Sally Longs

There are 475 pubs in County Galway and I ended up in the one with the American bro wearing the “Ireland” hat and “Ireland” t-shirt, who ordered an Irish car-bomb. I looked around to see if I was on camera, because the cliché was so radiant—such an exemplary example of the Ugly American—that I assumed someone was fucking with me. But there was no camera and this was no joke—it became quite clear that this kid had no sense of humor when the bartender said “what’s that?”

“You’ve never heard of it?”

“No.”

The bartender had heard of it but I wouldn’t find that out until later. In the meantime, he put the drink together like the kid asked and then charged him 18 Euro, which is pretty steep for a shot and a 2/3rds of a pint of Guinness.

“What the hell was with that guy?” I asked.

“There are fucks everywhere.”

Sally Longs, May 2023

In Galway, I went to pubs to grade papers and prep for the next day’s class. I preferred old man pubs, the type where everyone had a racing form. I drank coffee and took breaks between essays to remember I was paid to work in Ireland and that for all the problems of academia, this was pretty amazing.

When I was done grading, I often headed over to Sally Longs, a pub I’d been going to since 2002, when I was traveling Ireland with my sister. This was back in our early 20s, no kids, no real jobs, just hours to kill talking to strangers. Sally Longs attracted us, not because of its traditional pub costuming, but because it didn’t. On the exterior brick was a mural of the inside of the bar populated by living rock stars–Slash, Bono, Clapton, and Blondie–beneath a second mural of dead musicians in a celestial afterlife–Cash, Hendrix, and Morrison among them.  Inside was a Harley propped up across the bar from a pool table, while the clientele—almost always Irish—drank to the sound of “Ride the Lightning.”

On my third night in back in Galway, I stepped inside for a quick round before heading home. I recognized the bartender and, more surprisingly, she recognized me. And she also remembered my drink. And that I taught college. And that I lived in North Carolina.

“Your wife and child make the trip?”

“Not this time,” I said.  “Too expensive.”

“The fuckers are taking all of our money. I don’t know where they expect us to find more.”

I hadn’t been here in a year.

Sally Longs, May 2023