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Bill Barich

A Pint of Plain: Tradition, Change and the Fate of the Irish Pub Paperback – January 1, 2010

by barich-bill (Author)

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Language

English
Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication date

January 1, 2010
Dimensions

5.08 x 0.63 x 7.8 inches
ISBN-10

1408804220
ISBN-13

978-1408804223
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Product details

Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; First Edition (January 1, 2010)
Language : English
ISBN-10 : 1408804220
ISBN-13 : 978-1408804223
Item Weight : 6.5 ounces
Dimensions : 5.08 x 0.63 x 7.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #14,319,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,677 in General Ireland Travel Guides
- #3,872 in Beer (Books)
- #8,096 in Gastronomy History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
21 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		48%
4 star		19%
3 star		10%
2 star		11%
1 star		11%

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Top reviews from the United States

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D. Hurt

Pretty Interesting

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2014

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This was an interesting book. I checked out a few of these pubs in Ireland and the descriptions were accurate. I especially liked the Grave Diggers Pub next door to the Glasnevin Cemetary. It's not a flashy sports pub but it is one of a kind.

2 people found this helpful

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David Zelz

It's still Ireland...which is fine with me.

Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2010

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In a Pint of Plain, Bill Barich takes the reader with him as he searches for the "traditional" Irish pub in post Celtic Tiger Ireland. Weaving tales of some of Ireland's more colorful and notable pub dwellers and a discussion of the evolution of Ireland's pub culture into his urban and rural jaunt, the author is clearly disppointed with what he sees as an Ireland embracing a modernity that replaces what to him might have been a more charming past. At the end of the day, who's to say what defines "traditional"? I'm confident that Barich didn't draft his manuscript with a quill and that his search was not executed on horseback. So, as slick and contempory as it may have become, why begrudge an Ireland eager to embrace a higher standrard of living and an Ireland that is not content to be someone's museum piece? Why condemn smart and business savvy publicans who understand and respond to the wants and expectations of a changing clientele?

Shunning anything that runs afoul (read: television and recorded music) of his pub ideal and dismissing those shops that flirt with an atmosphere that might be defined as "traditional" by most standards as prepackaged, prefabricated, Ireland-by-Disney shlock, Barich seems more interested in simply finding a pub that suits him.

Opining on how Ireland's culture is being exported while concurrently being diluted at home, the author's search seems to be more a quixotic quest that has no more chance of success than a search for Waltons Mountain or Walnut Grove. Ultimately, what he is nostalgic for in the Irish pub is rooted in a time when Ireland suffered poverty, economic stagnation and an oppressive theocracy. Would he be content to assume that baggage as part of his desire for "tradition"?

Overall, A Pint of Plain is an enjoyable, fun read. I'm sure Mr. Barich's pub is out there somewhere. He may just have to go to the Bunratty Folk Park to find it. Or he could go to Tom Collins on Cecil Street in Limerick. I'd be interested in his opinion of that shop.

4 people found this helpful

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Debbill

Changed Society

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2014

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good story of the history of the public houses in Ireland and how society and DUI laws have changed things.

One person found this helpful

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Ms Jacintha Cloney

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2014

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Colourful and quirky descriptions....

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d donovan

Pretty plain writing

Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2013

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Gives one a pretty good idea of the pub scene in Ireland, but sort of dragged on. As someone who's travelled to Ireland, this undervalued the great institution that the local pub is and should be.

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D.B.

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2014

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Pleasent read

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A Reader

Great!

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2013

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Love this book. Informative, sad, funny, and well-written. An incisive look at the dying traditions of Irish culture. A terrible loss.

Helpful

Harry Eagar

No longer what it never was

Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2017

The Irish pub was reeling when Bill Barich wrote”A Pint of Plain” in 2007-8. At the time, it appeared that modernity would do for them, in two ways — first, prosperity was making pubs absurdly expensive ($3 million, and up if the land was ripe for development); and, second, what the Irish call drink-driving laws were massacring rural pubs, which was most of them.

The prosperity proved to be imaginary, but the drink-driving laws were real enough. Since “A Pint of Plain” was published something like a fifth to a quarter of pubs have closed. And the rest, well, as Barich was lamenting a decade ago, they are changing beyond recognition.

Pub consultants recommend offering better food as a way to keep up business. So this is what you get at The Hill in Ranelagh (the first pub described by Barich): “The Frickel and Cheese — Deep Fried Crispy Pickles, Cheese, Slow Roasted Tomato, Rocket, Hot Sauce & Garlic Mayo on a Brioche Bun.”

The rest of the Americanized menu sounds even worse.

Here is what Barich said about it a decade ago: “The Hill struck me as Ranelagh’s most eye-catching pub, so I tried it first. Founded in 1845, it occupies a knoll on the fringe of the village and has a canary-yellow paint job that flashes like a beacon on gloomy, overcast afternoons. Off the beaten path, it doesn’t attract many outsiders, and its stalwart regulars give it an inbred quality a stranger — or a ‘blow-in,’ as the Irish put it— might have trouble cracking.”

The perfect traditional pub that Barich sought perhaps never was. His model was the pub in the 1951 film “The Quiet Man,” but the exterior shots were of a grocery, and the interiors were filmed on a set (which he quaintly calls a sound stage) in Los Angeles. The set furniture has since been shipped to Eire and used to open a pub.

This, and other things, sets Barich off on an extended rumination about authenticity.

An authentic rural pub wouldn’t be affected by drink-driving laws, since all the tipplers would have walked up. If pubs are disappearing from the countryside, it must be mostly due to the depopulation of the rural areas, which has been going on since 1798 and is now about finished.

If Irish pubs are disappearing from Eire, they are propagating across the world — even Dubai. The ones I have been in from New York to Hawaii are not much like the ones Barich liked in Ireland, except perhaps for the uappetizing food. It is a curious fact — not occurring to Barich — that the Irish saloonkeepers in America made little or no effort to reproduce what Barich takes to be the true spirit of the pub: “a space apart for socializing, where casual friendships and a democratic spirit prevail.”

“A Pint of Plain” is an amusing read, since Barich never stops himself from pursuing bits of history or sociology that have only marginal connections to beer drinking.

He also gets points for knowing the meaning of stevedore, the only modern author I have encountered who does.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Phil O'Brien

Don't bother

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2017

Verified Purchase

I wouldn't recommend this book. It's really not that good and some of the so called facts should have been researched a bit more as it would appear they came from some bloke sitting at the bar.

PHIL HUDSON

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 11, 2016

Verified Purchase

great pub book with masses of history and culture added, great read

One person found this helpful

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