I come from a long line of pipe smokers. My Dad smoked the pipe, and from a young age, I wallowed in the wafted aroma of Mick McQuaid, or Condor or Mellow Virginia. My Grandad also smoked the pipe; it was ever-present in his mouth, and I also noticed that he used a cap on his pipe to prolong the smoke. I have to confess, before I go any further, that of all the vices I’ve explored in my lifetime, pipe smoking was my favourite! I began to smoke the pipe at the age of 27 – around the time I got married! In the beginning, before addiction set in, I was an occasional smoker. I smoked a Dutch tobacco called Clan, which was very popular, and it had a beautiful, scented flavour. I was very active at the time, playing football with Newcastle West and hurling with Knockaderry. I continued to rationalise with myself that my pipe smoking had no impact whatsoever on my fitness and, after all, it would have been far worse if I had been smoking cigarettes!

Giving it a try, I entered one of the most compelling, habit-forming subcultures I’d ever found. There are plenty of rabbit holes to go down in life, though few that hold you there so avidly as pipe smoking. Part of it was the tobacco, as different from the cigarette kind as you can imagine. In those early years, I mainly smoked nice light, sometimes aromatic, mellow Virginias. My Aunty Meg spoiled me rotten by bringing me back 16-ounce packets of scented Cherry Brandy flavoured tobacco from her many journeys to New York. I later discovered the time-consuming rituals associated with various plug tobaccos before eventually settling on Yachtsman, my favourite of all. I became an expert mixer of tobaccos and would often add some of my Cherry Brandy mix with my Yachtsman plug to make it go farther. If suppressed memory serves me at all, the mixture was Divine!

Fr. Dan Lane was curate in Newcastle West in the late 80s and early 90s, and we were firm friends. Dan smoked cigarettes mainly, and when he wanted to give them up, which was often, he dabbled with the pipe. Each year, Fr Dan organised a pilgrimage to Lourdes for the Fifth-Year girls in the parishes of NewcastleWest and Abbeyfeale. The pilgrimage set out for Lourdes each year on Easter Sunday and returned a week later. Each year, he would bring copious amounts of tobacco, far exceeding his own Duty Free allowance of cigarettes and pipe tobacco on his return journey.

I remember one evening in 1986, Fr. Dan arrived out to Knockaderry laden down with two Duty-Free bags of pipe tobacco. His doctor had again advised him that he should quit smoking, so he wanted to get rid of the temptation and give his stash a good home. Obviously, I was delighted, and by my estimation, I wouldn’t have to buy tobacco again until Christmas! Later, I went through the treasure trove and found packets of my old favourite Clan, along with pouches of Holland House, Condor, Mellow Virginia, Mick  McQuaid, and some tins of Erinmore and Three Nuns. I’m reminded here of Brendan Behan’s joke about the availability of tobacco while he was in prison. He said that the warden’s favourite brand was Three Nuns – none yesterday, none today and none tomorrow!

Gradually, I became an expert, collecting all the necessary paraphernalia: my beloved Kapp and Peterson Numbers 303, 314 or 317 sandblasted briar pipes, a sleek pipe lighter, pipe cleaners, rustic tampers, a pipe pouch, a small penknife, and a leather airtight tobacco pouch. The pipe was the most essential item, however, and I sourced mine and, in later years, my plug tobaccos from the erudite Eleanor at M. Cahill and Sons Tobacco Shop, 47 Wickham Street in Limerick.

Kapp and Peterson, from their famous shop in Nassau Street in Dublin, were then, and still are, the oldest continuously operating briar pipe factory in the world. They had built up a reputation both here and abroad and they were proud of their tradition and their legacy of craftsmanship dating back over 150 years. A Peterson pipe wasn’t just a utilitarian tool; it was a piece of history you carried with you on your travels, a faithful companion to accompany you through all of life’s travails.

Pipe smoking is a messy business. Oftentimes, stale dottle became wedged in the pipe bowl from a previous smoke, and this required cleaning with a penknife. Tobacco dust and ash permeate everything and everywhere, and often the smoker doesn’t realise that all those in the vicinity can smell smoke fumes from his clothes, from his breath. Pipe smokers are forever fidgety around their pipe; it requires constant attention and frequent relighting, not to mention the endless ceremonial preparation for yet another smoke.

I have a few very serious confessions to make now that I am a reformed smoker. I cringe when I think that I continually smoked the pipe in the car without a care or any consideration for Kate or my two darlings, Mary and Don, who were in the backseat without gasmasks, seatbelts or any of the modern safety methods that had not yet become legal and essential. I smoked while I was carrying them to music lessons, to matches, to training sessions. I smoked in the house after school; I smoked all day in the study during those long summers correcting Leaving Cert English. I smoked in restaurants, in pubs, and in the street, without a thought for anyone other than my own enjoyment and satisfaction.

Eventually, after many false dawns, I gave up smoking the pipe on the 12th of October 2008. There were several factors which precipitated this major decision. I was due to go to Croom in November that year to have a hip replacement, so I told myself that I needed to be fit and healthy! On March 29, 2004, Tánaiste Michéal Martin, representing the Irish government, introduced the first national comprehensive legislation banning smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants. I was beginning to get the message in 2008! In truth, my momentous decision had been hastened by the repeated price hikes in tobacco in successive Budgets, which were making smoking a very, very expensive hobby. I couldn’t justify it any longer, and so, even though I had just purchased a brand-new Peterson on the 1st of October that year, I went ‘cold turkey’ and never looked back.

On that fateful day, I was aware that I was consciously making a decision to exclude myself from an elite club. Pipe smokers had always traditionally been considered different, and membership of this convivial fraternity was considered to be something special. In our heyday, we were seen as wise, contemplative men who sat and smoked and read serious, leather-bound literature, as well as a world of rugged outdoorsmen, canoeists, fly fishermen and clipper ship captains who puffed their pipes as they pored over nautical charts before sailing ‘round the Horn.  Those halcyon days, unfortunately, are all now, but a hazy pipe dream in the smoky recesses of treasured memories!  I conclude with the immortal words of C.S. Lewis: “A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.”