Cafe Society

So, Lady Hog described how two acquaintances had considered meeting at 10.30pm in Dublin on Saturday last, but had decided against it. Where would you meet? “It’s a pity” said she “that there’s nowhere with a terrasse that you could say let’s meet up there after the show. It’s all too frenetic”. “I mean,” she paused and eyed me meaningfully, “it’s chaos”.

She’s probably right. And it’s interesting to ponder the reasons why. After all, we’re into the summer season in a big way, any half decent bit of sun will have the hordes out in their shorts, gaily sipping al fresco coffees, beers and rosé wines.

You can do all that during the day, no problem, at least in such areas as have wide enough footpaths to take the tables and umbrellas. But in the evening? Not often…

There’s the weather of course. The bar owner no sooner has the umbrellas out than they’re blown away. Or the rain falls so hard you’re soaked. Not a lot you can do about that.

But our towns aren’t really planned to give us that kind of option anyway. And that’s before you get to the extraordinary planning legacy of the boom years. For sure, voices were raised about the sheer ugliness of so many new estates, apartment blocks and streetscapes. But with politicians in cahoots with developers, the rest of us were never really in with much of a chance.

I was about to write that the visions are totally different, when I realised that in fact there never was a vision. For the politicians and builders, the vision was about constructing units and more units, and making so much money they could fly to the Galway Races and brag about how they didn’t have the time to do it any other way.

Their vision, in other words, didn’t include quality of life, or how we might all live, because this would intrude on their schemes. Remember how exercised everyone got at the thought that people had to commute to Dublin from north Wexford and leave at 05.30 to avoid the traffic? Grist to the mill for people who wanted land rezoned and houses built, whether suitable or not.

As always, there are exceptions. Travelling by train into Dublin these days, one passes through a brand spanking new railway station at Adamstown and one sees what looks like a very well-planned and integrated development, one clearly intended for a 21st-century community, including the commuters who will train inwards and outwards…

But whether it will be lively at night is another question. Are there streetside cafés? Could a person going to the theatre arrange to meet friends on a terrasse at 10.30? And equally important, where will the clubs be? Where would you go to hear hot bands and DJs?

This introduces a second reason why it’s so hard to find a nocturnal terrassic meeting place: safety and public order. If you are having an al fresco drink on a city street, the probability is just too high that you’ll be interrupted by drunken idiots (male and/or female). Or that your only company will be smokers. (They may be the most fun, but the smoke really does get in your eyes…)

Policing, as in the frequent lack of and the manner of, is a factor too. Rarely there when you really need them and in your face when you don’t, you can bet your ass that the quality of our lives isn’t their top priority. Their influence on legislation, in this case regarding licensing laws, has been very negative indeed.

And when a recent tourist poll (for Tripadvisor) found that Dublin is rated one of the most boring cities, a key factor was that clubs close so early. This is thanks to knee-jerk-reaction legislation introduced to reduce the amount of policing needed (they have a lot of paperwork to attend to) and to satisfy the new temperance movement.

While this isn’t just about nightclubs like Renard’s, they are a weathervane for the health of our nightlife, which in turn is a lightning rod for both our own quality of life and the satisfaction of tourists. Win win, you know?

And although we can do nothing about the weather, we can do plenty about our drink and planning laws.

Furthermore, we can talk about how we want to live. I don’t know about you, but I quite fancy the idea of having a beer on a terrasse in a city centre late at night, free from hassle by drunken fools, smoking inspectors or Gardaí.

We’ll get scant regard from paternalistic politicians who blithely dismiss any viewpoint not in accord with their own. Better to get everyone off to bed with a cup of Ovaltine, eh?

It’s a pity, because we’ve a lot of recovering to do after the disaster generated by an unholy alliance of developers, bad bankers and the same arrogant politicians. Working out new ways to enhance quality of life and pleasure would help.

We’d be best doing it without them.