O'Canada

On the left, an Irish pay telephone. On the right, a Canadian one. Eircom in Ireland and Bell in Canada used to be the only phone companies but now things are broken up and there are competitors in both countries. If you’re wondering about “telefón,” that’s Irish for “telephone,” nothing to do with the Charles Bronson movie.

Canadian payphone provided by Bell Canada. Like many of them, it's out of order.

Irish payphone provided by Eircom

There are sculptures by English artist Henry Moore in both Dublin and Toronto, but Toronto wins this round. The Henry Moore Sculpture Centre at the Art Gallery of Ontario in downtown Toronto has more than 900 of his sculptures and works on paper. Large Two Forms, at the northeast corner of the gallery at Dundas and McCaul, is one of Toronto’s landmarks.

"Reclining Connected Forms" in Library Square inside Trinity College, Dublin

"Large Two Forms" outside the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

On the left, the Irish tricolour of green, white, and orange: green for Roman Catholicism, orange for Protestantism, white for the peace between them. It was first adopted in 1919.

On the right, the Canadian Maple Leaf, simple and memorable, adopted in 1965 and seen around the world on the luggage of Americans.

Canadian flag flying at half-mast on Remembrance Day, 11 November.

Irish flag flapping gently in the wind

More: An Bhratach Náisiúnta / The National Flag, official information from the Irish government, and The National Flag of Canada from the Canadian government.

Dublin, Ireland, on a Friday evening. Doheny & Nesbitt is one of Dublin’s oldest and most popular watering holes. These pictures show that early in the evening it’s doing a pretty steady trade, and by later on there is a hefty throng of people drinking and smoking outside — so much so that pylons are in place on the road to remind patrons not to migrate too far out in front of the establishment.

Doheny & Nesbitt, early Friday evening during August, Dublin.

A big part of the reason for crowds to congregate on the streets outside Dublin pubs (especially in the evening) is that this is the only place folks can smoke. So they take drinks outside and have a fag and a smoke and a natter. Rumour has it that many a new friendship or indeed relationship gets struck in this way!

Doheny & Nesbitt, late Friday evening during August, Dublin.

Meanwhile, in Canada, things are rather different! Canadians, like the Irish, are not allowed to smoke inside pubs. But if they need to have a smoke, they will take it outside, but their drink remains behind! We think this is because laws pertaining to drinking in public property are far stricter in Canada, than they are in Ireland. But it’s also probably partly a cultural thing.

It’s a Friday night. First let’s see what’s happening at the Wolf and Firkin, Friday night at 8.

Empty sidewalk outside the Wolf and Firkin, one of a chain of low-quality fake English pubs.

Down the street to the Queen and Beaver, a very nice place with good food. It was filled with people drinking, eating, talking, and laughing … but nothing was happening outside.

The pub was crowded and noisy inside, but outside, nothing.

Finally, in the Annex, around 9 pm, to Harbord House, where our quest ends.

Two lonely smokers grab a puff outside Harbord House in downtown Toronto

The authors, have noticed some amusing differences in exit signs, between Ireland and Canada.

An exit sign, typically found in buildings in Ireland (note this isn’t necessarily an emergency exit sign!) is shown left. It stirs up a sense of urgency, and conveys a “run for your life” type of message. You’d better hightail it out of here, don’t even think of strolling or ambling, exit and exit fast, mate!

In contrast, the Canadian exit sign (shown right) is a whole lot less alarmist!

Exit sign in Ireland

Exit sign, Canadian style.

In Ireland, if you need to go to relieve yourself, and were in a restaurant or pub etc., you’d ask where the “toilets” are. If you were feeling the need to be posh, you might say “bathrooms”, but you’d not say “washrooms”.  If you were at home, with people you know well, you might speak in terms of “the loo”.

In Canada, everyone talks about “washrooms”, that’s the common lingo at home and while out. I guess there is a preference to focus on the washing that goes on, while you are engaged in your personal business, rather than the other aspect of it. And fair enough, seems discreet, reserved, and inoffensive, and perhaps, rather Canadian.

This certainly merited a photograph, we thought. It's taken in Portmagee, a beautiful village on the Ring of Kerry. And they have such fine public toilets, that they won an award.

