistently flies under the radar- apart from noted Rockstar/ Hegelian-Marxist-Slavoj Žižek, they don’t have a huge amount of global movers and shakers. ( Readers will be delighted to hear I only pull out my celebrated Zizek impression once, at 3 AM to a Dutch couple so I think it was fine ) . This Summer, local Slovenian Journal of Repute Dnevnik (read article here!) got in touch to ask if I fancied visiting the Country Commonly Confused With Slovakia, and what struck me as I researched was what an unknown quantity they are. 

What’s the craic with Irish / Slovene relations? Well, going back a bit, it turns out Slovenia was converted to Christianity by an Irish monk called “Modestus”, a mighty feat but presumably one he didn’t really like to talk about. (‘I’m no hero’. he surely protested. ) The current population is under 3 million, half that of Ireland, and 1 in 6 Slovenes emigrated over the centuries until a cultural revival of nationalist sentiment in the late 19th century, much like our good selves. More than half of Slovenia is forested , and according to Wikipedia, edible dormice, (crucially , not to be confused with the inedible Dormouse – ) were considered a rare delicacy.

Slovenia was the most liberal of the Communist Yugoslav regime, and people could travel freely to nearby Austria or Italia. They then joined the EU early in 2004, being the nerdy well-adjusted one of the former Yugoslavia / Balkan firebrand basket cases. There’s even considerable polemic whether Slovenia is even considered Balkan, that man Zizek again doing a humorous presentation where he tries to show where the real Balkans begins, progressively going lower and lower. My favourite Slovenian fact of them all and the one thing that ties our 2 nations for all eternity is ; since 2020, the Roasted Potato Festival has been organised by the snappily titled “Society for the Recognition of Roasted Potatoes as a Distinct Dish“.  And you too can join for a mere £20 annual fee !!! Conditions of membership to join this illustrious society are as follows; 

1. To eat roast potatoes once a week in a public place or in the company of 3 people; 

2 Not to talk about politics or business in the company, as we are all equal in front of the potato ; 

3. To promote and contribute to the development of roast potatoes as an independent dish 

The national dish is “Ajdovi zganci” which the internet informs us is a “type of zganci.” Great! In English , it would be termed buckwheat mush, (ideally sans the dormice). Given their geography and history, food n’ drink shows heavy neighbouring influence- Germanic smoked sausages with assorted dollops of mustard take pride of place alongside Ottoman-era Bureks and Bosnian BBQs. Slovenia, it seems, is a nation that is forging its own image amid a sea of changes, invasions and revolutionary activities- Post Habsburgs, Post-Napoleon, Post-Yugo. The local ethnographic museum charmingly struggles to generate a strong narrative, so you’re left with rooms of tea spoons, crisp packets, wooden buckets and pitchforks, if you can contain your excitement. More interesting are the Kurenti (3rd Pic below) the elaborate suits of Shrovetide lore and procession, woven of goats hair and looking pretty spooky, kind of like the Wren’s day folk horror get ups.

Ljubljana is a classic Central (Eastern? Balkan?) -European capital; lovely ornate churches, orange tiled roofs, stone bridges all topped off with a classic castle on a hill. Their flag is a pure Welsh knock’-off, (according to Tom who’s from Wales), mimicking the colours and is topped off by a dragon, said to have been killed by St George, who I thought was English?!!!? Legend suggests the city was founded by Jason of the Argonauts fame or possibly by one of the Argonauts where they found the golden fleece, which is a bit of stretch.

Ljubljana has numerous spots to wet one’s whistle. One noted spot is Metelkova, a Slavonic version of the Danish exclave of Christiania, an autonomous social and cultural center contained in an old military barracks & consisting of pubs and clubs among the graffiti, squats and the most minging toilets I’ve ever seen. Foolishly, we arrive cashless, not realizing that this particular anarchist collectivist compound don’t take card. Overall , it’s an interesting curio, but with some burnt out figures lingering about in the shadows.  

Ljubljana sure has a love of the pub, albeit not always with accurate recreations. First up, we have the Cutty Sark (pic 1) that hints at Irish-ness with its livery, but isn’t really. The Corner Pub (pic 2 & 3 ) is lovingly styled in the Anglo fashion; a drab exterior at odds with the lush British Style interior- leather benches, wood features, stained glass windows , and loads of leftover Paddy’s Day decorations (see below). Guinness is available and is advertised heavily, as is the iconic Toucan memorial outside, immortalized by some poor bugger on Google photos. Which I am compelled to recreate (see pic above ). Finally, how could one omit England Pub, (pic 5) with the England Football logo standing proudly alongside an iconoclastic vandalized Guinness Logo out front. Replica, pastiche, copy, homage- you’ve got them all in Ljubljana .What can we expect of their lone Irish pub – Harat’s??? 

