This is one of my all time favorite pictures. Photographer Jill Freedman caught this whimsical moment in a pub in Ireland during the mid 1980’s. Not only does it stand alone as an entertaining piece of art but it makes a wonderful statement about the Irish culture.
A few years back I traveled across Ireland in a rental car with three of my best friends for eight days and had the most fun I’ve ever had on vacation. Irish culture is uniquely civilized and nonchalant simultaneously. The Irish people can trace their culture back linearly, with only a few interruptions from some Vikings and the British, over 2,000 years, a prestige that very few societies have. Their Gaelic language, which can be traced back to pre-Roman europe, is an ever-present reminder on street signs and place names that these people have been around a long time.
The people of this tiny little island have made a profound impact on modern western culture as well. I’ll breeze over their contributions to whiskey and beer (see: invented whiskey, Guinness rules the world). History geeks like myself dive into the complex details of how Irish monks maintained a vast collection of knowledge from classical Greece and Rome that was lost to the rest of Europe during the so-called Dark Ages. Historian Thomas Cahill wrote a great book about it.
However, Ireland’s impact on music and literature is unavoidable. It is well known that Ireland’s authors and poets comprise a roster unrivaled by any other country in the western world and I’ll fight you (verbally) on that. What is less known is that contemporary rock, folk and country music can all be traced back to American folk music from the 19th century created by Irish and Scottish immigrants who brought their traditional Celtic folk music with them to America. The Americanized style has now migrated back to Ireland and infused with it’s Celtic ancestry to form a beautiful hybrid that can be heard in pubs throughout the country.
Which brings me to my point of posting this photo (aside from it’s objective awesomeness), the Irish are unpretentious and le-se-faire while maintaining a profoundly important cultural heritage. Which is why the Irish would think nothing of a dapper old gentleman giving his pony a sip of his pint in a pub.