The Center will screen ‘The Irish Pub’ at Magic Lantern Cinemas
By DANA DUGAN
Home is found in many places, among many different types of people and across the globe, no matter where one hails from.
For many, home is in any kitchen they cook in; for some, it’s the French bistro in town, or the fitness center where they spend the majority of their days. This is the gist of the Sun Valley Center’s multi-genre exhibition called “At the Table: Kitchen as Home.” The exhibition seeks to explore the culture of the kitchen along with the different concepts of home.
As part of The Center’s current BIG IDEA project, the documentary “The Irish Pub” will be screened twice, at 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 10. at the Magic Lantern Cinemas in Ketchum.
“A pub is like a large, extended family,” said Kristine Bretall, The Center’s director of Performing Arts. “It’s a place where people hang out together, where they’re welcome. People know you and you feel that coziness.”
Unlike most American bars, Irish pubs have a softer feel, not as transactional, but as a place that seemingly exists to make people feel at home. Bonds are formed over long wooden bars where, “Cheers”-like, everyone knows your name.
The characters in this 2014 documentary, directed and written by Alex Fegan, are publicans who run and own classic Irish pubs that have been in their families for generations.
“People come in for a drink and I get to talking to them, and they stay for the night,” says one such character.
Another reiterates that idea. “Chat is very important. You have to make people feel welcome when they come in,” he says.
Indeed, the documentary reveals a simplicity to the life of an Irish publican, and the very character of Ireland. Fegan interviews pub owners about their lives and work, while revealing a commitment to the importance of neighborhood pubs in people’s lives.
“You go to England for tea,” a female server says with a smile. “You go to Ireland for the pub.”
“The Irish Pub” takes the audience back to a time before social media, even to a time before radios and televisions, when community was created through face-to-face interactions; where storytelling, gossip and making music were served up daily.
In much of Ireland, the pub is still the community living room, a homey place to connect with family and friends, to find out what’s happening around town.
“I like to come out and meet people and my neighbors—that and have a chat,” says a patron at O’Shea in Borris, County Carlow. “I don’t come for the drink, really. I’d have a drink but it’s for the chat I’d come.”
Residents of the Wood River Valley may recognize aspects in the movie that are similar to living in a small mountain town. Everyone kind of knows each other, and maybe too much of each other’s business, but in that it’s truly like extended family.
If we’re a large, extended family, it also gives us a chance to forgive and forget and move on. In this case, “home might not even be that place we think of as home,” Bretall said. “A pub is a public place, but it encompasses that feel. Anonymity isn’t cozy.”