Written for Holy Show Magazine, issue 3. 


Working on the original Snugs Project I was sent an excel sheet with the names of more than a hundred pub owners. These all took the form of Forename + Surname. All but one, that is. The exception was listed simply as ‘Mrs. Coffey’. I was intrigued.

Mrs. Coffey opened the door, introduced herself as ‘Mrs. Coffey’ and hurried me into the closed-up bar as if she had left a pot on the boil. I was left standing on my own, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkened interior I started to notice things: the pink formica countertop; black leather bar stools complete with many coats of varnish; light pinky-beige room dividers; a handwritten "no ID, no cigarettes" sign; a three-foot cactus in the window. I unpacked my camera, found my shot, and started work.

Mrs. Coffey reappeared a little later and we chatted about her bar: how the pint glasses were all washed by hand, rather than in a glasswasher; that she didn’t play music in her bar, but did allow sing-songs, sometimes. I got the sense that Mrs. Coffey had her bar exactly as she wanted it, and that incremental change was to be approached with caution, if at all.

J. Coffey's of Borrisoleigh was a pretty small bar. It would feel full if 20 people were in there. Its snug was at the front, and made private only by a wooden partition, painted in Coffey’s standard pinky-beige gloss paint. But its well-worn formica counter testified to the range of life that it had seen: the big moments, the hilarity and lightness between friends. The quiet words. The freedom.

As I worked on this project and stood in empty snugs, I became aware that these are the moments that happen in these places: that they offer tremendous potential for all of this, and this is what makes a snug a special place.