A photo of John Joe Quinn sitting by the window in McGinn’s Hophouse has gone viral.
A Galway pub owner says a photo of a man drinking a pint while watching the clock has struck a lot of people in rural areas.
A photo of John Joe Quinn sitting by the window in McGinn’s Hophouse has been widely shared on social media, and the pub has been inundated with calls from people who want to buy him a pint.
The photo has been shared thousands of times of John Joe Quinn watching his alarm clock while drinking a pint of Guinness. Many people believed he was conscious of the time limit in the pub due to Covid-19 regulations.
I'm not able.... this little old man has an alarm clock on the table so he doesn't stay over the 90min in McGinns in Galway.... ?? pic.twitter.com/kByApsKMgC
— Kieran O Malley (@GalwayPlayer) September 7, 2020
However, John Joe has said he wanted to know if he would have time for a second pint and make it home to catch the news.
Fergus McGinn from the Hophouse says the photo struck a chord with a lot of people:
"In rural areas, the pub is the social hub where people go, and always did go, traditionally to meet and to chat and what people have been missing out on there".
Fergus added that the pub has been inundated with people offering to pay for a pint for John Joe adding that "the amount of goodwill and kind gestures is just phenomenal".
John Joe says he's surprised by his sudden fame and told the Irish Independent he doesn’t know anything about computers or the internet, and that he’s just an ordinary, plain man.