If you gotta go, look for this kind of sign in Canada.

While Portmagee, won an award for best public toilets, Bar Pinxto, a tapas bar in the Temple Bar area in Dublin, might deserve at least a notable mention, for its toilets.

Purchasing alcohol looks quite a bit different in Ireland and Canada, with Quebec being a bit of an exception, and closer to the Irish way of doing things.

In Ireland, you can purchase alcohol very easily and in many places. That’s not to say they don’t ask for ID in these places; they do. Also a Canadian visitor friend of mine, who wanted to buy some whiskey to take home, noted that you can’t purchase any alcohol in stores before 11 a.m. – seems reasonable enough! But in Ireland if you want to buy alcohol you can go to a supermarket, a local grocery store, or an off-license. Off-licenses sell alcohol only, a bit like the LCBO in Canada, except they are not government owned, but rather private enterprises. Sometimes off-licenses are stand-alone affairs, and other times they are attached to a pub, as shown in the picture below, or may form part of a store.

In Canada, the sale of alcohol is closely regulated, and (except for Quebec) it can only be sold in a few locations. In Ontario this is called the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario), a crown corporation, and the only other place you can buy alcohol is The Beer Store, a privately owned chain of retail outlets. While the Beer Store is privately owned, the nature of government regulations for the sale of alcohol, means that the Beer Store commands a near-monopoly on the sale of beer in Ontario. In other provinces there is a similar set up, though because each province has it’s own control board, the names differ. The only exception to this tends to be retail establishments owned by wineries, where they have a license to sell their own labels.

So in Canada, you’ve got to be organised, when you need alcohol. You can’t just decide on a statutory holiday, that you’d like a bottle of wine, or very late on a Sunday evening, ’cause the LCBO and Beer Store type of establishments are going to be closed. Also depending where you live, you may have to walk a bit. In contrast, in Ireland, the grocery store type affair stays open late, and some supermarkets, e.g. Tesco, are open all night, in some locations. Also given the range of options for purchasing, a drop of the hard stuff, is never far away.

A A pub called “The Malt House” in Dublin with off-license attached. This is quite a common site in Ireland.

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario regulates the sale of alcohol in Ontario and the LCBO is the only place where you can buy all types of alcohol. Similar regulatory boards exist in other provinces.

Here you can see wine for sale in a Spar, a common chain of grocery stores in Ireland.

The Beer Store, also government regulated in Ontario, sells beer from all over the world, as well as stocking many varieties from Canadian microbreweries.

When you enter a beer store in Canada, this is typically what you'll see. The actual beer itself, isn't on shelves, but the brands available are clearly viewable. You then ask for what you want, and it gets retrieved from a back storage room.

In Ireland, that would be rain, thank you very much, and lots of it! And well, yes, you guessed it (it wouldn’t take Einstein), in Canada, there’s no shortage of snow in the winter, though they tell me there’s far less of it in Toronto these days, than there was, say, for example, in the 1970s.

A pretty common site (almost all year round) when you look down in Ireland - wet pavement, wet road, wet cobblestones (well cobblestones, there are less of, though Trinity College Dublin and Temple Bar do have 'em).

I like this picture because it shows how much snow you can get in Toronto (this is a particularly bad dump!). But it's dumped all over the patio furniture and barbecue. And due to the hot summers using the barbecue a lot is pretty common! Not so in Ireland.

This is a fantastic YouTube video Sophie Bury’s brother dug up, showing how wet and wild the Irish weather can be! Also demonstrates Irish humour in action, as these lads film a fake promo for the Irish Tourist Board, encouraging tourists to visit and enjoy the weather!

Graffti and Icicles - Winter in T.O.

If you’re having a cup of tea of coffee you’re probably going to want some milk and sugar. Or cream and sugar. Or maybe just milk. Or just cream. Or just sugar. Or maybe you prefer an artificial sweetener, the fake sugar stuff. You get the idea.

