Cheers Enda

This week’s words come from Boneyard illustrator Chris Coll.

And here it ends. So long and farewell to a bar like no other, one that almost felt like it could never have existed at all.

In a lost town where the eternal grey smear of sky leaks down and spreads into the buildings and passersby like mould, McCann’s just seemed otherworldly. It was too good a place. A little drunken dream nestled amongst the concrete rows of our mundane reality. The life and history framed in its windows, fiddles and mandolins, the glowing path of light that rolled out into a wet night John Street from its open door; a stout that would make Arthur Guinness weep with joy, and the music… always living and breathing the music.

There’s not a bar corner on this Earth that could hold as much meaning and memory for us as that musician’s corner: Arty’s guitar, Shane’s fiddle, black rows of band pints, half-time breaks with instruments downed to fill up on pints, smokes and conversation, cymbal stands caught on every drunken passing punter’s jacket, quiet ballads on quiet evenings, pounding numbers on heavy weekends, the wonder of who indeed is the world’s happiest drummer, Decky McManus or John McGaughey.

Endless players of endless talent all huddled under a wall of many frames and many faces.

The marvellous night pints flew out like the loaves and the fishes, the reflective day pints settled like monastery prayers.

It was a house of overflowing life or quiet reflections, a game of cards or loaded rendition, depending on the time upon the clock. Patient pours of the black and white, boys in line watching their cure settle under the taps.

Nardo and Tim lighting up by the glowing fire up the stairs and out the back, as countless stories, tall tales and lies sailed through the air like hymns.

The masters behind the bar, Mr Hughes and Mr McAleer all smiles and salutations,

The Bard, Roney and Kieran with their watchful eyes on their tightly ran ship, Jack, James, The O’Neill’s and more, and of course the man himself, Enda, a one of a kind friend without whom we’d all be much worse off.

Memories come to mind. Flooding into the forefront like escaped prisoners, all released as the doors have been shut for the last time. Flipping stacks of cards on the table edge over pints, reenacting the entire diner scene from ‘Heat’ with my old English teacher Master McCloskey, Mark and I providing full volume Partridge commentary over a televised football match as we felt the glares behind us, Peter singing ‘Raglan Road’ with a beauty only he could create, smoke in one hand, a jar of coconut oil in the other. The many stouts with a post-work Pingu, both talking movies in lost joyous slurs, mezcal with Mark and his guru Howe Gelb, the Odd Fellows reunion, talking books with a well-dressed Henry, ramshackle gigs with The Breeze, Cowboy Supper, the Jaws boat, my cousin taking lead vocals on a drink-fuelled cover of ‘Ride On’, Christmas Eve winter pints, little sacred moments with my wife, a rare drink and smoke together, just us, and painting a mural to the bar I loved so well.

McCann’s may have been a bar, but really, it was never just about the booze, it was the people. It was family that brought the bar into existence, and in turn, it was the bar that created a family. All of us together, all the freaks, weirdos, boozers, musicians, balladeers, poets, philosophers, comedians, ladies and gentleman. Wandering souls in want of a cold pint and a warm welcome, who found both in spades inside those doors.

And now it’s all over.

Here it ends.

So long and farewell, to a bar like no other.

Our little drunken dream nestled amongst the concrete rows of our mundane reality.

Cheers Enda.