It has been two full months since the Tir na nOg closed and my social life was ripped out from under me. The Tir na nOg was a true pub in the traditional sense, where folks came to be with friends. I made 'the nOg' my home away from home when I moved to Union Square in 2004. I became a regular. I met other regulars. I made friends. I became an evangelist for the Tir na nOg, bringing dozens of friends there for the first time. Many saw the same charm and vibrancy that kept me coming back day after day and they became regulars themselves. I watched the Red Sox win the American League and the World Series there. I played my first gig there (thanks Robert!). I found love and lovers there. I spend an unknowable amount of money there, and don't regret parting with a single cent. I drank, smoked, argued, danced, and laughed there. It was the nOg that raised my expectations for bartenders.

The nOg was scheduled to close at the end of January, but was given a reprieve until the end of February, then again to the end of March. Each extension gave me another gig to play and another month to hang with my friends. We spent the time alternatively bemoaning our plight and asking each other what we will do? Where will we go? Two months later we know the answers. Each of us has a different one. We go to different places, sometimes to hear the bands we saw every week at the nOg. Most tell me they go out less. I find that is the case with me. I didn't go to the nOg just to be out of the house. I like staying home. I went for the whole package: the friends, the music, but most of all for the community. It was the center of my feeling of community.

Rumors about a re-opening of the old nOg have been flying around since before the old one closed. Those of us in exile tend to rise and fall with the latest report. We huddle together at other, more refined, but less satisfying establishments, or at each others houses and speculate over pints of Magners, Guiness, bottles of Amstel or glasses of sangria. We email each other about shows by our favorite nOg players. We make our way around like a lost, fragmented tribe in search of a homeland (we even have a MySpace page Friends of Tir na nOg). We see each other and catch up on our lives, sharing knowing nods and smiles, not quite able to express what it is like to have found our place only to have it take away from us.