Irish pub to cheer on Ivory Coast’s Elephants after failure to qualify for World Cup

The woman behind the bar was wearing an elephant hat and, opposite her, high on the pub wall above a display featuring an Irish hurling stick and ball, a television was screening a final World Cup warm-up game, with all eyes on the Ivory Coast XI.

This is how it will be for the next month or so in Biddy Mulligans bar in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. An Irish pub in the Scottish capital, it has set itself up as an unlikely outpost for Ivory Coast football fans after a jokey TikTok video went viral, then turned into a reality.

A fortnight ago, “Biddy’s” staff posted a 42-second clip that made light of Ireland’s failure to qualify for the World Cup and offered fans an alternative team to cheer for during the tournament, by flipping the green, white and orange trídhathach (tricolour) to its mirror image: orange, white and green – the flag of Ivory Coast.

Speaking to camera, barman Hamish Smith promised extra-strong stout imported from Africa’s biggest Guinness brewery, bespoke bar snacks, match commentaries in French and even traditional Ivorian music.

It was all tongue-in-cheek, a way of drumming up a local crowd, but the post was a sensation, attracting more than 500,000 views, comments and likes. Half of the audience excitedly endorsed the notion of an Irish-Scottish-Ivory Coast pub, while the remainder bemoaned the fact that it wasn’t really happening.

It is now. Overwhelmed by the response, Biddy’s staff recorded a second online video announcing last week that the Irish bar would become an “actual” Ivory Coast pub.

On Monday, staff will take delivery of 500 T-shirts in Ivorian orange, emblazoned with “Allez les Elephants” – the national team’s nickname – while almost every treat promised in the original skit is coming true.

“I have Diageo finding me hundreds of bottles of African Guinness,” said Ruairi O’Neill, the general manager. “A snack company in Paris run by Ivorians is sending over food they sell to Ivorians in France. A guy’s bringing suitcases full of Ivorian snacks.”

These could include “spicy peanuts”. He added: “Our chef will have Ivory Coast street food ready for the opening game against Ecuador. It’s a fusion of African and French, nice simple dishes that will be available on the night of the games, instead of the usual buckets of wings.”

An Ivorian DJ based in Los Angeles has sent a playlist and promised to come and play a set in the pub before the first game kicks off at midnight on 15 June. Ray, one of the pub’s regular musicians, is learning the Ivorian national anthem for the occasion.

As part of the build-up, the pub screened last Thursday’s friendly between France and Ivory Coast, blasting out the action from each of its 11 screens. Staff donned Ivorian orange tops and those elephant hats, and all tricolours were displayed the west African way.

If actual Ivorians were thin on the ground, a group of French students had the good grace to applaud the Ivory Coast’s 2-1 victory, the game won by a goal by Manchester United’s Amad Diallo. “Yaaaas lads,” crowed Biddy’s social media within minutes. “The luck of the Irish!”

Grassmarket was the heart of a huge Irish community in the 19th century and Biddy’s takes its Irishness seriously, hosting an Irish language group and regularly screening hurling and Gaelic football. O’Neill, from County Derry, Northern Ireland, drew a parallel between past migrations and recent trends that have seen a 21-fold increase in Scotland’s African population since 1991.

This was “a good flag story”, he said, adding: “The Irish and Ivorian experiences are about immigration. We fell into this, but it’s a story about how our cultures blend into each other. Sometimes you look at the news in despair, but here we can show a positive image involving a flag. We’re very keen on that.”

Photographs Katherine Anne Rose for The Observer, Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images

Katherine Anne Rose and FRANCK FIFE