The stunning claim Ronan Moore’s brilliant ‘Irishography’.
The follow-up to the brilliant ‘Irishology,’ which we featured here, Ronan Moore’s ‘Irishography’ takes a look at the places around the 31 counties of Ireland, as well as Longford, that are closest to our hearts.
But first we really do have to talk about Coppers.
Copper Face Jacks – Dublin (from Irishography, by Ronan Moore)
If Copper Face Jacks can’t claim to be Dublin’s premier night-club, it can claim to be one of its most popular and certainly its most famous one.
Open from 10pm to late, seven days a week, 365 days a year, with the exception of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and, of course, Holy Thursday and Good Friday, Copper Face Jacks (or Coppers as it’s more commonly called) turns out profits that are roughly equivalent to a NASDAQ 100 company.
Coppers can be split into two eras, pre- and post-BC, with BC being ex-Dublin captain Bryan Cullen. When Bryan uttered those immortal lines ‘See yiz in Coppers!’ while accepting the Sam Maguire in 2011, he opened the floodgates for Dubliners to flock to this Harcourt Mecca. Up until that moment, those from the capital had been largely absent. However, after BC’s public endorsement, their presence soon added to what had long been a favourite of country-born city-dwellers for nigh on a generation, who would come here on the weekend, remember their own local disco back home, sing Maniac 2000 and get the shift.
Other interesting, though slightly fabricated, facts about Coppers:
[SB]
- The reason that Coppers is so successful is that it reinvests all its profits back into itself.
- Due to the numbers of nurses here on a night out, after hospitals, Coppers is probably the safest place in Dublin to go into labour at 3am on a Friday.
- Only once, on 27 May 2012, has a Garda actually paid to get in.
- The numbers of steps you must walk down to get into the night-club is actually less than the number of steps you have to walk up to get out!
- 43% of first-time male visitors to Coppers have admitted to having difficulty finding the bathroom from the main dance-floor.
- Former Garda Cathal Jackson owns the night-club, but no pictures exist of him on the internet. Even pictures that do exist of him are not actually him.
- By 2035, it is thought that 14% of public-servant babies will have been conceived following a night out in Coppers.
- During the Celtic Tiger, a man from Roscommon bought a Fat Frog here for €27.50.
- Copper Face Jacks’ Gold Member Cards are more valuable by weight than actual gold.
- There are also Diamond Member Cards but only five of these exist at any given time. While no one actually knows who possesses these, it is believed they are currently in the hands of an ex-Dublin captain, a member of the Illuminati, yer one from the telly, a member of S Club 7 and the current US president.
- While they might not always admit it, 86% of people who go to Coppers are looking for the shift.
And finally, the annual income from the Copper’s cloakroom is higher than the GDP of Chad.
Irishography is published by Gill Books and out now, priced at €10.99.
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