Ireland. Most of you have figured out that's where I'm from. A misguided few have thought
England, Scotland and even Australia. Some especially repugnant, mouth-breathing bottom
feeders have even suggested my accent is fake. I can only assume this is coming from Americans
whose idea of an Irish accent comes from their litany of horrid media representations, which
are often done by people who are not Irish! Christ almighty.
Also, Ireland, like most countries, has a lot of different accents. I hold a personal
deep-seated hatred of the sterotypical Dublin accent, which is unfortunate because that
is where I'm stuck living at the moment. So rest assured, if you don't recognise my accent,
it's because it's from a place you've never heard of - which for most is probably everywhere
outside of Dublin and Belfast. But don't feel too bad, ya uncultured git, a lot of Irish
people can't place my accent either - it's just not a very distinctive one.
With all that said you might be surprised to hear this is the first ever Tales From
the Bottle episode based in Ireland. Why is that? Well, this series usually focuses on
sensational, bizarre and unbelievable stories, and Ireland is generally a fairly dull and
miserable place where only bad things happen - like being surrounded by Dubliners. Any
noteworthy occurence in Ireland is usually fairly tragic, making those stories a little
too depressing to be told on this series. That is not so for today's episode!
...I mean, people still died, and I guess if you stop and really look at it objectively
it's pretty sad but I'm going to put a comedic spin on the whole thing. It's Ireland, there's
a massive whiskey fire! You have to escape! But you're Irish! Fire bad but whiskey good!
What do you do? Yes, believe it or not, all the people who died in this fire, died of
alcohol poisoning. How? Let's see.
The year is 1875. It is evening time on the 18th of June in central Dublin. In a storehouse
where 5,000 barrels of whiskey are being stored, a fire breaks out. Exactly how this happened
is unknown, but the fire spread quickly. The fire heated the barrels of whiskey to the
point of bursting, and as the whiskey began to flow, it carried the fire with it - which
only allowed the fire to spread even more quickly.
This being Ireland, you'd think the whiskey store house being on fire would be an earth-shatteringly
disastrous occurence of apocalyptic proportions, but actually no one noticed it was happening
at first. Now, back in those days it wasn't uncommon
to keep livestock in the city. I mean you'll still find plenty of fucking animals in the
city today, but you won't see any livestock on the street like you would back then. It
was actually pigs who were the first to notice the fire and squeal in terror. If you've ever
heard pigs squeal you'll know they are an unusually loud animal and their squeals are
extremely piercing, really makes you wonder why they have this ability, but the cacophany
of pigs alerted people in the area to the fire. Good pig.
Everyone in the area managed to evacuate quickly and save what animals they could from the
fire, which was now making its way down the street on a river of whiskey. It must have
been utter chaos. By now, so many barrels had burst in the fire that the stream of whiskey
stretched several hundred metres down the street, and was 6 inches deep. Like me every
night. As people were fleeing, they realised that
the burning river was made of alcohol. And some started to drink from it. Yes, while
it was on fire. People used jugs, caps, boots and even their hands to lap up the precious
alchohol. And a drinking session erupted on the streets. The amount of whiskey flowing
had a value of 6 million euro in today's money, so there was a lot of this stuff to go around,
if you didn't mind the raging inferno. And this was 1875, when you heard about a massive
disaster happening in the city you'd travel over to have a look at it, there was no TV,
that was entertainment back then. And so, people from all over the city joined in the
drinking. And everyone got absolutely shitfaced People were literally drinking themselves
into comas. At least 24 people had to be brought to hospital. Not from burns or smoke inhalation
or anything but from drinking. And if a whopping 24 people drank themselves into the hospital
in one area on one evening, imagine how many more were just monstrously drunk.
When the fire brigade showed up they had quite the problem on their hands, the fire was massive
and spreading fast. They knew trying to fight it with water wouldn't work, as the whiskey
would just float on top of it like oil and spread even faster. Instead they tried to
stop the fire by breaking up the streets in its path. They pulled up paving stones and
shovelled sand, grit and horse manure in front of the burning river and eventually, they
were successful in putting the fire out. In all, it was one of the most destructive
fires in Dublin's history destroying many buildings on numerous streets, but surprisingly,
no one was directly killed. This was put down to the swiftness with which the area was evacuated,
and even in the rushing of the crowd no one was killed. However, of the 24 hospitalised
from drinking, 13 died of alcohol poisoning. That's right, a raging fire killed 13 people
and the only casualties were from drinking. They survived the fire, but killed themselves
with the whiskey the fire poured onto the streets. Only in Ireland.
Of the 5,000 barrels of whiskey, only 61 were recovered - although not all of the barrels
were destroyed, the authorities arrested a number of drunkards caught robbing barrels
from the burning building. How many people literally risked life and limb just to drink
this fucking whiskey? I still can't believe the prospect of free whiskey was so enticing
to these people they literally drank it off the street from a burning river until their
bodies couldn't take it anymore and they died. A few pigs were killed in the fire, sadly,
and it was reported a dog died several days later in unusal circumstances. Some lad in
the area had his door open and this crazed dog ran in smashing up the place and attacking
him. He had to defend himself with a stick. Then the dog ran upstairs, jumped from the
top floor and killed itself, or, as it was reported, "terminated its existence in the
road below". It was thought the dog was suffering withdrawals from the whiskey it had been enjoying
over the previous days.
So there you have it, in Ireland, a whiskey storehouse caught fire and 13 people and a
dog literally killed themselves over it. Like I said, it's a little sad when you actually
really think about it but sure, look, if you don't laugh you'll cry.
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