Book celebration surprisingly sober

For a gathering to celebrate the proverbial pint of plain, or more precisely the coining of that phrase in Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds, it was surprisingly sober.

"We were afraid if people started drinking too early we'd never complete the route," explained Mr Joe Kennedy, organiser of yesterday's non-stop reading of the book on a 1947 double-decker bus trip from Dublin city to Dalkey and back, taking in a number of sites - i.e. pubs - closely associated with the author.

Pressing on his mind was the last time the feat was attempted in Vienna 10 years ago. It took 17 hours for the book to be read in a German-language stage-production directed by Mr Kurt Palm, who later released a film version, In Schwimmen-Zwei Vogel.

"There was a lot of alcohol involved on that occasion," said the Austrian director.

"We had beds on the stage so people could stay overnight. It was just as well.".

By contrast, yesterday's reading marking the 60th anniversary of the book took less than eight hours, having started at Davy Byrnes off Grafton Street and finishing at Grogans on South William Street, the hostelry where the student character in At Swim-Two-Birds was first introduced to drink.

In between, the tour made stops at numerous pubs either mentioned by O'Brien or closely associated with the author, who also wrote under his real name Brian O'Nolan and for The Irish Times as Myles na gCopaleen.

At Paddy Cullens in Ballsbridge, the Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, read an extract dealing with the Ringsend cowboys, legendary cattle-rustlers of south Dublin. His party colleague, Ms Liz McManus, took up the story at the Sorrento in Dalkey, with other excerpts read by Shay Healy, Brendan Balfe, the St Patrick's Dramatic Society and Brendan Conroy, who played the lead character, Jem Casey, in a stage production at the Peacock theatre last year.

At Jack O'Rourke's pub in Blackrock, the group stopped off to see a letter written by O'Nolan to the owner, dating from 1951, in which he was contesting the payment of a £5 expense which he could not recall incurring. Some bar workers, he noted, somewhat unconvincingly in his defence, "are not above taking cash from the till and substituting a fake IOU in the name of some accredited customer. It has happened to myself in two pubs in town".

Appropriately, the bus was passing through Jem Casey's home village of Booterstown when page 77 and the character's famous poem, The Workman's Friend, was reached. The books were lowered as the passage, memorised by all, was recited with gusto:

When money's tight and is hard to get

And your horse has also ran,

When all you have is a heap of debt

A pint of plain is your only man.