It is with great trepidation that we approach Harat’s Irish Pub, Ljubljana branch. Founded not by Paddy & Tadgh Harat of Toomevara, but by shady Siberian businessmen , Harat’s somehow has become the worlds largest Irish Pub Chain, found primarily in the former Soviet Union as a bastion of New Russian capitalist franchising, Siberian stoicism and cart wheels stuck on walls. They’ve got outlets in all the major cities- Bishkek, Dushanbe, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Almaty, North Haverbrook and by god it put them on the map! According to their website ” Through a unique atmosphere of freedom and unity, we empower people to feel the drive of life.” Just like an Irish person would say!!

What strikes me about this particular Harat’s is that its concept of Irish-ness seems more fixated on the very specific period of Irish history- namely Viking Ireland. The music is Celtic metal, the ‘H’ of Harat’s logo above the bar has been added to a sign reading ‘Valhalla, all the staff resemble Viking raiders and perhaps most tellingly, they advertise a dress-up -as- a- Viking club. The meeting point? Harat’s of course!

I wanted to give Harat’s a fair trial. Arrive with an open mind. But they’re not helping. The first thing you note are all the wall signs. Harat’s have a range of faux Olde- Worlde metal plate sign things , whimsically saying shit like : “If you’re looking for a sign to drink, this is it” alongside a message from the Slovenian health board warning you against drinking. A single Irish flag on the roof hangs forlornly. In a proper Irish pub, the stuff on the walls is a naturally occurring, living , sometimes decomposing museum , where random icons and relics are presented with pride – think : 

• Italia 90 / USA 94 Squad posters cut out from a tabloid
• a faded photo of local GAA team showing the 1992 B County final runners up with a list of all their titles dotted around the photo
• The ” Playrights of Ireland” poster series – this one
• Portraits of Countess Markievicz, or Micheal Collins, or JFK, or Ritchie Kavanagh
• The Proclamation of the Republic
• A thing that shows the price of a pint in 1967

Local thinker Zizek would have a field day with Harat’s very existence. In Harat’s, Irishness has become a marketing product in the theater of the unreal; its inauthenticity not even bothering to attempt to appear authentic and more importantly not seeming to care. An attempted narrative is vaguely established through minimal reality engineering – the flag , some Guinness and the purchasing of whimsical plates off Ebay the length of their research. Harat’s is a hyper-real ‘Authentic Fake’ and we are right in the heart of the simulacrum, the desert of the real. Not for nothing does the neon glow on the front of the pub call to mind 80s’ Sci-fi masterpiece Bladerunner and its replicants blurring the lines between human and android.

How did it come to this? On my many many travels, I’ve come across “Irish Pubs” of dubitable origins . But they have usually been small in scale , well-meaning , flimsy, ridiculous, laughably shoddy or in cases just some pure schmuck trying to make a few quick euros . But this is global brand using Irish Culture with the most minimal of lip service to the nation? It rankles more.  Not exactly bring back the gulags levels , but not far. Research by Muñoz, Solomon & Wood (2006) in their seminal paper ‘‘Real or Blarney? A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Perceived Authenticity of Irish Pub‘ provide an interesting explanation for this very phenomenon. ‘‘These Irish Pubs” they state ‘‘ let consumers indulge in a safe , idealised version of Irishness without engaging in the complex historical or political reality, and these environments , or hyperreal spaces often are substitutes for mid to lower consumers who may not have the means to explore the real thing” 

_{***(With that said, full disclosure time – we do have a grand time at Harats, staying for several hours to enjoy their decent Guinness and partake in their karaoke, singing not 1 but 2 s numbers for our adoring crowd until we are overrun by a herd of Dutch teenage gardening students who proceed to murder obscure dutch techno-hits, reading the crowd perfectly. Interestingly, the rules of the Karaoke session state ” No YU ” which we learn later means no Yugoslavian Nostalgia Turbo folk. Probably for the best.)}

Oft I say the essence of what truly makes the Irish Pub stand out worldwide is the singularity of each premises, forged in the image of their makers, skills honed and passed down over generations, free to serve and play and decorate how they feel. Sure, some might be doing fairly well and branch out to a few other locations, but still retain their inherent identity . At Harat’s , I am left with a feeling of spiritual emptiness. Despite its lack of authenticity, the pub is undoubtedly the busiest spot in town on a Tuesday night. How to reconcile myself to a place like Harat’s? My initial proposal to please all parties was: – change it from Harat’s Irish Pubs to Harat’s Irish Viking – everyone gets what they want, no -one loses face and we all move on. Till someone pointed out that there already is a bloody pub called the Irish Viking in the Puerto del Carmen Lanzarote.

I smell a franchise opportunity! Next stop, Bishkek! Ready the Longboat.

Thanks to Tom for letting me steal his phone to record this voyage and for his wise words, such as Christening Ljubljana. ‘S-ljub 7’