THE WAY IT WAS

THESE DAYS I live in its northern hinterland, and have moved as far west as Belmullet to try and make some sense of my existence, but whether for work or diversion (these days, both) I'm inexorably drawn to Dublin, its humour wrapped in shawls as old as Molly Malone herself, its spirit demonstrated on Hill 16 and Henry Street both, its sprawling environs cradling, with various degrees of affection, the social and economic mix which lies within its capacious folds.

In earlier days, though less frequently today, there was no greater pleasure than to wend one's way into O'Donoghues of Merrion Row, and sit with the likes of Johnny Keenan and Martin Denning while Paddy O'Donoghue, and his understudy barman John Roberts dispersed pints with unfailing good humour. The tunes and the jokes came thick and fast.

The back room, for want of a better place to go, and there were few better places to go - was our home for several evenings a week, as we luxuriated in the comfort of a few free pints in exchange for a tune for a passing Wassin Doolin - wages of a kind I suppose.

But O'Donoghues and myself have changed. Paddy no longer bustles about, smiling - gone walking these years on Heaven's path - and I last saw John five years ago in Rosslare. I don't drink any more, an acknowledgement of the advance of age, I suppose, and O.D.'s clientele has changed.

Mac, Noel and Rasher are gone, to be replaced by Young Urban Professionals with celluphones, shouting at the barman for "Two points of Fursty dere, Con", and I can't help feeling that with their leaving, for other pubs, other lives, that those were good days - hard days, yes, but good ones - which have been replaced by a cynicism that is at least in part the product of the satellite age. Still, I have me memories.

• Oliver P. Sweeney