In Ireland in cafés and restaurants you’ll often see a little jug of milk out on the table. They just leave the stuff out on the table for people to use! How can do they this? Because Irish people drink so damned much tea. (According to the Global Marketing Information Database, Canadians spent $9.70 per capita on tea in 2008 but the Irish spent €25.3 or $40 at today’s exchange rate. I couldn’t find current tea consumption figures in GMID but we’ll dig into it.) The Irish are sloshing down so much tea, usually with milk, that the little jugs empty quickly and it’s not just sitting around going bad. Also Irish people must worry less than Canadians about people sneezing and coughing in their public milk.

In Canada there are two ways of getting milk into your tea (or cream into your coffee) at a coffee shop: frpm cartons, which are usually housed in a metal container to keep them cool, or annoying tiny little plastic containers that hold about 5 ml of liquid. If you like a healthy dollop of milk in your tea you’ll dump about five of the things into your cup and throw out a messy handful of dribbling plastic. Probably one of the things will explode when you open it and get milk all over your shirt.

A lovely jug of milk, a small selection of nice sugar, and some flowers. You know this will be a nice cuppa.

Milk and sugar in plastic containers, soy milk in cartons, different sugars and sweeteners in packets, all on a grotty table with spilled liquids and a gaping garbage hole. Get away quickly.

There’s a line in one of Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder novels that I never forgot. It goes something like: “It’s a fake Irish pub. You know how you can tell it’s fake? They serve food.”

In Ireland people go to the pub to drink. (Usually Guinness.) In Canada they go to the pub to drink and to eat. Going down to the pub after work means eating dinner. Canadian pubs (which are more commonly fake English than fake Irish) have large menus with lots of options, while at Irish pubs you’re lucky if you can get a bag of chips (“packet of crisps”) or some peanuts to let you take on some ballast.

As evidence we offer an Irish pub menu and a Canadian pub menu. The Irish pub is Gaynor’s in Leenane in Co. Galway in the west. Leenane is a very small town, but if you’ve see The Field (1990, with Richard Harris and Sean Bean) then you’ve seen Leenane and Gaynor’s. It’s now also called The Field Bar. The menu offers homemade vegetable soup, “ham, cheese, tomato, onion” sandwiches (I’m not sure if that’s four different kinds, one kind, or you can pick and choose) which you can have plain or toasted, scones, and tea, coffee, and Irish coffee to drink. Just enough to keep you going through an evening of enjoyable drinking and talking.

The Canadian pub is The Duke of York in Toronto. It’s just north of the University of Toronto and used to be my favourite pub, but has gotten larger and more corporate over the years. (My favourite pub now is Harbord House.) The menu is oversized and encased in plastic. A few of the many options: curried chicken rolls, nachos, calamari, several kinds of burgers, a club sandwich, Portuguese sausage, linguine, beef bourgignon, chicken wings, and the usual bangers and mash or fish and chips. Notice the menu also offers you a Cosmo or a “Cinnamon Toast” as special drinks to try. Why? I was there last week and all I wanted was a cheese and onion sandwich, but no.

The large, unwieldy menu at The Duke of York. This is a pretty standard menu at corporate fake English pubs in Canada.

The simple menu at Gaynor's. For Irish pubs this is a big menu.

The city halls in Dublin and Toronto are very different architecturally. Politically and culturally, and what actually happens inside, I don’t know.

City Hall, Dublin is Georgian, finished in 1769. It’s a large, serious, grey stone building, with imposing pillars and other architectural features I couldn’t name. The building was built to be the Royal Exchange, “a meeting place for Dublin’s businessmen, where they could buy and sell goods and trade bills of exchange,” as Wikipedia puts it. It became the city hall in 1852 and has kept on ever since through all of the changes in Irish politics.

Toronto City Hall is a modernist building opened in 1965, and it’s one of this city’s most famous landmarks. It and the CN Tower are probably the two buildings here that are recognized all over the world. What we now call Old City Hall is across the street to the east and is now a courthouse. It’s a beautiful Victorian building. Out in front of Toronto City Hall is Nathan Phillips Square, a popular place festivals, protests, New Year’s Eve parties, and celebrations when The Team wins The Big Game.

Dublin City Hall

Toronto City Hall

In Ireland the beer market is dominated by a few big brands, which you tend to see in every pub you enter – Guinness, Smithwicks, Heineken, for example, are everywhere!

