Douglas Williams/Shanghai Daily

Blarney was the term employed by Queen Elizabeth I of England to describe the Lord of Blarney, Cormac Teige McCarthy’s, tacit and insincere diplomatic pleas of loyalty to her in the 16th century.
He wasn’t, much to her chagrin. It stems from the Blarney Stone which sits at the top of the McCarthy ancestral home, Blarney Castle in Southwest Ireland. The stone is supposed to be imbued with special powers of eloquence that pass to anyone who kisses it, that very same eloquence the Irish are famed for.
The Blarney Stone Irish Pub at 5 Dongping Road is a pub not unfamiliar with blarney or indeed that other famous Irish export the “craic” and both are available to first time visitors and regulars alike in liberal doses at this friendliest of boozers.
Physically, the Blarney bares a lot in common with a thousand rural Celtic pubs the length and breadth of the Emerald Isle.
Walking in off the streets of Shanghai, one sometimes feels the need to pinch ones-self such is the gentle, friendly, familiar lilt of the place; it could be market day in Limerick.
This has been brought about in the main by the managing partners Paul Curran and David Kelly, Irishmen to be sure, who have been successfully running the Blarney for the past four years.
“I want people to be able to walk in and not feel at all phased by the place,” said Curran. “There’s no hassle in the Blarney, there are no bar girls, it’s easy to make friends, people share tables at the drop of a hat. It’s all very good humored and the music is good.”
The presence of Curran and Kelly virtually round the clock, the quality of the staff in their employ, the quality of the liquor, the music and the extensive sports coverage makes the Blarney a home from home for many and a must visit for newcomers.
Curran, initially wound up in Shanghai as resident musician at O’Malley’s after a career path blessed with a distinctive, Celtic charm.
Originating from Dolphin Barn, one of Dublin’s more challenged post codes, Curran left for London in the early 1970s to work for Queen Elizabeth II’s bank, Coutts.
This segued into trading stocks and shares in beautiful Bath, West of London. Curran then became one of the three directors of the Morris Minor car company restoring and rebuilding these classic, fix it yourself, cars; he held the directorship for 13 years.
Between 1979 and 1997, Curran developed and honed his ample folk singing skills performing regularly around the Midlands and the West of England. He quit his post with Morris Minor to pursue music professionally in 1997.
A year of solid gigging around Europe and Curran got whiff of O’Malley’s, an Irish bar, here in Shanghai. The three piece disintegrated shortly after arrival in China, but Curran stayed jumping ship from O’Malley’s when new management rolled in and setting up the Blarney Stone with Kelly and Declan Surlis in 2001. Surlis now occupies a silent partner role. Kelly is a bar professional, having served a time honored apprenticeship in Dublin. He answered an ad in his local paper for bar people wanted in Shanghai, he expected to be here for six months.
That was in 1997. Back then, many of his favorite bars in Dublin were changing and not in the way Kelly liked. Of the Blarney he said: “It’s funny you come half way round the world and you get a more authentically Irish pub than many of the pubs in Dublin these days.”
It’s Kelly, said Curran, who keeps the Blarney running like clockwork. “We might be Irish,”  said Kelly, “but we’ve learnt how to use computers. We don’t have many staff but those we have enjoy being part of the Blarney thing, they appreciate it, they know it’s a bit special.”
Amusingly, the Blarney’s Chinese staff increasingly speak English with a definite brogue.
Invites to Curran’s recent wedding to Sparky were scarcer than golden tickets for Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, those who attended speak in hushed awe of the happy occasion.
The music in the Blarney gets going at 8:20pm most nights, sporting action withstanding, with Curran delivering quality, authentic, Celtic folk drawn from the “big teddy bear’s” extensive repertoire. (Kelly’s description, not mine).
Musical instruments are usually present — workaday. There’s always a stack of papers and magazines and very often the Blarney is busy with folks who are not averse to giving the time of day. That last bit might sound like blarney but it isn’t.
There is an accusation that the Blarney is unashamedly expensive, the Rolls Royce of western bars in more ways than one, and that it is at 65 yuan (US$8.02) for a pint of Guinness.
There are no “happy hours”. Curran makes no apology: “Our staff work five-day weeks where most other bars’ staff work six. We pay their tax and pension and we serve genuine liquor and proper full measures. Regulars get very proper measures. Our Guinness comes all the way from Dublin. People who are in with a party will usually get a free round on the house, it’s just the way we operate.”
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Kelly on Curran: “He’s such an excellent ballad singer, his like wouldn’t be out of place in any proper folk club back in Dublin.
He’s the classic Ronnie Drew, pint in hand, folk singer, and as such we’ve got the music side of things stitched up.”
Plans are afoot for another Blarney. Kelly again: “We’re very confident in what we have. We’ll just watch the way things pan out, let the dust settle and move right in to the middle of where it’s at.”
The Blarney Stone operates as a social hub for a lot of westerners living in Shanghai and it provides the necessary lubricant at many levels. Regulars treat it as their “local” and rightly value it as precisely that.
douglaswilliams@shanghaidaily.com