Billy Keane

'You cannot run a pub if the customers do not back you.' Stock photo: Yui Mok/PA

Billy Keane Opinion The survival of our pubs depends on the best of behaviour - by publicans and customers alike

My mother was envious of those of you who live in what she called "private houses".

'I’m back working in the pub, getting the place ready for opening day on July 20, that’s if the small few restaurateur publicans and their customers who are breaking the rules behave themselves' (stock image)

Billy Keane Opinion I'm hopeless at the DIY, can't even change a plug - so don't expect me to fix broken biscuits

The Almighty created us on his day off. He was working from home, according to the Old Testament.

Brendan Walsh and Freddie McBride at the Man O’ War bar and restaurant in Balbriggan, Co Dublin PHOTO: MARK CONDREN

Billy Keane Opinion It was never about the drink - but the drink never tastes as good at home as in the pub

The first caller to The Palace Bar in Fleet Street was looking for before hours.

'I just took some time out there just now to check the hairdressers and it seems they are all booked out for next week. I’ll be like a yak in a few more days, but ladies first I always say.'

Billy Keane Opinion Don't tell the grown-ups but vain lads are now breaking windows just to be jailed and get a haircut

I'm well over the six foot now. Tall enough to be a garda I am. Big enough to get picked by Finn McCool is me. Paul O'Connell will ask me can I move seats so he can see the movie.

'I am worn out from answering the same question, and it is this: will you open up the pub on the June 29?' (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

Billy Keane Opinion There's simply no avoiding a moaner on a mission with a hive of bees under their bonnet

Murty the Moaner has a hive of bees under his bonnet.

The country has seen a rise in domestic violence during the Covid-19 lockdown. (stock photo)

Billy Keane Opinion Dr Leo and Dr Tony lead from the front but it seems common sense is not all that common

Leo, we never knew you. But we do now.

The parrots are all voting for Trump. Throw in the serial racists who welcomed the murder of George Floyd and you can clearly see Covid is not the only pandemic that hit our world. Photo: Reuters/Tom Brenner

Billy Keane Opinion There's a proven vaccine for a virus that afflicts the parrots among us - read the newspaper

I don't think I could stick a parrot, especially if he or she was an African grey. We don't get on. Can you imagine how tough it would be to be living with someone who keeps on saying the same things over and over again?

'It's like being in a foreign city. No one makes eye contact.' Stock Image

Billy Keane Opinion A silent movie, with its dimly lit cast of mavericks - this is Dublin by night in the new old times

The only ones out on the night street were two policewomen riding giant horses, cavalries of mounted takeaway porters, the homeless three and a quare hawk.

'Do not despair. Pubs will breathe freedom again. Its a question of how and when.' (stock image)

Billy Keane Opinion My 'Fair City' lockdown lock-in at McCoys of Carrigstown gave a taste of problems pubs will face

By now I am sure some of you at least have seen last Monday night's 'Claire Byrne Live' on RTÉ One.

'Monday next will test out the patriotism of the nation.'

Billy Keane Opinion Love is in the air from Monday - just as long as the pheromones can travel at least two metres

Do any of ye happen to know what the pheromones are? I only learned what they were this week, when I read about a dating site based in Mullingar.

'There’s bound to be a world shortage of bananas at this rate of baking. Monkeys are falling off the trees with hunger, and rooms in the house are narrowing every day with all the coats of paint.' Stock photo

Billy Keane Opinion After an invitation from an Achill Island sheep farmer, it seems Mrs 39 has got her appetite back

Mrs 39 is still off the sex. The woman who hasn't had sex for 39 years, cocooned for months.

Keeping the spirits up: Billy Keane and his fellow publicans face an uncertain future due to the restrictions imposed as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. Photo: Mark Condren

Billy Keane Opinion Closing time will finally come to an end with a glass half full in last-chance saloon

It's the stories you miss most of all. And the brains. Pagans are praying and it's the longest some of us have been off the drink since our confirmation. Generally speaking I only repeat myself when I burp but here's one I've been dining out on for years..

'The world’s TV chefs are killing millions from obesity, yet no one complains, but three or four minutes of sex is shown late at night, and there’s war.' Stock image

Billy Keane Opinion Spare a thought for lockdown lovers and normal people who'd settle for a bite of fresh trout

The fishing got me thinking about the sex on the television. 'Normal People' was all catch and no release.

'I welcomed the swallows as I welcomed their ancestors every year ever since I was a small boy.'

Billy Keane Opinion Times are grim, especially for townie crows - but Fr Joe and the swallows always cheer me up

There should be a doctor's cert for extroverts. It's not easy. We thrive on contact with other people.

'It’s a bit like the fighter pilots who go from home comforts to the fight for the lives of their people. Some get shot down.' Stock photo

Billy Keane Opinion It's an Irish thing to show our love by slagging someone off - we are nice by saying horrible things

The man I spoke to gave the most of this week painting the front wall of the house.

