To Dave the Gnome: While not wishing to state that his grandfather may have been stretching the truth just a little bit :-)a few things to straighten the record.The first "tans" arrived in Ireland in March 1920. It is highly unlikely that any Black and Tan would wander into a pub on his own in Ireland at that time.As for being mistaken for a local, pull the other one. If he did as he stated then he must have been a very very lucky man indeed or the local IRA men must all have been asleep. On a more serious note, the tans' favourite method of transport was to roar around the country side in lorries shooting at anything which took their fancy. My grandmother was once the target of such behaviour. Near the town where I went to school is a memorial to a catholic priest who was out for a walk one evening when he met a party of tans who were tormenting a mental handicapped lad. When he remonstrated, they shot him and threw his body over a hedge.