To the Guinness Storehouse for Danny Boy

We’re late for the Guinness tour but no matter. As Mr. Lynch says, he’s gone through so many brewery tours it would be quicker for him to make the beer than learn about how it’s done. So pop up the stairs to the Perfect Pint Bar. Greeted by music from a pale, freckled woman in a green silk dress strumming a harp. And waiters offering up the dark stout in champagne flutes. What’s this then? asks Mr. Lynch. A Black Velvet says the young waiter.

Oh shiite, says Mr. Lynch. I can’t drink this stuff. Can I get just a regular pint?

I take Mr. Lynch’s flute as well as another for me. Champagne and Guinness. Better than it sounds. After a second sip, quite nice actually. Goes down easy. Lovely view of Dublin from here. Or it would be if it weren’t raining again, gray puffy clouds sitting atop the Wicklow Mountains like Irish caps. Mountains, indeed. Hills we’d call them back home. Small hills.

Finish my two drinks and then make off with another as we’re herded like well-dressed sheep up the escalator to the Gravity Bar at the top of the building. Panoramic 360 degree views of what? Gray neighborhoods beneath us. Can’t even make out the Liffey though it must be close enough that if you hurled a pint glass from here it would end with a splash in the river. Spires of a church rise up out of the muck. Is that Christ Church then?

Salad served as a short, stout man holding a pint in his right hand makes a speech about tourism. Something about something about something. Hurry up, man, and make your toast. The gals are waiting. The three of them. The Irish Sopranos, standing patiently on a low stage in front of the window that should be showing the Wicklow Mountains in the background if it wasn’t so gray out.

They’ve sung at Carnegie Hall, says the red-nosed man, and are Irish treasures—Wendy, Kay, and Deirdre. And wouldn’t you know it? Their first song is Danny Boy. I groan. Mr. Lynch gives me a sharp kick to the shin. I hate this song, I whisper. Doesn’t matter, says Mr. Lynch. Mind your manners.

Right. So here we go. Oh, Danny Boy. Pipes calling, valleys hushed. ‘Tis you, ‘tis you. Every woman in the place misty eyed and crying. And I just want to hurl. Thunderous applause. Standing ovation. Can’t beat that Danny Boy. And as Wendy and Kay and Deirdre launch into cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O, I slip away from the table and back down to the Perfect Pint to have a quiet drink far from the ghostly cries of sweet Molly Malone.