In Cork, I stayed on the fourth floor of a bed and breakfast with halls carpeted in the style of the Shining. I walked across the street and then strolled along the River Lee that cut through University College Cork, with its 19th century gothic buildings. I could imagine myself walking through here a hundred years earlier, wearing one of those old style academic robes, books in hand, talking Yeats. Yet, Cork isn’t one of those old cities so moored to its past that it puts up stone walls to protect it from the modern world. You could see that on campus because, even though school was out, there remained a pro-Palestine encampment in the quad, a couple dozen tents set up on the grass. 

I walked toward town and ran into one of my students from Galway, completely by luck, who’d been in Cork for a week. She told me to visit a pub called Sin é on Coburg Street. She thought it was my kind of place. 

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Despite all my time in Ireland, I’d never been to Cork, even though everyone said “you should go to Cork.”  

They were right.

I met a friend in Sin é, which was exactly the kind of place I would like. Old, dark, wood cut up with carvings, random paraphernalia on the walls, like it had been slowly decorated, year by year, without much thought, just love. 

After dinner, I wandered the city for a while, mostly trying to find some more Crunchie bars for my wife–her favorite European candy. I enjoyed the cool weather, watched couples holding hands outside pubs or leaning over bridges. I realized I was homesick.  

Then, on my way back toward the B&B, I happened into another pub. The Mutton Lane Inn, which was founded in 1780. Old for America, middling for Ireland. Like Sin é the walls were covered in old photos and Christmas lights were strung above the bottles. There was a nearby sign: “Please refrain from wearing track suits at the bar.” 

I mentioned to the bartender that I’d been to Sin-e. 

“We have the same owner,” he said. “He owns a lot of old pubs in town.”

He then handed me a flier. “Cork Heritage Pubs.” 

Apparently, there’s a man who bought up several of the older dives in town (and I mean dives with love and generosity.) He’s preserving them from builders and corporations trying to tear them down to put up something expensive and soulless. 

Nothing like that back home.