“Oh C’marn yer Marn.” The diminutive helmsman slurred prettily as the narrow; raucous bar reverberated between the opposing mirrors (themselves sporting fantastical typography telegraphing the names of entrepreneurial spirits – long gone – in faded gold – gilt paint) to the infectious, ribald brogue of The Dubliners.

“You know you’ll be wanting another J’hvohuk…..”

Ensign Maya O’Mara’s short, red fringe cowlicked over her eye. “Oh, the Saint’s! I’ve gone and gone bloody blind, so I have?” she wondered aloud to herself alone.

She attempted to bat the errant lock away with a woozy hand that seemed to be following some other, abstract, frame of reference for the time being, and actually managed to burp and hiccup *J’hvohuk* in a wet uncertain way and suddenly cover her mouth with the back of her hand, that convinced the Klingon that his compatriot was about to vomit on the bar top.

“I do not want another drink, Ensign.” The Half – Klingon rumbled disapprovingly. He placed a powerful protective hand his own tall glass of glossy ebony Stout that sat, barely touched on the bar as Maya failed to signal at the portly barkeep.

“And you should not either.” J’hvohuk warned “Even though there are restoratives available that will ensure you will be able to perform your duties when we go on-shift, you are presenting a poor example to the Midshipman.” He reproached his friend and nodded to the young woman Maya had dragged along to participate in this dubious historical re-enactment.

The elongated mirrors, the type that had graced traditional Irish bars throughout history, just as sure as there was a horseshoe nailed the right way up above the door and a Bratach na hÉireann displayed proudly in the front window – served to make the already crowded slot of bar look both more spacious and more crammed at the same time.

(It also made it harder for someone’s brother or Da’ to sneak up behind you and crown you with a bottle if, say, you’d done their sister/daughter a grievous dishonor. But that’s a tale from Doonan’s for another day…..)

 The salt & pepper Proprietor of the establishment, Big Jimmy Doonan, shrugged indifferently at the drunk Starfleet Officer (he’d seen it all before) and kept his vigil over the similar line-up of drinks standing by  the gleaming brass tap – waiting for each to develop their own creamy off -white head in their own time, before ages of experience and tradition permitted him to deem each glass fit to ‘top-off’ and distribute to his patrons in his own damn good time.

A stout shillelagh, clipped below the bar, had several notches in its head that bore testament to when some soul had troubled himself to try to jump that line.

Maya seemed to waver on the event horizon between insobriety and oblivion and then rallied magnificently as the band began to play the first lyrical strains of “Tibby Dunbar.”

“OHMAHBLOODYJESUSGHAD.” O’Mara raised her own pint to the cigarette – stained rafter and slung around on her bar – stool.” I blood LOVE this’n so I do!” She enthused with wild delight and began to sing along – very loudly and out of tune.

“O willt thou go wi’ me sweet Tibby Dunbar?

O willt thou go wi’ me sweet Tibby Dunbar?

Wether ride on a horse or been drawn in a cart,

Or walk by my side sweet Tibby Dunbaaaar?”

The entire assembled clientele of Doonan’s Bar took up the refrain slowly, but surely – until the crowded bar fairly hummed with voice and the unified stomp of gladdened feet.

“I care not thy daddy, his land or his money,

Thy pal and Thy kin say high and say lowly,

But say That thou’re with me for better or worse,

And come in your poetry sweet Tibby Dunbar.”

Ensign J’hvohuk put slowly his head in his hands, his banded dreadlocks hiding his face. His experience of this particular Holo-simulation had shown him that, when Maya got the Bar singing along – the prospects of a sensible retreat Bedwards (and the end to this excruciating culture torture his friend loved so much) was diminishingly remote for some hours now.

“Ghay’cha!’ J’hvohuk groaned plaintively and glared at Midshipman Carter as she politely sipped her lemonade through a cardboard straw that was slowly becoming sodden and not helping the exchange. Nola’s pretty young features crinkled into a mask of glee and the young Starfleet cadet clapped her hands joyously.

“Oh, this is Marvelous J’hvohuk!” She shouted to the Half – Klingon over the bawdy din “Are all Bars like this?”

The Crowd sang on, and Maya began to thump the bar in poorly kept time.

“O will to be known as a poor beggar’s lady?

And sleep in the heather rolled up in my pladie,

The sky for a roof and each candle a star?

My love for a fire sweet Tibby Dunbar!!!”

J’hvohuk winced to himself and took an oversized fist full of nuts from the bowl before him and crammed them into his mouth, so he didn’t have to reply to Nola.

 Unfortunately, they were pistachio nuts with the shells still on, so J’hvohuk ended up nearly choking and had to reach desperately for his pint of stout and take a great, whooping, gulp whilst coughing up a fury.

“SEE!” Ensign Maya O’Mara crowed victoriously – as she downed what remained of her pint and signaled a rollicking cheer from Doonan’s regulars “Yer DID want a ‘nuther SO Yer DID !” She laughed and promptly tripped over her own feet and disappeared from view, down onto Doonan’s infamously sticky carpet.

“OOH! That’s not good…” Midshipman Nola Carter winced and began to look around for a bar-towel.