Cocktail Talk: The Irish R.M.
It’s rare that I like a movie or T.V. series or podcast or alien mind scan more than the book it’s based on (cause books are better. So there). But, in the case of The Irish R.M., I think the BBC series is, in fact, better than the collection of vignettes by E. OE Somerville and Martin Ross. Though the collection is nice enough, and gives us the below quote, and introduces us to memorable drunk Slipper (who is almost always “slightly advanced in liquor”), as well as the main character (a somewhat stuffy-but-sweet English fella who goes to rural Ireland to be a registered magistrate, and then gets taken in and involved in all kinds of hijinks with the crafty locals—in a way, it’s like the big city folks from Salina, KS, who would come visit us country folks in Lindsborg, KS, when I was growing up. We’d always be drunk and scheming and riding after foxes while they laughed bemusedly) and various others, it doesn’t have the same jolly resonance as the series starring jolly Englishman Peter Bowles. I strongly suggest it if you want to learn about shebeens (and really, who doesn’t?), and I also strongly suggest the following quote:
It was a day when frost and sunshine combined went to one’s head like iced Champagne; the distant sea looked like the Mediterranean, and for four sunny hours the Knox relatives and I followed nine couple of hounds in a tranquil footpace along the hills, our progress mildly enlivened by one or two scrambles in the shape of jumps.
–The Irish R.M., E. OE Somerville and Martin Ross
PS: Also worthy, this descriptive phrase: “a woman who had th’ appairance of having knocked at a back door.”
Becca said:
I love your Friday Cocktail Talk series!! And shebeens sounds like the noise I make when I sneeze (I have a few odd sneeze), but now I’m intrigued…
phismi said:
I do love a good euphemism. “Slightly advanced in liquor” is going in my own personal lexicon.
admin said:
Becca, I wish I could have a series–but dang, now I want to try to be so regular in my posting. And you should look up the shebeen.
And Phi, I hope your week leads to you be slighty advanced in liq, and not slighty advanced in working.
