Teatime had been slowly approaching as Seamus and Ian crossed the threshold from the sunny but chilly afternoon into the familiar warmth of O'Finnegan's, a pub in Belfast. Both men, despite sitting only one barstool apart, had acted as if the other was not there.
Teatime came and went and the ageing barkeep noticed that during the previous two hours, neither Man had spoken to the other. Seamus had entertained himself by watching people whilst Ian had been busy watching the football match on the telly and loudly singing (in a deep Irish brogue, nonetheless) the fight songs of his favourite football club.
After a while, Seamus looks over at Ian and introduces himself. He calls over the elderly bartender and orders two pitchers of beer, a bottle of Jameson, and two shot glasses. He pours full shot glasses of whisky with icy mugs of beer as chasers and places the drinks on the bar between them. "You know, I've been listening to you talking to the old bartender and singing. I just can't help thinking, you must be from Ireland."
Ian smile lifts his glass to toast his host and responds proudly, "Yes, that I am!"
Seamus nods his head and replies, "So am I! Where about from Ireland might you be?"
Ian answers, "I'm from Dublin, I am."
Seamus responds excitedly, "Saints alive, so am I! And what street did you live on in Dublin?"
Ian pours them both another round of beer and whisky and glances quickly at the telly to see the scoreboard before answering. "'Twas a lovely wee area of the city; I lived on McCleary Street in the old central part of town."
By this time, Seamus - who was so excited about all of their similarities that he nearly falls backwards off his barstool - orders two more pitchers of beer and another bottle of Jameson for himself and his Irish mate. "Faith, 'tis a small world!! What school'd juh go to?"
Ian, who is beginning to see double, answers, "Well now, I come from a good and proud Catholic family I do and I was an altar boy, so naturally, I attended Saint Mary's for all my years of school."
Seamus slaps one hand on the bar and the other on Ian's shoulder, and with a huge grin on his freckled face, practically yells, "And so did I. Tell me, when did you matric?"
Ian, who is quite flushed (so much so that his face matches exactly the colour of Arsenal FC home kit), struggles to answer. "Well now, thawuz, I mean, thaswuzhuns, Ahh, hell, in 1964," he slurred.
Seamus, too, is finding it difficult to speak, yet he is able to exuberantly exclaim, "Ahh, all the saints, and angels, and the Lord his very ownself must be smiling down upon us! I can hardly believe our good luck at winding-up in the same pub tonight. Can you believe it? I graduated from St. Mary's in 1964 me ownself."
About this time, another man walks in as the first stars are starting to twinkle, sits down, and orders a beer and assorted meat pasties. After the bartender delivers the gentleman's evening meal, he shuffles back to his stool behind the bar where Seamus and Ian are enjoying yet another round of drinks and alternating between loudly mourning for and/or noisily celebrating the similarities of their childhood and youth.
An hour or so later, a group of regulars enter to watch football in the big screen telly and play darts. John, one of the 'leaders' of the group enquires after the barkeep's grandkids and also remarks about the unusually large - and rather boisterous - crowd this evening because of the football tournament. The elderly man shakes his head, leans closer to John so he could be heard over the din, chuckles, inclines his head towards the duo at the bar, and tells John, "I think it's gonna be a very long night tonight; the Murphy twins, Seamus and Ian, are absotively-posilutely plastered again."
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