Okay, keep walking down the strip, yes past the bus stops and toward The Anchor. Keep going. Watch out for cars, they keep you on your toes. Yes, it's okay to stop and look at the harbor, but don't stay for too long--it might be gone!
Finally, you've made it! You might have to turn sideways to make it through the half doors and duck out of the rain. Pull up a stool, admire the quaint atmosphere, yes it's okay to take your time here. The walls are blue, the wooden bar is standing as it did some forty years ago still polished and the same.
And just as you've settled into the striped throw pillows, bam! Someone's come in and beelined directly to the bar. You don't think they mean business, and you're doubting their seriousness, until...wait for it...they approach the snug. That's a signal they mean business.
Do you know where you are? Does the steaming bowl of fish chowder served up fresh in front of you bring this context to a close?
Yes, we've made it to The Moorings. And since we've made it here, you might as well enjoy the food and ambience; it'd be a shame if you didn't.
This was exactly the experience I had when I stopped into The Moorings for a quick bite to eat. As I ducked out of the torrential downpour and squeezed my way through the vertical half door, I was seated at a table in the front, and didn't notice the corner labeled "The Snug," until I'd stared at it for 20 minutes.
The Mooring's Snug has a sign above it in the top right corner!
Since we'd spoken about snugs in class, I've noticed them more in the wild. Now, in almost every pub I go to, I try to figure out where the snugs are or if they have one at all. And since we're on the topics of bars, I guess I've never gone up to a snug and sat in one, mostly because I like to savor the moments. I think this would make an interesting scene in a story, and will add it to the collection of things to write.
In the meantime, I'd like to rate all of the pubs I've been to based off of their snugs (or lack thereof):
1. The Lady Belle: their pub has an entire separate room on the first floor for serious drinkers.
2. The Moorings: the snug has a little sign above it (pictured below), and it's so cute!
3. The Anchor: no snug in sight, but it does have a labyrinth of rooms!
4. Nagle's: There's a hallway sort of room in the middle of the bar that makes for a good flow in the bar, and works as a snug too
5. Downey's: their snug is right at the beginning of the bar and it's well lit, but the ambience is too good, with the fire just on the other side, to commence snug-sitter activities.
Snugs remind me of Heaney's "Casualty," where the fisherman friend dies but Heaney remembers him in the bar. I can imagine that the snug isn't where this fisherman was sitting, though he might have been close, trying to disguise his drinking as a quick stop. All of the townspeople might know that he'd stay in the pub well until after the sun dipped below the river's edge, or that he left earlier for his work.
Who's to say?
"But my tentative art
His turned back watches too:
He was blown to bits
Out drinking in a curfew
Others obeyed, three nights
After they shot dead
The thirteen men in Derry."
There's something to be said about the people in the poem--they're told as if they're living out it--and it creates such a memorial piece. The protagonist actually reminds me of Hemingways The Old Man and The Sea, both of whom drank and were fishermen, both of whom were fishermen. Santiago, however, comes home, and the Casualty does not. The ending has the same kind of affinity for a tragic, yet moralistic, ending with a lesson.
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