The Lib, some punk and his rat
Dublin Core
Title
The Lib, some punk and his rat
Subject
Mark Wilkins paints a vivid picture of the old Liberty bar
Description
Excerpt from oral history interview where the narrator tells of a rat frequenting a bar
Transcript
"But anyway yeah so I went up to the end of the bar and there was a guy just standing next to me and he was eh he was a punk and he had mohawk but he was really well built, really thick set, really muscular and he had a kind of a tank top, I always remember he had New Model Army on the tank top but he was really big, an’ he looked a bit fearsome an’ I kinda said ah ‘Sorry there’ I was tryin’ to nudge in next to him an’ he’d a loud squeaky voice an’ he was like ‘Not at all boy’. And he turns around, an’ next thing I saw, as I’m telling this story I still can’t believe I saw this, as I turned round em something moved because it was dark down the back, I mean dark dark, you – you literally could make out you know, your own hand. And I saw something move from one of his shoulders around his neck onto the other shoulder, and I looked, and he had em, it was either a mouse or a rat on his – it was his pet. an’ I went ‘Rat there’s a rat, there’s a rat on your shoulder!’ an’ he goes ‘That’s my pet’ an’ I went Jesus ‘Oh of course it is, I – I knew that’ like you know what I mean, I actually was going ‘I can’t believe I’m actually seeing this’. An’ Mick, who was a schoolteacher by day, would come along an’ goes like ‘What can I get ya?’ ‘A 2 litre’, an’ like an he was chattin’ away to your man an’ the rat is scurrying around his neck. I just thought it was amazing, maybe it was a mouse now like but I just thought it was incredible. Em so that was the first kind of memory that lodged in the brain as it would."
Transcript
"But anyway yeah so I went up to the end of the bar and there was a guy just standing next to me and he was eh he was a punk and he had mohawk but he was really well built, really thick set, really muscular and he had a kind of a tank top, I always remember he had New Model Army on the tank top but he was really big, an’ he looked a bit fearsome an’ I kinda said ah ‘Sorry there’ I was tryin’ to nudge in next to him an’ he’d a loud squeaky voice an’ he was like ‘Not at all boy’. And he turns around, an’ next thing I saw, as I’m telling this story I still can’t believe I saw this, as I turned round em something moved because it was dark down the back, I mean dark dark, you – you literally could make out you know, your own hand. And I saw something move from one of his shoulders around his neck onto the other shoulder, and I looked, and he had em, it was either a mouse or a rat on his – it was his pet. an’ I went ‘Rat there’s a rat, there’s a rat on your shoulder!’ an’ he goes ‘That’s my pet’ an’ I went Jesus ‘Oh of course it is, I – I knew that’ like you know what I mean, I actually was going ‘I can’t believe I’m actually seeing this’. An’ Mick, who was a schoolteacher by day, would come along an’ goes like ‘What can I get ya?’ ‘A 2 litre’, an’ like an he was chattin’ away to your man an’ the rat is scurrying around his neck. I just thought it was amazing, maybe it was a mouse now like but I just thought it was incredible. Em so that was the first kind of memory that lodged in the brain as it would."
Creator
Cork Folklore Project
Source
CFP00531
Publisher
Cork Folklore Project
Date
20th October 2014
Contributor
Mark Wilkins (narrator) Aisling Byron (interviewer) James Furey (editor)
Rights
Copyright Cork Folklore Project
Format
.mp3
Language
English
Type
Audio
Citation
Cork Folklore Project, “The Lib, some punk and his rat,” Cork Memory Map, accessed May 5, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/cmm/items/show/58.