And when it comes to stout, Guinness certainly dominates supreme. However, it is worth noting a couple of nice offerings in the stout department, which are also Irish, though lesser known. One is Murphys, manufactured in Cork, and in that part of the world, Corkonians identify it as “the” stout. Beamish is another Irish stout, also hailing from Cork.

When it comes to microbreweries, Canada wins hands-down in the authors’ view. Microbrews in pubs are rarely found in Ireland, while in Canada they are common, and there is a huge amount of variety. The authors are most familiar with Ontario options, e.g. Steam Whistle, but Quebec, B.C., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and many other parts have a fine selection to offer also. In Ireland there are a few pubs, like the Porterhouse Brewing Company in Dublin, that brew on premise, and sell food and microbrews on site, but microbrews simply don’t seem to have been allowed to penetrate the pubs in Ireland, and thus are a far rarer sight, than is the case in Canada.

This photo was taken in a pub in Castletownbere in Co. Cork, where Murphys is, simply put, "the official pint of us".

Shown here is a six pack of Steam Whistle, manufactured in Toronto, Ontario and seriously good beer! (Picture obtained on Google Images courtesty of a creative commons license).

Porterhouse Brewing Company is one of the few places you can go in Dublin if you want to enjoy a microbrew.

Moosehead, another fab tasting Canadian microbrew, manufactured in St. John, New Brunswick. (This picture courtesy of JcMaco's creative commons license on flickr)

Sophie talked about Bewley’s and Tim Hortons in an earlier post. Here’s an in depth look at the crucial question of what to have with your drink.

At a Tim’s, you’d have a coffee. (I think theirs tastes horrible but gazillions of people disagree and drink it like it’s laced with something even more addictive than caffeine. They do make a niced “brewed tea,” which is what normal people call “tea.”) You might make it a “double double,” which is two sugars and two dollops of cream. And to go with it you’d order a Timbit, their name for what’s usually called a “doughnut hole.” Which when you think about it is a bit rude.

At Bewley’s you’d order a pot of tea and a scone. Less Canadian, more Irish … more civilized, better tasting.

A nice cup of tea at Bewley's on Grafton Street, with a scone. Note the milk jug, butter, jam, and the little madeleine that comes with the tea.

A cup of Tim Hortons coffee (for takeout) and a glazed Timbit. If you wanted sugar, milk, or cream, they put it in for you behind the counter before handing it over.

Kavanagh: Oh Mister Gould! Oh Mister Gould!
Are you enjoying sitting there upon the bench?

Gould: I have my scarf on and my gloves
To keep me warm when it gets cold
But I find — do you agree? — that people put their arms ’round me
Which is intrusive and quickly becomes old

Kavanagh: Positively, Mister Gould!

Gould: Absolutely, Mister Kavanagh!

Statue of Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh looking out over a Dublin canal

Statue of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould in front of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation headquarters

In Ireland, that little man who lets you know it’s safe to proceed and cross the road really is green. In Canada he’s black with a dotted white outline. The authors observe that the Irish walk symbol man seems to be of the “stroller” type, while his Canadian counterpart, in contrast, seems to walk animatedly, with determined purpose and vigour.

And with practically every walk signal in Ireland, comes a pedestrian “push the button” affair. In Canada we find this is less the case.

Canadian visitors of Sophie Bury’s recently, commented on the ubiquity of these buttons, and the fact that they seemed to “have to” be pushed before one was guaranteed ever seeing the green man. Having discussed this with some Irish friends, it seems that, though it might appear pushing the button is always a must, this varies by intersection. Very often the lights are just preprogrammed. However, what we really admire about the Irish model of push buttons everywhere, is that they facilitate the combination of image and sound, so that whenever the green man appears, the visually impaired also benefit from a beeping signal (emanating from aforementioned button device),  to let them know that it’s safe to proceed across the road. In Canada, as far as the blog authors have observed, sound for the benefit of the visually impaired, is far less common at intersections with lights.

The walk signal in Ireland, features a green man.

Walk signal at an intersection in Toronto.

This is the type of button which pedestrians are encouraged to press at Irish intersections, to get the strolling green man light signal and auditory signal to spring in to action.