Chippers and Morbid Realism
The cruelest thing Ireland ever did to me was having me sign on for unemployment right by one of Dublin’s great chippers.
Werburgh Street, like Gardiner Street and the rest of them, was Dickensian in its size, numbers, dirt, organization, and blue pencil stumps tied down with bits of string. And having to smell Leo Burdock’s every week before you went in to queue for ages, and again as you came out loaded with not enough money to buy anything in batter, was so poetic I used it as a reason to appeal for a greater amount than granted from a means-test.
In the era before the Tiger, watching bemused tourists spill over the road from Christchurch was as much entertainment as you could afford.
Graeme Blundell in The Australian is keeping that nation informed about Ireland’s chippers. Reading between the lines he’s clearly talking about chippers all over Ireland, and there are regional differences in how you might get your chips as well as language, but you get the gist.
And any article that says The word [spud] has always suggested to me a sense of morbid realism and an implicit plea for social change, is surely worth a read.
The convention of the chipper on the way home from the pub is something quite different from that in Kansas City of Chubby’s or a Giro from a van.
See Also:
• Chasing Potatoes
• Feast or Famine: Emigration Assistance
• Seed Saving Would Have Prevented Irish Famine
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
[…] mentioned a couple of my experiences with Burdock’s before of course, and now, as then, I fancy a big feed of chips. And fish. And a batter burger to be […]