Posts Tagged ‘Inniscarra Bar’

Sorry Michael..

October 6, 2020

Inniscarra Bar, Cork

Friday evening, after doing our grocery shopping we decided we would get a quick drink in our local before settling down for the night at home.

This beautiful little pub, the Inniscarra Bar is just outside Ballincollig – it’s your traditional “old mans” pub where there are a bunch of regulars and a few like us who pop in for one every now and then.

We were determined to pop in as the place had just opened that Monday after a cruel six months of “lockdown” to enjoy a drink, to say hello to the lovely owner Kay and to soak up some of the  much missed atmosphere.

All of the Covid signs were up, Kay and her fellow barmaid had their masks on and were busy cleaning the tables every few minutes and making sure that everyone was maintaining a safe distance. The old codgers who were normally perched at the bar on their favourite chairs weren’t for obvious reasons which was sad – there would have been even more opportunities to distance if that was possible, but there you go.

All of the usual faces were there and it was lovely to hear the banter, which pretty much was telling jokes about Covid and who looked funny wearing their mask, to make light of this shite situation and to “pretend” it was somehow a normal night, at least for a while.

We sat near Michael, a lovely, kind, welcoming regular, well known for his jokes who we were told was 88 the previous week – I told him we could now call him “two fat ladies” but he didn’t get it. He obviously never played bingo!

Michael was perched near the fire as always, and after he got a few jokes out of his system he started to tell us how lonely he had been since the lockdown. He lives alone.

With tears in his eyes he told us how he dreaded 6pm each night as that was the time that he would make his way to the pub – the nights were long and lonely and he was fed up of playing chess on the computer.

Someone needs to tell Michael that tonight will be his last night with friends for a while again..

Covid has been cruel, but if we are to shut down and inflict all types of hardship on so many people, we better make it a good shutdown, short and sharp with no cherry picking of different groups of society and no stupid messing around with borders.

We must get to Zero Covid and we absolutely can because what we are living through now just isn’t living.

Sorry Michael…

Greg

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

 

 

 

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Local Elections, old codgers and phone zapping…

May 21, 2019

Old codgers - Inniscarra Bar, Cork

We were in our local, the Inniscarra Bar, one of the most authentic old style pubs you will find in the country, part of that dying breed where the walls will talk warmly to you about everyone who has sat there before you and before them.

It was early on a Saturday evening and we were having a sneaky pint before heading home to cook some grub.

The two old codgers sitting at the bar sipped quietly on their  pints and every now and then there was some chit chat between them. One of the guys had a battle weary black dog with him who was busy going from one patron to the next, sniffing and being friendly.

For some strange reason there was a large election poster leaning up against the wall for one of the local candidates, Shane Fallon. I’m not really sure if this was a practical joke or if it was a serious election tactic by the candidate?!

Out of nowhere the two men got very animated and their conversation got louder and louder..

“Those f##king posters are a f##king disgrace and they should be banned as they are ruining the environment”

Wow….it went on..

“Sure, don’t they have email and don’t they have the internet and..and don’t they have, you know yourself, can’t they just zap phones the way they do?”

“You are so right, a f##king disgrace!“, followed by lots of huffing and puffing and then back to their pints.

Were they right??  

It’s funny …just a few days beforehand I was standing in front of my Dublin Chamber Council colleagues presenting them an overview of our business sector.

To do this I reached out to many of the member companies, both large and small and looked for their feedback about trends in the sector.

A BIG MESSAGE was that there was a huge shift from traditional media to digital but this was loaded with a gentle warning that clients need to be very careful not to put all of their eggs into this one channel as you just won’t reach your audience in a way that your message will land.

As I walked back from the pub I noticed all of the election posters – who do I like the look of?

When I pushed opened the front door open I looked at the flyers that had been pushed through the letter box – who are you and what are you promising?

And if I believe you really care about the location I do expect you to knock on my door and chat to me.

I tweeted three of the candidates who had dropped in their literature and two responded. One just took herself out of the running!

It’s great that the old codgers got so animated about the environment (there probably should be a limit to how many they put up), but unfortunately a candidate who relies only on email (GDPR has that one squeezed to death!!) and zapping phones (I’m taking this to mean social media) will not be successful.

The candidates need to integrate their social media with their traditional media and however they manage it, they need to be recognised, liked and if possible connect in some real way with the voters.

Get out and vote this Friday!!

Greg 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

 

 

 

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