TWO red headed munchkins on a fat black pony have just wandered into a grimy cul-de-sac in Southill. They throw their eyes up at the suited reporter in front of them, the one who's peering through ten-foot-high steel gates and getting slapped around by the rain.

They watch as he wanders over, waving his hands like he's just seen his own redemption.

"Which way to Francie's shebeen lads? I'm lost." Tonto and The Lone Ranger aren't convinced. "Are you a cop?" No sir. The pilot of the pudgy steed folds the string reigns in his hand and tees up some pity. "Ah boys. Ye're in the wrong back alley."

How do you find somewhere that doesn't want to be found? Magellan had an easier time getting to the Spice Islands. You're looking for the Southill shebeen, the smoky speakeasy, that last smack in the face for licensed drinking in Limerick city. For nearly six months, 'Ma Kelly's' has been a magnet for the good kind of attention and the bad kind of attention, depending on which side of the Thin Blue Line is yours.

In raiding the converted shed in Lilac Court on an almost nightly basis since March, seizing every drop of drink in the place as they go, the gardai have made a clear statement that the operation is an affront to some of the oldest laws in the State; a potential flashpoint for anti-social behaviour and other such nastiness.

Francie Kelly, the public face of the shebeen that he runs with his brother Anthony, has spent the summer looking for a noble defence. It's not a pub, it's a shed, he says. Every time they take my stock, I'll go out and buy more, and so on. Such things lie in the eye of the beholder. Or at least they would, if the owner of that eye could find the place to begin with.

"Yeah? What? The Leader? Stall on there." As quickly as it appeared, Francie Kelly's head has ducked back behind the tiny gate in the huge red barricade, the one that looks like the cat flap in a troll's back door. Seconds later you're crouching through the same gap, searching for an answer as to where this rabbit hole will end up.

The mind will trick you, no doubt about it. No matter how hard and how often you dismiss it, every sum of the words 'Southill', 'alcohol' and 'illegal' will make you nervous. But a warm, dry lounge with concrete floors, taupe walls and VH1 Classic won't. There's certainly method to the presentation the Kelly's have afforded the place. That doesn't mean it's not still just a shed, mind you.

"The guards have been hassling us for years. Remember this now - 20 years ago. No, not 20. Seventeen years ago, I drank in this shed with my friends, and there were no guards complaining back then," Francie declares in the slurred mumble of a man drinking since dawn. "It was always like this. That's only a lick of paint. Seventeen years ago we drank in this place. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Do you understand exactly what I'm telling you?"

Ma Kelly's is like one of those run-down old social clubs that jut out of every church in east London. It's skeletal and it's real. It has a dozen up-turned pub stools on four short tables. It has a side room with a pool table and pictures of Denis Taylor staring back at you through those thick rims of his. It has one bottle of whiskey, one bottle of vodka and one bottle of rum flipped upside down and braced for road. It has Hall & Oates, Chris Rea and Erasure in the air, lining Francie Kelly's every word of defiance.

"Listen. There isn't a judge in the country that hasn't a pull-down bar in his house. If the judge's friends come along, solicitors or whatever they are, right, and he offers them a drink, is that illegal? Even most of the guards even have drink in their home. This is my home. Have you drink in your home? Are you breaking the law?"

Give a little respect to me.

"The only people who come in here are my friends and my family. Like you. You're welcome here, and if you want to stay here all night you can. That same hospitality is given to the guards as well. But they won't take it. Every guard in Limerick knows I'm an alcoholic. Ok? I've been arrested for drunk and disorderly, I've been arrested for drinking in public twice. So I said, Ok. Enough is enough. So I'm drinking in my own home."

I'll do anything that you want me to. But I can't go for that, no can do.

"A lifetime. A lifetime. That's how long it took me to build what I have here. This is only a shed. What's the big deal? Worried. Do I look worried? I'll still be going till the day I die. I'm an alcoholic all my life, and I want to be an alcoholic for the rest of my life. I'm happy that way."

Fool if you think it's over, it's just begun.

Mike O'Doherty is hunched over the bar, polishing off a plate of carrots and mash, nodding along to the staccato beat of his host's protests. "No laws are getting broken here," he says. "We're all mates here. We're all from around here, and we've all chipped in to buy what we're drinking."

He waves towards the bounty of Heineken and Budweiser and Bulmers stacked with precision and care in Francie's fridge; the one that's as clean and orderly as one you'd find in any pub. That fridge and it's contents are the reason we're here; it's the lifeblood of Ma Kelly's shebeen and it's the legal loophole that Francie reckons he can blow wide open.

"That chap there now - he says to me 'I'm coming down tonight'. He might give me the money for a slab, I'll buy the slab and it'll be there for him. He actually has one there now, watch. They took my stock three times. They had no right to take it. I have receipts for everything. Ok? There's no money changing hands here. If anything I'm losing money, for the cost of the electricity and the cable and that."

John McCarthy folds his arms and drops his shoulders back against the CCTV screen Francie uses to eye every car and trap that might pull up outside. He's quiet and he's content here, and he can't figure why he thinks the guards have taken a set against the place. "There's worse things going on in town. All of a sudden they've nothing better to do. Everyone who comes in here loves the company. We all know one another. Just like you now. I'm pleased to meet you now."

Ah yeah, that's more of it. If there was some invisible line or iron circle keeping you from them when you first snuck in here, the three boys are doing the darndest to tear it down. With drink.

"Would you like a drink by the way?" Well, er, I, er... "Please have a drink. I want you to have a drink." You were hoping to quote company policy, but before you can spew one syllable there's a cold brew in your hand, stifling all protests with its froth. "There you are now. No bother. It's just like if you come in with one of your mates, I'd give ye two drinks." Er, cheers for that Francie.

"We're only all friends and family here having our own little thing because we can't, well, I'll speak for myself - I can bring you into any pub in town and call for a pint, and they'll tell me 'No, you're barred. No, you're barred.' So I'm forced into drinking in my home. And that's the jist of it now."

The photographer is in at this stage, and the place lights up when it sees a camera coming. "Do you want a picture of me here pulling a pint with a fag in my mouth?" Will do. "There's the piano. Are you any good at it? Elton John is here next week for one night only. He's coming next week from Vegas."

Before he or anyone else takes their first step into Ma Kelly's there'll be more raids, more drink seizures and probably a few court appearances. The gardai will police the law of the land, the same law that applies to every inch of society except, it seems, this one mischievous corner. Francie Kelly will paint himself as the victim; as a Robin Hood for the regeneration days.

He'll probably hum I'm still standing while he does it.