While the closure of a local pub is nothing new these days, the loss can still create a huge void for its regulars
THE village pub has closed, and we are all bereft.
Though I am not a drinker in the traditional sense of a regular ‘are you going for a pint?’ drinker, I will still miss my local. And not just me. Its absence leaves a gaping hole, not just in the village but in the parish and beyond as well.
It was a convivial space. A place to meet. A place to mark the turning of the seasons. Christmas cheer. New Year exuberance. The stretch in the evenings. Easter promise. Summer days. And evenings, too. The quiet of the autumn. The chill of winter. Those long winter evenings. Days and nights that would skin you. Time to put down the fire.
There is something about a fire. Not just our own hearth, but the collective hearth, too, where we watch brown sods turn red, then flickering orange before the grey embers take hold and die away. Another sod added and the cycle repeats itself all over again.
Even on evenings when few ventured out, the pub fire was always lit. Balm for those who took the risk.
Nights when the hosts barely made the price of the bag of turf. Notwithstanding that, the pub opened.
Sitting at the bar. Conversations and half conversations. About this and that. The comings and the goings of a village community. And not just the village. This was no insular space. The living and the dying. The world over.
There was football of course. This, after all, is where the women and men of Castlehaven gathered to pore over the minutia of each score, each free, each sideline decision. It might take just an hour to play the match but the talking points went well into the night.
Late one October 2023 night, the Castlehaven team rolled into the village. Earlier that day, along with one other GAA rookie, I piled into a bus organised by the bean an tí to head for Páirc Uí Chaoimh to witness Castlehaven beat Nemo. Town versus country.
That day reminded me of another day in another county many years ago when Ennis’s Éire Óg took to the field against their rural neighbours Kilmaley and as Kilmaley took to the field, the cry went up from their supporters ‘bate the townies’. We (even the recently arrived had morphed into a ‘we’) were on our own mission to bate the townies. And we did.
Tina Browne with Mark Salter Townshend and Seán O'Neill pictured on the last night of the pub being open
That evening, or rather that night, winter silence was suddenly ruptured by the arrival of the victorious team, led by a lone piper. The pub rattled and hummed. The singing might have been singularly off-key but there was a joy that night. On that night, there was no need for a fire.
Other days. Dark sombre days. Women and men in black. A loved one left behind in Castlehaven cemetery. A family, community gathered in sadness and solidarity. And amidst all the sadness, levity too. This is how we Irish do funerals. ‘The family of the deceased wishes to invite everyone to McCarthy’s Bar,’ the priest intones following the final benediction. Not every funeral, but enough to make this pub an integral part of village and parish life.
And death, too, came to the pub in a most intimate way. This year the fear an tí died. Poignantly, as he made his last journey past the pub, a glass of whiskey and a pint of Murphy’s stood outside the closed front door as neighbours stood in front of their houses in tribute to a departed friend. Village life.
Other occasions too. Celebratory days. Day two or should that be day three of wedding celebrations. ‘You are also cordially invited …’ Not anymore.
Then there were just days. Nothing special. Sitting at the bar counter. Stools pulled in around tables. Shooting the breeze. About this and that. Playing pool. Throwing darts. Outside for a smoke. Background music playing. Who’s that? Concerts relived. Bruce Springsteen in the rain nobody seemed to notice. Elton John barely able to walk across the stage in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Films too. The best film EVER. 12 Angry Men, my bar companion vehemently argued. Henry Fonda in black and white from 1957. My companion is not alone, it is often cited as one of the greatest films ever made.
And now the pub is closed. It is not the first time it has closed. Known then as The Hotel, throughout the 1960s and 70s, its doors were closed except for the mandatory few days required to keep its licence alive.
That all changed in 1989. Since then it has been a focal point, a meeting place, a hospitable space where young and old sat easily beside each other and in this age-segregated age that was something to celebrate.
And then there was Covid. Doors closed once again, but for all that, a temporary closure.
I well remember the night the embargo on pub openings was lifted. People emerged from their individual homes. As if up for air. Life returning.
Life returning.
And now the pub has closed. A fire has been extinguished.
