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Inns & Tonics with Cormac MacConnell Inns & Tonics with Cormac MacConnell The Ballyline Bar
Inns & Tonics with Cormac MacConnell Inns & Tonics with Cormac MacConnell The Ballyline Bar | The Ballyline Bar |
| Written by Cormac MacConnell | |
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THE first time I was in The Ballyline Bar, years ago now, I was travelling with an amazingly flamboyant character called Steve Donogue from The Claddagh. He had returned to retire to his native city in his seventies after decades working as a stunt man in Hollywood. I’d collected him from Shannon Airport because I was doing a feature article about him for The Sunday Press. Inside in the Ballyline Bar, which was then called PJ’s, the old stunt man — a Kirk Douglas lookalike — began relating Hollywood tales which sounded to me as tall as skyscrapers. He saw the doubt in my face. He stopped and went out to his luggage in the car. He came back in with a big leather scrapbook and handed it to me without a word. And the tales were not tall at all! There he was drinking champagne on the Isle of Capri with Errol Flynn and about seven gorgeous starlets. There he was with John Wayne’s arm around him.There he was with Kirk Douglas — “He was my double!”. And there he was falling 20 stories or swording Saracens in epics whose names I remembered. He was the genuine article all right. It was midsummer, the pub was merry and lively, and soon he became the centre of attention. Inside the hour he was arm-wrestling strong men half his age and smashing their arms down on the table with ease. Before the day was out he climbed to the top of a mast in Galway Port for the photographer as nimble as a monkey. I got a full page out of him.It started in the Ballyline Bar. Registration is required to view this content, registration is FREE |
