The smell is mould and alcohol and earth and smoke of turf and nicotine. Candles gutter in their yellow cataracts of wax. A turf fire glows at one end of the room. There is a makeshift bar at the other. In between are shapes hunched over instruments and tunes and tables.
Feet pound the earth floor.
The almost-visible aroma wafts through the house. Soon, everything will be arrayed on mismatched plates. They understand that time itself is a chameleon, so they mark it and they keep it, and they syncopate it. Even the rain doesn't daunt these players of Irish songs. Carson describes one sodden evening of music when the pub crowd has overflowed into a jerry-built tent in the backyard.