Clodagh Finn: You can close a pub, but you can’t close what it gave a place

From Blackrock to Youghal, Irish pub names hold forgotten stories of love, loss, community — and why their passing still matters

 Elizabeth Taylor with her husband Richard Burton. Taylor was caught short and ventured into a bar to use the facilities while in Dublin. She was allowed to use the gents toilet. Picture:Getty Images

 I love the way a story can just lodge itself in the landscape even if it hasn’t been ‘read’ for a long time.

Take the Maple Leaf bar in Blackrock, Cork, for instance. It holds within its name the memory of a wartime casualty, a love story and a new beginning, although few probably remember the ins-and-outs of what happened.