Mean Streets

We had a CoCo's nightclub reunion on Saturday night at the Victoria hotel, it sold out and how great it was to see all the old heads again and play all the old hits. CoCo's was the cool eighties club in Cork where the Cork "A listers" gathered to boogie and booze.

I was DJ there for a few years and it surprised me just how many people from my past are still actually living here in Cork, for some reason when you grow away from people and old haunts you assume that all those that frequented the same places as yourself actually left Ireland and were now living in the USA, Australia or even England, when in fact they were in Cork all the time, in Ballincollig, Carrigaline or Midleton.

About 3am after the gig ended I headed home, catching a lift from a friend, we drove down Patrick Street, around the Grand Parade, up Washington street, down the South Main street and on to Douglas. The city centre was like something resembling the confusion following a bomb blast and it shocked me.

It takes a lot to phase me, I've seen a lot in my day but Cork city at 3am on at Saturday night into Sunday morning is one horrible place, full of demented young people.

I would not wish my son or daughter to be there or indeed in the condition of the many I saw. There were at least 5,000 falling around the streets, I counted three guards huddled together chatting at Singers Corner, most of the nightlife were drunk, falling in front of traffic, fighting, jumping on car bonnets, puking, fighting with boyfriends or girlfriends.

In the case of some girls I saw they were either helplessly locked and incoherent, with no idea how to stand straight or even where they were for that matter or sitting on the kerbside crying hysterically.

The guys have this kind of mating call, a sort of loud howling sound, whether they are in communication with other mates or just marking out their territory I'm not quite sure except to say that this long howl has replaced English as a means of expression at 3am.

And what of the hapless sober person who would dare to walk or wander our streets after dark particularly on a Friday or Saturday night?

God help the unfortunate is all I can say, because he will stumble into a surreal world, a world of vomit, fighting, urinating and street brawling.

A scene where young women have lost all sense of style and class, where young men just want to get drunk and roll around the streets.

It made me wish there and then that when my own son and daughter are old enough to decide for themselves they will haul themselves out of this quagmire of filth and travel the world and only come back when they are old enough to have earned the right of passage out of this kip, the kip that is Cork at the weekend.