Tuesday, June 30th: The Crane Bar

The Crane Bar, Galway by Tom French

Nobody has anything to say

                To anybody else who is there,

Mid-afternoon. A handful of souls

Pacing themselves, minding their business

                It is overcast and rain is promised

Or it is horsing down in buckets.

A woman stands and announces, 

                I won’t go back to Limerick.

And nobody can make me -

Then resumes her seat, her drink.

                 And we, in our silence, drink                                    

To not going back and raise                                      

In our hearts, our glasses

                To nobody being forced to go                             

Anywhere they do not want to                                  

Until peace reigns again

                In the whole of the Crane Bar

And in The Little Crane. 

These words are carved in marble on the outside of the Crane Bar in Galway, Ireland. It is the latest addition to the Galway Poetry Trail, a series of 21 poems and writings scattered around the city, each one reflecting the location in which it is placed. This particular piece is by Tom French. I couldn't find any analysis of the poem itself, but to me it captures the quiet human connection found in the most mundane, silent of places, pubs, market squares, or anywhere else strangers can find solace simply by being near one another. My fellow study-abroad students and I rush past this plaque without so much as a second glance on our way into the Crane Bar to enjoy a night of "authentic" Irish storytelling, leaving us room to have our own intimate experiences and mundane exchanges in the process. - Charles Greening