'Running out of paint was an emergency. The alternative was too stark a choice. You couldn’t have a man sitting doing nothing.'

Billy Keane Opinion Painting is the new drinking in the age of Covid, as Ireland wraps itself in several fresh new coats

There are winners and there are losers. The paint factories are cleaning up. You talk to your friends and ask: "How do you pass the day?" Nearly every one of them has the same answer.

If he sniffles and coughs up a small planet, Herself will hardly say ‘will you shut up complaining, it’s only man-flu’. Now the response will be to commit Himself to self-isolation and book him a ticket for Croke Park and the testing. Stock picture

Holy lockdown - Batman's plight shows how things could be worse as we face the music and dance

One of the lads coughed into his elbow. I stepped back from the laptop. There was a movie on the television lately and these mutants came out through the screen and did horrible things to people in their own living room.

Mick O’Dwyer in action in 1964; beaten by Galway that year he helped Kerry football rise again. Photo: Connolly Collection/SPORTSFILE

Billy Keane Opinion Sport has hit the snooze button but keep faith in your newspapers until we rise again

We will see this out with a story from around 50 BC - or 50 years before corona. You wouldn't know these days if it's all right to write of happy times.

'The name Covid is hateful and horrible. It's a good name to call a rat but the quare hawks are loving every minute of the plague.' (Ben Birchall/PA)

Billy Keane Opinion It's a very tough time for all of us... especially now that the quare hawks are out in force

So there you were with a harmless name like Mick or Tom or Joe or Mary or Noreen, minding your own business.

Standing alone: Billy Keane makes sure to keep his distance from the jockeys during racing at Thurles on Saturday. Photo: Pat Healy Racing

Billy Keane Opinion Staying powers in social-distancing stakes will keep show on the road

The good side is I was told if you sing 'Happy Birthday' twice, well then that equates to the correct amount of time to be spent handwashing.

'The show will go on even though our pub is dark tonight.' (stock image)

Billy Keane Opinion Mam's motto was the show must go on - and we will all answer Ireland's call in this time of crisis

We closed up John B's on Saturday night last. Our pub has been shut down now for a week. Mam and Dad bought the place 65 years ago and the longest we have ever been closed in all that time was when they died. And that was only for a couple of days.

The sign in the window of John B Keane’s bar in Listowel

Billy Keane Opinion Not quite Stade de France, but Listowel is the Paris of Ireland

In the normal course of events I would be in Paris this morning. But these are not normal times.

The new plan during the crisis is to stay well back. The Taoiseach called it social distancing. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Billy Keane Opinion I'd gladly self-isolate from The Man Who Knows Everything - and his plans to go hamping

The Man Who Knows Everything has a plan for passing the time.

Brouder brothers Gearóid, Gavin and Kevin together at
Punchestown in 2018. Photo: Healy Racing

Billy Keane Opinion Old Bog Road has fearless Brouder boys in prime shape

There was a race to the donkeys straight after the Sunday dinner in Dirha. Kevin Brouder, who has ridden 40 winners this year over jumps, was a flyer. Kevin and his brother Gearóid were neck-and-neck as they raced out of their Nana's house.

Amanda was given a free packet of Aldi bourbon creams.

Billy Keane Opinion Of all the many ills that have befallen mankind, this bourbon creams crisis takes the biscuit

The choice today was to write about the woes of the world, or bourbon creams.

Sam Lousi of Scarlets throws a punch at Fineen Wycherley of Munster, resulting in a red card, during the Guinness PRO14 match at Thomond Park in Limerick. Photo: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Billy Keane Opinion While Munster battled against Scarlets and Jorge, another storm entirely brewed in Omagh

I hope they never call a storm after me. We are sick of storms and rain and wind and cold. I did have a calf named in my honour once.

'Tutankhamun, who once ruled all of Egypt, was as lost as the names on an old Irish headstone covered in lichen and eroded by wind and rain.' (Stock photo)

Billy Keane Opinion Remembering our ancestors is more precious than all the gold in Egypt's Valley of the Kings

This man who comes into the bar says I never miss a funeral because I'm trying to canvass a big crowd for my own.

Sexton has played 91 times for his country and has had very few poor performances. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

England show where the pecking order lies to clip the wings of visiting wild geese

There won't be too much about the actual game here this morning. It's bad enough getting bate but then having to write about it afterwards is even worse.

'Tea and toast is a cure for everything'

Billy Keane Opinion Everybody needs to calm down, have some tea and toast and mull over prospect of new government

The new government, whatever the make-up will be, should bring in enforced hibernation for February.

Billy Keane Opinion Garrett fought the good fight and always put his beloved Munster first

Garrett Fitzgerald knew he hadn't too much time left. His instructions for the eulogy were, as always, to the point.